Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "digital" yet again. It seems like this word is ubiquitous right now. Everything's digital: digital wallet, digitization of the Government Services here in Thailand, Digital Banks, virtual banks, digital this, digital that. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thailand kicks off first phase of Digital Wallet Scheme. 

Before we get into this, those who watch this channel with any regularity know sort of my feelings toward this Digital Wallet. I think it's totalitarian, World Economic Forum nonsense, but it's interesting to note that the initial rollout of the “Digital” Wallet is not the Digital Tokens they have talked about in the past; that is worth pointing out. Quoting directly: "The initial phase will see 10,000 Baht distributed in cash to 14.5 million Welfare Card holders." Again, worth pointing out, 'cash initially distributed'. Now I've got my own issues with these Keynesian sort of, you take Government money and re-inject it into the system, you could also argue that's socialistic or communistic on some level as well but it is definitely sort of Keynesian thinking, government intervention, but it's predicated first off on the notion that like Thailand's economy is just completely moribund right now. I agree, there are folks, especially at the lower end of the strata - the socioeconomic strata - that do need relief but that's always sort of the case. There could always be more help for people in need; I don't think anybody disagrees with that. The thing that worries me about this is going into a lot of debt in order to create this “stimulus” but it's predicated on the notion that the economy needs stimulus and I'm not quite sure that that is the case but it is notable that they're doing this initially in cash. I had a tremendous amount of issues with the plan for these Digital Wallet Tokens. I started calling them Digital Wallet Tilapia, in reference to the Tilapia fish that are causing all kinds of problems in the ecosystem. It's my personal opinion that pursuant to Gresham's Law, if these Digital Wallet Tilapia, these Digital Wallet Tokens were released in the greater economy, it would have the effect of pushing out the good money because bad money pushes out good, per Gresham's Law and it worried me a lot. So on one level I'm happy to see they are at least doing this in cash, we don't have to see these totalitarian tokens, but at the same time this type of Keynesianism, it's worrisome and it's going through a lot of the budget here in Thailand to use this and we need that budget to do things like maintaining the standard sort of administration that we've always maintained here in Thailand. So I'm hopeful on this, but the sort of inner pessimist in me is kind of crying out. Quoting again: "The initial phase will see 10,000 Baht distributed in cash to 14.5 million Welfare Card holders and disabled people and is expected to be complete by the end of the month. Quote: "Cash will be put into the hands of Thais and create a tornado of spending," Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said at an event to mark the programme's start." 

Yeah there's going to be a tornado of spending but without any concomitant value created in the economy. So I mean probably what we are going to see is a tornado of inflation. That being said, there's an argument to be made that the Baht could be weakened a little bit at the moment because it's getting strong in terms of other currencies in the world. But that said, bad Economic Policy isn't necessarily the cure for other bad Economic Policy. The exchange rate being what it is is the result of a lot of really bad economic policies maintained by the Federal Reserve primarily in the United States. That said, quoting further: Quote: "There will be more stimulus measures and we will move forward with the Digital Wallet Policy." and that's kind of the point of this video. Why is it so imperative that this be Digital? And I'll get to that further. Quoting further: "said Ms. Paetongtarn, daughter or former premier Thaksin Shinawatra." Quoting further: "The scheme has been criticized by economists including two former Bank of Thailand (BoT) Governors, as fiscally irresponsible." Yeah, because it kind of is. Quoting further: "The Government rejects that but has struggled to find sources of funding." Well you're struggling to find sources of funding because the money isn't there. And again, the way they talk about this in here, at first, if you go ahead and read that article and I urge you to do so, they'll start talking about well it's 450 million billion baht. No, they started out talking about way more than even that and then initially it was supposed to come from debt. Nobody wanted to do that because it's a bad idea. Now they're distributing this out, quite honestly I hope this is it quite frankly. People that really need it, got money. We don't see the Digital Wallet being brought online so we don't see these Digital Totalitarian Tokens and, as they mentioned in that article, those tokens had an expiration date; they had certain strings attached to them regarding what you could and could not buy. Again I urge folks who are watching this video, go check out that article in detail, but it really was an Orwellian kind of dream and frankly I'd wonder if it's not another one of these World Economic Forum pipe dreams that for whatever reason, a lot of folks around the world seem to go to this and then come back with these weird notions of Digital Money and 'you will own nothing and be happy' or whatever it is that the World Economic Forum thinks is peace and prosperity. 

But long story short, the thing that constantly worries me on it, again I want to quote that again: "There will be more stimulus measures and we will move forward with Digital Wallet Policy." Why? Who's calling for that? And by the way, and people seem to forget this, I have continuously seen it in the press, well this was a 'Flagship of this Party'. And? They don't have a massive mandate here. So great, it's a Flagship of theirs, but I think it's clear from the setup of Parliament that that is not the priority here in Thailand. And again, while there are people that do need relief, and I feel for those folks, I truly do, digitization of this economy and thereby creating a situation where we have total surveillance over the entire economy, is going to create a situation that is inherently negative overall. Not just from the freedom and liberty standpoint but at the same time if we learned anything from the Soviet Union, it's the fact that these type of measures bring nothing but problems. People don't want to do business that way. They don't want to have every coca cola they buy be tracked and traced and then possibly one day people say: "oh you can only buy so many of these because you drink too many of them", or they start imposing what China currently has, Social Credit Scoring. Nobody in Thailand needs that. Thailand is the land of the free; it's the land of the Thais, Thai means free, it doesn't mean Digital.