Word: baht
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...group planned to donate a schoolhouse to Thailand, the King asked pointedly: "What size school-house?" Following a lively discussion of school costs, American Banker George Murphy finally broke the impasse by suggesting, to Bhumibol's apparent satisfaction, that the group's gift be 500,000 baht ($25,000), which the Thais could apply toward school construction of any sort they wished...
...surfeit of Thailand's bounty for world markets. Trains of wooden barges riding low in Bangkok's muddy Chao Phraya River carry rice, corn, copra, reams of incomparable Thai silk, jute-and illicit opium-to export. With the Thai annual growth rate of 7% a year, the baht (formerly called the tical and still worth a nickel), backed by gold and foreign-exchange reserves of nearly $650 million, is one of Asia's hardest currencies. The men who administer the Thai economy, and indeed the whole cadre of Thai civil service, are among the most competent
Gouged Eyes. The Red-carrot approach consisted of offering new recruits to the Peasants Liberation Party a salary of 500 baht per month and the promise of a new tractor for the village. Now the ante is far higher. In Nakhon Phanom province, the Red Chinese are offering a 50,000-baht reward for the murder of Provincial Education Officer Thavil Chanlawong, one of the northeast's most effective anti-Communist workers. In one Nakhon Phanom district, the terrorists have killed 16 villagers in the past year, kidnaped six more, and early this month shot the village doctor...
...estate. Among an inner circle of 51 mistresses, whom the old-school Thais delicately call "minor wives," Marshal Sarit had generously scattered villas, autos and other largesse, and fathered at least nine children. Many minor wives actually filed court claims for a share of Sarit's tickels, or baht, as Thais call their money...
...even more spectacular than his dalliance balance. Contesting Widow Thanpuying Vichitra's claim to the marshal's estate, Sarit's two sons by a previous wife estimated that their father was worth at least 2.8 billion tickels, or $143 million. That seemed a lot of baht for a career soldier. So, before allowing his estate to be distributed, Sarit's successor, Thanom Kittikachorn, appointed a five-man committee to see if any government funds had lodged in Sarit's pocket...