Thailand CBDC Goes Live

Video & transcript from Benjamin Hart, American attorney and managing director of Integrity Legal in Bangkok. Taken from YouTube Video: Is Thailand Being "Railroaded" Into the Digital Wallet Scheme?

This is an important, timely, and well articulated video. I have a great deal of respect for Benjamin Hart. He is an intelligent critical thinker. I have corrected and formatted the video transcript below, via the YouTube transcript feature, adding in hyperlinks to the articles referenced by Ben.

---

TRANSCRIPT

Hello my name is Benjamin Hart. I'm an American attorney and the managing director of Integrity legal here in Bangkok Thailand. For those of you who are used to the rather short form of many of the videos that I put out on this channel well this isn't going to be one of those this is going to be a longer video, so the thing to understand and to take away from this video is first of all what's the term railroaded really mean? Well what let let me use it in the context I'm going to use it in this video I actually came upon that term anecdotally quite genuinely via anecdote from my grandfather - who once described the term railroaded, is basically when somebody’s politically, just sort of run over if you will, by vested interest sort of thing.

And he told me it came from the Huey Long situation when Huey Long tried to run for railroad commissioner back in Louisiana and his first attempt at that he failed, and he later sort of went on to become sort of a populist icon. But not before having gone through this like pretty massive defeat primarily at the hands of railroad interests so that's sort of, and he was running for railroad commissioner. I guess that's where the term came from. Folks can dispute the etymology of it but that's how I came upon it, so the context of that term is where somebody is basically like sort of compelled into doing something politically or be run over by - it's sort of an inevitability if you will.

And I thought of that notion when I first read this article from the Thai examiner that's Thai examiner.com article is titled:

Pheu Thai MP warns lying critics of the digital wallet they may face prosecution after a fairly Good Start

What?! That was my first reaction that. Huh? That said - again - ThaiExaminer.com, quoting directly:

Pheu Thai MP warns critics of Digital Wallet may face prosecution if they are spreading false information.

Boy oh boy. When was the last time we heard of bullying tactics by politicians and bureaucrats and other purveyors of - in my opinion what turned out to be nonsense - when was the last time we heard about that false information? Quoting further:

Successful start with 18.8 million users registered on the first day.

Which as we'll get into, you know, didn't come without some hiccups.

Quoting further:

[…] scheme aims to boost the economy with adults eligible for ฿10,000 giveaway until September 15th.

Well, first off we don't know where the funding is coming from, on all of this. This is kind of being reported as a foregone conclusion, and I failed to see where that's justified. In any event, quoting further:

Thailand’s Digital Wallet registration process got off to a shaky start on Thursday although ultimately it was a successful day for the government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. On Friday, Pheu Thai Party list MP and Deputy Secretary-General Linthiporn Warinwatcharoj warned that critics of the scheme who go overboard and speak untruths online may face prosecution.

Quoting further:

However one condition of the measure is that spending must take place in the district in which the person is registered.

Yeah that's the first one - so first things first - why does this have to be digital? You know, why can't checks just be cut why can't Bank transfers just be made? Why do we have to have this entirely new system for this? And meanwhile, why does it have to be digital and why does it have to be this so-called money that can only be used in certain places and under certain conditions and to buy certain things?

Quoting further:

Critics of the scheme include Bank of Thailand Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput and other officials at the central bank. Mr. Sethaput has repeatedly called for a more targeted package.

Yeah, that's sort of the thing about all of this is - one - again, going back to the digital thing, look the treasury Department in the United States initiated one of these stimulus back during covid when I at least could understand the argument as we've discussed in other videos. I you know they they've continuously tried to push this narrative that Thailand is in some terrible economic death spiral which Thailand's aging the demographic - the demography is what it is. Yes, other jurisdictions in the region are seeing GDP growth that is substantially - in some cases better than Thailand's - but you have to remember Thailand's an already developed economy so that's the first thing to presume.

And secondly, I'm just not buying that everything is so terrible within the Thai economy that it warrants this massive overhauling of our monetary system to have this digital money that can only be utilized as and when the government says it can be utilized. That said - and again, the money, where's this coming from? That's been another thing…there's been no real straight clear answer as to where the sources of funding are, and as we'll get into here in a little bit.

You know, there are multiple ways and there are probably multiple checks if you will in checks and balances. There are certain checks I think we're going to see with regard to the funding on this thing - so again, the way this is being reported as a sort of foregone conclusion I think is unwarranted at the very least, and is premature at the very least.

Quoting further:

MP Linthiporn defends the Digital wallet programme. Criticised detractors and praised PM Srettha Thavisin.

Presently, it looks like the first targeted tranche of the programme will proceed in the final three months of 2024.

Again, it looks like that's the operative phraseology looks like not a foregone conclusion.

Quoting further:

Officials estimate that ฿162 billion will enter the economy at this time, coinciding with New Year’s Eve celebrations. The plan is for the second tranche to take place in early 2025.

Yeah, well will it completely exhaust the government purse? Which will then necessitate further government lending down the road? Again, they've said, well, we're not going into debt for it - well, are we not going into debt for it because we're literally spending all the money we have on this program?

And by the way, have we not seen this before? Did we not see the bottom we hit in 2014? I mean - does nobody have a collective memory here of what happens when there basically is no effective budget left?

Quoting further:

A supplementary bill allocating ฿122 billion of the projected amount has just been successfully ushered through the House of Representatives by Minister of Finance Pichai Chunhavajira.

Quoting further:

Nevertheless, there has been widespread concern about the project. Critically, at one point, both the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and the Council of State raised their reservations with the government.

And it's my understanding the Council of State could still chime in - if, ultimately the structure of the financing of this scheme is deemed to be illegal, basically I don't know so much or I don't have so much insight with regard to the National anti-corruption commission - but then another thing to bear in mind and going over here to the Bangkok Post article titled:

Key budget bill passes house

Again, they're reporting this like it's a foregone conclusion because it's gone through the house. But remember, Thailand has a bicameral legislative system.

Quoting directly:

The next step will be for the House to forward the bill to the Senate for deliberation, expected next week, according to a government source. Mr. Julapun earlier said the handout would be issued at the end of this year as planned.

Well, it might be if this survives legislative scrutiny, is ultimately promulgated, uh, going back to the Thai examiner article - quoting directly:

However, on Friday after Thursday’s relatively successful launch, Ms. Linthiporn Warinwatcharojj warned those who go too far in criticising the plan that they may face prosecution if they spread untruths online.

You know, I'm getting real tired of this. I didn't like it during covid where people weren't allowed to talk about anything substantive or they face penalties or implied societal penalties or - whatever, I just don't like the bullying. You know, I am okay in many ways and I've had people ask me over the years if I'm all right with, sort of, the state of free speech in Thailand. I pretty well am, and one of the things I do rather like about it - and something I think maybe the West could look at a little bit - especially in the era of social media, is stuff that has to do with personal defamation.

I don't have any problem, or, I have less of a problem, you know, where people are being defamed and not allowing that type of speech to occur. I think a wiser man than myself once said “you know stupid people talk about people, smart people talk about ideas” - well, at the end of the day, this whole scheme is but an idea, and it's an idea that could put the nation into tremendous debt.

Moving forward, debt I'm going to have to pay as a taxpayer here in Thailand, ultimately, and it's something that they - again, they're not being overly straightforward as to where the funding is coming from, and then on top of all of that, there, you know, it's there's all these massive surveillance implications - which we'll get into here in a minute.

You know, kind of note-to-self-spoiler-alert for later in the video.

Facial recognition tied to your money - which - why do we want that? Who voted for this? Supposedly because this initiative was part of the coalition's sort of, uh, platforms that they ran on. Who really was in favor of - “hey, my money is now going to be tied to facial recognition technology” - we'll get to that in a moment.

That said, again, I'm tired of this bullying people about talking about things that really matter in a Civic sense.

Quoting further:

She also singled out former Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawisit for reproach.

And quoting directly:

I would like to leave a message to Mr. Jurin Laksanawisit of the Democrat Party: Digital wallet is the hope of the people, not money to buy food as alleged.

Well, I got to tell you as a people myself, you know, if you're giving me free money, and you say I can't use it on food, I have to ask the question - is this money?

Quoting further:

Prime Minister Srettha knows how to think outside the box […]

Well, my question on that is, did he learn that at the world economic Forum? Sincerely. Because I'm thinking that these ideas - especially this digital wallet, which seems to be simultaneously being rushed to the foreground throughout many nations around the world simultaneously - I have to ask the question. Did he come up with this whole thing on his own? You're saying he thinks outside the box, so he came up with this on his own, outside the box, or did he perhaps maybe learn about when he was at the world economic Forum?

Quoting further:

[…] how to generate income, and how to open the country’s doors to attract foreign investment.

We're good on that. Again, as part of this narrative that things are like, so terrible here in Thailand, it warrants these drastic measures…

Quoting further:

If Mr. Jurin can only think of inventing rhetoric and devaluing the digital wallet policy, it will be a waste of time. I would also like to warn some groups of people who are trying to destroy this project, creating fake news that may be considered as giving false information to the public through various platforms […]

So, first off, who defines false - and remember, misinformation? And all the Malinformation, misinformation, disinformation? I did the video on Malinformation. I just don't like this talk, like this, especially when we're talking issues issues that are going to have a very dramatic impact on the people of this country, who are supposed to be being represented by the people in their government- the very people who are telling them that they may face prosecution for even discussing this…Or spreading any information about this.

It's okay to have a contrarian opinion.

Quoting further:

[…] if it does not result in anything good […]

Well, define good. I love the line from that series on HBO, Rome, where Cleopatra is talking to Lucius Vorenus - about their mutual acquaintance, Titus Pullo, and Titus Pullo is kind of a wild, you know, wild and rowdy kind of guy - but he's has a good heart at the end of the day. He's a good person, but Cleopatra asks Lucius Vorenus - “is he a good man?” And he says, “well, define good.”

You know, again, it's a valid question. What you know, who determines good?

Quoting further:

[…] they may be prosecuted.

Well, here's a thing you know - I'll happily stand by everything I've said about this digital wallet scheme going up to the minute we first first heard about it and started talking about it on here. You know, I'm not going to be intimidated. In fact, I welcome the idea, that, if somebody wants to come after me in a criminal sense, that I can use the court system as a forum, so that we can get to the bottom of whether or not this is a good idea.

You know, because at the end of the day, again, this is going to have tremendous ramifications for Thailand's economy, and especially long-term, and we're going to look back at this as the moment…

And quite honestly, I don't want to live under a surveillance system where they get to know every time I buy a Coke or whatever it is they think they want to know. And get to just track and trace everybody around.

I don't live in communist China. I live in Thailand, and Thailand means free, land of the free.

Quoting further:

Certainly, it got off to a hectic start with over 10.5 million registrants confirmed in the first six hours. After that, the system stalled due to the huge load being placed upon it.

So again, are we not allowed to bring this up? This is a valid concern to have if you're taking all of our monetary transactions and placing them on a platform like this. What happens if it shuts down, as I talked about in other videos. Why can't we just have checks? Write checks, send us the money we can use it for whatever we want.

Why does it have to be through this platform that only allows these digital tokens, that can only be spent under certain circumstances?

It's not really money, so therefore how are we going into debt for something that isn't really the money they claim that we're getting? You know, that's a key question, but then another key question, is once we have this infrastructure in place, and we have no alternative - an analog alternative, i.e. cash checks - you know, things of this nature, once there is no alternative, what happens if there's another shutdown because it can't bear the load?

Are we all just supposed to walk around with no money? And by the way, at this point, I'm not beyond believing that governments anywhere could just say, “yeah you're just out of money tough luck” - because that's what they told us during Covid, when they just said “all your businesses need to shut down because we say so.”

Bringing that up crowd strike was a perfect example of this, in a more broad context, Thailand didn't get hit with that, because it wasn't tied into that platform. It maintained an analog system off the computer - not everything has to have an exclusively digital footprint.

We can have two systems. We can have no system. We can keep operating like we have, you know. There's nothing wrong with that.

The whole exercise is being monitored by a war room at the finance ministry.

A ‘war room’. Who you at war with? The public? The people that you're supposed to be serving? By bringing this thing online?

Quoting further:

Notably, a key problem with the process was the face-scanning application. Users were required to submit a live photograph to be matched with their national ID.

So for anybody that says, “oh this isn't for financial surveillance” - well, what else could it be for?

Quoting further:

Those who were most successful had already downloaded the application and were ready.

Again, I just…really…facial recognition, tied to your national ID, tied to your money. Now honestly, I hope Thai people really, really rethink this, and policy makers really really think this through, and I'm not interested in hearing, “well not everybody has to use it it's just for this” - well, why are they pouring billions upon hundreds of billions of Baht into it if they don't intend for everybody to use it down the road?

Why would they do that? You know, clearly there is the intention that this becomes more than just the platform it's currently claiming it's going to be. Or the people proposing it are claiming it's going to be. Clearly there are other designs by this. You wouldn't put this much money into it. This is infrastructure changing levels of money that they're proposing to put into this.

Again, where they get it from and exactly how, remains to be seen. But again, you know, and meanwhile, I don't exactly begrudge certain members of the House who voted in favor of this. It's very difficult to vote against free money for the public.

What's the old saying? “The moment a polity realizes they can vote themselves into prosperity, they'll attempt to do so, until they destroy their society.”

That's sort of how it works. It's like trying to pick stand in a bucket and pick yourself up. It's not a good strategy. We've gone through all of the economics of that in other videos. Again, which I completely stand behind and will do so moving forward.

But again, there are levels of dystopian applications under this that that are clear they're right out in front of us. Your facial recognition is now tied to your economic transactions, and they get to determine what type of transactions you can do, how long you can do them, and in what geographic proximity to your home that you can engage in those transactions.

I mean if this isn't the definition of Orwellian, or something from a Philip K. Dick (novel). I don't know. What is, meanwhile, this sort of like, economic justification, this whole narrative that, “oh we're in a problematic situation economically” - not withstanding the fact we had a booming first quarter-consumer spending was up 10%, overall pretty good high season.

I do get the export sector is not exactly where we want it to be at the moment, but Thailand has always had to balance between those things. You know, it's always been a situation, where, you know, depending on the year they're talking, about how bad the economy is, because of exports.

Then, depending on the next year they're talking about, how bad the economy is based on lack of Tourism - like for the three years where they literally decimated tourism by shutting down the country which I discussed at the time in detail. That said, again, the economic argument, I fail to see it manifest and, to my point quoting directly from the Bangkok Post article is titled:

Monitor The Wallet Scheme

Quoting directly:

Prospects for this economic stimulus are still uncertain. As public debt hits the ceiling […]

And again, we just raised the debt ceiling before, back during covid, they kind of claimed extent need, and did it under the emergency decree, and everybody was kind of uncomfortable with it, but they just kind of went along with it.

Well now they're trying to raise it again to get this surveillance money in.

Quoting further:

As public debt hits the ceiling, the government cannot take out a huge loan to fund its electoral vows […]

Meanwhile though, they want to gut the budget to do that, which just means we're going to need loans down the line.

Quoting directly:

[…] It needs to scrape together funds from this and next year's fiscal budgets to fulfil the almost half-trillion-baht cash handout promise.

Again, and it's not cash, it's not like they're printing this money and just handing it out or sending out checks. It's these digital tokens, so we're going into debt for the equivalent value of half a trillion Baht, but the people that are supposedly benefiting from it are not getting actual money, so how is that a fair exchange of value in a debt sense?

Why should the nation be put into this level of national debt when in reality they're not getting the same thing as the type of capital that is a real, 500 billion baht - like if you stacked it up in cash, that's not what's being given out. It's just these tokens. It's imaginary at the very least. It's elusory.

Quoting further:

This raises the question of which projects and ministries will have to forfeit their budgets for the wallet scheme.

Yeah, again, they're saying, “oh well we don't need to go into debt for it we'll just gut the whole budget” - well, the government does some things around here, I don't know if anybody's noticed, you know, and some of them I like them doing, I'm okay with paying taxes for it - not really okay with paying taxes for some totalitarian surveillance Orwellian financial system that nobody really needs in the first place.

And the justification for which this necessity of economic stimulus doesn't really hold up.

Quoting further:

Thursday's launch showed how determined the Pheu Thai government is to realise the wallet project. It ignored cautions and warnings from economic experts that the economic gains will not be as high as projected. Indeed, the Bank of Thailand has argued that the 450 billion baht will contribute only 0.9 percentage points to Thailand's GDP growth-- not 1.2-1.8 percentage points as Pheu Thai predicted.

Meanwhile, that doesn't even go as deep as it needs to go. Again, GDP itself is purely a byproduct of bank credit - no actual value is going to be created in the economy by the creation of these digital tokens.

Things that already exist, and would have existed in this economy are what's going to be moved around and create taxable events using this digital money - digital wallet, not real money. JP Morgan said “gold is money, everything else is Bank credit” - we're not even talking about Bank Credit in the cash sense of the term.

That here for we have known the definition of money as that, no, we're talking about these digital credits and they're not money in and of themselves per se, but meanwhile, no new value is getting created, they're just printing this and injecting it in the economy.

Get ready for inflation. Now they'll claim, “oh there won't be any inflation because we can just turn off the money” - so it wasn't money to begin with, so why are we going into debt for it if it's not money in the traditional sense of the term?

Why do we, the people in Thailand, have to pay back half a trillion Baht in actual baht for a stimulus that didn't give us actual baht, that we have known of by the definition of baht, in terms of the currency hereto for.

For with the local supply chain relying on imported goods or products from major retailers, economic experts predict that a massive amount of money will go to big businesses instead of the Grassroots economy.

Yeah, exactly, they all have to be signed up for it. They say themselves, you can only buy certain stuff on it and you can only use it in certain places. That doesn't just mean, sort of, the the radius, geometrically from your home - it also means they can choose who you can spend your money with.

Quoting further:

The big question is who and what will benefit from the digital wallet scheme. Will the money end up in the pockets of big companies as economists have warned? Should the 450 billion baht -- which indeed could have been spent on other development schemes -- be expected to lift GDP as Pheu Thai boasted it would?

Well it might lift GDP nominally, but did it create any new value in the economy in terms of goods and services? That's the question.

Quoting further:

If not, is there any mechanism […]

- And this is this was a key question here, good, good on you Bangkok post…

[…] if not, is there any mechanism to hold politicians accountable for using State budgets to fulfill their electoral promises?

Exactly, when we go back, you know, when the state then has to come back and go into a bunch more debt, which they'll put on the populace in terms of later taxes to be paid, to pay it off when the state goes into further debt, are these folks that are pushing this, and bullying all of us - not to just accept it, and to not question anything, and to not talk about it, with all of their bullying and their their buzzwords of misinformation / Malinformation type of talk - are any of these people going to be held accountable when we assess whether or not this scheme was really a benefit to the kingdom of Thailand?

**End of video transcript**

---

FURTHER READING ON THAILAND CBDC

The Common Reporting Standards (CRS) Dragnet, CBDC Pilots, and Thailand's Foreign Income Tax Law Effective 1st January 2024

Thailand News Roundup: bioweapon booster push, minors arrested for Lèse-majesté, pride month gets political, CBDC Inthanon-Lionrock, US denies interfering with Thailand's elections

CBDC Tracker Website

---

Nicholas Creed is a Bangkok based writer. All content is free for all readers, with nothing locked in archive that requires a paid subscription. Any support is greatly appreciated. If you are in a position to donate a virtual coffee or crypto, it would mean the world of difference.

Bitcoin address:

bc1p0eujhumczzeh06t40fn9lz6n6z72c5zrcy0are25dhwk7kew8hwq2tmyqj

Solana address:

Ds6QpUxaWB6bJ8WF4KAazbuV25ZhPRdZh4q4BXutj4Ec

Ethereum address:

0x42A7FA91766a46D42b13d5a56dC5B01c153F1177

Monero address:

86nUmkrzChrCS4v5j6g3dtWy6RZAAazfCPsC8QLt7cEndNhMpouzabBXFvhTVFH3u3UsA1yTCkDvwRyGQNnK74Q2AoJs6