Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing currency and as it applies to folks here in Thailand; strictly speaking we're going to talk about expats and retirees. That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Retiring abroad in an uncertain world: What Frank's story in Pattaya teaches us about global policy and local risk. Then under the subheading, I urge folks who are watching this video, check out that article. It's dense, there is good information in there. Not all of it. There is some talk about Wills and things where I think they are talking beyond their scope of knowledge but for most of it, especially the interview and talking to the guy about he had problems in foreign bank account reporting and stuff like that, it is insightful, I think it is worth a read for folks that are out here. 

That said, under the sub-heading, The Legal Blind Spots, Frank's story highlights three common oversights: Subsection 3: Ignoring currency and asset exposure: Funds parked in Thai Banks or invested in local real estate may become difficult to repatriate if rules change." Well, I'm not overly concerned about repatriation of funds out of Thailand at least in an American-Thai context. The American-Thai relationship is such, it is robust, it's old, it's nearly 200 years old in terms of the Treaty. The Treaty between Thailand and the United States, the Treaty relationship is like 190 years old; 191 years I think at this point. Continuous by the way; it has been unbroken. Again, Thailand and the United States even maintained a good working relationship, albeit kind of nebulous and tenuous at times even during the Second World War which was a difficult time for everybody concerned out in this area, but that said, I mean it goes to show just how strong a relationship Thailand and the USA have.

My take on it is and look I've been here when the currency situation sort of went upside down in 2011 when we saw the Thai Baht strengthen to like 28 and change against the dollar, and that was not good. Thailand's export sector had a bad time as a result of that; the tourism sector didn't do well. This business almost didn't keep going, the firm here. I was primarily only doing US Immigration, in fact pretty much exclusively only doing US Immigration back then, and it was hard to get people to want to pay for those services because the exchange rate was just such that it was like; within about a three-month period I saw my rates in US dollar terms went up by like 30%. 

I'm not really scared about the exchange rate issues moving forward for American retirees, I want to be very clear about that because I don't expect the Dollar- Baht relationship is going to get too crazy or hairy. Europe on the other hand and maybe even the UK, I'm not so sure. Now I think the UK will probably do alright because they signed a bilateral agreement; there are trade agreements now between the UK and Thailand that are such that I think they will have some mechanisms to kind of keep things on an even keel. But I have got to be honest, long-term, the Euro along with many of the European currencies, albeit maybe some of the Scandinavian ones will have more stability, but I just could see some real issues there, especially for retirees from that area. And look some of this is borne of very positive developments for Thailand. Look Southeast Asia is economically going upward. I know there is a lot of talk in the press right now that, "oh it's stagnant here; tourism is down, this, that and the other thing". One, the press has seemed to be frankly hell bent on making Thailand look more economically depressed than it is because there has been this massive push for a bunch of Keynesian money printing to just inject into the economy through initially the "Digital Wallet" scheme which was designed to track and trace everything we did and it was going to be digital money that wasn't real money and all kinds of problems associated with that. But again, frankly I've talked about the World Economic Forum before - I don't want to go into too much depth on that here - but these sort of World Economic Forum, sort of Western Europe-centric globalist paradigms of kind of a semi-colonial new order thing through the OECD and all of this stuff, I don't think it has legs. I don't think it's going to work because fundamentally what do you produce? What's being produced in all of that? It's just a big network of basically a bunch of, looks to me like, it's just a bunch of game playing and financial chicanery, in order to siphon off wealth from the so-called “third world” which doesn't look so third world anymore. It looks to me like the world has kind of flipped upside down and the so-called first world, looks a lot more third world and out here in the so-called “third world”, things are looking pretty first worldy for lack of a better term.

The point I am trying to make with all of this is yeah, I expect there could be some currency volatility, and I expect that could have tremendous negative ramifications for folks - especially retirees, especially for expats out here - but I'm not saying it's for everyone. I definitely think, I think the US dollar especially vis a vis the Thai baht, I'm not looking at a scenario where that is going to be a lot of problems. I mean there could be some volatility, but I don't think we're going to see a situation like we saw back in roughly 2011 where it kind of went upside down and it was in the high 20s against the Baht; the Baht had strengthened so much. I view that as a very unlikely scenario, and bear in mind that is just my speculation. Meanwhile I think second to that, the British pound; London sort of knows its business when it comes to finance, especially international finance. Also again, there are international trade agreements between the UK and Thailand now, so I expect there may be more volatility there, but I don't expect doom and gloom if you will at least not in the short term. 

Meanwhile though, I have serious questions about where like again Western Europe and sort of the Euro and how that is all going to play out long-term in its relationship with Thailand, especially in light of the fact that again, and I am not trying to cast this versions or be pejorative in any way towards Western Europe, but it's just so plain now that it's like what is being produced there for trade back to here in Southeast Asia that folks here really need or want, that's going to drive demand for those currencies against for example the Thai Baht and a number of other regional currencies as well. And when you start looking at that, I think short and long term, you could see some serious volatility with regard to those currencies vis a vis the Thai Baht as well as other currencies here in the Southeast Asian region.