Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Immigration Policy. I have done a number of videos roughly the past month, I have talked a lot about Retirement Visas recently. I have to be honest with you, part of the impetus for doing so was the comments made by Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn when he was talking about the fact that he felt that the Retirement Visa scheme needed to be overhauled. Again as we have discussed in other videos, I don't believe that this is going to happen instantaneously. In fact, I am thinking over this coming high season we probably won't see major changes to the Retirement Visa and we may not see major changes to the Retirement Visa. At the end of the day, Mr. Hakparn is the, at this time, the Deputy National Police Chief. Now some of the things that he may do may overlap with Thai Immigration but again he is no longer the Head of Thai Immigration. Now he may end up being Head of the National Police some point in the future. Now how that plays out remains to be seen, if it even goes that way remains to be seen. But again when somebody like this makes comments about the Retirement Visa specifically I am going to take a look at it.

Now I've been burned a whole bunch, I don't usually make it a point to particularly look at a lot of comments on these videos although my staff will from time to time bring up comments, sometimes especially when there is some constructive commentary I definitely will take a look at that. For the most part, the so called "trolls" or whatever, at the end of the day I have been doing this 7 years. If I seem a little bit resigned or just tired, I kind of am. I have been doing this for 7 years for free. I am not putting out this information to aggravate or fearmonger. People said the same stuff about me when I made videos talking about the end of the Income Affidavit, excoriated across the comment section. When I made videos talking about possible changes with regard to Bank balances when they started strictly enforcing, again we did that before it really came down the pike hard and again I was excoriated at the time; talked about insurance before it became a requirement for the O-A Retirement Visa, again pilloried for it and then it sort of came to pass. Now am I claiming I can predict the future? No, but when a former Head of Thai Immigration says the Retirement Visa scheme needs to be overhauled, I am going to take that into consideration, I just am and I am going to comment on it a fair bit. And when you look at one of the discrepancies between the O and the O-A, insurance immediately pops out and so I made a number of videos recently about the insurance component or the possibility of the addition of an insurance component to the O Retirement Visa. Now whether or not that occurs again remains to be seen but in the past I have sort of seen these trends build up and then come to fruition and there were twitches of familiarity associated with the comments that the Deputy National Police Chief made a few weeks ago, so that's why I thought of making those videos. That said, like I have said, I have been doing this 7 years, I am doing my best. I guess if people want to just fling vitriol at me for trying to do that okay, whatever. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on a prior video where I actually in the quote, to give some context, excuse me not in the quote, in the title, the question was posed, "Is there "panic" among retirees regarding possible changes to the Retirement Visa scheme?" And as I noted in that video, we were citing the word "Panic" from an underlying source, I believe in that case it was the Pattaya Mail, over at pattayamail.com, but again that was just sort of me making the observation and I was using the word "panic" which you will see here in a minute, I was citing that, I was quoting that. So quoting directly from this comment: "This guy has been beating his own drum about mandatory health insurance for a month now. He's always quick to say that we should think about it, but then he doesn't think it will happen." No, what I have said is in the event that in my opinion, if a major change was to roll out, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that people who are already in the system would be "grandfathered in". They would be able to continue to renew under prior terms. We've seen this before. Back in the 90s when changes were made, people were allowed to be "grandfathered in" under the old terms, and I've done videos on that before. I have never said think about it but it's not going to happen. In fact I have made it abundantly clear I don't know one way or the other if it's going to happen but again when we see the former Head of Thai Immigration make major comments specifically on the Thai Retirement Visa I think it's worth noting and it got me sort of thinking and I was looking at the situation and it just kind of has the feel of 'we may be seeing sort of movement in the waters' if you will toward change regarding the Retirement Visa. Now whether it comes to pass or not remains to be seen. Again I have said it myself, I think it's unlikely we will see that happen during this high season, possibly during this coming year. There is a strong probability they won't change it but I think in the event that they do, be prepared for the possibility that the folks that are already in the system may be able to continue under their terms, but new people would have to deal with new rules; new people coming in to the system would have to deal with new rules. That's what I have been saying since the outset. Any time I have talked about this, that is all I have been saying. Quoting further: "A master of CYA, I think he is on commission from the insurance industry. As for "panic", I have yet to hear any discussion on the subject either in golf circles, bars or restaurants. Give us a break." Okay, fair enough on the panic part. As I said previously, I was quoting another source when using that word but I thought it was worth making this video and the reason for this video was this part where it said "well I haven't heard anything in golf circles, bars or restaurants". Well guess what? That's going to be the last place you are going to hear anything because at the end of the day Thai Immigration policy isn't set in those places and where it is set for example the Cabinet the Parliament, Interior, well I should say Offices under the auspices of the Interior Ministry or the Foreign Ministry, specifically Embassies and Consulates, that's where the rubber hits the road regarding policy changes within Thai Immigration; that's where those things are going to occur. Now again the last place you are going to hear about it is in bars somewhere, or restaurants, or out on a golf course. Now you may hear about it if you are out playing golf with Thai Policy makers or something; you may hear something about the possible changes to Thai Immigration policy but you are not going to hear about that in those places. In fact again, those are going to be the last places that you are going to hear about it. 

As I said before I have discussed matters pertaining to Thai Immigration of the past and I will be the first person to say I am not right all the time and I will be also be the first person to say sometimes we find thematically certain topics that we talk about on this channel. The "travel bubble" scheme so-called, comes to mind during the COVID thing. I talked about that for a couple of years because it kept popping up in the narrative and it kept popping up in official sources even. They would talk about possibly having a "travel bubble", never came to pass, just did not happen. Again and we talked about it even toward the end of Covid I said I don't think we're ever going to see these "travel bubbles" even though they have been talking about it forever but again in the past I remember getting real hateful comments when I started talking about the possibility of the end of the Income Affidavit which I was on top of before it actually occurred. I actually warned people about it. We were on top of changes to Insurance Policy before they came about. So I've been ahead of various things. I will be the first to say that I am not an oracle, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, I am just sort of giving it my best faith effort, in good faith effort to try and provide up-to-date insightful information hopefully for people who watch this channel.

At the end of the day if you take nothing else away from this video this attitude, and it is a very odd attitude, it exists in sort of the foreign expat community that their "bubble" if you will is the definitive "bubble", is the definitive narrative if you will, whatever "bubble" they live in. Again "I haven't heard about it in bars, restaurants or golf circles." Well you may not hear about it there. That "bubble" may not be the place where that information first pops up okay? That is just the way of the world out here. I find it really interesting, foreigners come to Thailand and they sort of exist in their own, again "bubble" is the right word for it, sort of in their own "bubble” and just sort of think that they don't have to look beyond that when doing deep analysis about like future trends or how policy changes may come about. At the end of the day, that in my opinion is just a very short-sighted way of looking at the world.