Transcript of the above video: 

I want to preface this video by saying I don't make these videos to be critical of Thailand, to be a gad fly, to just be critical of Thailand for critique's sake. I worry about the country I've come to call home, and I worry that she is being unduly influenced by foreign entities and organizations that have no good designs for Thailand. And we are seeing this more and more in certain aspects of the immigration apparatus, in my opinion the tax apparatus, as well as now banking policies which are having a tremendously, what’s even the right word, it is causing tremendous for lack of a better term unease to the point of, I hesitate say upheaval, but the expat community is roiling right now because of all of this, you need to be digitally face scanned to use your digital banking, they are putting a cap at 50,000 Baht a month on doing banking; they are saying that people now have to do a digital face scan to have a SIM card, and they are freezing people's accounts until they come in and align their SIM card with their banking information, and even when they do that, it is then being closed again and shut back down. None of this is particularly good I think for the image of Thailand and that is why I am so concerned about it. I'm concerned because I love this country and I want it to continue to be the free, great country it has always been, the country I fell in love with and wanted to live in the rest of my life, and I still do by the way. I am hoping that this, much like COVID, is a temporary aberration from the underlying notions of Thai liberty that I became accustomed to when I came here and I am hoping that maybe some changes, maybe sooner rather than later, could have an impact in a positive direction to turn some of this around because I have got to be honest, I think this could lead to some really, really bad outcomes for the country generally. For example, people can just start saying “look I don't want to live here anymore”, and retirees can start saying, “this might not be the best place for me”. People, when you start messing with people and Banking and there is just a ton of hassle associated with banking, people with money start to say yeah, you know what, maybe I don't want to mess with that anymore, and start looking other places. 

I've been critical of what's his name, Andrew Henderson the so-called nomad capitalist in the past for his catch phrase of "go where you are treated best," because I don't believe in that nomad mindset insofar as it is like the world is a shopping mall and you should be hypercritical of every country until you get this like perfect Goldilocks ‘just right’. Different countries have different ups and downs; I look at countries for countries. That said, maybe I'm looking at it from the other side where it's, "go who doesn't treat you the worst" and at a certain point, if Thailand engages in a sort of a race to the bottom in taking care of expats, that could be very bad for all involved and it could be really bad for the country overall. And I don't understand why we are undertaking policies which could drive money away at a time when we are in a very slow economic moment here. I hesitate to use the term "recessionary". I don't necessarily think it applies but you can look around on the streets of Thailand or Bangkok, Thailand too, I've been out in the hinterland as well as Pattaya, down to some of the other beach towns, things are slow. Now we are in low season, but based on the world economics, the Chinese economy, the US economy, Western Europe, UK, even Australia, New Zealand, things aren't just going along gangbusters at the moment. And on top of that, with some of the recent developments involving the border etc., we are probably looking down the barrel of a high season that is probably not as optimal as we might otherwise want and I think it's not being helped by a lot of these policies. 

That being said, before I get into this email that I am going to read from, I think it's worth noting that I get into this in deeper dives on our paid news service. I do these once a week where I do somewhere between a half hour and an hour of deeper dive, more detailed analysis where I sort of talk about all the ramifications of this stuff, and how it pertains to expat land here in Thailand. If you're interested in that, please feel free to email us, [email protected], we can get you on the mailing list for that. Also, while I'm talking my book, my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It is called Pancake Palace; it's breakfast anytime; it's American Diner style food. For folks who are interested in that, you can check us out, link is in the description below to find us at Pancake Palace, and we'd love to see you there. 

That said, let me jump into an email that I recently came across from a viewer. "Imagine this. You've worked your whole life and finally reach retirement. You want adventure and after watching all the YouTube and TikTok videos about Thailand - the safety, the infrastructure - you decide to take the leap and move here. You do everything right. You open a bank account with Bangkok Bank, honestly and transparently, providing all the required documents. You pay your bills like any resident, using QR scan to pay, and you're happy to contribute to the Thai economy. Then, on May 30th, you are suddenly locked out of your account. You go to the nearest Bangkok Bank branch, bringing your passport and passbook just in case. After looking over your documents, the staff tells you they can't help - you have to go back to the original branch where you first opened the account. Fast forward to August 19th, and it happens again. This time the app gives clearer instructions, so you know immediately to go to the opening branch. But by then, your account is locked - you can't call a Bolt, withdraw cash from an ATM, or even order food. Thankfully, I had backup savings in cash, because I've learned not to fully trust Bangkok Bank with my money. In the West, I have never once been locked out of my own bank account without explanation. Yet here in a country I believed was safe, I feel my assets are being seized until I can "prove" I deserve access to them again. I'm not a scammer. I'm just an older man trying to live my best life in retirement. And after 6 hours of waiting at the branch, I was told I'd still have to wait another 7 days - or longer - before I could access my own money again." Look, this is a harrowing experience. I can't imagine what that is like to go through that especially as a retiree sort of on their own here in Thailand. This cannot be good for the national interests of the country insofar as it's not good for the national image of the country, okay.

If you want to sort of know my politics in a way, if you can't tell, I am what some would call a libertarian. In an American context, I call myself a constitutionalist; I believe in what the founders founded the country on. In Thailand I just want a strong nationally sovereign country that believes in the fundamental notions of Thai liberty that I came to know in the time that I have been here. That's sort of what I believe in. 

That said, I wasn't completely in line for example aligned in my belief with for example Barack Obama back when he got elected. People asked me at the time; he was the first President that I was in no way living in the United States at the time he became President. So he was really a President, through his whole 8 years, I was an expat. So people would talk about the things that were going on in the country that were direct, what they viewed were a direct by-product of his policies, and I didn't really get it. I didn't understand what it was like to live there under all of that, and so I just kind of moved along, kept my mouth shut. But one thing that I said about Obama that I still agree with was, as an observer out here, I was living in Korea and then eventually Thailand between the Bush and Obama sort of change over, I was kind of in transition myself during that period, I noticed that the “national brand” of America improved when Obama became President, for a variety of reasons, and I am not going to go into it. But coming off the end of the Bush Administration, he came in, there was a lot of hope as his sort of slogan implied, there was a lot of feelings of optimism about the future, but internationally it was like a shot in the arm if you will to the brand of America; it just was. Brand America was improved by Barack Obama being President and I took that in to my calculation of how I thought of him as a President even though I didn't agree with every little thing associated with his policies, because he did improve the overall brand of the country.

It is important to maintain a nation's national brand and what really truly worries me in seeing all of this talk of this crazy analysis regarding sort of certain tax issues, these really almost Orwellian Kafkaesque protocols associated with banking we are seeing now. Then on top of that we are seeing people in deep consternation regarding their visa status. All of this is leading to in my opinion a perfect brew if you will of bad outcomes for this country, not the least of which is a diminishing of Thailand's brand, and that is the last thing I want and I think that is the last thing Thais want to see, and hopefully we will see this turn around here in Thailand, sooner rather than later.