Transcript of the above video:

As I have been discussing going on it seems like, going all the way back to April, maybe May of 2021 and even further back, the notion of a "balance"; analyzing the balance between folks' concerns over Public Health and the economy. Up to this point and I have gone into this, I don't really want this video to be an overall critique of everything but to this point I haven't seen a lot of data to show that the lockdowns and all of these extreme measures have done very much to alleviate the overall problem or to mitigate it really in any way. I am happy to stand corrected in the comments below if somebody can generate data that proves me wrong, not so much proves me wrong I am not making the assertion of anything, I am just saying I haven't seen any data that seems to indicate that all of these lockdowns: this prolonged evisceration of the economy: all of these interferences with people's day-to-day lives, I haven't seen any data that suggests it has had any impact positive or negative or anything. Again, I am happy to stand corrected. If somebody has data put it in the comments. I am happy to look at it and if I am wrong or if I am ignorant, I am happy to state that I was I but I haven't seen anything and I like to think I kind of keep up with this. 

Meanwhile, what we do know has happened, unequivocally what we know is this has had a tremendously negative impact on the economy. I mean we have cited in another video on this channel, multiple other videos on this channel the Bangkok Post noting that tourism went from some 20% of GDP all the way down to 1.6 something percent; it was basically 1% and change of overall GDP. I mean that is a huge number in terms of the relative effects of that within the overall economy. I mean the knock on impact of that, the ripples that causes is pretty staggering. 

So we have been talking about this kind of hoping that folks look at, especially in a policy level, kind of look at this more trying to balance things and some good news seems to be coming up on this front from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: PM orders a re-evaluation of the balance between public health and economy as Omicron fears ease. Quoting directly: "There were strong indications this week that the Foreign Tourism Industry may see some relief in the coming weeks with a review being ordered by the Prime Minister and a commitment to reevaluate the balance between the economy and public health as the threat from Omicron virus strain of COVID-19 appears to be diminishing." You know I really hope that is the case. I really hope we look at this and people really have a look and realize, look losing 20% of GDP. I think I remember reading once and it was actually I think in the film The Big Short; I think Brad Pitt says it at one point and he basically says and I am saying this off the top of my head but I think he says: "For every 1% decrease in the American GDP there is like a hundred thousand deaths." I could be wrong in the numbers on that but he definitely says "1% decrease in GDP there is X number of deaths". He is not saying it is causing it, he is saying that there is sort of a correlation. When you lose GDP it has an impact on people's lives, people's ability to take care of themselves, their livelihoods and we have seen it. We have seen a lot of economic devastation caused by these responses, by these initiatives that have effectively made certain aspects of the economy rather moribund. So hopefully, by a reassessment and understanding and looking at this from the big picture, this balance, hopefully we will see things improve sooner rather than later.