Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing data centers in Thailand. I first thought of making this video actually after I saw a recent Tweet over on X on Twitter and it's under toldyou, the handle is @CindyontheBay. "If you're wondering what all these DATA Centers are for, and then you look below and it says: Yes, data centers are essential infrastructure for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). They serve as the foundational IT backbone for hosting, processing, and securing digital currency transactions." Now this is apparently from Google and Microsoft. That's where this Tweet comes from. So that gave me some pause, and I started doing a little research and it brought me over to the Bank of Thailand, BOT, bot.or.th, under the headline: The Rise (and Risk) of Data Center: Implications and Consequences to Thai Economy. 

Just as a preface here, I may be naïve. I thought these data centers pertained to AI, pertained to creating new software creating, new technological innovations, but apparently the main function of these things is a lot of social credit type tracking, and it's apparently supposed to sort of fit into a Central Bank Digital Currency framework. Now if you recall, I've done videos since going back into August of 2023 because I was very concerned about what was called the Digital Wallet. They came along and said, "oh we're going to do this Digital Wallet; we want the country to go into an extra 20% debt-to-GDP ratio in order to pay for it", which at the time people were sitting around going, myself included, "what do you need all this money for?" It appears, I think in retrospect, they were probably going to use it to build these type of data centers or something akin to it, or maybe just funnel it to places it shouldn't have gone anyway; I don't know. But it ended up all kind of dying on the vine because Thais, myself included again were looking at it like, wait a minute, this so-called Digital Money can be tracked and traced anywhere; it can only be spent on certain goods and services; it has a proximity, you can't use it past a certain radius around your home, and it can be turned on and off, and it can have an expiration date as well. I mean that is not money, and not only that, that is a control system of the most complex magnitude you can think of. I mean that is a control system that heretofore has never existed on the face of the Earth. To say; it almost brings up analogies to certain biblical passages - I mean I'm thinking the so-called mark of the beast and things, that's not hyperbole. This is a kind of technology that is designed to track and trace what everybody buys, sells and does. 

And again, the Tweet initially got my hackles up but then I go over here to this article from BOT. Quoting directly under the Abstract: "Data Centers serve as the backbone of digital economy by providing storage." - now that I thought was interesting, because again the notion of a backbone, that's what this Tweet over here said. "Data Centers are essential infrastructure for CBDC. They serve as the foundational IT backbone." When you start hearing similar phraseology over different media and different outputs - especially in these white paper type things that come from Central Banks or these International organizations like the World Economic Forum - that say things like "you'll own nothing and be happy" it's time to start looking deeper. So when they say the backbone of this, even though this whole thing from the BOT doesn't exactly come out say anything about CBDC, again it causes me to start looking deeper. 

That said, quoting again: "Data Centers serve as the backbone of the digital economy" - well what is the digital economy going to look like? Again, the Digital Wallet presumably would have been part and parcel with that - quoting further: "by providing storage, computing, and networking infrastructure." - and this is the key. So all this money is going into these things, but this is the Bank of Thailand saying this – Quote: "While not directly generating substantial economic gains," - so what are we doing it for. And I come back to the old Digital Wallet because that was the con that they tried to sell us then that this was going to be such a benefit to the economy. How? It decreases the velocity of money; it decreases real liquidity in the actual economy. I'm not talking about the hyper financialized GDP metric monocultural economy that sort of exists as an overlay over the real Thai economy that runs on cash, cash transactions, and cash equivalents, sort of M2 and M3 money supply type stuff. No, no, we're talking about this digital penned-in economy. Okay, but again right here it says it does not directly have any economic gain. So why are we building these things? What good is this, other than surveillance of all of us? For what? - Quoting further: "their true value lies in enabling Thailand's economic growth through government digitization," - because yeah, because more efficient government always leads to economic growth! I keep coming back to Reagan. The late great Ronald Reagan. "Government is not solution to our problems; Government is the problem."

The best thing about Thailand's economy when I got here 18 years ago, and the thing I am terrified it is going to lose is that resilience, that resilience and their laissez-faire real economy. Thais can just do business. I know it's different for foreigners; I'm not talking about that right now. But Thais can just get up and go do business and they can move money around to that effect. That is being hemmed in; that is being tightened up. I have a number of videos I'm making contemporaneously with this one talking about all these new restrictions on banking that they're talking about. Again to what end? The Data Centers don't make us any money. They are there for governmental digitization, to have an impact on the economy, i.e. overreach into the free market. - Quoting further: "boosting domestic business productivity" - well again they say it won't have substantial economic gains, but it will boost domestic business productivity. How? If it has no economic gains, how does it boost productivity? And by the way I have been dealing with these digital systems now for a little while now - especially in a US immigration context, but now more of our Thai legal staff are dealing with these digital platforms here in Thailand, with regard to domestic matters filing stuff online and things - it hasn't made anything easier. If anything, it's made things harder. The current Work Permit system is more difficult to deal with now that they have this digital platform in between you and the actual bureaucracy which is apparently some private organization that is even less responsive than the government was. How is this adding value? - That said, quoting further: "and preparing the nation for the future of high-tech Industries. Therefore, promoting the continued use of Data Centers for these purposes is critical in propelling Thailand’s digital transformation." 

Does Thailand really want or need a digital transformation? And will it be good? When they say themselves that there won't be substantial economic benefit. And then they go on to say, well basically what's going to happen is the government is going to have more ability to nose in on your private dealings. Who's benefiting out of any of this? I don't see where these benefits are coming from. It's really time to seriously question whether we need any of this in Thailand because quite frankly, the policies that were here when I got here, and it primarily operated up until roughly past 3 to 5 years depending on what you're looking at, were working, and now it's not. And I just don't see where is the benefit to this country from all of this overreach, nanny-mindering, nitpickity nonsense from a bunch of bankers who by the way, we are their customers. They are not our overlords because they are in banking. That's ridiculous. So all of this sort of remains to be seen how it's going to play out. We will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.