Transcript of the above video: 

So there is this rating agency out there called Fitch. I've mentioned them now in a couple of different videos going back into this past summer. There was an article in the Bangkok Post; it was written in a very weird way. Basically, it said, "oh the Fitch rating agencies think that Thailand may have some issues in their banking sectors," something of this nature. I'll put the video links in the description below so you can see my full analysis. But when you read to the end, it actually said at the end, within the article itself that well actually the banks don't have any problems. So it was very circular and it was all coming out at a time where Thailand was going through some political turbulence, and it's my opinion that there were influences outside of Thailand who were attempting to make things worse financially for Thailand, essentially try to trigger a sort of 1997-like event so that Thailand would be sort of economically financially on our back and then these outside foreign interests could benefit from it. And this was all happening while politically in the foreground, we were having all this turbulence associated with the border. We were also having turbulence associated with, oh I don't know, the fact that our prior acting Prime Minister, who was a member of the Communist Party of Thailand at one point, had decided to try to go ahead and dissolve the House without legal authority to do so which was also kind of causing some turbulence at the time. But all during this, Fitch decides, and the Bangkok Post puts out an article, that Thailand's banking system might be shaky, was basically the crux of the article, or that was the idea that I think was being put forth, when you read through it and they had to actually sort of cover their bases on what they were saying, you saw that no there is really actually not an issue, that the D-SIB banks here in Thailand are actually quite solid. But they were trying to kind of stir up a storm in a tea cup I think and Fitch was involved with that. And I brought it up at the time and I referenced The Big Short and the thumbnail that Fitch was one of the rating agencies when you go back to the great financial crisis or sometimes referred to as the Lehman crisis, they were the ones that were just rating things well; let's just say there were just aspersions cast that they were sort of rating things well, because it was in their interest to continue to get the work rating things is basically the gist of it. I went into all of this in the prior video; again I'll reference it; I'll put a link in the description below.

In any event, it looks like we're back, or it looks like Fitch is back, and really, I am asking a genuine question at this point, does Fitch have some kind of problem with Thailand? thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Vietnam surges ahead as Chinese tourist flock in while Thailand faces troubling signs for its tourism industry. So first off, it's kind of a, and I don't think Pattaya Mail is being disingenuous in their reporting here, let me be clear, but there does seem to be this trend or theme of one, constantly comparing Thailand to other jurisdictions in ASEAN as if there is a one-to-one comparison. Not always the case. And also there seems to constantly, at least in last like 10 years I remember living here, there has been this sort of ongoing narrative of "oh Vietnam is surging ahead; it's going to take Thailand's place, they're going to eat Thailand's lunch when it comes to tourism etc." A couple of things there. One, the numbers, even within this article, and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out Pattaya Mail and read it for yourself, but they said Vietnam is like projected to have 17 million tourists this year. Well, Thailand did double that last year as I recall. I'm not saying we might not have a down year, but again, one, the numbers just aren't quite there to be like, "oh my gosh, Thailand had better watch out." By any metric, I think this year is going to be a low high season for a variety of different reasons. The machinations of the prior government didn't help especially on the topic of Cannabis because it scared off a lot of the "green season" tourists who stay here during low season because they want to be here because the legality of Cannabis as well as other things; I think that put a damper on the tourism numbers. And look, we're going through a period of official national state mourning here with the loss of her late Majesty the Queen Mother. That is going to have an impact on the overall mood of things here in Thailand which I think can have a concomitant effect on tourism generally. Frankly, I think it was going to be a low high season no matter how we cut it going into this year, because on top of everything else the international economy is not in the greatest of shape either. So the standard tourists that we were used to getting are not coming in here quite in the numbers that we are used to seeing them. 

Now, when it comes to the Chinese, yeah there has been a lowering of numbers regarding that. Anutin recently was talking to Xi. Now that casinos appear to be completely off the table, the Chinese, it looks like we are probably going to see more of those tourists coming in. But one other non-one-to-one comparison between Vietnam and Thailand is this. Vietnam borders China. Thailand doesn’t so anytime they bring up Chinese tourists, I always find it a little bit disingenuous because it's like, "well what are you counting as Chinese tourists? Is it people crossing across that border, and maybe doing it daily? Because there are people that live along the borders between those two countries, and again I don't know a lot about the Vietnamese-Chinese border, but if it's anything like the border with Laos, the border with Cambodia used to be here in Thailand up until again this past summer, borders in other places in Southeast Asia, it's not uncommon to see people maybe not cross the border every day to do something, but maybe once a month it's very common for people that live in those places because often times they will shop because they can get different things on the other side of the border than what they can get on their side of the border. 

My point is at the end of the day, when you say, "oh there is a huge influx of Chinese tourists into Vietnam," yeah, they border each other. I mean, I think I may make this a thumbnail, but there's a scene from the movie The Usual Suspects, where Kevin Pollock's character, they're interrogating him and they say, "hey, you know we can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking." And he says, "yeah I live in Queens. What? Do you got a team of monkeys working on the case?" I'm not trying to cast aspersions or put anything in the pejorative here with regard to the Vietnamese-Chinese border situation. The point I'm trying to make is they border each other. That inherently is going to cause them to have a lot higher numbers of entrants from that bordering states. Just one man's opinion on that, but I think that is sort of self-evident, if you really think about it. 

That said, the reason for the video, quoting directly: "Across the Gulf, Thailand’s tourism engine shows worrying cracks. Analysts from BMI (under Fitch Solutions) note that Chinese tourists are now choosing Vietnam over Thailand as their top destination." Really? And are they? Or are we just seeing one year where this is what the tourism numbers look like? I mean so because some Chinese people went to Vietnam, now forever the Chinese are only going to go to Vietnam for tourism purposes? What's the point of this data? Other than there has been this constant refrain, theme, narrative, of "Thailand's got economic problems, therefore she has to do all this stuff, like join OECD, like have the Digital Wallet, like change everything around about this, that or the other thing, change herself if you will, in order to get with the program, get with the times. 

I just find it nonsensical and honestly especially in light of the fact of the prior videos I made with regard to some of the data we have seen from Fitch on this stuff, and then how it is presented in the media apparatus, I look at this as something, the notion that Thailand really needs to watch out or all of this just analysis, I think needs to be taken with a big grain of salt.