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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand formally joining the BRICS. This is pretty big news. For those who are unaware, BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is my understanding now Saudi Arabia is in there, Egypt, Ethiopia - a number of other countries - I think Turkey just recently said they are looking to join. 

That said, I thought of making this video after getting a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com. If you recall, we did a video on this topic back in I think May I was quoting TASS, the Russian news agency, when they were talking about a Memorandum of Understanding that Thailand may join. It looks like we have come to the culmination of that process. Again, quoting directly from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Brics welcomes Thailand as newest partner nation. Quoting directly: "Thailand has become a partner country of BRICS starting on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The Government was informed of the news by Russia, this year's chair of the economic bloc. Quote: "Thailand's partnership with BRICS builds on its long-standing cooperation with the group, which began in 2017 when Thailand joined the Brics Plus mechanism. This partnership offers significant opportunities to strengthen economic ties with Brics member countries -- emerging markets and developing countries with high growth potential," according to an MFA statement."

A couple of things I would say to this. For those who are unaware, I am not a huge proponent of these supranational organizations no matter what their stripe. I've been talking a lot recently about the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which I do understand is something of a US-led initiative although I don't really view it like that. I think it's much more of a European endeavour and they kind of use the US as a smoke screen if you will for their machinations. They have been trying to get Thailand in. Unfortunately, our press here in Thailand, especially the English language press, talks about that as if it's a foregone conclusion. It is not, and it's my thinking that it's really not in Thailand's interest to join that organization. I had and still have my qualms about Brics. I think Thailand would be perfectly fine to just be left alone, maintain her own national interest the way she always has done, and people will say "well she's a member of ASEAN or APEC." Well ASEAN and APEC are a very different animal compared to Brics or the OECD. They're much less cumbersome and they are much less requiring of affirmative actions by the underlying members. ASEAN is a talking shop if you will but a useful one. It's a place where the Southeast Asian countries get together and sort of formulate ongoing - maybe not policy - but they just kind of get their ships in a row with regard to what they are going to be doing. Meanwhile APEC, again it's broader, it's Pacific based and it's a place where folks go to talk and hammer out agreements and things of this nature. Again, you can say the same thing about Brics. OECD is an entirely different animal because of all the weird "alignment" protocols associated with their tax laws and things that anyone that wants to join has to get into "alignment" with which just ultimately results in money being sucked out, wealth being sucked out of the country that joins through this “foreign aid” endeavour that OECD gets into. If you really want to see the finer points on how all that works, read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by a gentleman named Perkins who goes into how all of that works. 

But long story short, I have real qualms about the OECD. Meanwhile, I also have qualms about the Brics, but Thailand has joined now so it remains to be seen how this is going to play out. We will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.