Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing cash and unfortunately I am not one that really wanted this channel to be discussing this stuff all that much but it has broad ramifications. I mean Banks and the Law sort of run parallel with one another, so there is always kind of a chicken and egg argument between ‘okay which came first banking or lawyers?’ To my mind, Banks are creations of Law so it is pretty clear that banking sort of came second but still there are a lot of reasonable folks that can disagree on that. I find it interesting for example in the English language the same etymology, the root words of certain legal notions, for example "the bench", the bench which is what a Judge sits on, sits on a bench. Well that has the same root word as Bank and in fact in the appellate divisions in the United States where you don't necessarily have a full Appeals Court hearing a case but you will have a more limited number of Judges, oftentimes three, you will often hear it said that they are sitting ‘en banc’ so BANC but still again BANK, you are still dealing with sort of the same root words, the same entomology here and the same history of these terms. 

The reason I am making this video is because there has been this weird move the last few years to really ramp up getting people into cashless, go cashless, go cashless. Now look I have a credit card; there are times when not having to use a bunch of cash is absolutely great but anybody who thinks that going to a world where you have no privacy in your personal financial transactions is pretty naïve, that going to that is a good idea, that's naive thinking in my mind. You have to have privacy in your financial transactions. I think Europe now somebody was telling me or one of the countries in Europe, you can't do anything in cash over $1,000 or equivalent of 1,000 Euros or whatever. What is that? I mean the USSR could not have opposed that. I mean that is just crazy to me. I mean how can you say there is personal freedom in a place where you can't spend more than the equivalent of a thousand bucks without having your name taken down and every other piece of data about you and why are you doing this, and all of this. I mean I remember, I mean I don't remember it well, but I remember sort of the aftermath of the passage of the money laundering statutes in the United States which aren't that old; they came around in '87 and before that they had statues, yes I am well aware going back to the Foreign Bank Account Reporting and things of that nature but I think it is interesting now that the term "money laundering" will just be used sort of euphemistically as just that is something bad that's going on. Well it wasn't even illegal until 1987; the practice of that wasn't considered illegal because the thinking behind it was it is really none of the state's business what people do with their money. Now they sold that in connection with the so-called war on drugs which I am not even going to get into in this video but the financial side of it, it had tremendous long-term ramifications not to the positive for the sort of Free People of middle-earth if you want to call it that, whatever you want to call it, just the regular Joe's walking around who maybe do have a cash business and want to go buy a boat in cash or something of this nature. Are those people really nefarious or do we really need to be "knowing our customer” on every transaction over 1,000 bucks?  No I don't think so at all. It self-evidently makes no sense and it is self-evidently a negative for people who just want to live their lives. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: BOT zeros in on cash transaction fees. And I think this is funny because the way that this is couched within the article, I really do urge people who are watching this video, go read that article in detail but the way that this is couched is as a "well cash transaction fees, these banks, they are all making a bunch of money off of doing their business." Well that is the business the banks have done since time immemorial. That is what banks do. They are in the business of money. Are we unaware of this? I like this, in this modern era, I don't know what you want to call it, the last few years especially as we see certain in my opinion structurally unsound Banks having serious problems but there has been this sort of meme that has popped up that Banks are like altruistic or that they are supposed to be like an NGO or something insofar as they are there for the community and all of this stakeholder stuff, whatever that means which nobody can ever explain what a stakeholder is. I know the legal definition of a ‘shareholder’; what is a ‘stakeholder’? A person who holds a stake, like Van Helsing? They kill vampires? 

In any event, the point I am trying to make and honestly all hyperbole aside, everyone should kind of be concerned about their personal financial latitude if you will. One of the things that caused me to fall in love with Thailand was exactly that, the financial freedom, just the freedom you have from being here in Thailand. One of the coolest things, I remember when I first got here was like 'oh you can just walk up to a bank like a deposit machine and send somebody 500 bucks equivalent, 15,000 Baht, throw it in the deposit machine, put in their bank account number, verify that that is indeed their account, boom that money is just moved, instantaneously.' That has led to a flexibility in Thailand's economy than in my opinion is unrivaled anywhere that I have ever seen insofar as the cash economy in Thailand is extremely flexible and adaptable and able to operate well, extremely efficiently, economically speaking. All of this augers well. Now am I against digital payment platforms or cryptocurrencies, or any of this? No. They can augment efficiency if you will but if it comes at the complete expense or evisceration if you will or erasure of all financial privacy and all ability to efficiently and privately there is nothing. Privacy is not a bad word; there's nothing wrong with being private in your transactions, that's okay. There is a problem when you are doing something illegal. Now I have a problem where they have now decided that moving money in and of itself could be illegal. I always kind of viewed money as a utility; it's sort of inert; it is like electricity if you will. It moves through certain systems and it sort of invigorates certain aspects of the economy and we all kind of move on, hopefully we all profit a little bit, make a little bit of money and we all go back to feeding our families. 

But long story short, this whole and this is not a narrative or a meme that I think I feel has come from the grass roots up. I don't think there are any steel workers out there sitting there going "man I really wish that we could just have more transparency in interpersonal financial transactions at the lowest possible level in the economy!" I don't think there are any plumbers running around out there saying that that's something that they really care about. I am just not buying that because that's not the case. I mean nobody is really asking for that per se. Now more convenient banking of course; the ability to eat more easily, send money to somebody, of course; the ability to more easily bill people and bring in your money, of course I am not a luddite, I use the internet, I use various financial platforms that allow you to operate on the internet. These are modern marvels, they are great, but this push to just completely eradicate all privacy in personal financial dealings, this just to my mind makes no sense.

In any event, again Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, BOT zeros in on cash transaction fees. Quoting directly: "As digital payments increase, the Bank of Thailand is focusing on cash users by adjusting Banks' fee structures." Quoting further: "The adjustment is part of Central Bank efforts to promote digital payments," I say that again: "Central Bank efforts to promote digital payments". When did it ever become part of the Central Bank’s mandate to promote any kind of payments? How about you just deal with the payments that people make; the Central Bank is supposed to be there and I am not one of these people that is anti-Central Banks. Central banks can be very, very useful but the Central Bank is supposed to be there to facilitate the economy via sound money policy. They are not there to nudge us around; they are not our shepherds or something. The Central Bank, that is not their purpose. The Central Bank's purpose is much like a utility to maintain the Integrity of the currency and also maintain the Integrity of the financial systems. I will give it that but to promote something, really? Is that really what we want them doing? I don't know that I think that is what I want them doing, anywhere. The United States, here, wherever. I have got massive issues with this Fed Coin and all this stuff that the FED is thinking about. In any event, quoting further: "The adjustment is part of Central Bank efforts to promote digital payments and move towards a less cash-reliant society." As the title suggests, who asked for that and maybe Thailand shouldn't be, and I will get into that in the moment. Quoting further: "The regulator is paying greater attention to some consumer segments that do not use digital payments," You mean the people that like using cash? Quoting further: "Quote: "The Central Bank plans to discuss the bank’s fees for cash transactions, with the aim of finding a balance on the issue," Ms Wipawin said." That person is quoted in there, you can read that article and figure out that person's background. But again, "The aim of finding a balance on the issue," NO, NO. There is no balance on any issue. That draws you into a dialect that both sides are reasonable on now, let's come up with a compromise. No, no, no! Digital transactions are okay in and of themselves and it's perfectly fine in my mind if people want to use that but the notion that is an either or and we're coming to a compromise on it, I don't love that because that is let's say disingenuous to the reality on the ground at this particular moment. There is no one on the street level in the cash economy who is just clamouring to be less cash reliant. Let's be clear. The people that are in the cash economy, street food vendors all those kinds of folks, they are not up in arms for this. This is from a bunch of banks who are saying "oh we really like" and I am sure there are reasons for it: it is probably more efficient, it is probably cheaper to take all this stuff digital, don't have to handle all that paper which means you don't need all that fixed capital infrastructure in order to facilitate those kind of transactions over the long term but at the end of the day you chose to be Banks. This is what you do. The other one is I really wonder if folks are thinking about in the banking sector, thinking about this in the long term, at what point do you essentially making your system so efficient that you essentially ‘efficient’ yourself out of existence or nobody needs you anymore because it is all just on a digital platform which is run by some semi AI technology. And none of this by the way is outlandish. I mean we could genuinely see that with quantum computing and things down the road. Hard to say exactly how this is all going to play out.

What I do know is I have seen this twice in earnest. What saved Thailand's economy was her cash economy. That was the buffer when the financialized, what I call the financialized economy, this sort of parallel thing that runs in tandem in Thailand and runs pretty well in tandem with Thailand, with Thailand's cash economy, when the financial economy has gone pear-shaped and gone to bad places, it has been the cash economy that's been the buffer for the whole country, for the overall economy of the whole system. It's sort of like attacking one's own immune system because you think you can do something better than your own immune system. That is not the way it is probably going to work. The naturally occurring, the sort of organic economy that has grown up over the hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands of years that this place has existed, is probably going to be more resilient in the long run than will be some contrived system that is relatively new. I think that there is no doubt about that if you really look to history as a guide. So the thing that concerns me is this notion that a) somehow everyone is running around clamouring for this system and b) what really concerns me is let's say we go to a completely cash un-reliant society? What happens if there is a liquidity crisis in Brazil and nobody here in Thailand is aware that the bankers in Thailand got overexposed to Brazilian Investments and now that is causing a ripple effect into the Thai Economy and everything closes down. There is no cash economy now to act as a buffer against that issue and that is a situation that I don't think any of us here in Thailand really want to be in.