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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the so-called "digital wallet" here in Thailand; just going to go ahead and jump in. Quoting directly from a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Political turmoil could put handout at risk, say analysts. First off this whole notion that the Thais need a handout has just been anathema to me. I just I don't like it. Anytime the Government is giving out handouts, watch out. Guess what kind of Governments also used to give out handouts? Communist Governments so that's why I don't like handouts, quite honestly. Quoting further: "Rising political uncertainty poses significant risks to Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin's plan for a 500 billion Baht digital wallet handout to stimulate the economy,.." A couple of things there. Already spoke to the issue of handouts but regarding the notion of 'stimulating the economy'. This has been sort of the pretext for all of this and the question posed is, is it really even necessary. The Thai economy has effectively turned around. We've done the videos talking about the astounding numbers in quarter one of 2024 including consumer spending being way up, which poses the question, "what is all this new consumer consumption coming from?" Could it possibly be the new agricultural product that has recently come on the market in Thailand? Could that have anything to do with that? Could it have anything to do with the tourism demand for that same product, the tourist demand for that product? That could have something to do with it. That said, back to the main point. There's no real evidence that the economy needs any particular stimulating. Moreover these Keynesian notions that the economy needs to be stimulated really is just a pretext for government intervention. At the end of the day it's a pretext essentially for ‘experts’ to tell us all how we should live our lives. I think it was Stalin who once said that 'Communism is Socialism in a hurry'. Well I say 'Keynesianism is Socialism by subterfuge' and there is no greater example of Keynesianism than the Government needing to inject money in the economy in order to ‘stimulate’ it. Except under these circumstances even the Keynesian presupposition, which I don't even necessarily agree with, but even the Keynesian presupposition isn't even valid because it doesn't look like the economy needs stimulating to begin with. 

Quoting further: "..say analysts at Citigroup and Nomura Holdings. Both Nomura and City group see the Srettha Administration facing challenges to funding the handout." Well you think? I mean one of them being they literally have been talking about creating two orders of magnitude more liquidity than already exists in the present banking system to create this whole thing.  Meanwhile, the end result is the nation goes into debt to the tune of two times more than the total amount of money in the banking system, for a ‘handout’ that is not even real money, as we've discussed, it's digital tokens that you can only spend in certain places, on certain things that are Government prescribed and within a certain area that the Government will dictate. I mean does anybody think that is a good idea to go into a massive amount of debt for that? "A plan to pass a 122 billion baht supplementary budget..". Well that's the part they couldn't sort of play the 'shell game' with all the different banks to be able to come up with the money out of and so now they're going to go hit up the Thai public for another 122 billion Baht, again for something that is only going to result in no real tangible benefit, no value creation for the economy and the people. It's just again sort of creating a situation where you get these ‘tokens’, which again can't be spent everywhere, are used for constant totalitarian surveillance of financial transactions, can only be spent on certain things, and have an expiration date; they can turn the money off whenever they want, okay? If you even call it money, it's not money, but we're ponying up that for that benefit. What a benefit, what a great deal! "..to partly finance the cash stimulus." Well it's partly financing it because again the Government is financing the rest of it. So the Government is partly financing what the Government is also partly financing but the nation is going to go on the hook for the debt so it's going to be our taxes long-term, we are going to be increasingly taxed to pay off this fantastical handout, again of money that doesn't exist and can't actually be spent anywhere and will be used to surveil you at all times in all things. "..cash stimulus faces uncertainty in Parliament as some lawmakers remain lukewarm to the idea." Can't imagine why. Can't imagine why there would be any lawmakers that are ‘lukewarm’ to the idea of two orders of magnitude more money created in terms of debt that the country then goes on the hook for, for something we don't actually get a benefit out of. "The digital wallet is the centerpiece of Mr Srettha's strategy to lift the economy out of a decade-long, sub-2% economic growth." Well first of all, again that presupposes the GDP is the end-all-be-all metric of all economic activity here in Thailand but at the end of the day, GDP is only a function of bank credit. So it's only looking at the parts of the economy the bankers can control is basically what that means. And anybody who's ever been to Thailand knows, there's a huge informal economy and that's a good thing. That's free enterprise and that has constantly acted as the buffer when international finance has wrecked the local national Thai economy. At the end of the day it was the informal economy that was the cushion that kept the wheels from falling off the wagon, not to mix too many metaphors but that's how it worked. It was the informal economy that acted as the backstop that saved the country. So any time they talk about 'well sub-2% GDP' yeah in your metrics, in your way of tabulating, you being the bankers, banking establishment if you will. By the way, these are all statements against interest. It's never a good idea for lawyers to say a lot of stuff against bankers because we can make a lot of money off of bankers but at the end of the day I'm making these videos because I want what’s right for the country. I don't really care about all that nonsense at the end of the day and it's becoming ridiculous. If you want the finest point of that, look at the West, just look at it. Look at their financial system; look at the things that they talk about and the terminology they use. It sounds almost Neo Marxist. "Quantitative easing", the "operation twist", I mean come on, come on.

Meanwhile, I'm not anti-debt per se. National debt can be useful. If they were saying, 'hey we want to take on a lot of national debt to build this land-bridge that people have been talking about’, well that's an infrastructural project that could have tremendous high-earning ramifications for the country over the long haul and could benefit anyone in the nation. Anybody that is looking to trade, anybody that's looking to export, that would help that. I don't see what this thing does for anyone, this so-called digital wallet. So at the end of the day, that seems to be the current situation. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.