Buried Under by Rice Subsidy Scheme

This provides more background for the controversial rice pledging scheme which the Thai govt has implemented to attract more voters (the opposition sees this as 'vote-buying'); but this is now becoming a burden for the govt as they are not able to pay the farmers, causing the farmers to protest and threaten to join the opposition against the govt. Under the scheme, the govt pledge to buy the rice from the farmers at about 50% above world prices.

This is a useful example to show the pros and cons of democracy. Democracy is seen to be good as it incentivise the govt to come up with schemes to help the poor in order to win their support. But the downside is that democracy can also lead to populist measures where the govt comes up with schemes to appeal to the popular masses but these populist schemes are unsustainable in the long run, and in this case, threatens to bankrupt the govt coffers.