Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing American retirees here in Thailand and I am taking an opportunity to quote an article that's discussing matters that are of concern to British retirees and I'm just going to do some quick commentary on how I think this could impact American retirees possibly down the road. Let's dig in.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: New British Law to crack down on overseas benefit fraud starts in 2025. Quoting directly: "British pensioners abroad, including Thailand, will soon lose UK banking confidentiality if suspected of cheating on their state pension."  Quoting further: "The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill presently at committee stage in the House of Lords, is expected to come into force in early 2025. It requires British Banks and building societies to share with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) the accounts of British citizens, both at home and abroad, where fraud looks likely." Quoting further: "The main abuse amongst a small minority of British expats" - a main abuse! While they are getting their own money. It's really interesting. "The main abuse amongst a small minority of British expats is hiding the fact that they live in countries not eligible to receive annual increases in the state pension." Yeah okay. 

So how ever you want to look at this from an American context, the British have this pension system, I would kind of view it as somewhat analogous to our Social Security System in the United States - but different rules - it's not completely an apples to apples comparison, but a big part of this is apparently different countries depending on whatever regulations have sort of accreted over time, different countries allow for British expats who are living in that country to continue to receive a cost of living adjustment effectively, an adjustment for inflation as time goes on. And other countries if you live in that country, if you move abroad to that other country, the British pension system will not adjust, they will "freeze" whatever you are receiving and not effectively give you sort of what we call a COLA, a Cost of Living Adjustment, okay. So that's what we're talking about here. Some countries if you live in them, you can get a COLA; you get a Cost of Living Adjustment or at least it adjusts on a certain level and somewhat keeps up with inflation, other countries, no, you are just frozen in. And what they are worried about is people that are living in the countries where they are supposed to be frozen, are either pretending to be in the UK or possibly another country or residing in another country where in actuality they continue to get their pension cost of living adjusted. So there seems to be some concern that these "naughty pensioners", which by the way the Government doesn't have better things to do than go after these folks but fine, this is what's happening and that is what we are going to report. These people are apparently nefariously wandering around so as to continue to receive a Cost-of-Living adjustment on their pension which, okay. I mean Social Security dealt with this by just having a COLA for everybody but whatever; I guess the British want to do it this way. Quoting further: "The rules are idiosyncratic." Yeah well put. "As such, inflation linked raises are permitted in some countries (e.g. the EU and the Philippines) but not in others (e.g. Thailand and Australia). Now Australia really got to me because it's like, "well isn't that part of AUKUS, and it was part of the British Empire, the Commonwealth and everything? Like why are they cut out for purposes of this? I mean Thailand you can kind of get it. It's own independent country but Australia, I thought you guys were maybe not the same, same; same, same, but different. I figured you would let your guys go over there, and keep getting their pensions with a bit of an inflation kick on it but I'm sure there's a policy reason or there isn’t - it's just bureaucracy. Quoting further: "Around 500,000 British pensioners live abroad with "Frozen" state pensions and the DWP believes that overpayment amounts to 100 million pounds." They are going after their 100 million pounds after they spent billions on God knows what, God knows where, but, okay, they have got to go after all these pensioners who are secretly getting their Cost of Living adjusted. I shouldn't laugh. I know that this is very serious for British pensioners, and I know that this is very concerning. 

That said, and I said that there could be an American component to this. Well, this is some level of speculation but for those who have never thought this through, keep it in the back of your mind. Here is what I am talking about. I remember talking years ago to a friend of mine who worked for years and years for the Federal Government. He worked out in this area - really super nice guy - but I remember as he was starting to retire, he brought up a point where he said he thought there was going to be a point where like state pensions, where if you want for the state, for example where I'm from, the State of Kansas, or the State of Connecticut, the State of Florida whatever, and you retired from that state, he felt like there could come a time where they would say, "look you're getting a State pension, you have got to be in this State at least 6 months out of the year to receive the pension," and the thinking would be, "well we want you to spend the money that we're giving you in the State." The next question arises, could they do the same thing on a Federal level over in the United States and say, "look, if you want to receive your full Social Security or they could come up with, again this is speculation, but I don't think it's wild speculation. I mean look at the national debt in the United States. However we look at it, the United States is going to have to seriously deal with getting its fiscal house in order moving forward. I don't think it is outside the realm of possibility that some politician comes up with something akin to this notion that, "hey what if we cut off the Cost-of-Living adjustment to Social Security people who are outside of America?" It is not our priority to send them money per se, it's our priority that money be spent in the United States so as to stimulate our economy. Again, not saying this is a foregone conclusion, but I have seen this discussed by very, quite honestly, very intelligent people, very aware of the dynamics of all of this. I have heard this discussed in the past; I'm not making this to fearmonger or freak anybody out, but what the British are dealing with, what was it Mark Twain said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." Perhaps what the British are dealing with now, might rhyme with something that the Americans have to deal with, with regard to pensions the Americans have to deal with in the future.