Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well we are discussing the digital wallet. And look, I had serious problems with the Digital Wallet when they tried to roll it out some two years ago. And it was one of these things that I didn't really want to make videos on; me personally I'd rather just make videos talking about more or less legal issues here, immigration stuff, Expat concerns because frankly I will make money off of that. And these type of videos here, I sort of have my own thoughts that I get to sort of put out there but I'm not really going to get any like remuneration off of this. This channel isn't monetized, and I primarily like to do stuff that provides some promotional element for the firm. But this stuff is so concerning, this cashless Society, digital wallets, "you'll own nothing and be happy" kind of World Economic Forum thinking stuff, that I just feel I don't have a choice; I have to make these videos.

I thought of making this video initially after reading a recent article from the Nation that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Thailand braces for a storm of political rulings through August and September. Now the thrust of that article goes to a different direction but there is an excerpt regarding this Digital Wallet. And again I initially talked about this Digital Wallet some two years ago when I voiced my concerns that one, they wanted to go into a tremendous amount of national debt to get this thing off the ground which the funding for this is now possibly going to be a sort of "nuclear political" problem which I will get to here in a minute but the issue I had was we really didn't need the stimulus they were claiming we needed at that particular moment. The Thai economy was actually doing pretty well all things considered especially comparatively to other economies that I felt like, "hey, if we have to engage in this Keynesianism stuff where we basically do a lot of government funded stimulus, why do it now when we don't need it? We are going to need it down the road." Well I proved to be a little bit prophetic on that insofar as now we are in a situation where stimulus would actually be a little bit useful, but we are in a worse position vis a vis the current debt because of this Digital Wallet thing. And meanwhile, the other concern about this Digital Wallet was these were going to be tokens that could be turned on and off? There would be a perimeter to where you could use them; they could only be used to buy certain things, and they would have an expiration date. I mean you don't get anything much more totalitarian than that when you are talking about financial transactions; it just doesn't get any more totalitarian. That was my big concern.

Meanwhile though, and the reason for the thumbnail, the line comes from the movie The Rainmaker which by the way, if anybody wants to know one of my all-time favourite movies about the legal profession is The Rainmaker. Oddly enough it is directed by Francis Ford Coppola and I would argue ii is one of his better movies even though nobody ever talks about it, in terms of his filmography, it's always the Godfather etc. but it's a great film and again there is a line in there where Deck Shifflet, who is played by Danny DeVito says to Matt Damon, the insurance company they are suing, he says "great benefit is like a bad slot machine, it never pays off." And that is kind of how this Digital Wallet feels. Just from the get-go, this has just been a bad idea and frankly it has been like an albatross; it has just gotten worse as time has gone on. That said, quoting directly, again Nation, nationthailand.com. "Perhaps the most politically volatile case likened by some to a "nuclear bomb in Parliament," is the Constitutional Court petition accusing Paetongtarn's Cabinet, MPs and Senators of violating Article 144 by transferring funds for the proposed Digital Wallet scheme, which critics argue was designed to boost the economy through unconstitutional means. The case is now under review by the National Anti-corruption Commission, which is constitutionally mandated to forward the matter urgently to the Constitutional Court -- effectively placing it on the judiciary's fast track." So the way that they even funded this is under serious scrutiny and investigation and again, everything about this was bad in my opinion. The outcome, where they were trying to go for this Digital Wallet which never really happened; they ended up doing so-called “cash handouts” although they were digital transfers and I had a real problem with that.  I mean again, I don't want folks to get used to the notion of a handout. We don't need handouts, that doesn't help anyone and at the time, the so-called urgency for the stimulus really wasn't even warranted either, and I made the videos at the time attesting to that fact. 

That said, quoting further, from another article this one from the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Tip of the iceberg. Again that goes in another direction but this excerpt is relevant to this video. Quoting directly: "According to observers, the case against Mr. Pichet," and this was one of the deputy speakers of the House has been removed from office for moving funds in an inappropriate manner, apparently - that's my understanding. That said, quoting again: "The case against Mr. Pichet looks to have far-reaching implications, as the same rule could apply to other lawmakers and Cabinet Ministers who supported the budget expenditure for the 2025 fiscal year. Under the Bill, funds worth 35 billion baht, which were originally allocated for debt repayments to state-run banks, were redirected to the Government's flagship Digital Wallet scheme, a move seen by critics as constitutionally dubious." Yeah, again they played this sort of shell game at the time with the funding of this, and it wasn't even really well articulated at the time exactly how the thing was supposed to be funded. That said, quoting further: "A petition was lodged with the National Anti-corruption Commission to delve into the matter by former Democrat Party MP Charnchai Issarasenarak, former senator Somchai Swangkarn, and former advisor to the Constitutional Drafting Committee Jade Donavanik."

What this comes down to is basically the accusation is that this whole Digital Wallet scheme was not correctly funded and in fact it was inappropriate, possibly even at an unconstitutional level here in Thailand, and as we get into actually in another - I am making a far more in-depth video on our paid news service which I am going to get into a lot of this stuff because I think it is going to have profound implications over the course of the next possibly 4 -8 weeks here in Thailand in a political context, because this coupled with some other cases as well as possible court rulings which are going to be coming down regarding the future fate of the now suspended Prime Minister Ms. Paetongtarn Shinawatra as well as her father Mr. Thaksin, as well as others in the Government. This, coupled with that, we could see a situation where we see a lot of pretty fundamental changes, almost a watershed moment if you will here in Thai politics, over the next four to six to eight weeks we could be seeing that; I get into that in depth. I'm making a video contemporaneously with this one for the paid news service. For folks who are interested in the paid news service, please feel free to email us, [email protected], we can get you on the mailing list for the long form videos and the paid news service where I talk about geo-politics, local politics, international finance, how that all interacts with expat land here in Thailand and Immigration matters as well as Banking and Tax matters for expats. I get into all of that kind of stuff and further in-depth analysis into possible future events and how they may play out here in the Kingdom. So those who are interested in that, you may want to check us out, [email protected]. Also, while I am talking my book, for those who are interested in American Diner style food in downtown Bangkok, please feel free to check us out at Pancake Palace, breakfast anytime as well as Diner style food. So there are links in the description below for our location - we'd love to see you there. 

Long story short, rounding this out, the Digital Wallet, again to just paraphrase The Rainmaker, it really seems like a bad slot machine that hasn't paid out much of anything of any good value especially in terms of political capital here in the Kingdom of Thailand.