Transcript of the above video:

Although not exactly within the general ambit of sort of the bailiwick of this channel, it is worth noting as the title suggests, this trades payments issue. I am going to go ahead and quote. The reason I thought of making this video is I was reading a recent article to Bangkok Post, that is, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Banks eye Yuan-Baht trade payments. Quoting directly: "The Bank of Thailand is in discussions with China's Central Bank over supporting the use of Yuan-Baht settlement to mitigate foreign exchange risk amid ongoing US Dollar volatility. According to Central Bank Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, (excuse me on the transliteration there) the Bank of Thailand and the People's Bank of China have held talks over additional cooperation to encourage businesses to use Yuan-Baht settlement for trade between the two countries. The Bank of Thailand plans to meet its Chinese counterpart next month to talk about the issue."

So a couple of things going on here. Before everybody sort of flips out, I know there is a lot of hyperbole sort of all over YouTube on the topic of de-dollarization and all of this stuff, this is one of those things that I have been thinking about for years honestly, over a decade now, because it's something that was just an economic inevitability. On the one hand let's be clear, again quoting directly: "The Bank of Thailand plans to meet its Chinese counterpart," - haven't done it yet; nothing has been locked in. As discussed by folks that I really listen to out there in sort of the ether of the internet, podcast land, whatever you want to call it, this is going to take a while. This is not just going to happen overnight that people are going to stop using the Dollar; I don't think it's going to happen at all.  Meanwhile, and I think there is a Western preoccupation, at least in thinking about these events, wherein it is sort of viewed in kind of the context or the frame of the zero-sum game where in reality I would argue it's not a zero-sum game. What I mean to say is look Western supply chains in sort of the Western centric economic system if you will, I think in my opinion years from now, arguably decades from now, when people look back on this era and sort of see, and look there are going to be issues as the Head of the Federal Reserve in the United States, Jay Powell has said, there will be issues associated with well he said the word “pain” in fact regarding stuff having to do with the US domestic economy. Set that aside, yeah there is going to be a time of transition that for certain people is not going to be a great time but I think when we get down the road and look back, one will see that look these developments, while not something I am sure that US based or Western based economic thinkers are going to be overly in love with, the fact of the matter is again going back to zero-sum versus non-zero sum, it is probably better to look at this whole thing from any perspective as "stop looking at who gets what size piece of the pie, and start looking at the fact that the pie itself is about to get a whole lot bigger" as we are watching the integration of the economies of Eurasia and I mean that specifically, the entire continent of Eurasia is starting to be knit together with the opening phase of this if you want right here sitting here in 2023, and then over the course of the coming years and it is happening pretty rapidly, especially up on sort of Central Eurasia in the middle of the continent, it is happening rather quickly in terms of trade and infrastructure development. What we are seeing here, perhaps it is better to look at this from the perspective of "look the whole pie is going to get bigger", and yes the relative size of for example the Western supply chains if you will, might be smaller in comparison to other players if you will in the global economy but as the overall pie expands, the relative position, I mean there may be instances where in certain jurisdictions people don't even really notice because while these changes are occurring, more economic activity is occurring and as a result and it is economic activity that has never occurred before, as a result for certain actors it is just sort of a net nothing. It all kind of comes out in the wash. So that is the way I am looking at it. I don't really look at it as a zero sum game, I looked at it as the entire pie is bigger rather than how big a piece of the pie I have, so that is the way I am looking at it and we will keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.