Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing low growth being better than no growth at all. What are we talking about here? Well I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand faces 20 years of low growth. Just starting off with the title, I am really getting kind of tired of sort of, it seems like it is kind of a foreign thing and it seems to be coming from the West a little bit, this whole talking down of Thailand or sort of talking about Thailand as if it has something it needs to do to improve itself. You know, my main premise in all of this is hey, low growth is better than no growth. I am not aware what the numbers are out of the US right now but there are many economists that I listen to quite carefully who already anticipate we are in a recession already in the West or at least the United States and possibly Europe, the West if you will, the Anglosphere, Europe etc. It's not like it is exactly boom times in any of these places but then it is sort of almost an exercise in projection where other places seemingly are projecting their sort of, I don't know what you want to call it, insecurities or their own sort of shortcomings on to Thailand and look Thailand is doing fine. We are okay, there's nothing; yes I've had people in comments making really kind of snide remarks to me "oh, everything is okay in Thailand! Well what about this, that and the other thing?" I'm like yeah, I get it; it's not perfect; nothing is perfect but I don't like this sort of implicit, it's like these articles are being written from a time when yes there was sort of an inherent systemic advantage in favour of sort of the West or Western countries economically. Yeah, that has eroded away and if anything I think the East has risen and risen well, Thailand being among these Eastern countries who sort of to quote Adam Clayton Powell "seen their opportunities and they took them" and they have done well by that and Thailand is growing. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand faces 20 years of low growth. Quoting directly: “The World Bank expects Thailand's potential," - I like how this is all phrased out, "the World Bank expects Thailand's potential growth to be the lowest among Asian economies," "expects Thailand's potential!" - well that is like so you are expecting the possibility of a thing occurring. It's pretty attenuated is all I am saying. "Expects Thailand's potential growth to be the lowest among ASEAN economies over the next 20 years because of the country's aging demographics and a slowdown in private investment." Well okay, a slowdown. Yeah. Over the past three years when no one was investing in anything because the entire economy was shut down, and that is globally, so what are we talking about here in terms of investment? There are investors coming into Thailand. We've discussed this; we have seen massive infrastructural Investment, massive investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor; we are also seeing investment through the BOI, the Board of Investment here in Thailand. Again I fail to see where is all this “decreased investment”? Meanwhile, again as I have discussed in other videos, the metrics that are used to sort of measure Thailand's growth or Thailand's economy, they are not very great. I am not saying they are not worth listening to but GDP itself as we have discussed in other videos is purely a measurement of bank credit; it is a metric that is by definition tied to bank credit. So again, as I have discussed, the informal economy here in Thailand isn't even taken into account when these institutions like the World Bank go ahead and assess the health or lack thereof of Thailand's economy.

At the end of the day, the Thai economy is ticking along. Would we love it to be double the amount of growth that we see right now? Yes of course but if society in Thailand demographically is aging, then it stands to reason that the growth would be slower. Now that said, a slowly growing, highly sophisticated economy in my opinion, may be better than an extremely fast growing, relatively new economy. What do I mean by this? Well no offense to Myanmar here, but you could maybe argue that Myanmar is growing at a higher tick for example than Thailand, maybe that is not the best analogy right now, but maybe you could say Laos or Cambodia has higher growth rate in pure terms compared to Thailand. But look at the difference in terms of their infrastructure, their fixed capital that's already set up in those countries as well as the cost of living, especially the cost of living when it comes to buying things that Westerners want and need for their sort of living arrangements, no matter where they live. You can't go wrong with Thailand. Again, I will take a slowly growing Thailand over a quickly growing, far less sophisticated economy any day of the week.