Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests we are asking the question, 'so foreign investors are fleeing Thailand?' so says Singapore. And about a year, a year and a half ago, I was making videos where I was talking about what I could only describe as a Tourism Cold War that was going on in social media between different destinations: the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and in the sort of zeitgeist if you will of the internet, there were just different reports that this place is doing better things for tourists in terms of visas, or this place isn't as good anymore so go to this place instead; we saw a lot of that. This past summer, especially when Thailand was going through some really tumultuous internal domestic political stuff, I did a couple of videos about how Fitch was talking about how "oh the banking system might be shaky" and then within its own article, at the very end, the final paragraph - this was in the Bangkok Post - they said "oh by the way, we've done stress tests on the banking system, everything's fine." And I posited at the time that some forces, likely foreign undue influence were trying to knock over effectively Thailand's economy, and put her in much the same position that she was placed after the 1997, frankly debacle, which wasn't if you sort of understand the Dynamics of the global economy, although Thailand was at the epicenter of that, it's not really fair to blame Thailand because there were a host of factors and frankly I think that there was malevolent intent on the part of some individuals – I am not going to get into names, - but you can go look all that up - to break the Baht and to sort of cause havoc within Thailand's economy. 

I'm bringing all this up because it looks to me like something akin to the Tourism Cold War, maybe kind of back with the situation going on in Iran, and really the world I think is in a deep state of flux right now in terms of supply chains are going to shift. I even think at this point we are probably looking at a major reorganization of the global economy as a whole, and it would be manifest through currencies as well as again supply chains and things of this nature. Meanwhile, it looks like, one could posit that some jurisdictions are trying to get a leg up on other jurisdictions. I was even reading a recent posting on Twitter which I was going to go ahead and put it up, but I don't want to get into a bunch of analysis on Iran versus Singapore, but basically what they were saying was the situation in Iran does not bode well for Singapore, because the era of transshipment in the way that things have been done heretofore is changing. And the way it was described was the person with the best sort of gas station if you will on the high seas - which Singapore currently has in the Straits of Malacca - might not maintain that level of comparative advantage compared to say other places that are further upstream: like places like Malaysia and Indonesia in light of the way things are changing in Iran with regard to Maritime waterways and things of that nature. Now let me be clear, I don't think anything is going to fundamentally change in the Straits of Malacca nor for Singapore, but I do think there is a lot of consternation going through the minds of folks who are used to the system being what it has been, and might not be used to the rise of certain economies and powers that, much like Thailand, have been willing to be in the background for a variety of different reasons; I don't even think Thailand wants to be in the foreground of economics. I think everything here looks to me like most folks in a policy making capacity just want Thailand to continue to show good GDP growth and people to basically just be happy and do their jobs; I think that more than anything is probably the prevailing consensus here in Thailand. That said, there is clearly competition out there from other jurisdictions and after this past year when I read these things about "oh Thailand is losing investors and things", I keep coming back to last summer when I saw that article, and I even saw an article recently where S&P was saying that there are issues in the Thai possible banking systems - I think it was in Thai Examiner I read that. In any event, again after this summer, and knowing what I know about Thailand's economy, I have a hard time believing some of this stuff.

That said, quoting directly from a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Foreign investors flee Thailand as Iran war, energy shock dash hope for economic revival. And right out of the gate, it says Singapore. So this is being reported from Singapore about Thailand, apparently. Quoting directly: "Foreign investors are selling Thai assets as an energy shock from the US-Israeli War on Iran threatens to snuff out hopes for an economic revival under Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and exposes the policy paralysis that is gripping Bangkok." What policy paralysis? I love how this stuff is just said apropos of what. Yeah, there's a crisis in the Middle East that Thailand is having to respond to and quite frankly heretofore, making a deal with the Iranians and getting oil continue to be shipped was about the best thing that the Thai government could have done. I think at the end of the day they are handling things as well as anyone could. But to say that there's policy-making paralysis; No. If anything for the first time in a long time, Thailand has a government that can coherently manage these kind of things. I really don't understand where these snipes and jabs from the English press, where this comes from with regard to coming after Thailand. I mean, why? And when it's not, I would understand if maybe it was a matter of, "oh we're reporting the facts, but we may spin this a little differently compared to that," okay. But where it's just whole cloth, again, policy paralysis! What are you talking about? 

That said, quoting further: "The conflict has sent global oil prices up to near $100 a barrel, sharpening the focus on Asia's reliance on energy supplies from the Gulf. Thailand is among the most exposed, with the Middle East supply nearly half of its oil and gas, according to Krungsri Research." So yes, Thailand is not in the most optimal position with regard to all of this; nobody is though. I mean who else in Southeast Asia gets the bulk of their oil from the Middle East? Everybody? I mean, now as we have discussed Thailand has made some sort of arrangements to allow transshipment of oil with Iran and I think Iran said something along lines of “we will always”, something about “we will always help our friends”, or something to that nature. Basically, look, we have friendly diplomatic relations. They have not got any problems with us, so we're going to allow that to go through. Meanwhile, Thailand is talking to the Russians about possibly buying their oil. I'm sure, as I'll get to in another video made contemporaneously with this one, there are currently trade talks with the Americans; I'm sure the Thais are talking to the Americans about oil. But that said, the notion that it is only Thailand being affected this way - again that is the implied message I got out of this article - and it's like what are you talking about? Everybody in the region is going to have problems because of this. Quoting further: "With public debt on the brink of eclipsing the government's self-imposed 70% ceiling and an economy that was already in deflation before the war, Bangkok's challenge is far more acute than most of its neighbours." What do you mean, "deflation"? On and on all we've heard about is that there is inflation; frankly Thailand could probably use a little bit of deflation. 

Meanwhile, "self-imposed 70% ceiling, debt ceiling"; well, okay "on the brink of eclipsing the government's 70%"? - Isn’t that mostly because we added a bunch of debt-to-GDP because of the Digital Wallet rollout which has done what by the way for this economy? All of these benefits that were supposed to come from all this, all we've seen is that we are now at 70% debt to GDP rather than 60% which was the ceiling. And by the way, having a debt ceiling is a good thing. Thailand doesn't need to go into any more debt. I think it's fascinating. All of this that seems to come out of the English language press, it always constantly points back "well, you're going to need to go into more debt, to save yourself from all this debt." It's pretty disingenuous.

That said, quoting further: "The setback came just as the stars seemed to be aligning for Southeast Asia's second largest economy, with investors rushing into Thailand again for the first time in years. Foreigners bought $1.7 billion worth of Thai stocks in February, LSEG data showed. Mr. Anutin's resounding victory in February ushered in hopes of political stability and long-awaited economic reforms in a country that had lurched through years of turmoil and uncertainty." Yeah, anytime Thailand, things are starting to look good, international factors sort of intervene, but again it's happening for everybody here right now. And Thailand, it's not like it's been moribund, okay? It's just not growing at the high rates that say a Vietnam, or an Indonesia is, okay? If you have nothing in an economy and you build a laundromat, you're going to have dramatic increase in GDP. Thailand is a sophisticated economy. It already was going into; I guess February 28 when all this kicked off with Iran in earnest. It's just this constant kicking Thailand down when if anything, Thailand has managed to come through some rather tumultuous times in one piece, nationally unified, and can hold its own economically. Is it the most booming economy in all of Asia? No. But does it need to be? That has always a sort of been my question. That said, quoting further: "But when the Iran War broke out at the end of February, foreign investors pulled back sharply with an $823 million net selloff in equities in March, while bond outflows hit $705 million, the largest combined outflow since October 2024." Okay, fair enough, but in so doing, it has weakened the Baht against its major benchmark at least for now, the Dollar, which overall is actually probably a good thing for Thailand's export sector. I find it fascinating that all of this is put through the rubric of it has to be in the financial sector or it's not real. That's the biggest thing about all of this, that is really starting to bug me, it is all couched in terms of hyper-financialization and it doesn't talk about the real economy anymore. "Oh, all these people sold off bonds; all these people sold off stocks." Okay, that means now you can get into Thailand's economy at a discount; now's the time to buy. And also it actually did something good for Thailand's currency because it's better if the Baht is weaker for the export sector, especially moving forward. 

That said, quoting further: "There's a broad consensus among investors that Thailand is in a policy bind," said Gary Tan, a Singapore-based portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments." So some guy in Singapore says there's a broad consensus among investors that Thailand is in a policy bind. Okay. That said, but where's the data for that? It sounds to me more like nobody knows where to put their money right now and they are going back to stable things like dollars, treasury, probably gold, possibly silver and maybe other types of commodities, possibly oil, rather than be exposed to things that really only work when the Global Financial System is operating optimally, and supply chains are not being disrupted. That's what it looks like to me is people are pulling their money out of businesses that are susceptible to supply chain and financialized assets like bonds or at least Thai bonds, in favour of things like treasuries, dollars, probably gold. It's not got anything to do with Thailand. Thailand's inherent economy is strong. Quoting further: "The Central Bank has limited room to hike without derailing the recovery, but little urgency or space to ease, which leaves policy restricted by default," says Mr. Tan who is underweight on Thailand." Says the guy who is not betting on Thailand. So let's first of all understand that.

Secondly, going back into this, "limited room to hike without derailing the recovery," and then "little urgency or space to ease." Well it's not all about financialism. The Central Bank is not the only actor in the economy and all of this being purely predicated on the antics of financialism - which by the way there was a time when it was deemed really, very much an overreach for these Central Banks to manipulate the underlying economy through the interest rates, but I digress. That said, the biggest thing to take away from this video is one, that a) other jurisdictions may have their own agendas with regard to how Thailand's economy is portrayed; and b) financialization, finance, is not the only metric to a sound economy. In fact it has a tendency to warp prospective toward an unsound economy, which you could make an argument, that warping has taken its toll heavily since 2008 and the beginning of so-called quantitative easing by the FED back in the United States, and the proof is beginning to show insofar as the problems that are being seen in the Western economies. 

The thing to take away from this video is I don't see where Thailand is seeing any fleeing investors to begin. So point of clarification right toward the end of that video where I said "isn't losing investors to begin with." That's not true. There clearly are people fleeing. One, the "why" is important. It's not because Thailand's economy is fundamentally unsound, it is because things that are happening in the global economy are causing people to do other things. But the thing I think is worth noting is all these people ran in here right in the aftermath of the elections and things and Thailand was looking up, and then they ran back out. So my big question is how much was really lost in the wash?