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Weights, Measures and Thai Baht Gold

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the concept of weights and measures and Thai Baht gold. When I say Thai Baht gold, Baht is not only the name of the currency here in Thailand, it is also a weight and measure of Thai gold itself. I have done a video on this topic before and it is also on this channel. You can just go to our search function and just search Thai gold.

The reason for this video is I often have people tell me and look I am no expert on metals or precious metals or gold or anything. I have been in Thailand a long time and you can call me a gold bug. On a personal level I find gold rather fascinating. Maybe I am sort of like Gollum in Lord of the Rings; the “precious” or something. That is not really how I am like but I find gold interesting and I found it especially interesting when I came to Thailand and first learned that Thailand has their own gold system. The first time I looked at it, frankly I scoffed a little bit because I was used to the international weight and measure, generally speaking sort of a one troy ounce, 99.9 fine gold. That is the standard, it is not standard weight necessarily but the measure 99.9, or 99%; you often see that in an international context. 

The reason for this video is because I have often heard people say "Well you know Thai gold it is 96.5; it is not the same purity etc., etc." I don't know that that is necessarily where you should be focusing if you are interested in Thai gold because there are other things going on with this. I have made a video on Thai gold and fungibility. The Thai Gold Traders Association, Thai gold shops, Thai gold is very fungible. It is very useful. A lot of Thais use it as a mechanism for savings, not only as ornamentation. Thai gold has got a very old tradition here in Thailand. Remember Thailand has never been colonized and many of its practices date back a long time, almost into the mists of history if you will. I wanted to go ahead and quote from the US Constitution specifically article 1 and quoting: "Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin and fix the standard of weights and measures.” It is notable here because the Thais have in their constitution or in their constitutional framework, “little c Constitution”, they have their own weight and measure, the Baht weight and measure of Thai gold and it operates I would say, not to get too deep into this because I am definitely not an analyst on gold, but it does correlate to the international gold price but because it is a different weight and measure, it doesn't get pulled into the vicissitudes of the international gold market to the same extent as gold would in a country that is primarily using an international standard weight and measure. 

So it is just an interesting point to bring up but I think it is one that gets into the fundamentals of way money works, you know weights and measures. This was something that was deemed so integrally important to not only public finance but currency itself by the people that founded America that they specifically mentioned weights and measures in Article 1 of the Constitution. So I just thought it would be interesting to make a video on this. Again at first glance you think "Oh 96.5 and the weight and measure of the Thai Baht, it is different" therefore at first I just dismissed it out of hand. I didn't really think about it and then I sat there and thought "Wow that has deep implications. That is a different weight and measure of a precious metal."