Transcript of the above video: 

Yeah wow, this last week has just been a real fun time in the few comment sections I have looked at. I'm going to be honest, I'm going to stop looking at comments, I'm getting to the point where I'm going to stop looking at comments. If you have some sort of if you will constructive information you would like me to convey over this channel, send us an email to [email protected], we'll put that below. I've been using comments in the past because sometimes I'll get something constructive or I'll get an anecdote that provides further insight for expats here in the expat community in Thailand and I've used that, but man there's some stuff like one guy put up, "you said there wasn't a conspiracy against the expats; you was wrong in one of these things", and it was a really long kind of rant and I never said there wasn't. I did debunk it in the sense that I don't believe there is like some cabal working together to expel expats. I've said myself, I think the OECD, the WEF, the World Economic Forum etc., do have their designs on Thailand but I do not think there is an internal cabal in Thailand that wants to expel a bunch of foreigners for whatever reason. If anything, I think that that would be viewed very negatively in Thailand because many, especially in the tourism sector, which makes up for at any given time about 18% of overall GDP, many in that sector would not be pleased by that because they make their money off the foreigners here in Thailand. So I don't think there's an internal conspiracy. Do I think that the outcome is sort of akin to it? Yeah, in a sense and I have talked about that, and I have tried to explain it but it's more nuanced than, "oh there's a conspiracy in Thailand against foreigners," I don't buy that. That’s nonsense. So on that, the conspiracy thing, yeah, I still stand by that. I don't think there's some conspiracy in the dark halls of power of the Immigration Apparatus to get rid of us all. If anything, this is coming from the banks. As I've discussed in many other videos, these are banking policies that are having Immigration outcomes, which leads me to believe it's coming from the World Economic Forum, and the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, who I have been talking against at the length because I think both of those organizations have designs against Thailand sovereignty and have designs toward a new influence of policy here in Thailand and I think it's bad overall for Thailand and sort of as a byproduct of that, bad for expats in Thailand. And by the way, it's not only foreigners dealing with this issue of does your bank account match up to your sim card stuff. Thais are complaining about this stuff as well. It's not just the foreigners. 

Meanwhile clarifications over driver's licenses. So I think the Rides for Kickz guy, somebody sent me his YouTube thing, and by the way, that guy's cool; I've seen his stuff before. He seems like a perfectly nice guy. He puts out expat-oriented videos, so good for him and he said he got his renewed so that's useful anecdotal information. Let me be clear, when a service itself that makes its money helping people get driving licenses puts out an announcement and like three different independent people send me a link to that says, 'hey it looks like no new driver's license for those on even non-immigrant visas’, yeah I ran with it, and I would run with it again under those circumstances. I am making this video to further clarify. Apparently, this does not necessarily apply to Non-immigrant visas; it seems like it's aimed at tourist visa, that's what I'm understanding. Again I'm getting this through anecdotal sources. So the point I'm trying to make is, take away from this video, don't presume you can't get a 5-year driving license if you are on like an O-A or an O Retirement Visa, or a B Visa, or like an O Marriage Visa or ED Visa or something of that nature; you may be able to get one. It looks like that the prior video where I was citing another source saying 'nope, that's not possible', by the way this was a source that makes their money providing that service, so I don't see how it's in their interest to put out such information but whatever. Of course I don't really understand people generally these days so maybe that's part of it. In any event, it seemed pretty credible to me, I ran with it, I thought it was useful information. That's the thing to take away from this channel. It's not that any given moment everything I say is, especially in a news context, is 100% spot on for the exact truth of any given moment. That's why I make clarification videos; I stand corrected frequently. I have made correction videos, and I am sure the comment section will now be filled up with people making fun of me for correcting myself, but I feel that the important thing is to get the correct information out there, and that is what I am doing. So I reported it before that it was not possible to get 5 years. It looks like yeah it may be depending on your Visa status, but it looks like Tourist Visas are definitely out for those purposes but people that are on Non-immigrant Visas, it may be possible to get five-year renewals of Thai driving licenses. It is important to point out. You don't get 5 years at the outset. You get a temporary license and then you go back and renew for 5 years. Another good question on this stuff is sometimes when things get put out, they change policies, and they may be in the process of implementing something. Somebody like me says something, there is something of a popular response to that, and then they say, "you know what? Maybe that's not a good idea." I'm not saying that happened here, but if it did, I would be happy for that because frankly I think it was bad policy if they were thinking of implementing it. I don't think it was good for anybody. I think it would have just put more undue burden on the Driving License System by having all these people showing up all the time having to renew when they could just do it for five years. That being said, that may have been what occurred here as well but, and this is no animosity to people bite again the Ride for Kickz guy, he put something up that said, “hey this is what I'm experiencing”, great very happy for him, tip of the hat to him, thank you sir. But all this negative commentary, and even some emails I’ve gotten, “Ahh, you're trying to mislead us on what's going on with driving licenses". I'm a grown man. I have got better things to do than try to mislead you about the duration of driver's licenses that you can get. That's not my purpose here; I was putting out information, and I am trying to clarify it. If there is more clarification that comes in, I will try to do another video on that. 

Meanwhile, with regard to the TDAC, I got a bunch of hate on that one where somebody said, "I think you are doing knee jerk reactions to things that you see". No I was quoting directly from the Thai Immigration website where it said you need to do TDAC three days prior. Now I said in that video that this could be a translation issue; there could be other issues. Let me re-clarify again, regarding TDAC it looks to me like and as I have heard from anecdotal evidence, now many, emails and comments on that video that yeah, no, you can do it pretty much up until - it's just kind of like the old arrival physical cards, you can do it right up to getting up to the kiosk to get checked into Thailand. So it sort of is like the old arrival cards that you had to physically write on a piece of paper. You can do it on the plane; you can do it while you are waiting in line at Immigration, whatever, but on the website that we cited it does say in English, and I do get there can be translation issues and somebody gave me a bunch of grief for that, "well you should know that there could be translation issues". I noted that it didn't look right to me in the prior video but that's what it says on the site. If you can't see what I was doing there in citing the actual wording on their own website, I don't know what to do for you. That is the best I can do is cite what they actually say, so take that how you want. But yeah, as a practical matter, it looks like you can do the Thailand Digital Arrival Card up to your arrival in Thailand. It does not necessarily have to be done three days prior to arrival in the Kingdom of Thailand.