Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "bear traps" in Thailand. What are we talking about with respect to “bear traps”? Well, let me be clear, I am not saying anybody is intentionally setting bear traps for foreigners to walk into and have their legs chopped off or something, no. What I am talking about, I am not even saying that anybody in Thailand is intentionally setting anyone up in Thailand to fail. What I am talking about is, I have been here 15 years, circumstances arise where things will for even a relatively prolonged period of time look very appealing, and let me put some context on this. So for example, there was a time, I remember it quite well when it was very easy for lack of a better term to live in Thailand in perpetual Tourist Visa status or for that matter just perpetual overstay; just came into Thailand and just went into overstay and the worst case scenario is if you got caught in overstay, yeah they would detain you for a little bit and then they’d deport you and you just paid 20,000 Baht. Well then in came the Blacklist and people didn't believe it; they didn't believe it was a big deal; they didn't believe Thailand was getting serious about overstay and a lot of people that had been on prolonged overstay, we did videos on this, people that had been thousands of days in Thailand on overstay, basically made a life here and if they had kind of seen the "bear trap" for what it was, and seen at the time and there was a lot of information out there about the proposed Blacklist and the new rules on overstay, they could have just done a border run, gotten out of the country, got a new Visa come back and be done with it. But people can get complacent and they presume that things are as they are and will always be that way and then they are in a big "bear trap" and it's a real problem. I am not really hesitating much to use that term albeit as a metaphor because that is how it will feel if you get caught up in something like that. I mean I am sure people that were on prolonged overstay that were just used to living their lives here, I am pretty sure they are not real happy now that they are essentially barred for life from coming to Thailand. I don't know but I would presume that. 

"Bear Traps" I kind of see right now, one thing a lot of folks have been talking to us about Cannabis for example. They sort of see the rather fluid situation, they are kind of viewing it as “Well, everything is open”, look there is stuff going on in the background there; there are regulations coming down; there are going to be laws on this, it is not going to be exactly how you think it's going to be. I am not saying I know how everything is going to play out but I can definitely see the makings of a "bear trap" in that particular area. 

Another big one is things like work authorization. I have seen a lot of folks here recently appear to be very cavalier about work authorization. I am here to tell you Immigration and the Labour Department takes work authorization quite seriously and when they do make a problem for somebody on work authorization, it can have profound ramifications including but not limited to deportation and blacklisting from Thailand.

The point I'm trying to make in this video, l am not saying any specific thing, any specific fact pattern is going to lead to a bad situation, what I am saying is there are circumstances where a seemingly easy scenario in Thailand can be deceptively problematic in a long-term context.