• BUSINESS

  Building wealth in a low-interest-rate world

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 27/02/2015

  » Driving around the area where I live, I've been struck by how many condominium projects there are — too many, it seems to me. It is hard to understand why people want to take the risk of building them when so many exist already. I wonder who will rent or buy them. Or do project developers know something I don't?

• BUSINESS

  Life after the eventual Fed rate hike

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 25/09/2015

  » People often ask me what will happen to the value of the baht. After the US Federal Reserve's decision to hold back from raising interest rates last week, the questions have only increased. The Thai currency has depreciated a lot this year, falling by 9.57%, much more than the often-talked-about yuan devaluation, which sent that currency declining by only 2.75% so far this year. We are, however, not alone in this devaluation trend. Malaysia and Indonesia have seen their currencies tumble as much as 23% and 17.5%, respectively.

• BUSINESS

  Negative interest rates: another new normal?

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 26/02/2016

  » I went to the bank the other day and found one of the accounts I had put aside for many years had hardly increased in value. I never used to think much about my savings in the bank, as I always assumed that over time, money would work for you.

• BUSINESS

  Global economic outlook: Cautious optimism for new year

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 30/12/2016

  » December has come once more. To me this is the time to assess how we did the previous year and to think about what might lie ahead. I think we all agree that this has been a year of Black Swan events -- extremely surprising developments that have major consequences.

• BUSINESS

  Goodbye 2015: A farewell to easy money

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 25/12/2015

  » This Christmas marks the beginning of the end to an unprecedented era of easy money, a period in which businesses, investors and consumers had access to credit at cheaper prices. The US Federal Reserve last week voted unanimously to raise key interest rate by a quarter-percentage point after keeping rates near zero since the subprime crisis. The last increase was almost a decade ago in June 2006 -- a year before the first iPhone was released.

• BUSINESS

  The groans of August: yuan devaluation and beyond

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 28/08/2015

  » The month of August does not usually bring good news to global financial markets. While it is a holiday time for many people, August has often witnessed the first signs of cracks in the global economy. We all remember the Russian debt default in 1998, the run on the British bank Northern Rock in 2007, the collapse of US financial markets in 2008 and the US loss of its AAA credit rating in 2011.

• BUSINESS

  Secular stagnation and endless protests

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 29/11/2013

  » Once again, it has been a terrible month for Thai politics. Tension is building up everywhere. After the conflict over a wide-ranging amnesty bill that would have eased former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's return to the country, even greater opposition mounted over the Constitution Court ruling on the charter amendment bill. One thing led to another. Now tens of thousands of protesters have gathered for massive anti- and pro-government rallies, the biggest we have seen in three years.

• BUSINESS

  The race for retirement

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 27/09/2013

  » September is the last working month for a lot of people. After several decades of full-time work, this should really be a month to celebrate. Sadly, a lot of retirees I know are just retiring rather than reaching financial independence.

• BUSINESS

  Reflections on 2012 and beyond

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 28/12/2012

  » Life never turns out the way we expect. This year in particular has ended up worse than I thought it would _ personally, socially and globally. Personally, I did not achieve many of the goals I set out earlier. Socially, I did not get to spend enough quality time with friends or family. Globally, the world is also ending the year on a disappointing note, with lower-than-expected growth and a painfully slow recovery.

• BUSINESS

  Coping with weaker growth

  Business, Tientip Subhanij, Published on 26/10/2012

  » Each quarter, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assesses the global economy in its World Economic Outlook report. What is particularly interesting about the recent assessment released earlier this month is that despite major central banks' efforts to inject a large amount of liquidity into the world financial system, the IMF lowered global growth expectations to just 3.3% this year from an earlier estimate of 3.5%. This would make the slowest year of growth since 2009, when the world was struggling to emerge from the global financial crisis. It also predicted only a modest improvement in next year's growth of 3.6%, lower than its previous estimate of 3.9%.

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