If you need a measure of just how bad inflation has become, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos can provide it. Want a hotel room in this Swiss mountain town next week? Get ready to part with around US$1,200 (40,100 baht) per night -- or much, much more.
The WEF may have tried hard to throw off the image of Davos elitism, but it doesn't stop them slapping an eye-watering surcharge on the accommodation it offers up to delegates. Money talks, especially in these straitened times, and opportunity knocks.
On the flipside of this, the other traditional criticism levelled at Davos is that talk is cheap (even when it's offensively expensive) and that the Forum generates plenty of words, but very few actions; yet last year's trip up into the Alps felt unusually substantive.
