Transcript of the above video: 

For those of you who are used to the rather short form of many of the videos that I put out on the channel, well this isn't going to be one of those; this is going to be a longer video. So the thing to understand and to take away from this video is first of all what does the term "railroaded" really mean? Well let me use it in the context I'm going to use it in this video. I actually came upon that term anecdotally, quite genuinely via anecdote from my grandfather who once described the term "railroaded" as basically when somebody is politically just sort of run over if you will by vested interest sort of thing. He told me it came from the Huey Long situation when Huey Long tried to run for Railroad Commissioner back in Louisiana and his first attempt at that failed and he later sort of went on to become sort of a populist icon but not before having gone through this like pretty massive defeat primarily at the hands of railroad interests so that's sort of, and he was running for railroad commissioner. I guess that's where the term came from. Folks can dispute the etymology of it but that's how I came upon it so the context of that term is where somebody is basically like sort of compelled into doing something politically or be run over by it, it's sort of an inevitability if you will.

I thought of that notion when I first read this article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Pheu Thai MP warns lying critics of the Digital Wallet they may face prosecution after a fairly good start. What? That was my first reaction to that. Huh? That said, again thaiexaminer.com, quoting directly: "Pheu Thai MP warn critics of Digital Wallet may face prosecution if they are spreading false information." Boy oh boy. When was the last time we heard of bullying tactics by politicians and bureaucrats and other purveyors of in my opinion what turned out to be nonsense, when was the last time we heard about that? False information? Quoting further: "Successful start with 18.8M users registered on the first day." Which as we will get into, didn't come without some hiccups. Quoting further: "Scheme aims to boost the economy, with adults eligible for B10,000 giveaway until September 15." Well first off, we don't know where the funding is coming from on all of this. This is kind of being reported as a foregone conclusion and I fail to see where that's justified. In any event, quoting further: "Thailand's Digital Wallet registration process got off to a shaky start on Thursday although ultimately it was a successful day for the Government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. On Friday, Pheu Thai Party list MP and Deputy Secretary General Linthiporn Warinwatcharoj warned that critics of the scheme who go overboard and speak untruths online may face prosecution." Quoting further: "However, one condition of the measure is that spending must take place in the district in which the person is registered." Yeah, that's the first one. So first things first. Why does this have to be digital? Why can't checks just be cut? Why can't bank transfers just be made? Why do we have to have this entirely new system for this? And meanwhile, why does it have to be digital and why does it have to be this so-called money that can only be used in certain places and under certain conditions and to buy certain things? Quoting further: "Critics of the scheme include Bank of Thailand Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput and other officials at the Central Bank. Mr Sethaput has repeatedly called for a more targeted package." 

Yeah that's sort of the thing about all of this is one, again going back to the digital thing. Look, the Treasury Department in the United States initiated one of these stimulus back during COVID when I at least could understand the argument. As we have discussed in other videos they have continuously try to push this narrative that Thailand is in some terrible economic death spiral which Thailand is aging, the demography is what it is. Yes other jurisdictions in the region are seeing GDP growth that is substantially in some cases better than Thailand’s but you have to remember Thailand is an already developed economy, so that's the first thing to presume. Secondly I'm just not buying that everything is so terrible within the Thai economy that it warrants this massive overhauling of our monetary system to have this digital money that can only be utilized as and when the Government says it can be utilized. And again the money, where's this coming from? That's been another thing. There's been no real straight, clear answer as to where the sources of funding are and as we will get into here in a little bit, there are multiple ways and there are probably multiple checks if you will in sort of the vernacular of 'checks and balances' there are certain checks I think we are going to see with regard to the funding on this thing. So again the way this is being reported as a sort of foregone conclusion I think is unwarranted at the very least and is premature at the very least. Quoting further: "MP Linthiporn defends the Digital Wallet programme. Criticised detractors and praised PM Srettha Thavisin." Quoting further: "Presently it looks like the first targeted tranche of the program will proceed in the final three months of 2024." Again, "it looks like". That's the operative phraseology, "looks like", not a foregone conclusion. Quoting further: "Officials estimate that B162 billion will enter the economy at this time, coinciding with New Year's Eve celebrations. The measure, according to the Ministry of Finance, will be funded directly from the Government purse and extended budgets for 2024 and 2025." Yeah, well will it completely exhaust the Government purse which will then necessitate further Government lending down the road? Again they have said "well we're not going into debt for it." Well are we not going into debt for it because we're literally spending all the money we have on this program? And by the way, have we not seen this before? Did we not see the bottom we hit in 2014? I mean does nobody have a collective memory here of what happens when there basically is no effective budget left? Quoting further: "A supplementary Bill allocating B122 billion of the projected amount has just been successfully ushered through the House of Representatives by Minister of Finance Pichai Chunhavajira." Quoting further: "Nevertheless, there has been widespread concern about the project. Critically at one point, both National Anti-Corruption Commission and the Council of State raised their reservations with the Government," and it's my understanding the Council of State could still chime in if ultimately the structure of the financing of this scheme is deemed to be illegal basically. I don't know so much or I don't have so much insight with regard to the National Anti-Corruption Corruption Commission.

But then another thing to bear in mind, and going over here to the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Key Budget Bill passes House. Again they are reporting this like it's a foregone conclusion because it's gone through the House, but remember Thailand has a bicameral legislative system. Quoting directly: "The Next Step will be for the House to forward the Bill to the Senate for deliberation expected next week according to a Government source. Mr Julapun earlier said the handout would be issued at the end of this year as planned." Well it might be if this survives legislative scrutiny as ultimately promulgated. Going back to the Thai Examiner article, quoting directly: "However on Friday after Thursday's relatively successful launch, Ms. Linthiporn Warinwatcharojj warned those who go too far in criticizing the plan that they may face prosecution if they spread untruths online." I'm getting real tired of this. I didn't like it during COVID where people weren't allowed to talk about anything substantive or they would face "penalties" or implied societal penalties or whatever. I just don't like the bully. I am okay in many ways and I've had people ask me over the years if I'm all right with sort of the state of free speech in Thailand. I pretty well am, and one of the things I do rather like about it and something I think maybe the West could look at a little bit, especially in the era of social media, is stuff that has to do with personal defamation. I don't have any problem, or I have less of a problem where people are being defamed and not allowing that type of speech to occur. I think a wiser man than myself once said: "Stupid people talk about people, smart people talk about ideas." Well at the end of the day, this whole scheme is but an idea and it's an idea that could put the nation into tremendous debt moving forward. Debt I am going to have to pay as a taxpayer here in Thailand ultimately and it's something that again they are not being overly straightforward as to where the funding is coming from. Then on top of all of that, there are all these massive surveillance implications which we will get into here in a minute, kind of 'note to self, spoiler alert for later in the video', facial recognition tied to your money, which why do we want that? Who that voted for this supposedly because this initiative was part of that part of the coalition's sort of platforms that they ran on. Who really was in favour of “hey my money is now going to be tied to facial recognition technology?” we will get to that in a moment. That said, again I am tired of this "bullying" people about talking about things that really matter in a civic sense. Quoting further: "She also singled out former Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit for reproach. And quoting directly: "I would like to leave a message to Mr. Jurin Laksanawisit of the Democrat Party: Digital Wallet is the hope of the people, not money to buy food as alleged." Well I have got to tell you, as a people myself, if you're giving me free money and you say I can't use it on food, I have to have the question: "is this money?" Quoting further: "Prime Minister Srettha knows how to think outside the box.." Well my question on that is: Did he learn that at the World Economic Forum? Sincerely. Because I'm thinking that these ideas especially the Digital Wallet which seems to be simultaneously being rushed to the foreground throughout many nations around the world simultaneously, I have to ask the question: Did he come up with this whole thing on his own? You are saying he thinks outside the box, so he came up with this on his own outside the box or did he perhaps maybe learn about it when he was at the World Economic Forum? Quoting further: "..how to generate income, and how to open the country's doors to attract foreign investment." We are good on that. Again it's part of this narrative that things are like so terrible here in Thailand it warrants these drastic measures. Quoting further: “If Mr. Jurin can only think of inventing rhetoric and devaluing the digital wallet policy it will be a waste of time.” Well what does that even mean? Quoting further: “I would also like to warn some groups of people who are trying to destroy this project creating fake news that may be considered as giving false information to the public through various platforms.” So first off, who defines “false”, and remember “misinformation” and all the malinformation, misinformation, disinformation; I did the video on malinformation. I just don't like this talk like this especially when we're talking issues. Issues that are going to have a very dramatic impact on the people of this country who are supposed to be being represented by the people in their government, the very people who are telling them that they may face prosecution for even discussing this or spreading any information about this. It's okay to have a contrarian opinion. Quoting further: “If it does not result in anything good..” Well define “good”. I love the line from that series on HBO, Rome, where Cleopatra is talking to Lucius Vorenus about their mutual acquaintance Titus Pullo and Titus Pullo is kind of a wild and rowdy kind of guy but he has a good heart, at the end of the day, he is a good person but Cleopatra ask Lucius Vorenus, “is he a good man” and he says, "well define good." Again it's a valid question. Who determines “good”? Quoting further: “..they may be prosecuted.” Well here's the thing. I'll happily stand by everything I've said about this digital wallet scheme going up to the minute we first heard about it, started talking about it on here. I'm not going to be intimidated. In fact I welcome the idea that if somebody wants to come after me in a criminal sense that I can use the court system as a forum so that we can get to the bottom of whether or not this is a good idea, because at the end of the day again this is going to have tremendous ramifications for Thailand's economy and especially long-term and we're going to look back at this as the moment. And quite honestly, I don't want to live under a surveillance system where they get to know every time I buy a Coke or whatever it is they think they want to know, and get to just track and trace everybody. I don't live in Communist China, I live in Thailand. Thailand means Free. Land of the Free. Quoting further: "Certainly it got off to a hectic start with over 10.5 million registrants confirmed in the first 6 hours. After that, the system stalled due to the huge load being placed upon it." So again, are we not allowed to bring this up? This is a valid concern to have if you're taking all of our monetary transactions and placing them on a platform like this. What happens if it shuts down? As I talked about in other videos, one, why can't we just have checks? Write checks, send us the money. We can use it for whatever we want. Why does it have to be through this platform that only allows these digital tokens that can only be spent under certain circumstances? It's not really money, so therefore how we going into debt for something that isn't really the money they claim that we're getting? That's a key question, but then another key question is once we have this infrastructure in place and we have no alternative, an analog alternative, ie. Cash, checks, things of this nature, once there is no alternative, what happens if there's another shutdown because it can't bear the load? Are we all just supposed to walk around with no money? And by the way, at this point I'm not beyond believing that governments anywhere could just say yeah you're just out of money. Tough luck. Because that's what they told us during Covid when they just said all your businesses need to shut down because we say so. Quoting further, and bringing that up again. CrowdStrike was a perfect example of this in a more broad context. Thailand didn't get hit with that because it wasn't tied into that platform. It maintained an analog system off the computer. Not everything has to have an exclusively digital footprint. We can have two systems; we can have no system. We can keep operating like we have. There's nothing wrong with that. The whole exercise is being monitored by a War Room at the Finance Ministry.” A War Room. Who are you at war with? The public? The people that you are supposed to be serving by bringing this thing online? Quoting further: “Notably, a key problem with the process was the face scanning application. Quoting further, I think I should say that again. "Notably a key problem with the process was the face-scanning application. Users were required to submit a live photograph to be matched with their national ID." So for anybody that says "this isn't for financial surveillance”, well what else could it be for? Quoting further: “Those who were most successful had already downloaded the application and were ready.” Again, really. Facial recognition tied to your national ID, tied to your money now? Honestly I hope Thai people really, really rethink this and policymakers really, really think this through and I'm not interested in hearing, “well not everybody has to use it, it's just for this.” Well why are they pouring hundreds of billions of Baht on it, if they don't intend for everybody to use it down the road? Why would they do that? Clearly there is the intention that this becomes more than just the platform it's currently claiming it's going to be for the people proposing it or claiming it's going to be. Clearly there are other designs by this. You wouldn't put this much money into it. This is this is infrastructure changing levels of money that they're proposing to put into this. Again where they get it from and exactly how remains to be seen but again and meanwhile I don't exactly begrudge certain members of the House who voted in favour of this. It is very difficult to vote against free money for the public. What's the old saying? “The moment a polity realizes they can vote themselves into prosperity, they'll attempt to do so until they destroy their society”, that's sort of how it works. It's like trying to stand in a bucket and pick yourself up. It's not a good strategy. We've gone through all of the economics of that in other videos, again which I completely stand behind and will do so moving forward but again there are levels of dystopian applications under this that are clear, they are right out in front of us. Your facial recognition is now tied to your economic transactions and they get to determine what type of transactions you can do, how long you can do them, and in what geographic proximity to your home that you can engage in those transactions? I mean if this isn't the definition of Orwellian or something from Phillip K. Dick, I don't know what is. Meanwhile this sort of like economic justification, this whole narrative that oh we're in a problematic situation economically notwithstanding the fact we had a booming first quarter, consumer spending was up 10% overall, pretty good high season; I do get the export sector is not exactly where we want it to be at the moment, but Thailand has always had to balance between those things. It has always been a situation where depending on the year, they are talking about how bad the economy is because of exports, and then depending on the next year they're talking about how bad the economy is based on lack of Tourism - like for the three years where they literally decimated tourism by shutting down the country which I discussed at the time in detail. That said again the economic argument I fail to see it manifest and to my point, quoting directly from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Monitor the Wallet scheme. Quoting directly: “The prospects for this economic stimulus are still uncertain as public debt hits the ceiling’, and again we just raised the debt ceiling before, back during Covid. They kind of claimed exigent need and did it under the Emergency Decree and everybody was kind of uncomfortable with it but they just kind of went along with it. Well now they're trying to raise it again to get this surveillance money in. Quoting further: “As public debt hits the ceiling, the Government cannot take out a huge loan to fund its electoral vows.” Meanwhile though, they want to get the budget to do that which just means we're going to need loans down the line. Quoting directly: “It needs to scrape together funds from this and next year's fiscal budgets to fulfill the almost half-trillion Baht handout promise.” Again and it's not cash. It's not like they're printing this money and just it out or sending out checks. It’s these digital tokens. So we're going into debt for the equivalent value of half a trillion Baht but the people that are supposedly benefiting from it are not getting actual money, so how is that a fair exchange of value in a debt sense? Why should the nation be put into this level of national debt, when in reality they are not getting the same thing as the type of capital that is a real 500 billion Baht? Like if you stacked it up in cash, that is not what is being given out. It's just these tokens, it is imaginary. At the very least it's illusory. Quoting further: "This raises the question of which projects and ministries will have to forfeit their budgets for the wallet scheme." Yeah, again they're saying, “oh well we don't need to go into debt for it, we'll just gut the whole budget”. Well the Government does some things around here. I don't know if anybody has noticed, and some of them I like them doing. I'm okay with paying taxes for it. I am not really okay with paying taxes for some totalitarian surveillance Orwellian financial system that nobody really needs in the first place and the justification for which this “necessity” of economic stimulus doesn't really hold up. Quoting further: "Thursday's launch showed how determined the Pheu Thai Government is to realize the Wallet project. It ignored cautions and warnings from economic experts that the economic gains will not be as high as projected." Well are you going to prosecute those economic experts for their warnings? Quoting further: "Indeed the Bank of Thailand has argued that the 450 billion Baht will contribute only 0.9 percentage points to Thailand's GDP growth - not 1.2 - 1.8 percentage points as Pheu Thai predicted." Meanwhile, that doesn't even go as deep as it needs to go. Again GDP itself is purely a byproduct of bank credit. No actual value is going to be created in the economy by the creation of these digital tokens. Things that already exist and would have existed in this economy, are what is going to be moved around and create taxable events using this “digital money”, “digital” wallet not real money. As they say, JP Morgan said “gold is money, everything else is bank credit.” We're not even talking about Bank Credit in the cash sense of the term that heretofore we have known the definition of money as that. No, we're talking about these digital credits and they are not money in and of themselves per se, but meanwhile no new value is being created. Just printing this and injecting it in the economy. Get ready for inflation. Now they will claim Oh, there won't be any inflation because we can just turn off the money.” So it wasn't money to begin with, so why are we going into debt for it, if it's not money? In the traditional sense of the term. Why do we, the people in Thailand, have to pay back half a trillion Baht in actual Baht, for a stimulus that didn't give us actual Baht? Baht that we have known of by the definition of Baht in terms of the currency heretofore. "With the local supply chain relying on imported goods or products from major retailers, economic experts predict that a massive amount of money will go to big businesses instead of the grassroots economy." Yeah, exactly. They ought to be signed up for it. They say themselves you can only buy certain stuff on it, and you can only use it in certain places. That doesn't just mean sort of the radius geometrically from your home, it also means they can choose who you can spend your money with. Quoting further: "The big question is who and what will benefit from the digital wallet scheme. Will the money end up in the pockets of big companies as economists have warned? Should the 450 billion Baht -- which indeed could have been spent on other development schemes -- be expected to lift GDP as Pheu Thai posted it would?" Well it might lift GDP nominally, but did it create any new value in the economy in terms of goods and services? That's the question. Quoting further: "If not, is there any mechanism and this was a key question here. Good on you Bangkok Post. "If not, is there any mechanism to hold politicians accountable for using state budgets to fulfill the electoral promises?" Exactly. When the state then has to come back and go into a bunch more debt which they'll put on the populist in terms of later taxes to be paid to pay it off, when the state goes into further debt, are these folks that are pushing this and bullying all of us to just accept it and to not question anything and to not talk about it with all of their bullying and their buzz words of misinformation, malformation type of talk, are any of these people going to be held accountable when we assess whether or not this scheme was really a benefit to the Kingdom of Thailand?