Transcript of the above video: 

I am going to do a video today that is more in line kind of with the news here in Thailand; pretty big deal. I didn't want to make any videos Friday, Saturday for a variety of different reasons but we are veering more into a news element of this. As I have discussed in other videos, we are doing a paid news service, which some folks have availed themselves of and I really appreciate those of you who have. If you're interested in that, please feel free to email us, [email protected], we'll get you on the mailing list; it's long form videos where we go into sort of news and views and issues such as banking, expatland stuff, banking, visas, tax, that kind of thing where I just kind of get into how recent developments can impact the expat world. So [email protected], you can email us for that. While I'm talking talk my book also, so bad in my opinion to point out the fact that my better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, Pancake Palace. If you're interested, links are in the description below. We will throw up some photos here of our food. We've got again as the name implies, pancakes bacon and eggs, breakfast anytime, as well as chilli bowls, buffalo wings, cheeseburgers etc. So American Diner style food if you're interested in that.

That said we have been veering a little bit more toward news. I have actually gotten a lot of really positive feedback. I was just talking to a guy today - I won't use his name - he was actually in the Pancake Palace, and he said I really appreciate you doing the news. He actually said I can tell from your demeanor, I've watched you for a while, you seem to be a little bit, I don't think he used the word uncomfortable, but I think he said hesitant, to be talking news per se, because it's not exactly what your channel exactly does all the time, but he said look I know I speak for a lot of other expats that I like somebody who can distill what's going on in Thailand, especially some of the politics of it quickly and in chunks that can be sort of digested and it he noted his appreciation; I thank you for that as I thanked you sir when I saw you. I won't use your name, but I guess I didn't think of it that way. I just kind of thought I would do occasional news stuff off to the side but we're probably going that way a little bit more. I am going to expand out. This channel I would like to kind of refocus moving forward on more of the legal stuff but politics has an interplay with that, so that's going to come up sometimes on this channel but stay tuned’ we are going to have further platforms out there, not just the paid news service, but further platforms where I get more into kind of a news bent.

That said, let's get into the Man of the Hour, and the Man of the Moment was Mr. Wan Noor Matha, as I did a video last week. If you don't understand some of the Thai Parliamentary System, you wouldn't have really noticed that the Speakership for this past week was arguably the most important job as we saw the election of this new Prime Minister go through the Parliamentary process, but it was. And now that the speakership, excuse me and now the Prime Ministership has been determined, I would say the man of the hour most assuredly is our now 32^nd Prime Minister here in Thailand is Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul. Let's just jump in here.

I initially thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Nation, that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Anutin elected as Thailand's 32nd Prime Minister with majority vote. I think that that's important to point out. One, the past few years, it's like an almost trope of the liberal press establishment of the West especially to constantly poo poo Thailand for its lack of democratic principles whatever. Let's be clear, whatever the Constitutional protocols that have been utilized in the past, on this Prime Ministership as well as frankly the past two - Mr. Srettha and Ms. Paetongtarn - there were a majority in the membership of the Parliament behind it. Now this time, Mr. Anutin actually has the backing of the People's Party, who are the legacy of Move Forward who did win a plurality, and let's be clear, they won a plurality in the election which led to the formation of the Parliament in 2023. Now due to the Constitutional protocols associated with that, how would we call it, consecration of that Parliament, they did not end up forming the government which there is plenty of coverage of that. But it is important to point out they also didn't win a majority either. So then there was a Government cobbled together, which by the way there was a whole sort of blowout that involved Pheu Thai who was initially going to coalition with what is now called The People's Party or that sort of faction of the Parliament, they ended up effectively reneging on that which then led to them coalitioning with Bhumjaithai. Okay, then Bhumjaithai leaves the Parliament in the aftermath of the Paetongtarn phone call - which I will get into in depth further as we get into in this video - and then they were in the opposition for a little while, about two and a half months. Then now, People's Party has backed Mr. Anutin. Now they are calling this a “minority government” which I find that kind of a weird phrase, but basically what People's Party has said is, "look we are going to vote for this Prime Minister; we're going to give him these conditions." This is discussed at length in many other news articles, but one of the big ones is that from the moment the Prime Minister notes the policies of the incoming government, a clock effectively starts running that will last for 4 months, during which time certain possible Constitutional provisions will be undertaken including a referendum possibly, but more to the point, a clock starts ticking toward an election within 4 months; that seems to be the deal. Now understand, that is the political deal. This isn't enshrined in law. This is just the political deal that has been made, and it seems the Bhumjaithai is going to adhere to that, at least from what we are seeing, that is the deal that was made. So there are different press outlets calling this a minority government. I don't know that that's fair insofar as look, People's Party can make whatever decisions they want. They have decided they don't want to be in the Cabinet; they want to remain as they call it in Opposition, but they still voted for Mr. Anutin. I think that's important. It's an important distinction for especially the English language community out here who may not be able to deeply dive into this as well as other folks, especially native Thai speakers because again it is being touted as "oh it's a minority government or something". Yeah, in a sense, but not really. They do have the votes of a majority of the House as we will get into here. Quoting directly: "Out of 490 total votes, 311 were in favour of Anutin, 152 supported Pheu Thai candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri, and 27 abstained." Now I read some other articles where there were “cobras” from Pheu Thai who actually sort of flipped sides and voted for Mr. Anutin. Not going to get into the deep really analysis of the intra-Parliamentary machinations in this video, but it's important to point out, 311 votes out of 490 total votes cast, the entire chamber is 500, so apparently there were missing folks there and I think like for example if Paetongtarn was removed from office then that vote is no longer effectively there, but out of 490 out of a 500 person chamber, 311 votes went for Mr. Anutin; a pretty clear majority to me from where I sit. So I do think that that is important to point out. I think it's also - some important context - as I discussed in another video, the Press was saying oh Pheu Thai's rump Coalition as I was calling it, had 250 votes in the budget vote, 257 votes I should say, which is just a mere 7 over the majority. And I think it is important to point out that was a bipartisan thing, or multi-partisan, non-partisan however you want to look at it; a lot of people were in favour of the budget getting passed. We needed the budget to get passed to make sure that various state agencies are funded, and we can all get on the road. So that was about the best that government was ever going to do in terms of parliamentary legislative initiative and they were only able to muster 257 votes; Mr. Anutin has 311 votes. So I think it's important to note that for all those folks out there that want to talk about Democratic legitimacy and all of this good stuff. I mean he's got a mandate here. I think it's important to point out. Now albeit, it's a mandate with conditions and things as have been stipulated by The People's Party, but it is a mandate, nonetheless. Quoting further: “Anutin's path to the Prime Minister's Office is supported by the People's Party with 143 votes, along with an additional 146 votes from other parties, enabling the formation of a minority Government." Again I find that kind of odd. It's minority because People's Party says, hey we don't want to be in the Cabinet which that is their decision, but they still voted for him, so I don't know how you exactly call that a minority Government, but okay. “Anutin Charnvirakul, also known as Sia Noo, was born on September 13th, 1966, in Bangkok. He is the eldest son of Chavarat Charnvirakul, a former Minister of Interior under Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Government and founder of Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction (STECON). Anutin graduated in engineering from Hofstra University in the US and completed a mini-MBA at Thammasat University." Quoting further: "With a political career spanning 29 years, Anutin began as an advisor to the Foreign Minister in 1996, later serving as Deputy Minister of Public Health and Deputy Minister of Commerce in Thaksin Shinawatra's government." Yeah, it is important to point out here, and if you know the history of Thai politics and you go back to 2000, roughly '8, and '9, there was a rift within what was called the Thai Rak Thai Party, the Thai Rak Thai movement, whatever you want to call it, where Newin Chidchob and what later sort of became legacy sort of Bhumjaithai Party split - actually Chai Chidchob was Speaker of the House at that time and as discussed about Mr. Wan Muhamad Noor Matha,  the Speakership, it's an important position in the Thai Parliament. And Mr. Chidchob, Newin's father, Chai Chidchob, had kind of a role to play in there being a faction of Thai Rak Thai that broke off and then created a coalition with Mr. Abhisit that then resulted in that Government coming along and sort of coming to power. And it's interesting there are parallels because as noted, again quoting again, from above here, "Mr. Chavarat Charnvirakul, (so this is Mr. Anutin's father), was Minister of Interior under Prime Minister Abhisit which is interesting because in the prior iteration of this last coalition when Bhumjaithai was coalition with Pheu Thai, Mr. Anutin was Interior Minister under both Srettha and Ms. Paetongtarn before for there was a grappling for power and basically they looked to me like they kind of bullied Bhumjaithai out of the Interior Ministry position and then they just left anyway because of the phone call between Ms. Paetongtarn and Mr. Hun Sen across the border over there in Cambodia, but I think the background here is kind of interesting. And it's important to point out, that they come from if you will sort of the Bhumjaithai paradigm comes from a similar place as the Shinawatra paradigm was behind the old Thai Rak Thai Party. It's fundamentally kind of a populist sort of movement it, I wouldn't even call it that - I hate the way the populist is used now - they care about people in Thailand. It's one of the things, people have asked me why I kind of have an affinity for Anutin. It's the same reason I kind of have an affinity in many ways with Mr. Trump. I don't agree with everything he does, it's like I don't agree with everything Anutin has done - I was vocal about that especially under COVID - but I do think he ultimately cares about the people here in Thailand, just as I think Mr. Trump cares about the people in America.

Mr. Doug Casey who is oftentimes on YouTube - I've actually met him personally - tip of the hat to you Doug, I am big fan, but it's also really cool that I got to meet you at one point. He has described Trump as a "Cultural Conservative" insofar as Trump likes America. He likes Americana; he wants America to be America. I kind of think of Anutin in a similar vein, and I am not in an espouser of all things Trump. If you haven't picked that up, I disagree with things that Trump does, just as I have disagreed with things Mr. Anutin has done, but overall I like a leader of a country that, oh I don't know, actually likes the country and actually likes the people of the country, and that's the vibe I've always kind of gotten from Mr. Anutin out here. That said, quoting further: "Anutin was banned from politics for 5 years after being a Board Member of the Thai Rak Thai party, which was dissolved in 2006." Yeah, it is important to point that out. His background was in that other faction that would later become sort of a political rival. I think if anything, it's sort of like how even I and Mr. Anutin and Bhumjaithai voted for Ms. Paetongtarn not 4 months ago in the no-confidence vote, only to turn around and have a real problems with the things that happened in the intervening months because of their actions later, or at least her actions later. It's a similar thing. I think, at the end of the day, what I am trying to say is there seems to be at least some level of personal principal involved in this stuff. That said, quoting further: "After his ban was lifted in 2012, he succeeded his father as the leader of Bhumjaithai. During Gen. Prayut Chan-o-Cha's Government, Anutin served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health amidst the Covid-19 pandemic." And I was critical of him at various stages during Covid-19. But on one point I will take my hat off to Mr. Anutin day and night, because when it hit the fan with the issue of mandatory vaccinations - especially for inbound travellers - he made the reasonable call and he said look we are not going to mandate this for everybody. There are now enough vaccinations out there where the people that want it can get it - I did the videos on that at the time - and he didn't make a needless mandate to be able to come into Thailand that you had to be vaccinated. And that is something that I really am appreciative of because he made that call as the Minister of Public Health at a time when arguably it wasn't all that popular. There was a lot of popular sentiment going a different way. In my opinion, there was frankly a lot of hysteria that rose up along that whole issue of the pandemic and everything. We now know in retrospect a lot of this was nonsense and it was frankly, it was bad. Someone I am a big admirer of who was a veteran of a really terrible battle, I'm not going to get much further, he's an American guy, he's a Marine, retired Marine I should say, and somebody one time asked him about how this battle was, it was really terrible. And he just looked at him and said "it was bad, it was really bad." He wasn't trying to be ostentatious or providing flowery language of it, but it was bad. The point I am making about COVID is however you want to view it, the response was at best an exaggeration, and it led to a lot of bad, really bad outcomes. I respected Mr. Anutin for his position in saying "hey, we are not going to mandate this now that people have the option of getting their own treatment taken care of", and he didn't have to do that, and that was a reasonable call to make under very trying circumstances. I think back to the poem If by Rudyard Kipling, "if you can keep your head when those about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you". I kind of think of him like that under that scenario where he made the right call there. That was when I really started taking a look at him as somebody I had some level of respect for in politics, because that was a reasonable decision to make. That said, quoting further: "Recently, in the Government of Srettha Thavisin and Paetongtarn Shinawatra, he held the position of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior before resigning." Yeah, well resigning after they were trying to bully him out of the Interior Ministry which it looks to me so that they could put in their own guy who would then pack the apparatus of the election machinery which the Interior Ministry has a major role in supporting elections here in Thailand, and we ended up with this guy Phumtham Wechayachai going into the Interior Ministry, also became the acting Prime Minister and this guy has a past as a Communist. And this guy then went ahead and did things that in my opinion looked a lot like standard Bolshevik operating procedure by going in and trying to in my opinion, try to pack the apparatus of the Ministry of Interior most notably the Department of Provincial Administration - I have talked about that in other videos - and also pack in a bunch of their sort of minions, operators, I don't know what to call it to go ahead and start administering the elections. Then later on, Mr. Phumtham tried to, based on erroneous legal thinking tried to go ahead and dissolve the House preemptively, I would presume, in order to then have an election that would be administered by their own people. Now if that's not kind of Bolshevik style moves, you haven't studied Russian history, that's all I have to say, that's what it looked like to me, okay and I'm a layman and whatever, but just look at the facts and look at the timeline of it, okay. And again, that said going back, Mr. Anutin, he left the Coalition along with Bhumjaithai in the aftermath of the phone call to Hun Sen which was later found to be grounds for the Constitutional Court dismissing Ms. Paetongtarn, removing her from office, which I think was the correct move especially when you listen to the content of the tape. You really can't have a leader who is doing that kind of thing. I'll just put it that way.  

That said, one thing I like about Mr. Anutin, as well is he seems to be a pragmatic guy. He does not also seem to hold a lot of political grudges, and I think that is what we need. I thought actually about making, so the thumbnail - Meet the New Boss, not same, same as the Old Boss - that's an old sort of Soviet trope, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". I actually thought about using a clip for the thumbnail from the film The Death of Stalin with Steve Buscemi which anybody that has not seen that movie, go check it out: The Death of Stalin, it's great. It's a dark comedy and it's very good, it's very funny. The point I was trying to make by having that as the thumbnail was there is a scene in there where Steve Buscemi is talking to Kaganovich and he is basically saying, "we can finally turn the corner." Well that's what I was thinking of when I read the following video. Quoting directly: New Thai PM: No favours, no persecution. Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, And again going back to what I was saying here, there is a scene in there where Buscemi is playing Khrushchev and he's talking to Kaganovich; they are in kind of a faction together on the Polit Bureau. It is after Beria has been executed, and this is why I didn't use it as a thumbnail. It's a dark comedy but it does reflect real history, and look the history of the Soviet Union is pretty dark stuff especially in the immediate aftermath of the death of Stalin where Baria has been executed and then Khrushchev says to Kaganovich, "now we can finally turn a corner," and when you know the history, there's a speech that Khrushchev gave right after the whole Stalin era where it was like the thaw began in the Soviet Union where the purges ended and all of this stuff. The point I'm trying to make here is, Thailand's politics is not nearly that dark and not nearly that dire but as I have discussed in other videos, there seems to be something of a Bolshevist kind of overtone to the past few months, so I thought about that movie quite a little bit in recent days. That said, I like that the tone Mr. Anutin is taking coming in is not one of retaliation. So quoting directly: "Prime Minister designate Anutin Charnvirakul has vowed "no retaliation" against opponents as he pledged transparency and rule of law under his administration. Mr. Anutin was speaking late on Friday after securing Parliamentary support to become Thailand's 32nd Prime Minister. He thanked MPs, including those from the opposition People's Party and others who voted for or against him, stressing the need for unity in moving the country forward." Yeah, and this is really good to hear. Quoting further, quote: "I want everything to end on good terms so we can work together for the people and the nation. If we unite, we can achieve the goals and recover opportunities we have lost," Mr. Anutin said. Quoting further: "Addressing opposition concerns over the Memorandum of Agreement - signed with the People's Party (that is PP) in exchange for the Party's vote in the Prime Ministerial election in Parliament - particularly clause 4, which binds him not to see a majority government before dissolving Parliament within four months, Mr. Anutin said, quote: "Everything was agreed upon with good intentions. Let's not provoke more conflict. I am known for avoiding disputes and reconciling former rivals, and I want to keep that quality." Yeah, actually if you look at his history and things, he actually is. He is quite a pragmatic guy; I've got to give him credit for that. Quoting further: "I will not take revenge. We must enforce the law fairly -- no favours, no persecution," he said. On Tuesdays Supreme Court ruling in the "14th floor" trial involving former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the formation of a Cabinet and the "Khao Kradong" land dispute in which his Bhumjaithai Party is embroiled, Mr. Anutin said the law will decide the outcomes." Frankly, that is what has been happening here recently. We have just been following Constitutional and Parliamentary procedure, and it has gotten us to the outcomes it has gotten us to and frankly, I think it is moving in a good direction over all. Quoting further, from another article, again in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, New Thai PM Anutin unveils key Cabinet picks. "Prime Minister-elect Anutin Charnvirakul on Saturday gave the public its first glimpse of three non-MPs who will take up top Ministry positions in his Cabinet. The line-up assembled at Bhumjaithai Party headquarters comprised Sihasak Phuangketkeow, former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former ambassador to the United Kingdom; Ekniti Nitithanprapas, direct General of the Treasury Department; and Auttapol Rerkpiboon, former CEO of PTT Public Company Limited." Quoting further: "Mr. Anutin introduced each individual to the press and discussed their likely Ministerial roles. Quote: "We don't have much time. Once we are sworn in, we want to hit the ground running," he said. On the question of reviving the Khon La Khrueng co-payment program, Mr. Anutin said: "Anything is possible if it is beneficial and reflects the will of the people." Quoting further: "We are not the kind of Government that dismisses good ideas just because they weren't ours. We won't allow the public to suffer for the sake of political point-scoring," he said." Now, a couple of things here: good and bad, pro and con on the last Government. I am curious if one of the big things he is commenting on or making an innuendo to with regard to again, quoting directly: "We are not the kind of Government that dismisses good ideas just because they weren't ours." I have to think that is a reference at least obliquely, to Cannabis. As I have discussed at length in a number of other videos, the “Core Coalition” Party of the last Coalition and then the core, whatever you want to call it or the “Rump Coalition” Pheu Thai in my mind, made huge errors on Cannabis Policy both politically because it backfired on them in so many ways, and also legally, because they made a bunch of arbitrary and capricious changes to people who were already licensed to run their businesses, as I have discussed at length. I mean for whatever reason, and I think it was primarily the brainchild of one person, didn't like the Cannabis thing and it was viewed as a political win for Bhumjaithai which arguably it was. People also forget Bhumjaithai brought us ride hailing apps here in Thailand too; it is important to point that out sometimes as well. But okay, so they won some political points from the electorate by legalizing that. It was bad policy to reverse it basically just on that alone; so I think it's important to bring that up. 

Now that said, what I am hoping and Mr. Anutin, if you are listening, I have heard that you are fluent in English, and if you are listening, tip of the hat to you on becoming the new PM, but one thing that I have been very vocal, I am not a fan of Mr. Phumtham but he did take steps to legalize poker here in Thailand, and that is something that I do think could be broadly beneficial here in Thailand from across all segments of the socioeconomic strata, if it is brought in correctly. To allow poker tournaments - even at small venues like bars and restaurants and things - where you can put something like that on, not unlike billiards that we already have here in Thailand, I think that could be a good thing. I know when you were still Interior Minister you made some moves regarding the possibility of cards and things like that. Now we have seen the moves that Mr. Phumtham made while he was Interior Minister on the issue of Poker; maybe we should think about taking that one up as something that the prior crew put in that is something good and not to sort of just dismiss it out of hand just because they did it. 

That said, a couple of things off the top of my head that I think could be dismissed from the prior Government. One is OECD, and my hope is and I understand these things have to be reviewed, but in much the same vein as Mr. Trump immediately coming into office and rejecting OECD out of hand, citing it as a threat to American National sovereignty as it creates extra-territorial jurisdiction especially as it pertains to tax policy within the United States, I am hoping maybe a page could be taken out of that book when looking at that issue from the standpoint of is the OECD in the best interest of Thailand? And let's be real clear here, if it is not already clear from my multitude of videos, I don't think it is a good thing for Thailand. I think it directly, directly threatens Thai Sovereignty, and I think it can have a bad outcome, as we have seen with regard to how this impacts the expat community. And let's be clear, the expat community contributes a lot to Thailand. I am not saying they contribute so much that they should be controlling insofar as how we view policy, but they bring in a lot of money, especially the retirees. And all the banking issues that we have seen, and the tax issues that we have seen, that in my opinion are largely the result of the attempt to execute World Economic Forum policy, as well as policy of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development here in Thailand, to my mind have done nothing good for Thailand, and meanwhile are actually causing sectors like the expat community to be undermined which could result in a negative financial impact upon Thailand, as we see for example capital maybe leaving the country, and we see retirees maybe saying "hey maybe I'm going to go someplace else." Again Banking as well. This issue of "oh, you can't transfer money, more than 50,000 Baht on a digital banking app. Who is that helping? What is being helped by that? Again I keep thinking of the Soviets or something, where they just say "oh you can't move that much money because we say so. You could be a scammer." Again communal punishment. It's the hallmark of totalitarian regimes. "We have scammers; therefore you can't move more than 50,000 Baht." It's going to cause the velocity of money here in Thailand to decrease; it's going to cause the liquidity in Thailand to decrease and that could have an overall very negative impact on the Thai economy. So in terms of that, maybe that one's a good idea to think about throwing out. 

Meanwhile, as we have discussed in other videos, the Destination Thailand Visa. I don't know what to do with that thing. I have discussed it at length in other videos; I thought it was bad policy; it was entirely a brainchild of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, back when the Bhumjaithai Party was coalition with the Pheu Thai Party, and there seemed to be no consensus that was garnered internally here in Thailand for that Visa which has resulted in really bad outcomes for not only folks that went and detrimentally relied on getting the Visa, but it has also had a negative impact on if you want to call it Brand Thailand, because of the perceived negative outcome that has occurred to the people that went and got that Visa. So maybe that's another thing to think about. And I am not going to say I know what the right decision is on the Destination Thailand Visa, but long story short, I think all of this could be looked at, and I am very hopeful for positive outcomes in the upcoming Administration, and we will certainly be keeping people updated on this channel as the situation evolves.