Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question ‘should Thailand really be worried about low levels of inflation?’ What are we talking about here? I thought about making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: 15% VAT rate plan withdrawn over fierce backlash. Thailand needs time and patience for tax reform. First off, this foregone conclusion that Thailand needs tax reform, I am not really seeing it. Frankly, the Government's all upset about the fact that tax receipts are lower than they have been in the past or if you will that there's sort of air in the line, if you were to look at it like a pipeline, a revenue type line. Well, the reason for that is you shut down the economy for two and a half years. There is your reason. I thought we were all in this together. This is part of being “all in this together" is sort of moving through this and then moving on.

That said, this recent government especially, seems help bent on reforming, creating digital money, putting Thailand into tremendous amounts of debt for a "stimulus" that I can't really see we need and that's turned out, if you read Mr. Chartchai Parasuk's recent article in the Bangkok Post which I may get to in another video, it turns out it didn't even have much of any stimulative effect at all. So again, all this notion of tax reform, it just looks to me like a bunch of lazy bureaucrats are trying to steal money or extract wealth from a bunch of people that actually work to earn a living and add value in the economy. That's what it looks like to me. That said, quoting directly: "Thailand is seeking to widen its tax base particularly given future demands on the exchequer for an aging population." First off, we have been hearing this for years now. "Thailand's got an aging population, everything's terrible, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, you have got to change all your tax laws, get in line with “globalist institutions” in order to fix yourself". Meanwhile Thailand has a natural “fix” if you will to the demography problem which is migrant labour that comes in from the countries that border Thailand, that are not in an economically advantageous position. We have tons of foreign labour coming into Thailand. Again, this “aging population” stuff is nonsense; all of this foreign labour is meticulously tabulated and taxed, so what are you talking about? Meanwhile, quoting further: "Furthermore, the country's low level of growth and a massive influx of cheap imports from China have experts.." - "experts", always "experts"! Who are these experts? Were these the experts that told us to shut down for two and a half years over a cold? - "..from China have experts at the Finance Ministry worried about persistently low levels of inflation." There are two things going on here, and it looks to me like the Thai Examiner for whatever reason is conflating them; and as usual I urge folks who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail. One is an influx of cheap Chinese imports, so-called dumping. That's a different thing - we'll get into inflation here in a moment. Chinese dumping is problematic in its own right, it probably violates multiple agreements between Thailand and China or International agreements. Again, that's something that has to do with international trade and international relations. Now the issue of "persistently low levels of inflation", where is that a problem for the rank-and-file Thai? I mean this Government and everything they talk about in an economic sense it's like schizophrenic, because on the one hand, they are sitting around saying "Oh, we need all this stimulus but we kind of don't." As I've discussed in prior videos, this past year has not been that bad. We saw quarter one of 2024, one of the highest consumer spending percentages, percentiles in recent memory. Meanwhile we're turning things around in the tourism sector to the tune of orders of magnitude. Yes, manufacturing may be having some issues again, but dumping is a different thing than inherent low inflation.

Again, and something you have to keep in mind with respect to this is look, Central Bankers, Politicians and bureaucrats love inflation. Why? It's a hidden tax, that's all it is. They're inflating away the purchasing power of your money in such a way that you don't feel it like the same way you would feel a tax, and it allows them to go into even more debt and pay it off with increasingly less valuable currency. What these folks are doing is they are taking a page out of the US and the collective west’s book that been ongoing for roughly the last 20 years. Here is the problem. It's fundamentally unsound economically, and it will lead to ruin. If you need any proof of that, look to the West. Just look at it, okay. Objectively look at the national debts of these places; objectively look at the manufacturing base; objectively look at the value add. Meanwhile, they use metrics, like GDP - Gross Domestic Product - which is entirely, entirely, entirely a byproduct of bank credit. It's entirely managed in terms of bank credit, so they never look at the broader economy, okay. So, if in the less broad economy, call it the GDP economy of Thailand, we're seeing persistently low inflation, how is that a bad thing? If we might be seeing especially after the orders of magnitude of money printing that went on in order to inject the stimulus, so-called stimulus which didn't really stimulate much of anything - I'll get into that in another video - but explain to me how it's a bad thing for having low inflation at a time we just printed a bunch of money? That looks to me like a problem solving itself.