Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Economic Fallout here in Thailand in the aftermath of all these lockdowns and restrictions and whether or not that could have a detrimental impact act on retirees here in Thailand. I am merely going to quote the title of this article, this is from cnbc.com, the article is titled: Once Asia's Top Performer the Thai Baht is now Becoming the Region's Worst Hit Currency. That article goes into a lot of detail about how well quite frankly Thailand is going through a pretty turbulent economic time. It is having an effect on their currency; having an effect on the Baht. The Baht is 10% weaker than it was a year ago against the US dollar which is telling because the dollar has got some problems of its own. 

The reason for this video is I was talking with some retirees a few days ago, almost a week ago, and we were talking about well how does this auger, okay yeah the weakening of the Baht, especially for retirees who get their incomes in foreign currency, it actually does well for them. They actually end up making more money; they have more buying power here in Thailand not that they can do very much with it because everybody is mostly on lockdown. A question that came up and it really got me thinking is "Could this hurt retirees long term?" and a question I had is look the 800,000 Baht in a bank account requirement has been around since the 90s. Could officials look at that and say oh we want to maybe ratchet that up because we want more foreign reserves in the country to help with the currency? I don't know. That may happen. I kind of doubt it but it could. More likely I think probably what may happen, you have to look at the past as a guide. In ’97, after the economic problems, Thailand seemed to take more of a position of just welcoming anybody with cash, not anybody, but welcoming folks with economic resources with open arms. They weren't really being picky about exactly how much people were bringing in etc. They were just trying to get numbers in; they did it through their tourism industry essentially at the time. 

I can see that repeating itself in the aftermath of this if and when that ever occurs. Yeah, I can see a scenario where maybe they make the financial thresholds go up a little bit but I doubt that. To me it makes more sense to encourage volume and get folks back in, get foreign exchange back in and allow that to buoy the currency in the overall economy.