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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what I have kind of euphemistically referred to and I have seen others call the "war on cash". We did another video recently where we were talking about how deposit machines, cash deposit machines here in Thailand are going to a system wherein folks will not be able to anonymously deposit cash which I personally, I have got some issues with it and this notion "well we have got to go after money laundering!" it's like "really? Over folks that are putting in a few thousand Baht at a time into a cash deposit machine? That’s the big worry?" but okay. The reason for this video is I was reading a recent article in the Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Bank of Thailand moves against cash and the US Dollar in a plan to reduce circulating banknotes in half by 2026. Not so much on the point of the US Dollar but more just on the point of the sort of the "war on cash" here. Quoting directly and I urge those who are watching this video, a lot of information in there. As usual Thai Examiner, again, thaiexaminer.com, they provided a, again very in-depth analysis on a lot of different topics, both directly involved with this topic sort of also tangential to this. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Central Bank is pushing forward with a plan to reduce cash in circulation by 50% by 2026 when compared to the end of 2021. The move comes in a week when the bank published a new policy statement in which it argues that more electronic payments will increase economic activity and when it signed a memorandum of understanding with the central banks of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines to use a QR Code system to make international payments across the five Southeast Asian countries without using the US dollar." Now that was kind of interesting on that front, the platform can sort of operate in such a way that the dollar is not being used. 

But I have got to say, I find this whole thing pretty concerning because one, I find it funny how it's always kind of framed in the context of, "well it will be more convenient!" Really, more convenient than cash? I have never found a medium that's any more convenient to cash. I mean kind of why cash was invented because people got tired of dragging around bags full of gold and silver and copper and all kinds of things to make transactions. So there was a reason that paper currency was created and honestly I fail to see the inconvenience, especially in Thailand, where Bank transfers are possible all the time. Why do we need to cut the circulating cash supply by half? What convenience is being gained by that exactly? Meanwhile, I mean it is pretty plain to see what the upshot of this stuff is and by the way I am not calling out Thailand directly, I can just as easily level this; Fed Coin in the United States where they talked about sort of digital currency in the USA. To me the thing that is just really quite honestly kind of terrifying is you have no privacy with respect to your transactions, your economic transactions. There are just none at all. I mean honestly one is going to be in a situation where they are going to have to make transactions without, if this trend continues and presumably if they want to cut the circulating cash in half, how long before they keep cutting in half until there is no circulating cash. I remember one, I think it was one of the Alien movies, one of the really terrible like later sequels like Aliens 5 or something like this where they hire these mercenaries to go catch the alien ship or whatever and they get hired by the Government or something and they get paid in cash and the guy that pays them says "I can't tell you how hard this was to come by. You are the only people that want to get paid in cash!" And the guy says back, "yeah we are also the only people that really doesn't appreciate everybody knowing what we are doing all the time!" and I am paraphrasing that. 

But the long story short is cash to a certain degree it's about privacy and I'm getting kind of tired of this whole “well but nefarious characters can use it to bad ends”. Yes, nefarious characters can use many things too bad ends. There are certain inherent risks you have to take in life when you want things like privacy. I mean nefarious characters can use, I remember, I think it was like my first day of law school getting this lecture from I think it was our ethics, who ended up being our Ethics Professor, a Judge in the USA talking about the Attorney-Client privilege that Attorney-Client privilege is very important because it provides a level of privacy that society deemed it needed. People deemed they needed Doctor-Patient confidentiality, Attorney-Client confidentiality, so called Priest- Penitent privacy because there was a higher societal benefit to people knowing that they could in private consult with their physician, with their legal advisor, with their with their spiritual advisor with a level of confidence because it's a benefit everybody in society wants to have. I would argue cash is something the same. The argument was, and he brought up in that lecture, he said yeah that are negatives that come from that. People can use those benefits, those privileges to bad ends. That doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater, that doesn't mean we get rid of the benefit. At the end of the day there's a certain amount of inherent risk. It is part of the human condition and I always find it funny when someone says, "well we have got to get rid of all this cash because there are nefarious characters out there." Well, then you have no privacy with respect to your private life and I mean is that really a society we really want to live in?