Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the "embattled" Phue Thai and their plans, under this great pressure, their big plan is let's create a more totalitarian tax system and go after tracking and tracing the poorest members of society. Let's just dive into this.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Huge economic change as Reverse Tax plan being pushed by the Phue Thai Government as it battles on. First of all, it is not a Reverse Tax plan. That is one prong of this, where there would be some kind of negative income tax kind of set up but it is only after everyone in the whole country gets registered for taxation, and they go after the people in the "black economy" or the "informal economy" as they call it which are, you guessed it, the poorest street vendors and things here in Bangkok; the folks who are just trying to make a living hand-to-mouth, day to day. Yeah, let's track and trace all of those people and let's go after their sustenance. Let me quote directly here, and I love all the terminology: embattled and battles on, and all; just stop. Quoting directly: "Phue Thai pushes a bold reverse tax plan as 60.8 million residents and 600K businesses must file returns." Quoting further: "Allowing low-income households to receive payments, aiming to tackle Thailand's "black economy"." I love this. It is always this "oh well you're going to get free money; it's free money, but it's only after you come under this totalitarian tax scheme. Quoting further: "boost fiscal accountability and counter rising inequality." Oh yeah, that's always the hue and cry of socialist and communist; we have got to stop all this inequality. All that inequality is free market entrepreneurialism. Quoting further: "The embattled Phue Thai Government is pressing ahead with economic reform, even as the Shinawatras face critical court cases from August 29 to September 9. On August 1, the US confirmed a 19% tariff, a rare win for Thailand's battered economy." Yeah, I love how a 19% tariff is being spun as a "rare win" insofar as it is lower than I believe any of the other countries in Southeast Asia and on par with Cambodia's, it's still a 19% big. I mean how is that really a win in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, maybe Trump has economic advisors that know things I don't, or maybe he knows things I don't, but I find it very both ironic, paradoxical, odd and possibly economically unsound, to impose tariffs when the Triffin Dilemma is also operational. For those who don't understand, the Triffin dilemma basically stipulates that a world reserve currency, the country that has a world reserve currency, will find its own economy hollowed out as time goes on. Because what basically happens is the makers of the world reserve currency, the creators, the, what is that called, Seigniorage or as de Gaulle put it, exorbitant privilege, basically the ability to generate the reserve currency and gain goods and services thereby, basically what happens over time is the reserve currency creator is just handing out money and getting goods and services. There's not really a value for value exchange occurring. That was what Bretton Woods was sort of designed to ameliorate, because it was this sort of indirect gold system but then in '71 when Nixon took us off the gold standard, or temporarily closed the gold window, from that point forward it has basically been an ever-increasing acuity, or acuteness of how would I call it, this Triffin Dilemma, is basically what we are talking about. 

So, the point I am trying to make with regard to that is, I see Trump's points regarding tariffs. To my mind there may be some justification, and I do understand his desire and I agree with his desire to re-onshore manufacturing back in the United States. That said, we have got a history of tariffs being problematic, Smoot-Hawley for example, and we never seen it, to the best in my mind imposed where you also have the Triffin Dilemma operating, and it calls into question in my mind, what is the interaction of those two economic dynamics going to be? It remains to be seen and we will keep you updated on the channel. 

That said, "rare win" I think is kind of an odd way of putting that. Quoting further: "Despite a 6.9% drop in tourist arrivals so far this year, growth is still targeted at 2.3%, buoyed by strong exports in the first half of the year. This (correction) week, the Finance Ministry announced a groundbreaking Reverse Tax system," - that is a very disingenuous way to describe this. No, it's an attempt at totalitarian scrutiny, oversight, tracking and tracing and taxation of frankly the poorest levels of the Thai socioeconomic strata. Quoting further: "to tackle the black economy. Some 60.8 million residents and 600,000 businesses must file tax returns, while low-income households will receive payments to offset taxes." To offset! Why just not tax them in the first place at all, and leave them alone and let them just earn their money? Quoting further: "The move could transform fiscal accountability and crackdown on unreported income nationwide." Why do we need a crackdown on that? Why is the presumption that people owe something? What is that based off of? People don't owe money just because they are breathing. That's nonsense. People have a right to earn their own living. It's sort of like during COVID, and by the way all of this seems WEF inspired, just like COVID was WEF inspired. And during COVID we had to deal with the whole "Oh, because you breathe, you have to wear a mask" nonsense. This is the same kind of logic. Because you breathe, because you can earn a living, you have to pay tax." It's nonsense. Quoting further: "Thailand is preparing to launch one of the most comprehensive tax overhauls in its modern history". And who asked for that? Who voted for that? Is that what everybody voted in? I mean and this is Phue Thai pushing this, I will get to that in a moment. And by the way, I am starting to think that especially this past Prime Minister who is currently suspended, and the past one are just WEF shills. Quoting directly: "Despite political instability, a border crisis with Cambodia and fallout from the new US tariffs regime." Yeah, amidst all of that, this Government's big plan is "hey, let's hyper-scrutinize all of our own people and squeeze the heck out of them for their wealth". Meanwhile, again tourism is down, so many people in that sector are not making as much money as they otherwise would. Tariffs are now coming online so manufacturing is going to already be under intense negative pressures and we have also got this border crisis. So now is a good time to come in and lean on everybody for a bunch more money? Quoting further: "The Phue Thai led regime Government is pressing ahead with reforms aimed at reshaping the country's economic foundations." And by reshaping, you mean completely destroying it with communistic tactics; that is what is going to happen here. You come in with all of this stuff and the economy goes moribund. That's what occurs. And by the way, history is littered with the corpses of economies that took these measures, most notably the USSR. There is a reason the Chinese took on capitalistic approaches. Now they came along later and imposed their own social credit score and totalitarian stuff which, "oh neato, it looks like they are going to do that in this case too". I have a video I am making contemporaneously with this one where I get into that as well. That said, quoting further: "At the centre of the plan is a mandatory filing system requiring all adult citizens and businesses to submit annual tax returns by 2027." This is not a Reverse Tax scheme. This is mandatory tax for people who don't even owe it. Quoting further: "brought to you by the Phue Thai Government. Quoting further: "Foreign residents will also be included." Oh, so the foreigners also; we get sucked into it. Not we, in my case, but you know what I'm saying. Quoting further: "Officials say the move will create a complete picture of incomes nationwide, strengthen fiscal discipline and expand the narrow tax base." You know, in any event, continuing. "Thailand will require annual tax returns for all citizens and businesses by 2027 to expand revenues. Currently only about 4 million people pay income tax in a country of 70 million." And I love that the presumption is, oh well that's there's something inherently wrong with that. No there isn't. No there is not. There is not some inherent right of these undo foreign bureaucratic-minded influencers to get to tax the heck out of a bunch of working Thais. That is nonsense. Quoting further: "Former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has repeatedly called this imbalance unsustainable." Unsustainable for who? A bunch of unelected bureaucrats that don't work for their own living? Really?

That's what this all comes down to. It's just sucking money parasitically off of those who can afford it the very least, in the government; not in the government, excuse me, in the socioeconomic system of Thailand. It is absolutely ridiculous; it will have an absolutely detrimental impact on Thailand. It's wrong on a moral level, on a like almost on a natural law level; it's wrong. And it's all just being touted as “oh, this embattled government; they're carrying on”. As I’ll get into in other videos, they talk about a “data lake” that they want to create because they're going to harvest everybody's data; they want to track and trace everybody.

Again, since the minute this government came in what did we see first? What was the first thing they wanted? Digital Wallets so they can track and trace everyone and it was all for “oh we are going to hand out money”. Now they are framing this as it's a Reverse Tax Scheme. You are going to get free money but we have got to track and trace you. Everybody is required to file taxes now.” Again, it doesn't look like this has been implemented yet. Again, they noted in there that it's going to come in 2027. I am very, very hopeful that as events play out over the next weeks and months, we are not going to see this government anymore because quite frankly at this point, I don't see what their modus operandi, their raison d'être is other than hassling, harassing, scrutinizing and attempting to unduly tax ordinary working-class Thais and foreigners here in the Kingdom of Thailand.