Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing property laws in Thailand and racism which those would seem like two things that would never go together but apparently they do. The reason I thought of making this video, I was reading a recent article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thai opposition to foreigners owning property "way over the top". When I get into the analysis, I have some issues just with the title of this article because personally I don't think it is "way over the top", I think concerns are rather warranted under the circumstances; in any event I will get to that in a minute.

Quoting directly from that article, and I urge those who are watching this video, it's quite a good article; a lot of information in there, go check out that article for yourself. Again, Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com. So quoting directly: "So there isn't much new in the hostile sentiments. Every time a general election is due - one is imminent in Thailand within the next six months barring military accident - politics becomes a matter of appealing to the nationalistic, if not racist, instincts of the voters. It's megaphone politics to shout that most Thais can't afford their own home, nor obtain a mortgage, whilst the foreign elite will be able to gobble up land in their own names." Kind of a fair point. Quoting further: "International real estate companies are well aware of all this but are understandably reluctant to speak out. However, a spokesman for Saville Commercial Properties, based in the UK described the reactions as completely over the top. You can say that again."

Yeah, I don't agree. You can't say that again. First off that is a good point, Thais not being, look Thailand does have some personal debt issues sort of in the macro sense. I don't think it's something that's overly troubling in the long term or even really in the short term but it's a good point. There are many Thais out there that have issues being able to buy their own home and honestly I can see a situation where having a bunch of folks coming in from abroad that are able to buy in this sort of niche high-end marketplace, that could have distortions within the marketplace that could impact Thais. To the notion of “racism”, yeah sorry I'm just not buying it. As a guy who became time and has never really experienced what anything in a western context could be described as "racist" during that process and I've seen multiple other foreigners who became Thai, that's not the issue. Now good point, nationalistic is mentioned in here. Yeah, there are some nationalism issues there. Let's look back at that for a minute. Thailand managed to keep her independence and her sovereignty during the colonial era when a lot of foreigners came in and really took advantage of Thailand. I'm not going to get too deep into that, believe that for what it is, you can look it up on your own. Thailand held its own and managed to get through it and managed to hold on to her independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty. Then we get into the 20th century and quite honestly the differential in economics operated to Thailand's disservice within sort of the macro view of the world when it came to, yeah foreigners could come in here and their foreign capital was such that it allowed them to punch way above their weight with respect to the property market. Thailand policy makers took a look at that and said "hey we need to take care of our own here" and at the end of the day and I've said this many, many times and I think it's summed up basically in the name of the country, it's Thai Land and I know Prathet Thai is the Country of Thailand but I think in the English, it really does sum it up; it's land for the Thais. If you are Thai, you can have land in Thailand, if you're not, you can't. It's not a racist thing. There's plenty of Thais of all different ethnic backgrounds, it has to do with are you Thai and it should in my opinion. Not to go too far on this or not to be over the top and I don't think it is over the top to be concerned about the territorial integrity of one's country but not to be too over the top. Quite honestly, I think at least for the United States and I think I can speak to that with some level of authority because I am an American or was born in the United States, so I am American extraction, maybe we should think about that when we hear about foreign countries, nationals of foreign countries or foreign companies buying up huge swaths of real estate for example in the United States. I mean we have what is it called, CFIUS or whatever, there is like a Federal Board that looks at foreign acquisitions of certain in this case companies and operations that are considered vital to the national interest, maybe looking at land as possibly vital to the national interest isn't a terrible idea either. 

But long story short, the reason for the video is when I saw that it was sort of kind of pinned to the notion of racism, I just thought that was ridiculous. Nationalism I think it comes from a place where Thailand wants to protect its national economy and wants to protect the nationals of their country, I think nationalism is probably a pretty fair appellation to use when describing what is going on but the notion that it's racist is just ridiculous.