Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing cuts in the oil tax are being proposed during Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent articles from Reuters, that is reuters.com, the article is titled: Thailand weighing cut in oil tax as energy prices soar, official says. Quoting directly: "Thailand will consider lowering its oil tax to help alleviate the impact of rising energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East, a senior Finance Ministry Official said on Thursday. Reducing the oil excise tax will lower retail prices Ministry official Lavaron Sangsnit told a briefing, adding that it could be done immediately if approved by the Election Committee." Wasn't Lavaron Sangsnit, wasn’t his name, the acronym was like, what was it, glasnost nirvana, or something like that; I remember doing a video on that a while back.

So quoting further:

• "The tax cut plan was approved by special Cabinet meeting on Thursday after the government had stopped capping oil prices, leading to a jump in diesel prices by 6 Baht on Thursday. 
• The state planning agency earlier said every one Baht rise in diesel prices would cut economic growth by 0.02 percentage points. 
• Additional borrowing for the oil subsidy fund can happen only after a new government takes office, Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas said. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's new Government has yet to be formed and receive Royal endorsement."

So, look, I actually think that this might be actually kind of a good thing and the timing of not being able to do more subsidies at the moment could actually rebound to Thailand's benefit, and here's why. It looks to me like basically they put a cap on oil prices, started using the reserves as this crisis in the Middle East was kicked off. And then as we are now seeing, apparently arrangements have been made. Thailand is able to see her ships depart the Strait of Hormuz with oil, and it looks like Thailand is also talking to the Russians about purchasing oil through those channels. It's looking to me like Thailand's supply chain for oil at least, at least in terms of energy, is being stabilized. And at the same time they have utilized what can only be described as somewhat heavy-handed market intervention insofar as capping off prices of energy while there was uncertainty. Now that they know that there is more certainty with regard to the supply chain for oil, they can allow the market to come in and sort of shake back out market efficiency. Basically what I'm hoping, and I think most people are hoping is this panic demand will subside. It's basically a bunch of people now panicking and running out to buy up a bunch of fuel that's really not necessary; sort of akin to the toilet paper shortage in America, the first part of it COVID. It was based on, there was some level of rationality. People can see, "oh the Strait of Hormuz, there's a problem there", and then they all ran out and bought - however, there was no shortage of fuel in the moment, until everybody started running out and buying it. It's like that scene in the movie Sneakers, where Ben Kingsley tells Robert Redford, he says, "people think a bank is financially shaky, they start with throwing their money." Result, then it becomes financially shaky, because people have run out there and the panic has sort of, the rot has set in if you will.

That's not the situation here. There was some panic, but it looks to me like again the supply chain for oil is being stabilized by various operators in Thailand, probably abroad as well, who are operating in Thailand's interest to get this oil situation stabilized. Again a cut in the tax on oil would probably help the economy overall in sort of, well for lack of a better term, in offsetting a 6-Baht rise in the price of diesel fuel, so I have to imagine that could help. That being said, I think overall because Thailand has made further arrangements to stabilize their supply chain of oil, I think actually at the end of the day, this thing may actually blow over and we could see a situation where Thailand is operating on much more of an even keel when it comes to her energy. 

That being said, it remains to be seen so we'll certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.