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As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question, since when was consumption the goal. Now I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, actually by Chartchai Parasuk, who I'm actually a huge fan of in terms of his analysis, his economic analysis. I differ with him in terms of opinion, and I'll get to that in a moment, but I have a lot of respect for him and his background. So I want to clear on that going into this. That said, quoting directly from a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com: The economy is waiting to hit an iceberg. Quoting directly, and this is actually from later in the article then I'm going to go back and quote from before. Quoting directly: "The 145 billion Baht cash handout" - which I have a real problem with that whole notion of a “handout”; it's just not good policy. Nobody should be waiting around for a free handout; it doesn't help anyone and it creates a very entitled, almost learned helplessness kind of system. It is not good. Quoting directly: "The 145 billion Baht cash handout in Q4/2024 and another 30 billion Baht in January 2025 show that fiscal stimuli can fail." - I couldn't agree more. I don't think we needed it; I don't think it was warranted. I talked about it at the time and then on top of it, it didn't really do anything. Quoting further: "Consumers are too weak to consume without bank credit" - and that's kind of the point of this video which is and I want to get into this and then I am going to keep quoting, but I remember being a kid when this Keynesianism first started really trying to take hold in the '90s in America and unfortunately it got its teeth into us good and that has metastasized for about 20-25 years. We are coming out of it; it's ending, and Thailand should be aware of that, especially those who have to make policy regarding economics and finance out here, I think it is worth noting. But more to the point, when did consumption become the goal in and of itself? That's the problem I have, and I always had a problem with the rather fallacious notion that, "oh we can lever the whole world based on the fact we have such a great consumer market". Well look, at a certain point it's not beneficial for people to just consume and throw their produce at you, okay. The whole system works, it has been working but the Triffin Dilemma is what it is, and it's called a “dilemma” for a reason, because at the end of the day it's not about the paper moving around, it's about goods and services, that's what it is about. 

But that said, consumption in and of itself, again as the goal, I have always kind of disagreed with that and that's something where the Keynesians and I don't really necessarily get along. That said, quoting further: "The handout" - and again I hate that term. We shouldn't have handouts here in Thailand. Loans to help businesses, yeah; cutting regulations to help businesses, yeah; handouts, no; digital money that you can track and trace and surveil everyone's transactions at all times, 24 hours in a totalitarian manner similar to the Communist Chinese yeah, no. How about No, not a great idea. That said, quoting further: "The handout amount is nowhere near their usual credit amount obtained from banks, which was more than half a trillion Baht per year." Now his point here is a different thing so get away from consumption though and this is where maybe reasonable people can disagree, and he's starting to sway me toward his side of the argument, which is maybe it is time to start loosening up credit - not so much handout credit - but credit into the business economy. Again, loans to small businesses, very different from handouts, but again that said, I don't necessarily agree with Keynesian monetary theory to begin with. I view inflation as theft, so that's me. That said, quoting further: "The Thai economy is comparable to the Titanic build quality in the sense that it's a fragile one." I don't agree with that either necessarily. Yes, the sort of artificial, what I would call the parallel Western facing economy in Thailand, yeah it is a little precarious. That's because the Western economies are precarious. That's a reflection of that. Thailand's down- home economy, the thing that always saves it when we have to deal with all the ruckus from the rest of the world, not so bad, if you go out on the street level, could be worse. Again, I'm not saying I am the end all be all and I'm not saying that particular anecdotal evidence is the end all be all. I do understand there are issues in the export sector, the industrial sector, those are different things, I don't see that as directly, so take that as you will. That said, quoting further: "Although it might look healthy with 2.5% GDP growth for 2024 after 2.0% growth the year before, in reality it is plagued with many problems from dwindling competitiveness, an unsustainable debt burden," - I am coming back to that - "to ineffectual fiscal and monetary policies." Well ineffective fiscal and monetary policies," aren't we doing more of the same on some of that stuff? Leave that aside though, "unsustainable debt burden." I have been hearing the Western, especially the financial press cry all day long about the unsustainable debt burden of the Thais. Why do we hear about this all the time? Because it's unsecured, most of it. Thais don't have the debt burdens in their houses that for example most Americans have. For good, ill or otherwise, Thai policy dictated that. Frankly it was good policy and frankly it was top down policy One of the best examples out here of when top-down policy works by the way. But no, most Thais do not have this debt tied to their home. I'm not saying all, there are mortgages and things here, but a lot of this debt that they constantly go on and on about in the Western press is unsecured debt they are probably never going to get back. I'm here to tell you during the late '90s and early 2000s, I wasn't here, but I heard the stories of when Western Credit came out here and it was like in Ghostbusters 2 with that slime gun where they are just throwing it everywhere. I mean Western Credit came out here and gave loans to anybody. I remember a guy told me he said his maid who was making like 8,000 Baht a month from him had gone out and got a credit card through one of the banks that had come in, one of the Western Banks and had promptly gone out and spent it all. And you are never getting that money back Banks. I mean again, the honest thing to do is pay it back but this guy was telling me this 3, 4, 5 years down the road and I'm not casting aspersions of that person or saying the Thais are not capable of handling Finance - I don't want this clip misinterpreted or anything like that - my point is though, most of the reason the Banks keep going on and on about this and browbeating Thailand in the open Press about debt burden, is because they screwed up and have a bunch of unsecured debt on a bunch of Thais that we may or may not have to pay it off okay, that's just the fact of it. That said, quoting further: "The government boasts about recent high export growth and rising tourism numbers" - as they should - quoting further: "but it failed to tell the public that export growth was mostly from Chinese re-exports, causing the 2024 trade surplus to be slightly lower than that of 2023." And he certainly brings up a great point there. Yes sir. Couldn't agree with you more; you are right. I mean that really needs to be looked at and if policies need to be changed or shifted with regard to that issue, well that makes sense, I can totally get that. Look I know Thailand is always in the good times constantly dealing with the Sophie's Choice balance if you will: do we kind of throw tourism under because we have to deal with currency policy in a broader sense, or do we throw exports under, and they never throw them completely over but sometimes policy will lean one way and sometimes policy will lean another way. I can get it. If things are going hinky over on the export side, we need to kind of rejig our policy, makes sense. I can understand that argument. That said, quoting further: "Thailand's trade deficit with China for January 2025 was US$ 5.7 billion, the highest for at least two decades. On the hope of Tourism income, it is true that tourist numbers are now close to the pre-covid period". And it should be noted the books weren't “cooked” this year. And I don't mean that casting aspersions, but what I mean to say is in the past you would see a lot higher “tourism numbers” because you would have people that could only get in for 30 days at a stretch so they do a lot of Border Runs and as a result, a lot of people that would have just been here like 58 days, did 30 days, a Border Run, and then another 28 days and it was counted as if they were two different tourists; they were counted twice. In this past high season, we didn't have that sort of phenomenon going on during this past high season. So if the numbers didn't quite overtake what we saw in the past, it's still very impressive because these were actual hard numbers of people that came. If we had been under the old system, would it have doubled? I mean it's a valid question. Even if it went up like 10% does that take us over the numbers we had prior to say COVID? It is a valid question, and I think it is worth pointing out. That said, quoting further: "However, they are expending almost 20% less per head as high like Chinese tourists are being replaced by economic Indians and Malaysian visitors.” Okay, fair enough. I get it. Chinese do tend to come in, they stay like 2 weeks, and they want to buy certain consumer goods. They have their own patterns; they're not the end all be all. I do think it's worth building up different repositories of tourist numbers by nationality because look, say what you will, they may be budget travellers today but as time goes on and from what the trends I'm seeing as the Global South continues to become economically more vibrant, I think it's a good idea to invest in our future in Global South tourism. It's just my opinion. Now that said, does that mean at exclusion of Chinese tourism? No, absolutely not, so I don't agree with that. But that being said I think it's worth pointing out that okay they may be more economical now, in the future they may be wealthy tourists that we may want. A friend of mine once said, Khao San road is the greatest place to make somebody who will come back six times to Thailand. Kids start off there; they hang out with younger people, tend to on Khao Sarn, and then as time goes on, they hang out in Sukhumvit, or they start hanging out at an island. The next thing you know, they may go home but they come back three years later. We are building new tourists is my point. But that being said, yeah, we shouldn't do it to the exclusion of Chinese tourism. 

The only point I am trying to make with this video is I am just kind of hoping maybe we can, if not disregard Keynesianism economic thinking, maybe be able to step away from it from time to time, especially as the world is changing economically, and look at things from different perspectives so that we can come to some kind of, not lasting, but a consensus that will get us down the road in the most economically beneficial way possible moving forward.