Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the state saying it needs more tax revenue. Interesting coming from the same state that shut us all down for 3 years during COVID and said that we couldn't do business, and now they are having a shortfall because there is air in the proverbial line. Well that's what happens when you shut down everybody's business for years at a time and with the concomitant effect that certain businesses just closed because you can't just shut down an economy and expect for businesses to just pop back open when you dictate, okay. I mean I thought that was learned with the folly that was the Soviet Union, but apparently not. 

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But that said, getting back to this, again the title being: State needs more Revenue, says state  I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: State tax revenue needs 600 billion boost. Well first, who says? People forget all these bureaucrats and things: there was a really smart guy that was a close friend of my family back in Kansas, and one time my mother went to his establishment, some employee was being not particularly courteous and she kind of mentioned it to him. He said, "hey, next time one of my people acts like that you just tell them straight up, I'm the prophet margin, you're the overhead. Why don't you go ahead and take care of me, rather than worrying about it the other way around." Well you know what? Tax collectors aren't part of the value creation that is the economy here in Thailand. Now I'm not a guy that's totally anti-tax. I'm actually pretty okay with paying taxes, here in Thailand especially because I can actually see what it is going toward frankly. I see the infrastructure they are creating over here; I'm very happy for that. 

But that said, I also saw that for three years they shut us down during COVID really based on apropos of nothing, and when they shut down one of our enterprises here, it was actually a client enterprise as well, we talked to them, and they couldn't really give a valid reason; it was just "because we say so". And I have real problems with the same entity that shut everybody down and said they couldn't work saying we are having a shortfall now acting as a parasite off of you who couldn't work because "we said so". So that's the whole point of this. That said, quoting directly: "Government tax revenue needs to increase by an additional 600 billion Baht." Really? You know what, in the private Enterprise if you are having that kind of a shortfall, you need to cut your budgets. Yeah, we would all like to make more money, but sometimes you just can't. In a recessionary environment that's what happens. Meanwhile again, when you mandate everybody to shut down their businesses and then expect to extract the same level of wealth out of them down the line, that's pretty ridiculous. Quoting further: "As the current level is lower than that of countries with comparable economies to Thailand, says caretaker Finance Minister Pichai Choonhavira." By the way, is this the same guy that said that 50 million Thais, 57 million Thais, who heretofore have not had to file taxes just magically need to now because they say so? And again these are folks at the lower echelons of the socioeconomic strata, frankly people who can afford it least. Quoting further: "Speaking at the Fiscal Policy Office's annual seminar, which this year ran under the theme of "Fiscal Transformation". You mean digitization to a totalitarian system where you are trying to track and trace every little thing we all do so you can suck wealth out of us all, at the behest by the way of undue foreign influences like the OECD and the WEF. Is that the fiscal transformation we are talking about? Quoting further: "held on Friday. He said state tax revenue accounts for only 15% of GDP." How is that GDP if you are sucking it out of the economy. First of all GDP is a flawed metric to begin with because it only tabulates economic activity occurring in terms of bank credit. You have to understand that to begin with. But then now they are saying it's 15% of GDP, state tax revenue? So money you are extracting off of people in the entrepreneurial free market, free enterprise economy. That's part of GDP somehow? How is that? Government spending: this is Keynesian nonsense thinking, and by the way Stalin once said, "communism is socialism in a hurry". Well Keynesianism is socialism by subterfuge." It's all theft from the value creators in the real economy, that's what it all amounts to. So this notion that 15% of “GDP”, “Gross Domestic Product”, is somehow in the government sector is ridiculous, okay. No they're extracting 15% of the overall tabulatable economy in bank credit terms to redistribute it, quite honestly in inefficient ways, that's what's happening. Quoting further: "about 3 percentage points less than countries with similar-sized economies." Well again, how do you tabulate that? Based on what the bankers say the economy size is? Quoting further: "In light of this, tax revenue should increase by another 600 billion baht,” said Mr. Pichai." Yeah, again that's the point of, "State needs more revenue, says State!"

I mean it is just; really this needs to stop. This is not what made Thailand great. What made Thailand great was the free market, free enterprise spirit of this economy, with Thai liberty and the ability to do business in such a way without a bunch of vultures on our back trying to suck money off of all of us and letting us get on down the road and do our business. I really find this disconcerting. I hope we see this turnaround sooner rather than later and we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.