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“I paid almost Bt30,000,000 for my Ferrari 458 Italia and I have hardly anywhere to show it off,” lamented Prakit “Jake” Limkulyoon, the son of a powerful hotel-owning family.

“What’s the point of having a supercar if no one sees it?” he asked.

His woes were echoed by friend and fellow supercar owner Mike Thavaornmeet, who said it was “ridiculous” that most places required him to park his yellow Lamborghini Diablo amongst ordinary cars.

“Do they not understand that I’m special?” he inquired. “I mean look at this baby. You can’t park it next to some Toyota.”

Both drivers specifically complained that as of now only Paragon Mall and the Starbucks on Thonglor had special parking areas reserved for supercars, and that the Paragon didn’t count because there was nowhere for the car owners to sit and look at the cars.

“When I go out in my Ferrari, I don’t just want special parking, I want parking where I can sit and look at my Ferrari, and see other people looking at my Ferrari, and think about how they don’t have a Ferrari and I do,” explained Prakit. “That’s what really makes me happy.”

According to many of Bangkok’s supercar drivers, the only places that really understand their needs are large nightlife venues that allow them to park their supercars in front so that everyone can see them getting out of their supercars.

“We need somewhere to feel superior during the day, too,” said Raveevan Apitchapong, who drives a Porsche Panamera. “I mean, we can go to EST 33 at the CDC, but that’s way up in Ram Intra, and frankly no one goes there in the day. I was there for hours last Sunday and the only people jealously admiring my car were some cleaning staff and a couple of kids.”

Raveevan expressed hope that eventually all upscale Bangkok shopping and dining venues would have reserved display parking for supercar drivers like himself, and that maybe certain roads might have reserved lanes.

“I can imagine driving past a traffic jam at 130kph, with everyone just looking at me and wishing they were me,” he said. “That’s my dream.”

“People don’t appreciate the hardship of being a supercar driver,” said Mike. “To know that you’re not just elite, but elite among the elite, and not be able to rub it in people’s faces 24 hours a day, every day, is just unfair.”

Perhaps Prakit summed up the supercar driving experience best: “If we’re not feeling superior, we’re not feeling anything at all. Think about that.”

“Finally, the house of (sic) cards that is the Thai economy is hitting the wall of reality,” claimed Gerald Kellermen, a British teacher who makes Bt42,000 a month, most of which he spends on LEO beer and prostitutes.

In a posting to the forums of ThaiVisa.com, Kellerman went on to explain that the Thai banking sector was corrupt and insolvent, based on a bad experience he had two years ago trying to open a savings account at Kasikorn Bank.

“Those fuckers said I needed a work permit, which I didn’t have. No wonder the economy is collapsing, when they treat foreigners this way.”

His sentiments were echoed by Ben Amherst, an unemployed US expat who lives off his savings and who thinks the strengthening baht is a lie because it hasn’t immediately lowered the prices of imported food items he buys at Villa Market.

“If the baht rises 5% against the dollar, then Doritos should cost 5% less, right?” he asked, apparently unaware that Doritos aren’t an actual commodity. “The baht is bullshit. And Villa sucks,” he added, despite shopping there twice a week because of his addiction to Oscar Meyer sandwich turkey.

“I’m glad the market is crashing,” he said. “No one believes in this stupid country, and they shouldn’t.” He then indicated no plans to leave Thailand.

Other expatriates with no investment capability or education hailed the 5% correction in the market as proof of various pet theories, including that Thaksin was destroying the country, that Thailand depends on tourist money that it was now losing, and that the SET was a bubble from the very beginning, run by a shadowy cabal of insiders.

“This is what they get for making it so hard to get a damned visa,” insisted Kyle Logan, an Australian scuba instructor. “We’re pulling out our money, and they’re screwed” he said, despite last year’s 12% increase in tourist arrivals and the fact that he himself was not pulling out the Bt24,000 he possessed.

Others gleefully celebrated their belief that Thais, who were out to cheat foreigners, would now become poor as they did in 1997, and that Yingluck’s illegitimate government would soon collapse under the pressure of a failed economy.

“Let’s see the man in Dubai lie his way out of this one,” said an anonymous poster on the Bangkok Post’s forum. “His buffaloes can’t prop us his precious companies anymore.”

Meanwhile, Asian equities analysts at Morgan Stanley reiterated their belief in Thailand’s economic growth going forwards, citing its strong fundamentals in value-added exports and conservative banking sectors.

“The correction was overdue, with a 200% gain in the SET in just four years,” explained Deiter Sandalberg, Morgan Stanley’s ASEAN specialist. “The drop puts the P/E at about 19, which is reasonable. We’re putting a slight buy recommendation for SET blue-chips.”

On Monday, the SET climbed 45 points or 3.2%, erasing more than half of last week’s losses.

“Smoke and mirrors,” insisted Kellerman. “This country is fucked, everyone knows it, it’s just a matter of time. You’ll see. I’ll be proven right, eventually.”

The article shows a picture of the Houston Rockets point guard, and highlights his three consecutive games scoring over 20 points per game, strengthening his team’s playoff position.

“Ethnic Chinese basketball player Jeremy Lin, whose maternal grandmother is from mainland China, continues to be an integral part of the Houston Rockets, the same team that once featured Chinese player future hall-of-famer Yao Ming,” stated the article in part.

“Chinese people around the world support his efforts in the world of professional basketball, and celebrate his role as an ambassador for sport and peace between nations,” it continued.

The article is a reversal of the government’s previous ban on mentioning Jeremy Lin, a policy that was initiated in October last year when Lin tweeted a greeting to “all my family and friends in Taiwan, home of my heart.”

No mention was made in the article of Taiwan, Lin’s devout Christian faith, or the existence of James Harden.

While shopping at the Prada store at Gaysorn Plaza on Friday, the prime minister shunned the latest collection on display and asked sales associate Meethavai Supalai for something that looked “more prime-minister-y.”

“Normally she just goes for the new arrivals because she wants to be up to date,” said Meethavai. “But this time she looked me right in the eye and put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Do you have anything that matches the interior of Parliament?’”

Meethavai then showed the prime minister a series of top-handles and totes, which were eventually narrowed down to five bags that, according to Yingluck, made the correct statement.

“Specifically, she wanted a bag that said ‘lawmaker and technocrat’ – which I didn’t quite understand, so I just showed her every bag that didn’t have ruffles or jewel adornments,” said Meethavai. “She eliminated the ones with two-tone leather and then we had our finalists.”

Yingluck tried each remaining bag on in front of the three-way mirror, asking questions such as “Does this one look determined?” and “Do I look like I’m about to pass a law?” to Meethavai as well as her own accompanying staff.

Eventually selecting a cobalt blue tote, largely because one staffer told her it looked “presidential,” Yingluck paid for the bag and asked Meethavai what she thought German chancellor Angela Merkel might wear to work.

When Meethavai said that she thought Angela Merkel carried a Kate Spade bag, Yingluck gasped in horror, shook her head in disbelief, and left.

“This kind of activity, where two persons talk to each other, is dangerous and can lead to division in our country,” Prayuth said in front of assembled reporters.

Building on previous comments in which the general blasted the directors of Thai PBS for airing episodes of talk show “Tob Jote” which included frank discussions on the monarchy and the “112” lese majeste law, Prayuth focused his new attack on the bigger picture of what he called “a grave threat to our kingdom, morals, and way of life.”

“Conversations presume that the participants are equals, who have equal right to speak and equal value to contribute ideas,” he explained. “This goes against long-held Thai values.”

According to the general, Thais should engage exclusively in monologues, lectures, speeches, compliant media consumption, the taking of orders, and other forms of one-way communication.

“A child must listen to his parents. A wife must obey her husband. A novice monk must be silent in front of his abbot. And all of you may not interrupt me when I speak,” he said. “These kinds of relationships are the very foundation of Thai society. Why should we threaten this with Western ideas?”

Prayuth also unveiled a large chart outlining the structure of an ideal Thai society, with every relationship clearly delineated between superior and inferior positions. Along with predictable relationships such as teacher-student, master-servant, and amart-prai, the chart also provided helpful tips on determining who had the superior rank in more subtle cases, such as between friends.

“The older friend should talk, the younger should listen,” he said. “Unless the younger friend has expertise on the subject, or is a member of a wealthier family.”

Addressing possible criticism that his system might be impractical, Prayuth said that one-way communication was actually quite flexible, because parties could take turns being the dominant party in some cases.

“For example, I might allow the waiter to tell me the day’s specials and chef’s recommendations, before assuming the dominant position and placing my order,” he said. “By avoiding conversation, orderly structure is maintained.”

While stopping short of asking for a law banning conversation, Prayuth warned all Thai media outlets that furthering the practice of conversation might eventually result in “drastic actions.” He suggested that television and radio programs that were conversation-based restructure themselves to be more monologue-based.

“When Thai people hear two persons saying two different and contradictory things, it causes confusion and discord,” he said. “They don’t know which person is right, and therefore they don’t know what to believe. They are left to make their own decision, which is not acceptable.”

The report, entitled “Singapore Story,” is to be released in four parts, with the first part posted online Wednesday to Marshall’s blog. The 215-page essay includes an executive summary concluding that the Singaporean government’s one-party system is “a sham of democracy, using a polite carapace of manufactured consent to hide a nefarious and self-perpetuating oligarchy that borders on fascism, enforced by judicial fiat rather than the point of a gun.”

Prior to releasing the report, the intrepid journalist moved out of his Singaporean apartment and relocated to Tokyo, which has no extradition treaty with Singapore for non-violent crimes. In his blog, Marshall insisted that the relocation was done to protect his colleagues and friends in Singapore from the fallout of “the witch hunt that will inevitably be launched against me for daring to speak of their naked political emperor.”

In addition to publishing his thousand-page report on the “oppressive and artless city-state” which has “mastered the use of retail comfort as the new capitalist opiate,” Marshall issued a manifesto that called out the “complicit players” in Singapore’s “crimes against truth, and crimes against the discovery of it.”

Named in the manifesto are Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and every single member of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Singapore, whom Marshall accused of “cowardice in policy and abandonment of journalistic principle” for failing to stand up to the Singaporean government’s practice of suing reporters who criticize their policies.

Taking his crusade online, Marshall has made his presence felt on numerous news and ASEAN-special-interest websites, where he defends his position in forum posts often exceeding 1500 words, detailing the failures of every institution and individual who could have devoted his or her life, career, and influence to “dismantling the six-decade myth of the Singaporean state” but did not.

Already the infallible logic and impeccable integrity of Marshall’s work is having profound effects, as multiple members of the Singaporean-based international press have resigned in shame.

“I spent 22 years writing deep analysis on Singapore’s social policy and its demographic motivators,” said Reese Delfino, a consultant who also wrote commentary for local press publications. “Now I realize that by not abandoning all my work and loudly denouncing the Singaporean one-party system, I was part of the problem. I’m so ashamed.”

Reuters correspondent Henry Foster agreed. “Not once in my 15 years of covering local politics did I publish a scathing expose that resulted in losing my job and being hit with a million-dollar defamation lawsuit,” he said. “Thank god someone in Tokyo has the guts to command me to do so.”

“Andrew Marshall is a hero,” he added.

In light of his work, Marshall is being considered for a CPJ International Press Freedom Award, for what the CPJ committee is calling “innovative and groundbreaking work in the field of protecting one’s own journalistic person, by fleeing from a place before reporting on it.”

“We must all make sacrifices for the common good, even if it means changing our way of life,” said Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal yesterday. “I know that excessive air conditioning is a long-standing part of our national culture, but we must adapt to a new world.”

Effective immediately, all thermostats in offices and malls in the nation’s capital have to be set to a minimum of 5 degrees Celsius, with violators fined up to Bt100,000.

According to a recent study, Bangkok mall and office temperatures are among the lowest in the developed world, surpassed only by Singapore. The ministry estimates that raising the ambient temperatures to a suitably-cool average of 7C would reduce city energy consumption by as much as 35%.

Response to the mandate has been generally positive, but notable protests have come from the Mall Group and Gaysorn Group, owners of the Emporium and Gaysorn Plaza respectively.

“We cater to a very exclusive clientele,” said Jinasoon Suwaravasin, executive VP of Customer Relations at Gaysorn. “Our elite shoppers need sub-zero temperatures in order to comfortably walk among couture boutiques wearing inappropriately ostentatious designer jackets and boots.”

“And how do you expect a khunying to try on a wool Prada pea coat unless the shop can duplicate the climate of her upcoming Copenhagen vacation?” she added.

Despite the pleas from retailers for a 30-day grace period, or until “winter sales season ends,” the Yingluck government stood firm on the new law.

“I myself have decided to switch to Dolce and Gabbana’s Spring Collection a month earlier than usual,” said the prime minister at a press conference. “We all have to make sacrifices.”

According to new documents released by the company under pressure from various national governments and trade oversight organizations, the medium density fiberboard, or MDF, used to make shelving and tables, is actually 75% horsemeat.

“As it turns out, horses, when ground to a pulp and properly emulsified, can be used to make just about anything,” said Horst Wellenberg, an investigator for the European Union.

Popular IKEA products including the BILLY bookshelf, the EKTORP slipcover sofa, and even the GOSIG line of plush children’s toys were actually composed of dead, processed horses, investigators discovered.

Amidst worldwide outrage by consumers, protection groups, and animal-rights activists, the company has defended its practices by claiming that horsemeat is actually one of nature’s miracle products.

“Horses are eco-friendly, non-toxic, and completely biodegradable,” said Sven Larsson, VP of marketing for IKEA worldwide. “By using horse-meat furniture and accessories, you are actually lowering your carbon footprint by as much as 60% compared to using other materials.”

In Thailand, the fallout from the scandal has been surprisingly muted, as IKEA Bangna store manager Wimonrat Wichitivit reported that traffic had not significantly decreased since the news broke.

“Most Thais have never even seen a horse,” he said, “so really, they don’t care what we use, as long as they never have to shop at INDEX again.”