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As the title of this video suggests, we are asking where is this economic crisis everybody is saying is the exigent reason underlying the need for this so-called "digital wallet"? Let me jump in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: First-quarter GDP growth surprises analysts based on higher tourism and consumer spending growth.

I was talking to a friend of mine here about this, the whole framing of this is the weirdest thing we have ever seen. This should be a jubilant sort of announcement and actually Thai Examiner does a pretty good job of being pretty even handed with this overall topic but I've noticed in other publications and things, all kinds of weird verbiage being used like "over-tourism"; I had never heard of "over-tourism" before. Man prior to COVID, all anybody cared about was tourism; there was no such thing as "over tourism".  But again these good things are being weirdly framed as sort of bad things. Quoting directly: "Thailand's top economic agency surprises analysts with higher than expected quarter-one GDP growth driven by a 24.8% rise in tourism". Think about that. 24.8%. That is almost a quarter rise, four times; not four times but a fourth up, that's big. Quoting further: "and a 6.9% spike in consumer spending. However, the report warned of a manufacturing decline and potential Chinese product dumping." Quoting further: "Thailand's top economic agency surprised the markets on Monday with a higher than expected GDP growth figure for the first quarter. Growth was 1.5%.  Despite this, however, the details in the report make for disturbing reading." Again the theme of this was good, okay? 

Now I do get that there are some things going on vis a vis China; something of an economic slowdown. I think that's a lot of 'doom and gloom' fundamentally. Yes China is sort of retooling her economy at the moment if you will, but look, at the end of the day the action is out here in East Asia. I mean you could probably argue the real action is primarily down here in South East. But with China kind of retooling her thing and everybody else doing their thing, where we're really seeing some vibrancy in terms of economics is down here in Southeast Asia. Thailand, Vietnam for example, even Malaysia and Indonesia getting in on it. A lot going on down here. Quoting further: "In short, they point to a faltering manufacturing economy. At the same time, the Secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council specifically warned about the dumping of products on Thailand's market by China." Well yeah, that's a problem and if that is happening, I hope authorities will take measures to try to mitigate that. Quoting further: "The figures showed growth driven by a 24.8% rise in foreign tourism from 2023." And bear in mind, our numbers were up exponentially from 2022 so to go up a quarter percent, to go up by an order of magnitude of 25% on top of that, these are great numbers. I'm so proud of Thailand. We really have turned this thing around, all of us. Despite what the media says, if there's anybody I'm maddest at of all out there in the ether of the world, truly the Media, you are probably number one with a bullet for me. Quoting further: "The figures showed growth driven by a 24.8% rise in foreign tourism from 2023 and a consumer spending boom with an eye-popping 6.9% growth figure. Later on Monday, the Budget Office announced that the Government was increasing its expenditure by Bt122 billion, bringing the annual 2024/2025 budget to Bt.3.6 trillion." I like how they just mention that that. That 122 is the money to my understanding that is being earmarked for the so-called digital wallet. Now wasn't the digital wallet supposed to be this thing that we were all in exigent need of because of this economic crisis? Well where is the crisis? We are turning it around and we are turning it around on our own without putting our country into a tremendous amount of debt, in order to create a bunch of fake token money that doesn't really buy you anything but will surveil you and will take away all of your financial privacy. Where is this crisis that calls for this? Quoting further: “Massive splurge by consumers seen in the opening 3 months despite Bank of Thailand's curbs and a credit crunch." That's really important! That's really important! Bank credit has been contracting and Thailand's real economy has been driving this. It's not the financial economy, it is the economy I've been talking about on here for a while now that I know Thais themselves are the best at. When it comes to economic action if you will, Thais are the best at the so-called “informal economy”, what I call the brick and mortar economy, the real stuff, the goods and services, the value creation economy, that's what's driving this. Not banker’s funny money. Quoting further: "Reported spending was up by 6.9%." Quoting further: "The reason for the discrepancy according to the agency, was a significant boost in consumer spending. Indeed, the economic agency reported a 6.9% spurt in the first quarter." Spurt! I love the verbiage here. This is a major increase. Quoting further: "This came despite an intense credit crunch by the Bank of Thailand to rein in lending." So in spite of contraction of Bank Credit Thailand's real economy, it's hitting it out of the park. This is so good, this is so good. Quoting further: "However, it may have been driven by buoyant foreign tourism revenue."

Now here is a question. Consumer spending goes up by a surprising 6.9%. What new product could be in the economy that would be primarily in the non-bank credit tabulated economy, that would possibly increase consumer spending in a possible tourism context? Could it be that green plant that everybody is so concerned about at the moment? Could it be that? There has to be a cross section of these, what are we looking at here? How many millions, I think it was 37; in the rest of the article they go into that, I think it was like 37 odd million tourists came into Thailand in 2023 and from that number we saw the numbers that we saw in quarter one of 2024. Could those tourists possibly be here because they would like to come to a jurisdiction where they don't get hassled around about using an herb for medicinal or recreational purposes, that consenting adults can use in the privacy of their own home? Could some of those arrivals be from that? Inquiring minds want to know.

Look, at the end of the day this is great news. And it to my mind it augers against the very notion that there is any kind of economic crisis that requires this country to go into significant debt in order to double by two orders of magnitude the already existing liquidity in our banking system, in order to create a giant financial grid of a surveillance tokenization that they call "digital wallet", "digital money", which just isn't money. It's not fungible the way money is fungible; you cannot buy anything you want with it; you cannot use it anywhere you want, and there seems to be a time limit associated with it. Again, is this anything that anyone would ever have considered money at any point in time prior to this one which is occurring at this very moment? I have never heard of money like that. And again, does it require a massive infusion of debt which is going to have to be paid off by the people here ultimately, does it really require that? Is there really an economic crisis that warrants that kind of action?