Baby's, Do gooders and the GFC

     
      Things had been going along fine for the next few years. All the trees had been planted and were doing well. We were  flying back and forward on a regular basis and even managed to fit in the birth of our first daughter, Sarah-Jane. The new baby had proved to be of little problem, she was healthy and strong and too young to care about the moving. In one way she assisted, the Government of Australia had removed the tax deduction for children and replaced it with a flat family assistance payment. This money was deposited straight into the bank and continued for 3 months after you had left the country. A nice little earner when your living cost are low. All in all life was good, long working weeks in Australia  and lazy beer drinking days in Thailand.
     


      Knowing that one day the trees would start producing and to maximize profit , ribbed sheet would need to be made. A cousin of the wife had a small rubber processing set up where he make sheet and smoked it. See YouTube video, family run rubber, latex factory Buntharik Issan. After watching and learning the process a cunning plan came to me. I could do this, but bigger and cheaper, we could buy others latex, process it at a profit.Piece of cake. I would be rich, more importantly no more working for a living.   
      The first problem was money, or should I say the lack of it, I was so confident on the outcome that I convinced my brothers and sisters to invest. The Collister Rubber Company was formed. Many people see Thailand as some sort of third world free for all. Not so, the laws are very similar to most western country's. A company needs to be formed, planing permission obtained, permits, licenses and inspection  done. At this point I would like to say thanks to the Thai Government SME Department in Ubon, without their help the project would never have come about. Next I had to find somewhere to build. Preferable on a main road with electricity. As per normal word went out on the jungle grape vine. Finally 10 rai on the main 2248 came up, it was perfect, several kilometers from the nearest village and with power lines on the road. The Thai seller could not believe his luck  a stupid Farang wanted to buy a piece of worthless stoney ground where nothing would grow and  bad title. There is one Thai who must curse the Farang, every time he rides buy now.
      We were off, the wife's 2 brothers were sent to Rayong with a letter of introduction from the district Governor, to photograph, video and learn. Plans were drawn up workers hired, construction commenced and the money bleed out, back to Australia to work.
      3 or 4 months later we had  a party to open for business and show our prospective latex sellers around. Things started slow, but over the weeks production climbed. One day I was standing with the wife watching the sheet rubber slide out of the rollers. Each sheet was $1 US dollar profit, that day I counted 200. We had made it and it could only get better as more people came to sell. Little did I know that that would be the one and only time I would see 200 sheets.
      It was decided that for the first time since we had married that I would return to Australia alone, work for 3 months to get enough money to tied us over the dry season. The wife was not happy, but agreed someone had to stay to watch over the business. I had not been back a week when the Global Financial Crises hit. Rubber prices  collapsed to the point that it was not worth the effort to even bother to tap. The world had gone crazy. Then the wife phoned, she was pregnant. BAM BAM I was out for the count. Looked like it had all been for nothing.


      What to do, I was broke and homeless, with a baby on the way. As much as I hated the idea it was back to jail full time. I took a post in a brand new, not even opened yet Prison. To call it a Prison would not do it justice, this was the new politically correct version of prison. Prisoners were no longer prisoners but clients. They were not there for punishment, but treatment, to address their behavioral problems. There were more Psychologists and clinicians than Prison Officers. Everyone was to be on a first name basis. It was to be all warm and fuzzy, everyone would be happy. Too top it all off the Government put the shrinks in charge and gave some of them uniforms and the rank, they were in charge and had to be obeyed. It was not going to be a happy place.
      Most people with the IQ of a potato would agree that it is not a wise move to give violent prisoners access to weapons. In most prisons with self catering cottage units, cooking knives would have there points ground down and were secured  to the sink area on a chain of some type. Not here, to do so would show the clients that we did not trust them. Needless to say that it wasn't long before the first client was lying in the yard bleeding out, after having been stabbed with a carving knife. All the shrinks, clinicians and even those who were allegedly the senior officers made a beeline to secure areas. The few real Prison Officers, were left to gain control with nothing, but their blue shirts for protection.
      A few days later a De brief was held, pats on the back for all the clinical staff, for their efforts in arranging trauma counseling for the prisoners, but it had been noted that some of the uniformed staff had been heard using threatening language and in a few cases actually pushing and shoving prisoner into cells. No mention of anyone taking responsibility for allowing the availability of knives. This was the new order of PC appointed public servants, who took no responsibility for their actions.
      I think this was shown very clearly some years later in the tragic Victorian bush fires. The 2 Government Ministers in change, were busy mowing grass or something. They couldn't be held responsible for the what went wrong. The Chief Commissioner of Police, who is in overall change of the states emergency services could not be held accountable. She was at lunch and had to have her hair done, while 170 plus people died.
      GFC, baby's or not I could not stomach years of PC BS, we would be going home to our village, come hell or high water.