[LivinLOS]

The BoT does intervene to keep the baht within a trading range with the dollar.. This is to maintain a stable currency range with trading partners and in dollar denominated trades..

If you look back over the last say 5 ish years (I wont go and get real figures just what I can remember in spending) dollars were about 40 (hair above) when the Euro only recieved 32 - 34.. since then the pund / Euro / basically a basket of currencies have all risen dramatically while the dollar has fallen.. Now theres what 48 - 50 for the Euro and it was as high as 54 ish before the dollar had its little run this year..

Instead of the baht appreciating with them the dollar fall has been masked by heavy baht selling (dollar and US bond and other paper buying) by the BoT to create a lower baht in line with the lower dollar, protecting some industries.. In fact this trend has been seen all over asia (thats what the trade deficit is of course it foriegners taking dollar IOU's for goods produced in asia and consumed on credit in the US) with both trade and gov deficits being bought by foriegn banks and governments.. This intervention usually continues until a sudden snap (anyone remember Soros making billions while the UK crashed out of the ERM? ?) and my prediction is this will happen again this decade with a collapsing dollar..

Basically the THB is manpiluated to stay in a small range with the USD for now.. The Baht has only been a 10 - 15% range with the USD in the last few years while the Euro / GBP / NZD / Oz / Basket of currencies has gained 40%..

In fact its truer to say that if you compare commodites prices (gold / silver / coper / oil / etc) and the main baskets of currencies the Baht has fallen hard with the USD all the way down.. This is of course why we are seeing rampant inflation in real terms (in USD and in THB economies) even in the highly massaged and ficticious CPI numbers due to high oil / commodities / etc..