Two years ago, sitting in the traffic jams with their bmws and mobile phones, Bangkok's brokers knew which side their bread was buttered on. Now things are looking pretty grim for erstwhile brokers in the Land of Smiles, with sandwich-making and taxi-driving among the new-found occupations for former employees of the finance and securities companies, 58 of which have had their operations suspended by the Bank of Thailand.
Today, former Asia Securities Trading managing director Siriwat Voravejvutkuth is up to his eyes in sandwiches as the grim reality of Thailand's economic slump begins to bite.
Masters degree holder Siriwat has been forced to set up a sandwich stall in a local hospital to make ends meet, having quit his job at Asia Securities Trading a couple of years ago to start a condominium project which got hit by the devaluation of the baht.
Ironically, Asia Securities is among the 33 stronger finance and securities companies still running and is claiming to be setting new standards for Thailand's financial industry "by adopting a policy of full disclosure in reporting its third quarter results".
The Stock Exchange of Thailand fell 35% last year, and a similar amount again so far this year and the Wnancial industry has been laying off staff in droves.