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This Ain't '98

Transcript of the above video:

The title of this video might be a little confusing for some. We are talking about the year 1998 and a recent comment that was on this channel. I want to go ahead and read it. Quoting directly: "The Thai Government discriminates against us westerners. Your comments on insurance lack clear logic. Westerners have to lodge savings with a bank. Affluent long stay guests contribute far more than locals to the economy. We lived over 10 years in Thailand before returning to the UK. The uncertainty of Visa extensions and ever-changing rules were a farce." Quoting further: "Thailand is great for several months over winter and we hope that we can return later this year provided quarantine has stopped and the Baht devalued!"

Well a couple of things here. The reason I titled this video "This Ain't '98" is because 1997 Thailand saw a pretty substantial economic crisis. It really shook Thailand to its core but one of the upshots, especially for foreign tourists, was the exchange rate became very favorable especially against the British Pound, the US Dollar, the Canadian Dollar, the Australian Dollar. Many countries in the Commonwealth and the Anglosphere as well as Europe, I remember I think the Norwegian Kroner did very, very well at that time against the against the Thai Baht and the Euro for that matter. At that time, back in '98 and then in the subsequent years, the Thai Baht exchange rate was very favorable especially to Western countries. This notion that Thailand needs to devalue their currency I think that is highly unlikely that they will actively devalue their currency. One of the reasons is they don't want to be deemed a currency manipulator by other countries because that has trade implications. I mean the whole notion that Thailand needs to affirmatively devalue their currency, it rings a little bit hypocritical. Would anyone expect the UK or the US or Canada to just unilaterally devalue their currency in order to encourage more foreigners, more foreign nationals to be in their country? It doesn't seem particularly logical if you were to reverse the roles of the countries. 

The other thing is the notion that they discriminate against westerners, I have never found that to be the case. I have gone through the entire Immigration process. I have been out here quite a long time. Yes we are definitely treated as foreigners. We are not Thai Nationals and there are differences; there are legal differences to that designation. I am not going to get into the whole insurance thing. I am making a video contemporaneously with this one on that. Another part, "affluent long stay guests contribute far more than locals to the economy." How can you say that? The fact is there are 67 million, I believe that is correct, 67 million Thai Nationals. Yes, affluent westerners are definitely encouraged. Thailand, myself included, we all want to see plenty of affluent long stay tourists here. That stated, Thailand has an economy. It has a heavy manufacturing, a light manufacturing economy; it has an internal service economy not even related necessarily to tourism. Tourism is a major component of the Thai economy. I don't think anyone disputes that but to believe that it is the sole breadwinner for every Thai national, I think that is very short-sighted, or narrowly focused. 

"We lived for 10 years in Thailand before returning to the UK. The uncertainty over Visa Extensions and ever-changing rules were a farce." Well I do understand this. I have heard this criticism from a lot of folks. Yes, the Immigration system has gone through an intense state of flux especially regarding retirees in roughly the past 3 years and I totally sympathize. That is a situation. I am hoping we are going to see the overall Immigration system come to a state of normalization, sort of stasis in the upcoming months. Hopefully by the time we see 2021 roll out, I hope we have an Immigration System in place that will provide a lot more certainty moving forward. 

That being said, I have speculated about such things in the past and been utterly wrong so I am not going to speculate in this video as to whether or not I think it might actually happen. The reason I bring that up is I do understand. It can be difficult to deal with Thai Immigration matters here. The Thai immigration system has become much more stringent in recent years and I can understand people's frustration. Moving forward, the best we can do is just try to adhere to the rules and on this channel at least provide as much insight as we can to go ahead and deal with one's status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.