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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "Economic Planners" and whether or not Thailand needs them. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Central Bank flirts with Yuan while over reliance on China negatively impacts Thai economic growth. As usual Thai Examiner, a lot of information in there, very meticulously reported. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for yourself, I am going to quote basically just one line from this whole thing and then get into my analysis. Quoting directly: "Thailand's business community and economic planners are failing to come to terms with the decline in China's economy which has been impacting the Kingdom since 2017." Okay, and in the broader part of that article, I urge those to go read that, a lot of good information in there. And yeah, China's decline it is sort of interesting because Westerners, especially Americans have all these weird notions, especially ones that don't live abroad, they will say things like "well China has got demographic problems so that means we don't have to worry as much because they are not going to overtake us economically", or something like this. I am always sort of sitting here going it's not a zero sum game, this is not like darts or something where they get points, you have got to match the points or something like this. It's more like golf, everybody play their own game sort of thing. The other thing is the global economy gets bigger. I have always taken the position that the pie gets bigger, other people don't see it that way. Look China's decline if you want to call it that or slow down, not real good for the global economy. They are a heavy engine of global development so on the one hand I understand the sort of geopolitical competition that countries get into but on the other hand, you also have to recognize that certain countries contribute a lot to the global economy and so when they slow down, there's going to be a heck of a downward, a negative impact if you will for a lot of different places, Thailand being one of them. 

That said, setting all of that aside, this notion of “economic planners”, I have seen this rise up from my perspective ever since the '90s. I remember being a kid in the '90s and first hearing "well there is an economic problem. What is the Government's response?" Why does the Government need a response? We have gotten to the point especially in the past 30, 35 years and I am going to say in just the Western sort of media ether if you will, I hate all the mainstream versus alternative and this and that, just the sort of ether of media if you will that's out there which is huge now especially in terms of social media, there has been this change in paradigm over the years. In the past, I remember when the business section of the newspaper and yes sort of showing my age here that I go all the way back to newspapers, I still prefer newspapers actually if truth be told, but when the business section of the paper didn't have these sort of well, what are we going to do about this? What's the Government's response to that?" It was just "this is what's going on in the economy", it was sort of made as plain fact and you dealt with that as you needed to. I remember listening to a podcast the other day where somebody was talking about he remembers his parents used to get very upset when the newspapers would forecast a recession because back then they knew that they would have to tighten their belts to sort of get through it. That is just the way it works; you have to learn to be frugal; you have to learn to find your opportunities where you can in those circumstances and sort of push ahead through it. It was never in that past, again and it's from an American perspective, maybe different people have different perspectives, but in the past that I remember, there was none of this like "well where's the Government on this?" If anything, I remember especially from people like my grandparents and people of my grandparents' age that was kind of an anathema. Anybody that brought that, "well where is the Government?" We don't need them. The kind of thinking was that they will only make it worse which brings me to my next point with respect to Thailand specifically. "Does Thailand need economic planners?" Because it has been my objective observation on my own part, but I will admit it is from an anecdotal evidence - I am not everywhere all at once - Thailand's economic dynamism in my opinion comes from the fact that Government isn't involved that much in private sector development. It gets on with it on its own and in fact and I am not saying that that is everything. Yes the Thai Government especially the public - private enterprises and things here oftentimes especially when it comes to large infrastructural projects, things of that nature, they engage in that. But in terms of just the sort of day-to-day SME businesses, the reason in my opinion Thailand became such a great tourism destination, some aspects of it things like the war and R&R, folks coming over here for that, but also it is because it's a nice place; it is organically a fun place to visit and there's not a lot of Government intervention in terms of people who want to run a food stall or somebody who wants to run a small restaurant or a guest house, the Government tends to stay out of that. Again if you are Thai. I am talking about for the Thai economy, the Thai Thai economy, the local economy if you will. They tend to stay out of it.

Meanwhile in terms of "economic planners", in terms of Government intervention in the economy, we got a lot of really solid evidence of what happens when the Government gets overly involved in the economy and it's the COVID response. That response was to just shut down the economy because in their infinite wisdom it can be turned on and off like a light switch and when you just do that, notwithstanding deaths, many deaths, from folks who even committed suicide because they weren't able to do business, that resulted from "planning". "Planners" were the ones who invoked those policies and we saw where that got us. So when I see these phrases out there like "economic planners", it really, really raises the hackles on my neck because in my opinion we should be looking at less "economic planners" and again recognizing there are certain sectors where projects are so big and things that yes it requires some state intervention, but on the whole with regard to just the general economy of Thailand, especially the SME level and especially in terms of the tourism sector, just leave the place open and let the business people do what they need to do to get the job done.