Transcript of the above video: 

We are doing another one of these informal sort of videos here today. And again, appreciation to the folks who have helped with the, you have been kind of helping me sort of troubleshoot this mic. I think I have got this mic worked out for the minute, so hopefully that's the case but much appreciated to everybody who's been helping. 

So again, the question sort of posed by this video is will WEF policies, so World Economic Forum policy thinking, is it going to destroy Thailand's tourism sector. Before people start calling me hyperbolic for bringing this up, it is worth pointing out a couple of things, because people have said, well "how can we know that they are all that influenced by World Economic Forum?" Well let's bear in mind and I did the videos on this at the time that it occurred, the Prime Minister here went to the World Economic Forum back in January I believe; I think he took the Minister of Foreign Affairs with him if I recall correctly. The former Prime Minister in Thailand which I'll get to in a moment was involved with World Economic Forum and then from about 2012 onwards until roughly last year call it, we didn't have any of this. That was because we had sort of an interruption if you will, from some people's perspective, how ever you want to look at that, but we had a different Government for like 9 years and change and reasonable people can have their issues with that Government and that's not the purpose of getting into this as far as I'm concerned, not really relevant all that much other than to say, during that time period we almost had like a moratorium from all of this WEF stuff, and again you can say what you will about that Government and there is a lot to be said but this is something we weren't dealing with and now we are and it's worth pointing out also, in my opinion, I have said it before and I will say it again, this looks to me like neo-colonialism just of a different sort of ilk if you will, a different type. It's not British Men of War coming over the horizon on the high seas or something but it looks to me like a form of neo-colonialism nonetheless.

So first of all for some context, going back to an article in 2012. For those who think that I'm tilting at windmills here with regard to the notion that there even is sort of a WEF policy influence, going back to 2012, Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, I will put links in the description below on our standard formal videos which I'm going to continue doing. We like to point this stuff out visually. I don't have quite as much time when I do these more informal ones and I do have a day job as well that I have to get back to quite frankly. That being said, the article is titled: PM Backs Thailand’s future at WEF. Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com ON THE WORLD STAGE: Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. “Ms. Yingluck on Friday attended the 42nd World Economic Forum (WEF) and presided over a "Thailand Night" held by the Government to encourage national and business leaders to attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok between May 30 and June 1." So that's going back into 2012. Meanwhile, we've seen a new Prime Minister come in and for those who say I am maybe putting together things that aren't real here, the last Prime Minister literally went during his time in the office to the World Economic Forum and that person is from the same part of the coalition as is currently governing or operating in coalition with other parties to maintain the current Government. So it is not this big leap to infer that there is at least some level of World Economic Forum influence on policy thinking; I don't think that is unreasonable to think at all. That said, and then on top of it quoting from prd.go.th, that's basically sort of the press release from the Thai Government under the title: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra delivers policy statement. Quoting directly: "She stated that 10 urgent policies to be implemented by the government would include: 1) pushing for debt restructuring of the whole system." What exactly does that mean? As we have discussed in other videos, there has been this push for these CBDCs, Central Bank Digital Currencies; they are calling it the digital wallet and digital wallet tokens which aren't real money and they just can decide what you can spend it on, where you can spend it, the timing of spending it, they expire. Again this is all WEF thinking, World Economic Forum, this is right in that wheelhouse. Quoting further: “2) promoting Thai entrepreneurs especially SME operators." Well that would be great but as we will get to hear in a minute, how is that promotion actually going to work? “3) reducing prices of energy and Public utilities." Well great, but again how is the Government supposed to reduce prices of energy and Public utilities other than by utilizing neo-Keynesian methodologies, again the same types of things that the World Economic Forum just loves.

Quoting further, so when they say encouraging SMEs, then under “number 4) bringing the informal economy and the underground economy, into the tax system. That is the littlest guys here in Thailand. Those are the people that are operating street vending stalls basically. And I love the nice way of saying is the informal economy is but then they have the ‘underground economy’ to give it an air of nefariousness so that we can, we are going to bring that in to the tax system. And note, they are very clear about that. "bringing the informal economy, the underground economy into the tax system." That's the goal, and that has been stated here in the writing; I'll put the link in the description below. Quoting further: “5) stimulating the economy and pushing for the Digital Wallet Scheme." Again totalitarian tokens that can track and trace all transactions and can dictate what those transactions, what your money can be used to buy, sell and the conditions in which you can buy and sell. So the timing thereof, the place, the geographical location where it can be used, this stuff is really Orwellian. Quoting further: "6) modernizing traditional agriculture, added value to agriculture products and increasing farmers' income under the concept of "market driven innovation to increase income". What does that mean? What is that a euphemism for? Anytime they start looking to mess with agriculture here in Thailand, it gets my hackles way up. And remember we did a video previously where we were quoting from very similar sort of data points when Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra did a speech and was even talking about foreign land ownership which to my mind as a naturalized Thai, as a Thai generally, I think that is a bad idea across all boards. Quoting further: "7) promoting tourism," which we will get into in a minute. How are we going to promote that and as you will see, the notion of promoting tourism it looks pretty Orwellian to me and quite honestly, I think it could have a detrimental impact on the tourism sector here; I'll get to that in a moment. "8) solving the drug problem on a full-cycle basis." Okay. "9) accelerating the tackling of crime issues online, crime and transnational crime, and 10) developing the people's potential and arranging social welfare in accordance with the changing situation." What changing situation? There has been this constant theme that one, Thailand's economy is in some sort of stagnant state, I guess and I really don't see where that is the case. I have done the videos on that before and it's my opinion that that is being sort of rolled out as an ostensible pretext to this notion of pushing the digital economy, pushing the digital wallet and to what in? Just to tax everything, everyone all the time? Extract wealth from the lowest socioeconomic strata? I mean is that really going to help Thailand's economy. 

Meanwhile let's get into tourism specifically. A recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, I will put the link in the description. New platform to host Thai tourism services: web portal to include tourist tax payments. Quoting directly: "The Tourism and Sports Ministry has unveiled a new web portal connecting online services from the public sector, including the new Electronic Travel Authorization,” (which I have done a video on that before, this is similar to what's called ESTA which is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization to the United States. It was created under George W. Bush which you want to talk about Orwellian creations during that administration, we saw quite a few of those, usually in furtherance to the Patriot Act, or pursuant to the Patriot Act, which is its own conversation, discussion to be had at a completely different time. But it was called the back door Visa at the time. It was met with a great deal of resentment because basically what it was designed to do was it created what effectively amounted to a Visa. You have got to go through this ESTA or in Thailand this ETA process, even if you can get into Thailand without a Visa, you can use the Exemption Stamp. The nice thing about the Exemption Stamp is it is very convenient, and it still is. I am hoping they do not roll out this ETA. I think this is a bad idea; I think this is going to have a detrimental impact on tourism because as it sits right now, people who can utilize the exemption stamp, can just get on a plane and come here and they can just come to an Immigration checkpoint, present their passport. If it is one of the nationalities that allows for exemption and the Immigration officer find no reason to find that person inadmissible, you are just admitted in. This new system is going to require all kinds of messing around on an online platform, and then on top of that they are trying to institute a Tourist Tax that you have to pay before you even come here. Does anybody really think that's going to encourage tourism? My personal opinion is it is just going to annoy people and cause them to throw up their hands and say "I'm going to go somewhere else", that's what worries me. Especially the tax part of this. I did another video where I talked about, all this notion of tax and trying to get every satang out of foreigners, it has the potential to kill the Golden Goose of tourism here in Thailand. That's what truly scares me. "Mongkon Wimonrat, Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry said that the website named "Entry Thailand" is a central platform that features helpful information and travel services from suppliers, seeking to engage tourists throughout their trips.” Quoting further: "He said the portal collaborates with more than 12 organizations, such as the Interior Ministry and Airports of Thailand, offering updated information such as flight and train schedules, an event calendar, and local attractions." Okay, so some of this is you could argue maybe adding some value and some convenience although anybody that has ever dealt with online Government applications here in Thailand know it's a mixed bag, and that is putting it mildly. Quoting further: "The portal connects with external services from other public and private organizations looking in a minute such as accommodation booking in the National Parks across Thailand,  Muay Thai class booking, Tourist Police contacts, the Tourist VAT refund system, and Electronic Visa Application.” 

So again, this is going to be this platform that you're dealing with, sort of the Immigration system but again none of this exists right now. You don't need to go through any of these hoops just to get into Thailand. And again who thinks that adding these hoops is actually going to help the tourism numbers here? At a minimum it is going to have a negative impact on numbers because there are going to be a certain number of people who just say "No, I am not going to do it". Because they don't want to get on the system, they don't want to mess with it. They are used to being able to just get on a plane, come on in. To my mind it is self-evident that this is going to have some kind of negative impact. Quoting further: "Mr. Mongkon said the platform has been developed from the screening system during the pandemic." Now if I said anything, it was my issues with all the Orwellian nonsense that went down during the pandemic, it looks to me like "pandemic" which, again I got into this at the time it was declared a pandemic under very spurious circumstances. They kind of retooled if you will the definition of pandemic to get this thing to trigger the mechanism to call it pandemic. If I recall in March of 2020, authorities here in Thailand were very reluctant to go along with this because it was so over the top, and in fact at the time they only instituted the Emergency Decree in two week increments because I think they were hoping that this hysteria would subside and we could get back to normality. We didn't. We just ended up going through multiple years of Orwellian sort of I don't even know what to call it, sort of like a Medical Nanny State sort of situation. And on top of that, we shut down the economy for years; we had effectively two and a half years of economic shutdown, in many ways complete shutdown in certain instances. Now as I said at the time, I do believe that local authorities were acting in good faith. I think they were trying to do what was right. They were basically being told by International or "supranational" authorities that they needed to do this and I think they were acting in good faith but this really concerns me that they want to roll back out these pandemic platforms for just general tourism to Thailand. We saw the staggering decrease in tourism. It literally decimated the tourism industry. I made a video on that where literally we went down to 10% of what the Tourism Industry once was and the Tourism Industry made up I think about 18% of the economy prior to that time, so this was a huge amount of economic capital that Thailand just lost as a result of the institution of these exact policies. Quoting further: "Which inbound visitors used for booking quarantine accommodations before entering Thailand". Well what do we need this system for now? And by the way, it is possible to roll that back out as it was. Why do we have to have this thing on all the time? Quoting further: "The project aligns with the public development trend of e-services." No, that is not a public development trend of e-services. That is from the top down having this imposed upon the people of the world, without their real consent. Nobody really wants this. I have been dealing with the US Immigration System for 17 years and in the past 5 years when we have seen these “e-Services”, it has only gotten worse. What terrifies me is this is brought to Thailand and it hobbles this place as well. Quoting further: "Targeting improvement of the country’s travel and tourism competitive index ranking." Well how competitive is Thailand going to be if somebody can get on a plane and just go into Malaysia without having to get on this ETA or Cambodia, or Vietnam? Or even Laos for that matter, or the Philippines? If you don't have to go through all these hoops and you just want to go hang out at a beach, which place are you going to go to? The place you have to go through a bunch of neo-Soviet websites and e-Services and pay a Tourism Tax just for the, and you have to look at this from the standpoint of the tourist. The tourist is coming here of their own volition, voluntarily, to spend money in Thailand. Do we want to discourage that by having their first interaction be with an online system that just puts its hand out and says, "hey we need 300 baht", for effectively nothing? Again the system as it sits right now you don't need any of this, so what value is being added by adding all these extra hoops and adding on to it a tax that definitely has the ability to put off possible future tourists. Where is the benefit to Thailand coming from in that scenario? In any event, quoting further: "Which could support the Government's "Ignite Tourism Thailand" policy he said." That is a funny term they use, "Ignite Tourism Thailand". Well you may ignite it, you may burn it all up if you bring in some of these policies because it is very possible this will drive people away and that's what scares me. Quoting further: "The Ministry expects to integrate more services into the system in the future including mandatory ETA system for Visa exempted travellers, which will be implemented soon by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the pending 300 baht tourism fee collection." The last Government had the foresight to see that this 300 baht Tourism ‘Tax had the potential to detrimentally impact the tourism sector in Thailand, so that's why they shelved it, even after the Cabinet approved it, because cooler heads prevailed. Meanwhile, they are putting on a bunch of new hoops through the ETA system for people that want to come to Thailand and a Tax. Is anybody really incapable of inferring how that could negatively impact Thailand's Tourism Sector? Is that really a mystery to anybody? Quoting further: "Mr. Mongkon said that if a new pandemic erupted," this was a once in a hundred year thing that they said when the "pandemic" occurred, I call it the 'great over exaggeration’, but when it occurred, this was supposed to be once in a 100 year thing. Now they talk about it like we should be ready at all times.

 You know this totalitarian nonsense under the guise of caring about public health or something, it is really just getting galling at this point. Quoting further: "The travel screening system could also be recalled on this web portal." Well it could also just be re-implemented like it was before. Why do we need this portal if no other reason than make the imposition of this totalitarianism easier and more efficient for these bureaucrats, but a real burden and very cumbersome for any possible travel, thereby possibly creating the situation where we are going to get less travellers? Quoting further: "As new Tourism and Sports Minister, Sorawong Thienthong, has agreed to restart the Tourism Tax," so we're going to restart the Tourism Tax? Something that we shelved previously, not only by this same part of the coalition that is currently governing, it was shelved by that Cabinet. The Government that was operating in the nine years prior to that and back and forth this issue came up and was shelved because again at the end of the day this really isn't great policy thinking. I'm really worried that this could kill the Golden Goose of Tourism here in Thailand. Quoting further: "For tourist insurance and supply development", well okay, "Mr. Mongkon said the online travel safety platform has started a trial run." What is this online travel safety platform? That is a whole other thing, and again the level of nanny-minder kind of new-speak talk is just creepy to me. In any event, “whenever the Government decides to activate it, it needs only 6 months to start collecting fees, which will also offer online payments on the platform.” Again you are going to have to deal with this before you even come to Thailand so before these tourists even get here, we are going to have an online system that puts the onus on them to do a bunch of online paperwork and then pay 300 baht? Honestly, people really don't see how this could negatively impact tourism. Really? Quoting further: "As the 50-million-baht insurance program for foreign tourists has already expired, Mr. Mongkon said only 10 million baht was spent on subsidies." So there was 40 million left over? And then on top of that, why can't they just re-implement that system? Why roll out this new thing that could have a detrimental impact on the tourism system in much more egregious way, for lack of a better term. Quoting further: "On Wednesday, the Ministry headed by Mr. Sorawong also met 20 tourism operators to discuss current issues and strategies." I am hoping those tourism operators explain to them that putting new hoops in front of tourists before they even get here, and taxing them before they even get here; I mean common sense would dictate that that would create less demand from travellers to come to Thailand. I mean to my mind that's just self-evident. Quoting further: "As of September 15th, the number of foreign arrivals tally 24.8 million, led by 5 million Chinese travellers." 

Okay great, and those numbers are good and we haven't even hit high season yet so hopefully we are going to see a good high season. But again we are seeing a good high season without any of this, without any of this! I hope cooler heads really think this thing over because at the end of the day, I think we could be looking at a situation where Thailand's Tourism Sector, if these World Economic Forum like policies I rolled out, this totalitarian thinking, and really it is more just kind of hyper-bureaucratic thinking. It is sort of all the worst aspects of the Soviet Union, only now it is digitized, basically. What scares me is look, starting next year presumably when we would probably see this rolled out, people really can't, what fascinates me is Policy Makers really can't see that this could cause a seriously negative impact on the Tourism Sector of the Kingdom of Thailand.