Of late, a lot of number-crunching has been going on, especially before and after the court decided to confiscate Bt46 billion of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra's Bt76-billion frozen assets. A lot of people, be they trained in economics, law or even fields that are not remotely related to this subject, came up with different figures. In fact, some even said that Thaksin's greed and corruption had cost the country more than Bt100 billion in damages.

Last week, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij suggested on Facebook that the court should have confiscated the entire Bt76 billion.

However, Korn got himself into trouble when he said that he was not sure if justice would have been served if the Assets Examination Committee had not been appointed after the 2006 military coup. This statement instigated a flurry of comments criticising the minister for being a supporter of the coup, an accusation he quickly denied though he kept quiet after some papers, such as the Daily News, published editorials on Saturday lambasting Korn.

However, when it comes to assessing the damage done through corruption and unconstitutional political acts, many Thais are still viewing things rather too narrowly.

So, while many people continue working out how much society has lost financially thanks to Thaksin, one also needs to ask: "What should the society pay for supporting a military coup and using it as a 'legitimate' way to dealt with Thaksin?"

Can we put a number to this?

The costs and damages incurred on a society can never be quantified. How can one come up with a neat figure when the society decides to back a military coup as a legitimate way of dealing with a corrupt politician when the result, intentional or not, is giving the military carte blanche to continue staging coups with no end in sight?

Calculating the cost of damages incurred by the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement's 2008 seizure of the Suvarnabhumi airport is no easy task either because not only did it affect short-term tourism it also hurt Thailand's reputation as a regional travel hub.

Similarly, the Songkran mayhem last year didn't just affect the economy, but also cost the society in terms of the loss of trust in the red shirts.

However, the biggest price the Thai society is paying, after four years of often lawless and vicious political battles, is a loss of trust in those who dare to think differently.

During the telephone chat this writer had with red-shirt leader Jaran Dittha-apichai on Monday, he realised that the deep-seated mistrust expressed by Jaran was symptomatic of the high cost the society is paying.

As for the likelihood of the government imposing the Internal Security Act (ISA) this weekend to deal with the attempt to shut down Bangkok, Jaran said: "In other countries, people ask why the government should impose such a law, but in Thailand they ask why the red shirts should demonstrate. It's upside down."

On mainstream mass media, he said: "Most of the mass media view us as enemies, but we won't budge because most of the people are with us. Most of the red shirts do not read [or watch or listen to] them."

As for Bangkokians being inconvenienced by the shutting down of the city, Jaran said: "The residents can curse all they want. The PAD never thought of them, did they?"

Pravit's note: The writer received an e-mail letter from Khun Korn Chatikavanij today correctly pointing out that he did not stated in his recent Facebook article that the Supreme Court  "should" have confiscated the entire Bt76 billion of Thaksin's frozen assets but rather that he wrote that "it was what I would have done" if he was a judge.

Khun Korn also pointed out that although he was criticised for his statement questioning whether justice would have been served or not if the Asset Examination Committee had not been appointed after the 2006 coup, he also received, as he puts it, "more than equal number of acknowledgement for my willingness to engage in sensible debate through an honest assessment of the facts."

This writer would like to publicly apologise to the Finance Minister for the inaccuracies in the article but would also like to ask whether what one should make of public figures who did not strongly oppose the 2006 coup. Does not condemning the coup outright in the aftermath of the coup make them closet-supporters of the coup?

A lot of readings into what Khun Korn wrote on Facebook may have something to do with this.