Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Thailand is a so-called "rigged game". I thought of making this video actually after watching a number of videos by kind of a legend in the expat world, at least the American expat world, the international man himself, Mr. Doug Casey. I see him every once in a while on YouTube. I will try to go ahead and throw up a link in the description below to his channel. He talks with another gentleman, I believe his name is Matthew Smith, pretty much every week it seems like. I tune in from time to time; I would say I am a regular viewer because I like his take, he has an Expat mentality, very much an expat paradigm and so it is rather interesting. But the notion of a "rigged game". He was talking once about some of his exploits in doing business primarily in places like Africa and South America, although I do know he has been over to Thailand. He has come to Southeast Asia I believe before so he is familiar with us over here but I think the main thrust of his business endeavours has been in Africa and South America.

But the reason for the video is I remember he was talking recently to his counterpart and they were discussing places to do business and he said one of his favourite places to do business or a place he liked to do business was any place that was a "rigged game", basically where the rules were in the favour of him who was trying to do business.

Now again, there are levels of this and nobody is in favour of corruption, I wouldn't say that that is the case, but there are certain levels of "rigged gameness" if you will and although Thailand is a pretty level playing field as far as foreigners, and foreigners go, yeah Thailand does have some protection measures in place for their own labour pool as well as their own property market. There are a number of aspects of the Thai economy that are rigged in favour of Thais. Now I may have the fervour the converted here, in fact I think it is safe to say I do, I am a naturalized Thai, I love Thailand, everything about Thailand is great to me, so I kind of like the "rigged game" nature to a certain extent. But even without that, I have to say understanding Thai history and understanding what Thailand has had to do to hold its own independence, maintain its sovereignty, I totally understand the rather protectionist measures that are oftentimes put in in terms of land ownership for foreigners, certain aspects of occupation restrictions that restrict occupations to Thai nationals only. Again, these things do make a certain degree of sense when you understand the historical context.