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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing all this digital totalitarianism and the constantly vaunted middle-income trap that Thailand needs to constantly worry about falling into. I'm just going to jump in here. Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: World Bank calls for Thai economic restructuring. Which first of all, I'm really tired of all of these foreign organizations, globalist, supranational, whatever you want to call them, coming in here and constantly telling Thailand how they need to do everything differently. Meanwhile, Thailand is fine; Thailand has maintained her own sovereignty through the colonialism period, maintained her own interest through the Cold War and has built up a pretty sizable, independent, autonomous economy and meanwhile it constantly has to hear all of this stuff from these foreigners wanting to tell Thailand how to do everything.

Quoting directly: "The World Bank has urged Thailand to "play a new game", breaking free from the middle-income trap to unlock new growth engines." So first of all, this whole thing of a "middle-income" trap, I just think it's a big buzz word which is just trying to induce Thailand to do things, mostly go into more debt, raise more taxes so they can extract wealth out of the population on the basis that they are going to make us more prosperous and somehow Thailand is being left behind. You also see the disingenuousness of this in how they frame it as like some kind of race. Thailand is in some kind of race against other countries in terms of her economy; it's just nonsense. Quoting further: "Thailand must "dare to play a new game" if it wants to escape the middle-income trap and achieve high income status by 2037." So we have got to do this for 12 years to be considered high income. Meanwhile, the foreigners have no problem coming in here and unduly trying to steal the highest end Thai jobs as I have discussed in other videos. Where are these foreign countries, if they want to save Thailand from the middle-income trap, assisting Thailand in keeping foreigners from coming in here and posing as professionals, even though it's a complete violation of the restricted occupations here in Thailand. Where is the concern for that when we talk about the middle-income trap? Oh no, no no, we don't care about saving professional jobs for the Thais, no, we want to impose totalitarian control. That will ease the middle-income trap and put Thailand into a bunch of debt too. That'll help with the middle-income trap. Quoting further: "noted the global lender, calling for bold structural reforms, smarter investment in human capital, and a new economic model centred on innovation and competitiveness." Again, says the representative from the increasingly moribund Western economies that don't know how to do anything but do each other's laundry and push around a bunch of paperwork on an ever-increasing, exponentially exploding, debt. They are coming over here to tell Thailand how to do things? Quoting further: "Speaking at the "Thailand Economic Outlook 2026" seminar, Melinda Good," - so her name is Good. It's like they send in somebody named Good - "division director for Thailand and Myanmar at the World Bank, said the nation's traditional growth engines, once hailed as transforming Thailand from a low-income agrarian economy into an upper middle-income nation within a generation, have stalled for more than a decade." - says foreigner - Quoting further: "She said Thailand's economy has struggled to sustain strong growth in recent years, with GDP expanding by only around 2% in 2025," - well let's talk GDP. It's a flawed metric; it only measures that which is quantified in bank credit terms. It doesn't in any way study or scrutinize the "informal" or "black economy", which they stopped using those terms I've noticed in the mainstream press ever since I made some videos excoriating it some six or eight weeks ago, because it is nonsense. Thailand has an economy. I'm tired of this "oh, informal economy is bad". It's the black market; it's the gray market. No, it's the economy. People pay cash on the barrel for goods and services. That's the way it has worked primarily up until about the last 20 years since we have had all this digital transactions, credit-based transactions, micro credit-based transactions, being attempted to be imposed upon all of these countries especially Thailand in earnest in the last 20 years. Up to that point, the notion of walking in some place and buying something with cash was normal. They have tried to de-normalize that. They have tried to make that look like that's a bad thing, so that they can roll out this totalitarian digital nonsense and start tracking and tracing the whole economy. The funny thing about this is, the more the economy they're able to track and trace through digitization, they'll claim it's an increase in GDP and then claim victory over it even though all they are doing is tabulating economic activity that was already there to begin with. That's the other interesting side of all of this stuff. "Expanding by only around 2% in 2025, well below the 5% annual rate needed to achieve high-income status by 2037." 

Well first of all, who says? Who says we need to do 12 more years at 5%? By the way that is 60% in the aggregate, that's an insane growth rate. Thailand is a developed, sophisticated economy. That's the first misnomer here. We are not some third-party tin pot - I was about to use a bad word - but we are not some hole-in-the-wall country out here, okay? That's the first thing to keep in mind. The other thing to keep in mind, what are the Western GDPs looking like right now? Is anybody boasting a 2% GDP anywhere in the West, the US, anywhere? And if they are, I would love to see the numbers. Because again, we've seen all kinds of things happen in the Bureau of Labour statistics back in the United States, layoffs over there. Turns out, "oh yeah, we front loaded the jobs report, so therefore that's not what we said it was." All kinds of chicanery. These metrics are flawed to begin with. As I said, GDP is a metric of only that part of the economy that is basically quantifiable in terms of bank credit. Then on top of that, they are talking about how Thailand needs to worry about its 2% growth rate from a bunch of countries who collectively couldn't have the growth rate to put together a backyard barbecue when compared to anything going on out here in East Asia. So come on, give me a break. Quoting further: "Despite these challenges, the World Bank still believes Thailand has significant potential to regain momentum. Ms. Good urged the country to capitalize on its existing strengths, including a strategic location in Southeast Asia," - yeah, we get it. We are located in the middle of ASEAN. That's your big tip? Use your location. Okay. Quoting further: "Robust digital infrastructure." Yeah right, we need more of that. So we need more of capping the amount of money people can transfer on their digital accounts; we need more Orwellian biometric readings to access your own money; we need more lines around the block to get in and try to access "frozen accounts" which were "frozen" with no due process based on some nonsense about mule accounts or whatever buzzword they came up with yesterday, and we need more of that. Really? That is going to lead to dynamic, that robust digital infrastructure which we were all told was going to make things more convenient, faster and what is the result? Basically liquidity is seizing up; we are seeing the velocity of money seizing up, it's less convenient, and now you are having to go in and go through all sorts of neo-soviet steps to get your own money out of the banks. Yeah, thanks a lot for the tip, World Bank. I may put up the "sell crazy someplace else, we are all stocked up here" meme from As Good As It Gets for the thumbnail for this video because that is kind of how I feel when I am hearing all this robust digital infrastructure nonsense. We've had robust digital infrastructure about 6 weeks now. It is doing no good for Thailand, both on the individual level as well as on the macro level. Quoting further: "and a strong global reputation for quality products, channeling these advantages into five key future industries: digital services," - notice over and over again throughout this article, digital, digital, digital, digital. Is that a coincidence and is it a coincidence that all of this digitization has done nothing but add red tape to every little thing anybody used to be able to do as a matter of course, to just get on with their life here in Thailand. Quoting further: "Digital services, advanced and green manufacturing." Yeah, I love "green", whatever that means. Quoting further: "Agribusiness ("Kitchen of the World") - okay, - "sustainable and wellness tourism and the creative economy." So okay a bunch of "content creators" over here not really adding very much and just throwing in their two cents about how Thailand works oftentimes to the detriment of the Brand Thailand as well as wellness tourism." What does that mean? We already have wellness tourism. There are all kinds, Thailand is one of the greatest places on Earth for medicine in terms of the medical profession. We've got plenty of that. That's a big innovation? That's a big tip? Come on. Quoting further: "To unlock these growth engines, she said Thailand must focus on three versions of competitiveness:" - okay what are those? - "green" - okay, the colour green? What the hell does that even mean? Green. Just per se green - "digital," - so just digital? Yeah, again notice throughout this whole article, digital, digital, digital. Chain yourself to the grid; that's going to bring economic prosperity - "and services." So just these three words. What is it Lenin said? We shall win by slogans. Green, Digital and Services. Thailand already does services, and by the way, we turned the US after the giant sucking sound to quote Perot in the aftermath of the passage of NAFTA, we turned the US into a "service economy". How's that working out for everybody over there? Are the balance of payments going our way? Is the balance of trade going our way ever since we went to a services economy, everybody doing each other's laundry? And this is the big plan for Thailand: the colour green, digital everything, so they can track and trace everything and then go to a service economy, which means what? Hollow out our manufacturing base the way they did it back in the US? Is that the big plan? Because it didn't work out so well for everybody. It's one of the big reasons I live here, because I saw the demographic and economic trends some 20 years ago, and to my mind, especially after I discovered Thailand, this was a pretty good place because it was going against all of those trends. And by the way, Thailand has turned out to be better off for it. 

So I have got to be honest with you, green, digital, and services might be things for Thailand to inherently avoid moving forward. There might be certain instances where it might be the right thing to do that, but probably the default position should be against such notions. That said, quoting further: "Ms. Good said Thailand's structural transformation has been frozen for more than a decade, with the share of agricultural employment remaining high and the economy yet to transition meaningfully towards high-value manufacturing or technology driven farming." Where are either of those in the American economy? What in the heck are Americans manufacturing at this point? This is the kind of advice that's given to a country to not gain those attributes okay. Again, they are haranguing Thailand for a 2% growth rate, hailing from a country that can't get to that number in their own right. Quoting further: “Quote: Investment in flood management, water management and sustainable agriculture is just as crucial." Well forget the words sustainable which is another one of these buzzwords, but yeah flood management, water management. Do you know who is pretty good at that? The Thais themselves. They know how to do flood management and stuff. They have a mega city in a flood zone. They can figure it out. Quoting further: "For instance, Thailand's green water management initiatives in the Eastern Economic Corridor will yield long-term benefits for both sustainability and investment." How and why? 

These platitudinous statements are just made apropos of nothing. They don't explain why any of that is going to happen. It's just, oh, it's green, therefore it's the colour green, it's good!" Whatever. Quoting further: "Ms. Good said Thailand's investment in research and development and education for future-ready skills remains far below that of economies that have successfully escaped the middle-income trap, such as South Korea." Okay. South Korea went a different way. South Korea has got 27,000 American troops sitting inside of its country. It's got all kinds of different attributes to Thailand. It's not the pure and perfect model, and then they go on to do the thing that they always love to do to Thailand, quoting further: "or rapidly advancing peers like Vietnam." They're constantly putting Vietnam out there as something emulate or, ‘Vietnam's going to beat you’. It's not a race, okay? I like the way Thailand is. We don't need to be running around out there, hustling around for green, digital and services per se, because those are the goal. It's nonsense. Quoting further: "Thailand already has many tools in place -- from widespread mobile broadband and PromptPay to the Thai ID system and growing foreign direct investment in data centres." Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily just classify those as all just net positives, okay. I like the idea of foreign investment into Thailand's IT infrastructure in the form of data centres, but I have no illusions as to what those are. Those are effectively dated gatherings tools in a more Orwellian manner, monitor, track and trace all their transactions. Meanwhile, PromptPay and the Thai ID system in and of themselves, are some net benefit? They are tools, but again, our economy was working fine before all this digital stuff was brought in. If anything it has just added red tape, as has been evidenced by all of the anecdotal evidence, we have been hearing in the last 2 months. Quoting further: "However, while Thais are highly connected digitally, only about 5% possess intermediate level digital skills." What the hell is an "intermediate level digital skill"? 

Again, just more buzz words, more nonsense, more "you need to go into more debt, you need to put in more digital tracking and tracing, you need more totalitarianism, or you'll forever be in the middle-income trap", whatever that means. And again, meanwhile they don't particularly care about saving Thailand's professional jobs or anything from foreign intrusion into that, which none of these other countries, the US included, allows foreigners into the professions, because that's the way it works in those countries. That said, I don't know exactly how this stuff is going to play out but we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel, as the situation evolves.