Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retirees here in Thailand. I am kind of doing a comparison of this with tourism in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Thailand's once mighty tourism industry is failing but now faces further damage from overvalued baht. Well first off, just talking about the title and all of these conclusions about Thailand's tourism sector in the moment, let’s everybody just pump the brakes a minute. There's a great scene from Family Guy when they did sort of a take on Star Wars where the Emperor who's played by Mr. Pewterschmidt within the show, Peter's father-in-law where he just says, "let's everybody just calm the "F" down." - not to use blue language but that's kind of what I think of when I think of this; there is oftentimes some sensationalism when they write articles throughout the press, I am not pointing anyone specifically out here, the ether of the press if you will, the ether of the internet where it's, "oh tourism is all falling apart in Thailand; everything is going to go", and it is also defined as this engine of economic prosperity that I don't necessarily think is in line with reality either. One, again let's pump the brakes. We are sitting here in September of 2025. We are not in high season yet. We don't have a real barometer yet of how things are looking in terms of Tourism. It's very clear we have had a really low, low season, but as I have discussed in other videos, there are a lot of contributing factors primarily from the prior government to contribute to that really low, low season. One, a lot of the nonsense tax policies and especially the machinations of all of these frankly charlatans out there amongst the foreign community acting like tax experts, talking about Thailand tax stuff, frankly really out of school, led a lot of people to basically say, "hey I am not going to stay in Thailand more than 180 days in a given calendar year", and if you look at where the drop off in numbers of folks physically present here in Thailand, at least anecdotally speaking it looked like it was starting to happen, it began happening in about June. What is that? 180 days after the turn of the year. There were a lot of people that came in during high season and basically, yeah they were staying, but then the minute they got close to the 180-day mark, they were like, "whoa, I'm out of here," and they left. There's that. Also as we discussed in other videos in the past 2 years going back into '24 and '23 and even in the '22, there was what was called the Green Season which was folks were here because they were interested in the Cannabis space in Thailand. That got really stirred up in a not positive way - again by the prior government - largely as a result of them doing a lot of arbitrary and capricious stuff, and in my opinion, completely illegal stuff against the Cannabis space, against the legal Cannabis space here in Thailand. I think that threw off a lot of possible travellers in low season that we had had the past 2 years where they started calling it The Green Season, because low season wasn't all that low. People were hanging around because they wanted to experience Thailand's Cannabis culture. So there was that as well. Yes, we have had a pretty dramatic low season, but I think at least from this change in Government, that tide is turning; I think we are seeing a corner being turned here; we are moving forward. We may not see these low tourism numbers that are being presumed in this article, so let's start with that premise.

That said, quoting directly: "Thailand's tourism industry is collapsing" – well, come on - "as the surging Baht" - that's the other one. I am really getting tired of the Western powers browbeating Thailand as it’s Thailand's problem for having a dynamic enough economy that the currency is strong. What is that? We live in such a bassackward world now that these countries that are economically dynamic and creating a lot of value in the international economy are being browbeaten and talked down to, "oh, your currency is too strong." Yeah, Thailand has issues; it has an export sector; it has a tourism sector. A strong currency has problems with that, but we are going into some dark economic waters across the world. Me personally as a Thai, as someone who lives here, I'm pretty happy with the fact that Thailand has a strong Baht, okay. It makes me all warm and fuzzy going into these dark waters that well okay, our currency could weaken, but what is going to happen? It's only going to be good for the economy here, because again it would only spike the export sector, it would only spike the tourism sector. So I am not all that unhappy about it. I know that that is only taking one view from one perspective of issues associated with the currency, but I am really tired of Western press especially, browbeating Thailand as if it is Thailand's problem for having a strong enough economy that its currency is getting stronger. It's nonsensical and frankly it's nonsensical because these Western economies are based on a hyper-financialized consumer driven economic model that quite frankly is not working; that is why we are seeing the problems we are seeing in the West. 

That said, let's keep quoting here: "safety concerns, and rising competition from Vietnam and Malaysia are driving visitors away" - yeah Vietnam, where they just shut down 86 million bank accounts? I mean as we will into here in a moment, because this video primarily looks at comparing tourists versus retirees, which I am starting to think there maybe something to the notion of retirees are at least long staying folks and I don't want to get into the whole thing of the DTV and the LTR versus standard retirees, I'm talking about all of you. As I get into in another video I made contemporaneously with this one, I am not making videos about work authorization in the LTR, DTV context because I have a beef against those visas. I am making it because we've had problems with people and there are issues with work authorization that can cause people problems when they have frankly unreasonable expectations associated with work authorization on the Visa that they're on; I talk about that in another video. That said, but it's constant trope and I'm also really sick of the Western press putting Thailand on this like treadmill or hamster wheel up against these other countries, "oh you're not doing good enough, you're not doing good enough; your GDP has only gone up by X percent". Meanwhile, what are the Western economies GDPs doing? I mean especially in Western Europe right now. France? Really? That's a country that can be telling Thailand that it's got problems with its economic output? I just don't see that. I am not just singling out France. Germany has got issues; UK. There are other places. The United States even. The whole world is in kind of an economic funk at the moment, for lack of a better term and everybody is pointing at Thailand like it's got the problem and I'm just not seeing it. Quoting further: "threatening the Kingdom’s vital economic engine while urgent Government action is needed to stop the slide." Quoting further: "A top tourism insider" - top tourism insider! Okay - "is warning that Thailand's tourism sector is in crisis and needs immediate government action. Oh yeah, here we go. Government action because that has been helpful! Yeah, Government action was so helpful in COVID when they shut us all down for 3 years; great, Government action! Yeah, more of that. Or the so-called Digital Wallet where we went into more national debt than we really needed to or actually they kind of robbed certain, for lack of a better term, robbed certain programs that had already been funded to pay for it which is going to lead to the country having to go into more debt in the future that we didn't really need at the time, based on a spurious pretext that we needed stimulus then from the Government. Quoting further: "Since February, visitor numbers have been sliding" - well yeah. February, that's start of low season. That said, quoting further: "And the surge of the Thai Baht is making matters worse." Yeah, again this whole, and I get it. In the economic dynamic in which we are in right now, basically where you are dealing with a reserve currency in a country that is dealing with the Triffin Dilemma, yeah, a strong currency isn't great for the export sector but times they are a-changing. Thailand does not have to rely wholly on that segment of the world's population - what some have referred to in the past as the so-called Golden Billion etc. There are new markets opening up. A strong currency frankly in many ways isn't a bad thing to have at a time when we are watching the tectonic plates if you will, of geopolitics and international economics shifting at a rapid rate. Again it makes me kind of feel warm and fuzzy as somebody who lives here, knowing the currency is actually stronger in a certain way. Again, I get it. The Export Sector, Tourism Sector, it is not necessarily good, but as I will get to here in a moment, tourism isn't the only thing that's going on in Thailand. I have always noticed this with the foreign community is they really make tourism out to be a lot bigger segment of the overall economy than it really is. That said, quoting further: "Safety and Security concerns are piling up deterring" - yeah that's another one. Oh yeah it was like when the Chinese said they needed to put Police on the streets here because Thailand was unsafe. I challenge anyone to come here and just walk around the streets of downtown Bangkok and tell me if you truly feel unsafe. That said, quoting further: "deterring travellers further. Western long-haul markets which have so far held steady, risk abandoning Thailand entirely as the Baht strengthens toward year-end." Really? Abandoning Thailand entirely? Little bit of hyperbole there, come on Quoting further: "Time is running out. Without bold decisive action that produces real results, the rapid decline of Thailand's economic lifeline will only accelerate." Well this could also be, yeah just the hyperbole is almost laughable, but it could also be that look, in the last two years, I think we have had really solid numbers in terms of tourists and especially coming off of COVID. As I discussed in other videos, I think Cannabis contributed to that. There was pent-up demand where people really wanted to go on vacation and a lot of folks have come to Thailand in the last two to three years. There are ups and downs in the tourism sector for a reason. Different populations come here, they experience it. They are not going to just keep coming back over and over forever. 

Now, again, this is where we get into the argument between retirees and tourists, because retirees do come back, or what I would call the kind of long-term tourists or perpetual tourists. The guys, they are primarily guys, that come over here and they will do like 3 months at a stent every like 6 months. Those guys have proven to be bread and butter for the Thai economy, and they don't exactly get all the time classified as tourists. They tend to also upgrade into full-on retirees and once they become retirees, this isn't a pejorative, this is actually, I am describing them in the positive, they are kind of milk cows if you will for the Thai economy. They come in here, they have passive incomes, they spend it in Thailand. Everybody is happy. Retirees help. Now the argument as to whether they help more than tourists; I know a lot of folks in the food and beverage business, especially bar owners and things here. They say you want to have a good mix between full-timers here and tourists, that's the best way to go. That said, the full-timers are going to be your ones that are going to come in on a daily basis and pay every day. Meanwhile look, I think the tourism sector’s component of the real economy, not GDP, the real economy, is overestimated if anything in many ways. And it is overestimated because quite frankly one, GDP is a bad metric, and even of GDP, it is only 18% of the total. We talked about this going back into COVID when it was literally decimated; it went down from 18% of the overall economy to 1.8% of the overall economy. Now again, do we want to lose nearly 20% of Thailand's GDP? No, but again it's not 50%. Thailand isn't some Caribbean Island that gets virtually all of its foreign exchange and all of its money if you will, from tourism. It's a component of the economy; it's not the only component of the economy. Meanwhile to my mind, taking care of the longstayers, especially the retirees, the folks who effectively provide a lot of passive inbound foreign exchange to Thailand on a regular basis, is probably a better idea than pulling our hair out over one year that in the aftermath of the last 3 years, it is reasonable to expect a slightly lighter high season, really do we need to pull our hair out, claim the sky is falling over one year where things aren't going to be that great. And it's my opinion that even if this high season isn't that good, and I don't think that is a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination; we have heard this stuff in the past. I don't know how many years have gone by, "it's going to be a terrible high season", and it turns out fine. But that said, the other thing to keep in mind is at the end of this high season, or toward the end of it, we are going to see presumptively the House dissolved, get new elections and we are probably going to get a much more stable government going into the next upcoming year. So overall I think there's nothing but reason to be optimistic about the future even of the tourism sector here in the Kingdom of Thailand.