Transcript of paper video: 

As those who have watched my channel with any sort of frequency may well know, I'm not the biggest fan of the so-called Digital Wallet Scheme mostly for the reason – well, I'm not a Keynesianist or a monetarist - I don't like injecting money by the Government into the system. We are better off being taxed less by the Government, being able to do more business than having them scrape a bunch of wealth off and then give us back our own money which is basically what it amounts to or redistributes it to the people who didn't make the money in the first place. I do understand that there are times when people are going through hard times and economic distress and need help, but most of the time these things basically are just political boondoggles for politicians to try to buy votes or curry favour with the electorate. That said, I've been thinking about it, it's one of those sorts of adages that say "if you are going to say a plan is bad, do you have an alternative?" Well maybe I do. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thai Government seeks to prevent Social Security Fund collapse. So, for a little bit of insight and perspective, Thailand does have a Social Security Fund. Anybody that is doing their own business in Thailand, maintains their own Work Permit as a foreigner here, will be well aware of this as you have to make contributions to your employees’ Social Security Fund. But long story short, this is one of those things that was sort of adopted from the West that I think Thailand would have just been better off not having it at all because quite honestly it looks to me like oftentimes it is more trouble than it's worth. 

That said, quoting directly from Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com: "Labour Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn on Sunday pledged to explore measures to prevent a potential collapse of the Social Security Fund (SSF) a decade from now as a result of insufficient funding. According to the Thailand Development Research Institute and the International Labour Organization (ILO), the SSF currently has 2.6 trillion Baht and is expected to grow to at least 4 trillion by 2034. However, the fund’s growth does not mean to sustainable because Thailand is facing a shrinking work force of people who can contribute to the fund and an aging population problem." FYI, the United States has the exact same issue so you're in the same boat; cold comfort, I'm sure. 

Now that said, we've had all this talk about expending literally a half a trillion Baht from the Budget or presumably the country goes into further debt in order to come up with these funds to create these Digital Wallet Tokens which by the way I have gone all into that analysis but it's not real money. I don't even understand how the loan works, if the people that are ultimately getting the money don't actually get the money. What are they getting? Where does the money go? 

That being said, if you have got half a trillion baht on hand, and you're worried about the future of the Social Security Fund and the problems that would arise from that Fund collapsing, wouldn't it be a pretty good idea to maybe look at using those funds instead for propping up the Social Security Fund which people already paid into and there are also people who are working. I also have to question why is the thing collapsing because it is my understanding there were only death benefits being paid out for like the first decade. Everybody was just paying in in the hopes of creating a big pot of capital, getting interest and money off of that pot of capital and paying it back out to people. But now they are saying it is doomed to collapse. Well where is all the money? I mean that is a good question. What did you do with it? Are you spending it on Administration rather than spending it on paying out? Meanwhile though, we have this half a trillion. Maybe think, I am not saying this is the answer though, but if we are thinking about expending half a trillion Baht and the issue is the welfare of the common Thai, wouldn't this be a logical place to at least look?