Transcript of the above video: 

So I am making this video on a Sunday going into the week here in Thailand, and for those who keep a close eye on this channel and frankly, just a side note here, for those of you who do, I really do appreciate it. It's not something I ever really anticipated or expected and if I am sort of awkward sometimes when it comes up that I do have an audience, I come by it honestly and I apologize to you if I seem awkward. I am coming to grips with it more and more frankly as each passing day goes by that I do indeed have an audience and I thank you for being the audience, but that was never my intention with making these videos initially. So again, you'll forgive me if I come across the phenomenon as unexpected, I'll put it that way. If sometimes I seem taken aback by it then again, I come by honestly; it wasn't my intention when making these videos to begin with. But more and more I am kind of getting used to it; I am getting comfortable with it and again I appreciate it very much. 

For those who do watch on a frequent basis, Sundays we tend to make a number of more topical - especially regarding local Thai politics - and I kind of like Sunday in doing that. It kind of reminds me of the format of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver where he kind of both looks back at the past week and sort of forward to the next week and he kind of uses Sunday as a good day to do that. So that is why on Sundays you will oftentimes see more content put out on this channel and it will be sort of more topical, that's the reason. That said, there is a lot going on in Thailand right now. We are really in many ways in the eye of a political storm at the moment and there is some really big news that quite frankly the mainstream English language press just seem to either not really seem to care about, or if they did, they kind of present it in such a way that was odd to me. Let me just jump into this. 

So what we are talking about here specifically is the Budget. The Budget for the upcoming year here in Thailand was just passed by Parliament. Quoting directly from Bloomberg, but this is Bloomberg on X. "Thailand's lower House of Parliament passed a $117 billion annual budget, needed to support a fragile economy that's at risk from issues ranging from the impact of higher US tariffs to a downturn in tourism. And the article that they are citing there is Thai lawmakers pass117 billion budget to help revive economy." A couple of things there. It seems like there is a lot of outside interests that are interested in Thailand being laid low at the moment. Okay yeah, we are in sort of a less-than-optimal low season right now. I have discussed a lot of my thoughts on the reasons for that, frankly again unduly foreign influenced tax policies. Frankly I think unduly foreign influenced banking policies here in Thailand are having an impact on that; quite frankly unduly foreign influenced policies on Cannabis I think may be having an impact on that as well. And that said, I have gotten into that in other videos. Hey, it's not that bad here, okay? Thailand weathered COVID. I love how nobody at the time when we were dealing with COVID talked about COVID as being economically problematic, and yet now Thailand has a problem. Could they have a "problem" because there is a serious movement to reject outside foreign influence into Thailand. I would sort of question that. 

Meanwhile, again from another news source over here at, and I can never pronounce this right, Xinhua, I think Xinhua or whatever, english.news.cn, under Asia & Pacific titled: Thailand's Lower House passes budget for new fiscal year. Quoting directly: "Thailand's House of Representatives approved a 3.78 trillion Baht (about 116.45 billion US dollars) budget for the 2026 fiscal year in its third and final reading on late Friday after a three-day debate. The 500-member Lower House of the Thai Parliament passed the Budget Bill for the first fiscal year starting in October with 257 votes in favour, 230 against, and one abstention. The bill will be forwarded to the Senate for consideration and requires Royal endorsement before taking effect." I want to come back to those numbers real quick but I think it is interesting because this was something I knew was coming up last week, and if you haven't noticed from watching my channel, I have some go to news sources especially for English language new., Bangkok Post really you could argue is the English language paper of record at least for Bangkok, arguably for Thailand, I didn't see a lot. And frankly when I went to the news Saturday morning, I found this article: Opposition People's Party rejects 2026 Budget Bill in final reading. Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, quoting: "The People's Party has resolved to vote against the 2026 fiscal Budget Bill during its third and final reading in Parliament on Friday, saying the Government's spending plan failed to reflect the current economic situation. People’s Party Deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul announced the party's stance at Parliament at about 1.00pm. on Friday. She said the People Party resolved to reject the bill in the final vote, effectively "toppling" the fiscal year 2026 Budget proposal." So if you were to read that as I did, and it was the first thing I came upon, I was confused. I was like, so did the Budget Bill not pass? Was it toppled? Then I read through the rest of the article, and I urge those who are watching this video, go check it out for yourself, No it was just People Party was in opposition. Well why was that big news? People’s Party is always in opposition right now. That's their function; they are the opposition, okay? So I am doing another video contemporaneously with this one where I am going to get into what I'm calling the "Wag the Dog" phenomenon, but it looked to me and I have serious questions here at least in the English language press, was there a movement to sort of make the narrative look like the Budget didn't pass? and if so why? Well I have my own thoughts on that. First of all, back to the numbers here. Again, quoting Xinhua News: "The 500-member Lower House of the Thai Parliament passed the Budget Bill for the fiscal year starting in October with 257 votes in favour, 230 against, and 1 abstention. So they only had 7 votes over the 50/50 mark in the 500-person House. That, as I have discussed another video, that's their margin, that's their margin of majority and I think that that number shows now where we are at. That is brittle to borrow a phrase actually from Professor Dave Collum over there at Cornell University; he has talked about the brittleness that we see arising in all of this digitization of economics. But that is a very tenuous, very fragile majority and let's be very, very clear, there was a lot of non-partisan pressure here in Thailand to get this budget done. I was in favour of getting this budget done, as much as I am very much at odds with a lot of the policy, propositions, proposals, standings, affiliations of many of the folks that are currently in this so-called what I call the "Rump Coalition", this Coalition that is currently "governing" Thailand and I would argue "governing" needs to be in quotes because it is a pretty tenuous governing process right now. 

What I am saying is this is as good as they are ever going to get to my mind because this has broad base support; people want to get the budget passed. Failure to get the Budget passed could lead to a lot of real problems economically for Thailand and so getting it passed was a real hurdle. I think a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief, people that care about Thailand breathed a sigh of relief because this is a good thing overall; getting the budget passed and moving on down the road. But they only did it by seven votes and as I have discussed in other videos, there are members of this Coalition, specifically coming to mind Democrats and the UTN, where yeah, their Executive Boards may say we are part of this Coalition but their rank-and-file are not exactly just lock-step behind them on that.

So when we see further possible government activity in the Parliament in forthcoming weeks, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility at all that we are going to see real turbulence in Parliament because yeah, they had 257; they got the budget done. Well there is a lot of broad-based support for that. Other things not so much. And meanwhile it looks to me like 'politics as usual' mode is probably going to be back in play. I wouldn't be surprised to see quorum checks etc., as we move forward and understanding that at its best, when bringing as much political capital to bear, this Government was only able to muster 257 votes to get the Budget passed. That is really important to bear in mind, and again it brings up the fact that why was this sort of glossed over at the end of this week, at least in the English language press. I have my questions on this. I have my theories. I am not going to get into them, but I think it is worth pointing out that at least for me it took a minute and look, I am keeping my finger pretty closely on the pulse of this stuff, it took a minute for me to figure out that the Budget itself had been passed. So I have to ask what's the reasoning for the seeming obfuscation?