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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing, well, ‘is lower loan growth really bad for Thailand?' What are we talking about here? Well I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Donald Trump's second-term impact in the latter half of 2025 tops Bank of Thailand's economic concerns. Quoting directly: "The Bank of Thailand braces for Trump's second term, citing risks from US-China trade tensions, job losses and a volatile Baht." 

First off, I don't remember all of this foreboding in the media about Biden or any of the disaster that his entire Administration has been, in terms of economics. We printed money for nothing; they allotted 41 billion dollars for Internet that didn't hook up anyone to the internet; the IMF lost, lost, 41 billion dollars this past year - just lost it - 41 billion dollar just lost, completely lost. And again, this isn't partisan, okay. I'm just really sick and tired of the media's machinations here. We are talking about Trump like he's a big Boogeyman, while meanwhile just seemingly leaving out the fact that again, the last four years of this demented old coot doing whatever it is that he does has been an unmitigated economic disaster for the United States. There's no metric that's good and in fact we are now finding out everything, jobs reports, CPI, stuff that they've been telling us for the last 12-14 months, it's turning out to be all nonsense when they come back in and "revise" their stats. So ease back on the foreboding on the Trump stuff, all right? We already know what this guy's about. Again, to my mind he's not perfect economically, he likes spending government money way too much; he seems to have far less of a problem with inflation than I would like, but that being said arguably anything's better than the last 4 years, I have got to say, in turns of Economic Policy, frankly, come on. That said, quoting further: "With projected 2025 growth at 2.9% the Central Bank still warns of potential economic shocks as household debt recedes under a K-shaped recovery." 

Now they are talking about economic shocks as household debt recedes, so goes down; so the problem is lack of debt? Meanwhile all the time they tell us we're in a disaster zone because we have got too much debt here in Thailand, and then meanwhile they are constantly talking about how everything economically is bad here. 2.9% growth is pretty darn good especially when you consider the demography over here. That said, quoting further: "Senior Executives and officials at the Bank of Thailand on Monday urged caution as Thailand's economy heads into 2025. The Central Bank was particularly concerned about the potential policies and impact of the second Trump Administration in the second half of 2025. In the meantime, it highlighted lower loan growth, and finally, some progress in dealing with the country's chronic household debt." So it noted lower loan growth and again going back up here, "economic shocks as household debt recedes." You have to remember who these folks are. They are bankers. GDP itself is a metric of banking; GDP only measures that which can be measured in terms of bank credit. It does not measure the real economy. So here in Thailand - I've seen this for years - it's almost like there's two economies. There's the real economy on the street where people are actually moving around, adding value, inputting inputs into the economy, taking out outputs - again real economics - and then this financial chicanery economy that sort of exists as a layer on top of it that is measured in terms of “GDP”. Again, it's a metric that doesn't fully look at the real world, but then they make all of their decisions regarding collateralizations of loans for countries in terms of national debt etc., in terms of GDP, so it warps the whole picture when you look at it sort of from 10,000 ft. - if you look at it that way. That said, quoting further: "At the same time, a damaging economic relationship with China is coming into play. The bank projects 2.9% growth in 2025 and suggests it was keeping its monetary policy neutral in case intervention is required later." Yeah now that's a good idea, and I'm glad to see that the Central Bank is kind of going to that posture because it was looking like it was veering off into this modern monetary theory, "let's print today and worry about the check, we will get hell to pay tomorrow" kind of thinking. It looks like at least the Central Bank has gone away from that, for lack of a better term. The core coalition party here could maybe take a page out of that book. But again that said, I think it's a good idea overall on the Central Bank's part to keep some dry powder and remain prudent, nothing bad about that. But again that said, they talk about this household debt thing as if it's sort of a bad thing that it's lowering.

Meanwhile, another perspective over here at Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Household debt ratio climbs to 104% in Q4, Quarter 4. Quoting directly: "Thailand's household debt, including informal loans, has reached 104% of gross domestic product (GDP)." First question would be, how do you track "informal loans"? And again, it's notable that this is all under the metric of GDP, and again GDP only looks at that which can be measured in terms of bank credit. There's a whole economy that's off those books so when they say it's 104% of GDP, yeah okay that may be true, but that's highly misleading when you are actually looking at the reality of the overall Thai market here, the overall Thai economy. That said, quoting further: "...which is expected to pressure economic growth going forward according to a report released by a private sector panel." So what is it? Is more debt good or bad? Because they constantly use it in the media as like this stocking-horse to operate as a reason that, "we have to do something about something", which anytime a government says, "we have to do something", the hairs on the back of my neck go up, because I'm just like, I don't want you to do anything. Just go away. Let private people handle it. 

But that being said, again it's just another example of this constant disingenuousness regarding discussions on economics and it's clear that it all is toward an agenda and that agenda, in my opinion, is not necessarily in the best interest of the Kingdom of Thailand.