Hype over counterfeit bank notes

[Mark]

Bad news sells, and the media often portray sensational perceptions to sell their stories. Then people parrot it on the street, blogs and webboards get going, and before long you have a big gap between perceptions and reality. An urban legend is born.

It's like the news of the protests in Thailand. People were afraid that Thais were on the streets all over in uproar, rioting, looting, etc., when actually Thailand was the same as always, except in a few hot spots which were easy to avoid.

The latest stories are about the counterfeit 1000 baht bank notes.

It must have been a slow news day otherwise, and some news agency pulled this story out of a dusty drawer and replayed it. Then after the public response, other news agencies jumped on the bandwagon, like how could they NOT report it and look like they were out of touch, relatively?

After news stories hit, people started avoiding 1000 baht notes, making a run on the banks for 500 baht and 100 baht notes. Receivers of 1000 baht notes would inspect them closely and worry that maybe the forgeries are too good for them to detect.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Thailand responded by saying the number of forged 1000 baht banknotes now has been about the same recently as for years past, if not decades. No recent surge.

It runs about 5 to 7 notes per million, i.e., less than 1 per 100,000 notes.

Compare that to 70-100 notes per million for American money, i.e., about 1 per 10,000 notes.

Also, the counterfeits are not so good. Just look at the watermark, and check the smoothness of the notes since real ones are slightly embossed such as the number 1000. If you are familiar with real notes, then you can probably detect fakes. Many street vendors know how to do this themselves.

There's so much in the news about Thailand, and on websites, especially bad news which people seem find the energy to post, just like the news on TV -- bad news, and more bad news, so where is the good news -- that sometimes, after reading about Thailand on the internet, I wonder why I haven't experienced most of these things in my 14 years here. It's like two different countries -- the one on my computer screen, vs. the one out my front door.

A long time ago, I got the domain name PressCritic.com but never developed it. Often, I think there's a sustainable business for the good of the whole in that. Just need a good partner for it, like other businesses I help direct.