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Welcome to the July 2021 edition of our agent newsletter. Several countries are now relaxing their Covid restrictions and we have seen an increase in new sales. Once again, congratulations to the agents who achieved agent appreciation awards this month. Great job team, keep up the amazing work!
In this edition, we will discuss:
- Sales Training
What Is a Bail-In and How Does It Work? – The next conversation you MUST be having with your clients. - Thai Agri News
Thai fruit exports continue growing amid the pandemic
Commerce Ministry negotiates 2,200-ton mango sale with Hong Kong
Thai durian sold out at China’s Hainan Expo - Thai Culture Corner
Foreigners feeding thousands in Bangkok slums during Covid
“Man… despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments… owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” – Unknown
Sales Training
What Is a Bail-In and How Does It Work?
Confidence in the banking system becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if people believe their deposits are safe and stay calm then things will be calm which justifies their confidence in the safety of bank deposits. The government plays a crucial role in generating and maintaining confidence. First, this is done through what Walter Bagehot in the 1870s termed the ‘lender-of-last-resort’ function of the Central Bank. All Central Banks provide unlimited but ‘at a price’ liquidity to the banking system thus preventing any loss of confidence to otherwise solvent banks. Second, the government through various ‘deposit guarantee’ schemes re-enforces public confidence in the banking system by reassuring the public that a very large part of their savings is safe even in the unlikely event of a bank failure.
This was the hard lesson learned from the experience of the 1930s, especially in the US. Between December 1930 and March 1933 the US banking system shrank by half with banks either closing down or merging with other banks. The large number of bank failures during this period was making a bad situation worse, further aggravating the Great Depression in America and the rest of the world. It is now generally accepted by economic historians (including its current chairman, Ben Bernanke) that the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) bears a huge responsibility for allowing the banking crisis to develop into a full-scale banking collapse: it could and should have prevented the collapse of the US banking system which was part of its mission. It failed to do so because the leadership of the ‘Fed’ adhered to an economic theory that viewed the depression as a mechanism for purging the economic system of the financial excesses created during the boom of the 1920s. Many FRB officials believed that the collapse of the banking system was a harsh but necessary condition in order to ‘cleanse’ the system of its weak components.
Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, central bankers and policymakers globally were determined to maintain confidence in the banking system and prevent the disastrous policy mistakes of the 1930s. The taxpayers bore most of the cost of saving the banking system from the threatened meltdown. The disastrous consequences of a repetition of the banking collapse of the 1930s were averted, except of course in Cyprus. After the March 16, 2013 decision of the euro-group to impose a ‘haircut’ on all deposits in Cypriot banks the banking system of Cyprus was effectively destroyed.
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thai Agri News
“Agriculture not only gives to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.” – Samuel Johnson
Thai Culture Corner
There are some amazing people helping out their local Thai communities to get through this Covid mess in Thailand. Without much in the way of concrete day-to-day assistance from the Thai Government, free daily food, care packs, and supplies are being acquired and distributed by volunteers. We salute you all!
If you would like to help or enquire about direct assistance feel free to contact these amazing groups taking care of the less fortunate:
https://www.facebook.com/BkkCommunityHelp
https://www.facebook.com/dinnerfromthesky