Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Banks. So I made a video, actually I was just at Pancake Palace so that's why I am kind of wiping my mouth. Quickly before we get into this, for those that are interested in our paid new service where I get into deeper dives regarding geopolitics, international relations, local politics how it has an impact on expat land, including Banking and taxation, please feel free to email us [email protected]. We are setting up a new platform and I will roll out details on that as we firm them up and as it becomes accessible. Understand folks that join us on the paid news site, not site, but the paid news service will be getting seriously preferential treatment when we start the new platform, so something to be aware of. And many thanks to the people who have joined the paid news service thus far. It's a work in progress, but it is a labour of love; I enjoy doing it and I very much appreciate the folks who are helping us by contributing if you will, by subscribing to it, so [email protected]. Also again, Pancake Palace. As I have said, my better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok for those who like American Diner style food, including breakfast anytime, please feel free to come by and see us. The link is in the description below for our location. 

Now let's jump in here. Yesterday, and I'm making this video at about 8.00am Bangkok time on, what are we at here, the 26th, 27th, sorry getting our dates messed up here, but we're sitting here on the 27th at 8.00am. I made a video that went up yesterday at 11.45am on the 26th, where I basically noted that I had had an epiphany the night before, that my thinking was and I still very much adhere to this, all of this onerous banking stuff, it was really sort of bothering me because it didn't make a lot of business sense. It has the tendency to repel if anything, possible future customers; it makes the current customer base pretty unhappy to say the least. Why do that? Now I understand there is all this desire for 'know your customer' and then on top of it, this weird Orwellian lack of privacy kind of theme that's been running for at least the past 5 years. Okay, all of that was what it was but I sat there and I said you know what? Business is business, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks that I seriously think outside powers, what I can only describe as sort of  neo-colonialist powers in my opinion from Europe, primarily European interests, and as I discussed in that video, I do not think and you can think I am biased or not, but I'm laying it out there - my cards are on the table here on this - I do not think that this is American inspired and I don't believe that because of the Executive Order Mr. Trump promulgated right at the beginning of his term where he said “we are not doing OECD; it's violative of our national sovereignty, it creates extra territorial jurisdiction, we don't want it” and he's right about that. I couldn't agree with him more on that particular issue; I could not agree with him more. That was great. Thank you Mr. President, thank you very much. You stood for American National sovereignty. 

It's my understanding now, Thailand is in a similar position to what the U.S. was prior to Mr. Trump promulgating that Executive Order which is they are still “exploring” it, there has been no Act but in the exploration process, the alignment of our systems if you will between OECD and Thailand, requires all this Orwellian face scanning of people, people being drawn into long lines having to align their SIM card to do digital banking; having their bank accounts shut down. On top of that, I don't know if it's the local banks in some cases taking this into their own hands and saying we are not going to issue certain documentation or we are going to freeze your account over Immigration issues which I don't even know where they get the authority to do that. But we've discussed all that in prior videos. 

My point is, I was purely looking at that from the liberty standpoint, from the "hey this is costing people their privacy". It didn't dawn on me until about a day and a half ago and then I made a video yesterday, that will probably go up about the same time as this one does, that hey there may be an even more sinister ulterior motive underneath the ulterior motives of they actually want to undermine Thailand's banking system in order to trigger a '97 like crisis so that Western interests can essentially feast off of Thailand economically. As I discussed in that video - I'll put a link in the description - but well I may not put a link to that, I will try to put a link in the description below to that particular video. 

Then we get to today where it looks to me and I have to wonder, have I gotten inside the curve if you will of the cadence of this narrative, because there was an article today in Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com. Fitch: Bad loans expected to pressure large Thai Banks. So this is the reason for the thumbnail first of all. The thumbnail is a still from the film The Big Short. I read the book The Big Short some years ago and then that film does a great job of explaining ratings agency and I'm not calling out Fitch per se for doing anything here, but I am talking about rating agencies broadly. As they point out in The Big Short these rating agencies which theretofore, in the aftermath of the great financial crisis when the basically the crisis had happened, up to that point, rating agencies were almost viewed as sacrosanct. It was like oh "they are impartial" bla bla, bla, and then come to find out as that scene in The Big Short shows that we took the thumbnail still for, credit link in the description below, they have their own motives for doing things. As one of the guys said,” you are selling ratings” basically. No I'm not saying Fitch is doing anything in this particular instance, but couple this with the narrative that seems to have been being constructed, and I'm starting to wonder about a few things, so let me go ahead and quote directly. Again from this article, Fitch: Bad loans expected to pressure large Thai Banks.

I am actually going to quote from the end, because in this article, I don't know if Bangkok Post meant to do this, but they buried what I would call the lead, which is, and let me be clear, the Banks in Thailand are stable and sound. Quoting: "Fitch emphasized the DSIBs (those are the Domestic Systemically Important Banks) maintain adequate buffers to withstand potential deterioration in asset quality. Loan-loss coverage supported by past management overlays, remains strong at most banks, while core capital has risen steadily over the past four years," - again, core capital has risen steadily, - "providing a solid cushion against unexpected stress. So that's the thing to take away from this video more than anything is one, Thailand's banking system is actually sound, but for whatever reason, Bangkok Post decided to put that information in the last paragraph of this article. That said, again the tone of this article be it the title is again Fitch: Bad loans expected to pressure large Thai Banks. Quoting from the top now: "Thailand's six major banks are likely to face rising asset risks over the next several years." Again, why is this a problem if at the end they say, "oh this isn't a problem"? Quoting further: "pressured by a continued increase in impaired loans, according to Fitch Ratings Thailand. Quoting further: "Fitch expects Thailand's economic slowdown to weaken debt repayment capacity at the country's six major banks this year. The impact will be felt most by retail and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) borrowers, many of whom have yet to fully recover from the pandemic-related disruptions." You mean when the Government itself shut down Thailand at the behest of an International Organization, notably the WHO which is run by an avowed Communist, Mr. Tedros? You mean those disruptions? This is talked about as if it is some kind of naturally occurring economic event. The disruption was caused by intervention in Thailand's economy from the outside. Quoting further: "According to Fitch's report about major Thai Banks' peer credit analysis published last Friday."

When I read that part, I immediately thought of, we just did a video recently where I was talking about the B-3 Bomber from Wag the Dog. And in that scene, if you go back to that, I'll put a link in the description below, you can go back to that video, in that scene, if you go to the video that is credited in there from Wag the Dog, de Niro's character literally says "we don't want to be caught “responding” to it". And I immediately thought of that when they pointed out in this article that this particular ratings analysis was published last Friday. So they had to point that out I think to ameliorate anybody saying "oh well, you are trying to build this narrative. Ben called you out basically on it, when he did a video that said, "hey I think maybe it's not just about people's privacy, it may be a direct attack on the Thai Banking system”, and therefore the Thai economy, similar to 1997 and I got inside the cadence of this narrative being built, so that probably fast forwarded them to have to do this. 

My question right now is, this is interesting. We are looking down the barrel right now of the decision in the Paetongtarn case on Friday of this week. She and her predecessor were both heavily influenced by the World Economic Forum, most notably Mr. Srettha went there, and then she actually hosted an envoy from the WEF in the Purple Room. So my question is was this narrative originally intended to be promulgated to come into effect, to what I would say “come into effect” as she is leaving office to then set up the narrative, "oh there's a banking crisis now”, and lordy, lordy, they would be then the saviours. The same people who instigated it would then be the saviours of it. What is that Hegelian Dialectic and they call it, problem, reaction, solution; create the problem in order to get the solution you want. We want our WEF people back in. If they ultimately are removed from office, we want our WEF influenced people back in and by setting up this narrative and setting it in motion on the Friday before, we didn't hear about this on Monday, okay. If this report came out Friday and it was so important, why didn't we hear about it on Monday? We heard about it in the aftermath of me making my video, which did go pretty well viral, and I thank the audience for that for sharing that because I asked people to share it because I felt it was so important; it was like alarm bells were going off of my head. It's like what was it Paul Revere, "the British are coming, the British are coming." They are coming for Thailand. It really scared me. I was like "oh my gosh, they could be setting up another '97 kind of thing" and again we didn't hear this on Monday. We heard this after Tuesday when I made my video on Tuesday. So did I get inside the cadence of the narrative being created that was supposed to be kicked off in the aftermath of a possible judgment against Paetongtarn? I don't know. And then any possible later ramifications of that narrative, i.e. the banks start to have a problem, the economy starts to have a problem, and then it is “oh well this all happened because you didn't have these people in who knows how to deal with things”. The technocrats, whatever you want to call them. I don't necessarily have problem with technocrats per se, but I do have an issue with anybody, outside influencers especially, looking to undermine Thailand. 

So that is my point in this video, in making this video, is one, I am not saying there is anything wrong with Fitch per se, but as noted in the clip from The Big Short and in the book itself - and go and read that material if you are interested in that - my only point is maybe take with a grain of salt what Rating Agencies have to say. Meanwhile, the headline for this is oh there's pressure and things and then buried at the end, and I am going to quote this again because I think it is important, buried at the end, the lead being buried at the end, quote, and I urge those who are watching this video, read this article for yourself, draw your own conclusions but quote: "Fitch emphasize the DSIBs maintain adequate buffers to withstand potential deterioration in asset quality." Okay, so what are we talking about when the first line is "Thailand's six major banks are likely to face rising asset risks." That is the top of the story but at the very bottom you say yeah "but they maintain adequate buffers" So where is the story? Quoting further: "Loan-loss coverage, supported by past management overlays, remains strong at most banks, while core capital has risen steadily over the past four years." All good news. Quoting further: "Providing a solid cushion against unexpected loss."

Now to Bangkok Post's credit, they did disclose all of this in the same piece, but I find it a little bit odd that that information is at the very end and at the top of the article, it is all of this like, I hesitate to call it fear mongering, but it feels a little bit like that. So long story short, draw your own conclusions, but I find all of this very interesting in light of current events which are transpiring here in the Kingdom of Thailand.