Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are yet again talking about the Digital Wallet here in Thailand. I don't know why this thing is still hanging around, but it is. I have made my thoughts on this very, very known. I don't like any of this idea of "digital money"; I don't like any of this idea of Central Bank Digital Currencies although I do understand that part of that word might end up being a euphemism if you will for what will end up being a trade currency or a trade settlement system occurring in a digital context that will effectively come to replace the current system we utilize, utilizing sovereign debt as reserves and then using that to offset International Trade. I expect that's how it will be in the long term. What I am talking about here is retail level money, spending money and at the end of the day, cash in my opinion, is the best form of money because you have a level of privacy and people have a right to a level of privacy with regard to their personal finance. Especially since the 80s, they came up with this term so-called money laundering. I believe that word was promulgated in the United States in 1987 as a crime but prior to that, it wasn't anything and people tend to forget this. It's sort of like in Immigration Law, people tend to forget that 100 years ago, nobody really walked around with a passport, it just wasn't a common thing but it's this inexorable march toward increasing surveillance and decreasing personal privacy. Now my personal belief is I think the vast majority of people around the world just aren't going to put up with this stuff and there will be a quiet pushback that will just say "no we're not doing that anymore". However that manifests itself in different jurisdictions will probably have little nuanced differences, but at the end of the day I think people are sick of this stuff. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Government plans to increase budget by 122 billion Baht to fund handout scheme. That's the first thing is do Thais really need this handout? And it's not a handout, it's not actual money. As we have discussed in other videos, they can tell you where you can spend it; they can tell you the parameters of geographically where you can spend it; they can tell you what you can spend it on. Me personally, I'm not really interested in your economic serf tokens - I don't know what the right word is for that. Quoting directly: "Economists and two former Central Bank Governors have criticized the program as fiscally irresponsible." Yeah, that's another good point. Where's the money for all of this? In a prior video we did, one guy who writes for Bangkok Post who I really find interesting to read, brought up the fact that to inject all of this money will inject two more orders of magnitude of liquidity in the system that is currently there. If you don't understand what the problem with that is, just take a look at the United States where they injected tons and tons into the money supply, orders of magnitude into the money supply, and now we are reaping the whirlwind of that in the US. I don't really want to see Thailand go through that personally. Quoting further: "The Government rejects that and says it is necessary to jump-start an economy in crisis." I love how these things are just said. They don't break down any sort of bullet pointed explanation as to why that is the case. Again, yeah the economy has got some problems but we are doing a heck of a lot better than we were doing a couple years ago when we were fully shut down because of Government interaction; because of too much attempted central planning a free market economy which is what I see this as, in a different form. Quoting further: "The so-called "Digital Wallet" program entails giving 10,000 Baht each to 50 million people to spend in their localities within six months." Again spend within the parameters they tell you, and I mean literal geographic parameters and spend within what they say you can buy; you can't just buy anything with this stuff. Again, why is the public being placed in a mountain of debt in order to just create a system that causes them to be surveilled and their big bonus, their big pay out out of this is money, that isn't even money? Quoting further: "The Central Bank had recommended it target vulnerable groups only." Yeah look, again I see some arguments out there for some compassion for people that are having a hard time. You could probably convince me to just print up cash and maybe hand some out. I mean it's really not fiscally responsible and it is one of the reasons for the smoke screen, and that's what it is of this notion of a "Digital Wallet" because it obfuscates, it misdirects from the underlying issue of fiscal irresponsibility and quite honestly totalitarian surveillance of your private financial transactions. So again, I question whether or not this is the most prudent course of action for Thailand.