1997 has been a hard year for many, and 1998 looks like more of the same. Not very cheerful words, we’ll admit, to begin the first editorial of the New Year, however, at the risk of sounding patronising, a salutary lesson has (or should have been) learned.

Whilst the lesson seems to have been learned by some and the reason for the melt-down understood, too many others still believe that it was brought about by a conspiracy between farangs jealous of
the much vaunted "Asian Miracle", the IMF and Gypsy George.

Pattaya’s "melt-down" began some years before the unprecedented greed of two successive governments drew international investor’s awareness to the reality of the bubble economy in Thailand. It was, nevertheless, caused by the same greed and the naive belief that the way to get rich is to buy low and sell high, and to go on doing so regardless of market conditions or the law of supply and demand. The Pattayan philosophy: if your profit drops, put the price up. A European or American visiting Pattaya, or indeed, anywhere in Thailand, could be excused for believing that the over-abundance of empty condos were for the purpose of tax write-offs for high-profit companies or even, perhaps, to launder drug money. However, it is well known that no rich person or large property owner in Thailand pays tax anyway and, whilst the money laundering theory is still a possibility, when it is learned that these white-elephant properties are all financed by high interest loans from, now largely defunct, finance companies, it can be seen that the reason must be simple greed compounded by ignorance of market forces with a touch of foolishness thrown in.

It has taken a long time, and a region-wide recession, for Pattaya to realise that there is no magic formula, or that somehow, sometime, everything would come right. Rich tourists would once again pour into the resort; somebody would be found to buy the proliferation of condos that have spawned in the city; heavy-drinking, lass-loving ex-colonials would throng the excess of beer and go-go bars and the sartorial consciousness of the populace and visitors alike would be awakened to cause even the tailors to smile confidently for the first time in years.

Now we know that this is not going to happen, and that the only way to effect a return to prosperity is to "clean up our act".

And just how many ways this can be done! Clean streets, smiling salespersons, pothole-less roads, swim-in-able seas, non-cheating baht bus drivers, muffled motorcycle exhausts and even, perhaps, mirabilis dictu, a mini-bus operation. This is not to mention the maintenance of affordable tariffs for hotels and guesthouses, and reasonable pricing in restaurants.

Whilst it is much easier for our local politicians to cite, and make a big song and dance about targeting from time to time, the innocent "vice" spots of our deliciously decadent city; but even they know that the real reason is greed, and the underlying corruption, which prevents the resort from presenting a clean face to the world. Baht bus drivers are allowed to continue cheating customers as they are protected by influential people who have a vested interest in their operation; streets remain pot-holed and poorly repaired as the contractors are the paymasters of the council and city administration; real vice operations, such as those involving pre-pubescent children and drugs, are permitted to continue on payment of healthy sums to influential figures, often the so-called law keepers themselves.

If these real ills could be addressed, and treated, the patient may recover. Let the authorities start with the easiest problem to solve-noisy motorcycles and cheating baht bus drivers-go on to deal with poor roads by supervising contractor’s work rather than taking pay-offs to look the other way. Enforce the connection of main drainage to all, not only selected, properties to clean up the sea. Encourage hotels and restaurants not to take too much advantage of the low rate of the baht against other currencies and persuade property owners to take the brave step of expecting lower returns, as has been done, in desperation but with success, by Bangkok Land. Soon, encouraged, hopefully, by the smile returning to the faces of Pattayans trying earnestly to sell their product, Pattaya, the tourists will return in droves and even the tailors will say "things are looking up!"