Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the issue of cash. Just cash now is apparently in and of itself per se a primary vector of financial crime. What are we talking about here? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Nation, that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Bank of Thailand Launches Crackdown on High Value Cash Transactions. 

First of all, how is the Bank of Thailand able to do a Crackdown on anything? When did they become a law enforcement agency? They're a Bank. They are a Central Bank. They're supposed to regulate the Commercial Banks. They are not supposed to regulate us people and our private transactions. That is why we have Central Banks to begin with. I find it very interesting. All the predictions I had years back when I was saying that the Digital Wallet is something we really need to look at and things like that, the one buffer that we have had to some extent between these crazy OECD inspired Draconian policies, the buffer has been the Commercial Banks. So now the Central Bank is leaning on the Commercial Banks. Great. Quoting directly: "The BOT has long identified physical cash as a primary vector for financial crime due to its anonymity." I'm going to read that again. "The BOT has long identified physical cash as a primary vector for financial crime due to its anonymity." Well one, are they the Royal Thai Police? It's the police that deal with crime, so why is BOT doing all of this nonsense? And meanwhile, "long identified physical cash" per se, it's like the whole notion, and I know this will be controversial among some people, especially folks that aren't Americans but it's the whole spurious notion that guns cause gun crime. No, people cause gun crimes using guns. It's not cash itself that's a “primary vector” of anything, it's what is being used for; it's a tool. Why don't you go after crimes. This is the thing. This is all pre-crime totalitarian nonsense of “we are going to regulate everybody”. It's basically communal punishment where we're going to have this insane panopticon oversight over everybody in the economy, because there's a possibility that someone somewhere could be committing a crime.

Now I think at the end of the day, and it's pretty clear to me that this is primarily the result of foreign undue influence by the likes of the World Economic Forum as well as the Organization of Economic Cooperation and "so-called" Development (OECD), supranational organization that Mr. Trump himself in an Executive Order getting out of it in the United States when he first came into office, he noted that look this stuff is a threat to national sovereignty. I wish Thailand would have a look at that Executive Order and see that, "hey there are serious concerns that are affiliated with this OECD stuff. Things that can hurt this country." That said: "By forcing a declaration of necessity, the regulator intends to protect the integrity of the banking system and prevent financial institutions from inadvertently facilitating money laundering or other criminal activities." But what happens when they advertently do it? Are you going to go after them for that? It looks to me like, and what is this even - once you start reading this stuff it just sounds like gobbledygook. "The regulator intends to protect the integrity of the banking system." How? How does this protect the integrity of the banking system? Reserve ratios protect the integrity of the banking system. Reserve ratios that by the way, the Fitch people back during the summer when Thailand was going through a little bit of political turbulence, tried to make it look like Thailand was weaker in its banking system than it actually was, but even in the article the Bangkok Post wrote, they had to put it in the final paragraph that "well actually the reserve ratios were quite good, and it withstood the requisite stress test." That's the integrity of the banking system. Invading my privacy has got nothing to do with it.

Quoting further: "According to BOT, cash has no digital trail.” Yeah, that's why we like it. Again this notion that having a ‘digital trail’ is per se good, where did that come from? Who drew that conclusion? Quoting further: "By establishing a 'paper trail' for these high-value withdrawals, the BOT encourages consumers to adopt transparent, traceable digital payment options." You mean they are encouraging consumers to have no privacy in their personal business functions, and they are treating consumers as criminals without due process of law. That is what it is. Period. End of story.

Again, I've done a number of videos now on this, and as folks can see, I'm a little worked up about it. I'm clearly a bit passionate about this issue because, look, for two reasons, one, I want my personal liberty. I want my personal privacy. That was my understanding concomitant with being Thai. On top of that, this stuff is going to lead to financial ruin for this country. If we start messing around with the liquidity of the street economy, the real economy, we start messing around with the velocity of money in the financial system. You don't think that this thing can't seize up? We learned nothing from the '90s? That's the worst thing that can happen in an economy like this. Meanwhile, everybody says, "well the integrity of the banking system" - whatever buzzword BOT says is justified I guess it's okay. I think that this will lead to ruin. I am very, very hopeful that lawmakers will start seriously looking at this, especially now that we have a new government formed, we have Parliament in session that will seriously look at this stuff because I don't think it's in the best interest or the national interest of this country.