Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the fact that it costs money to be legal in Asia. What are we talking about here? I'll talk to clients, prospective clients, folks like that and we will be talking about the prices of doing various things. One of the most I don't know, I won't say it's annoying but over time it does get kind of irritating sort of hearing the same thing over and over, "I can do it this way and it's a lot cheaper!" It's like yeah, it's also illegal. I remember saying this years ago, 10 years ago and more, but people would say "I can just live in Thailand on a Tourist Visa," yeah you could do that until you couldn't and they started deporting people who were clearly living in Thailand and working here some 7, 8 years ago they were doing that and when the policy changed it changed overnight. People were getting stopped at the border presuming everything was hunky dory and getting told "yeah you need to come back to Thailand in a year, we're not letting you back in because we think you are living here!" That's just one example. Another example, now this is a bit of an extreme example but I have done other videos contemporaneously with this one wherein I described the fact that about a 100 Indian folks gathered for an illegal gambling junket. Basically they all went down to a hotel in Pattaya, rented out a conference room and then decided to basically have a "floating illegal Casino" in that conference room. Now they were able to do that and they got away with it; they were gambling for a while and then they were all arrested.

So again, it costs money to be legal in Thailand. In that scenario yeah, although in theory it might have been possible to get licenses for what they were doing, in practice it would be very difficult although technically possible. We may see in the coming years Thailand changing the law and allowing more gambling, more gaming activities to go on in this jurisdiction. I'm here to tell you it is going to cost money. There is going to be money and fees associated with licensing under that scenario. The point I am trying to make here, it is not a big point about "oh pain, come hire a lawyer, this, that and the other thing," not really. My point is though, you are a foreign national in a foreign country. You don't have any inherent rights within that country to for example work or to live there forever, to reside there unless and until you have gone through the appropriate protocols. Part of those appropriate protocols are going to be paying various fees associated with Government Fees, possible processing fees, administrative fees in order to maintain that lawful status. Again this video isn't meant to be snarky, it's not meant to be condescending, it's just meant to kind of act maybe as a wakeup call a little bit that hey you are not in your home country. You are in a place that you are a foreign person in, and your rights are truncated compared to the locals. One of my favorites was, I remember years and years ago and at the time these were just things I just sort of nodded along with because I was a young guy but older guy, I would be doing somebody's Retirement Visa or something and they would say "well I want to set up this" and I said well technically you are not work authorized on a Retirement Visa. "Well Thais just are outside running a fruit stand," and I said to one of them finally, I got a little older, I think I had enough gumption to kind of say something back a little bit, I said yeah they are Thai. Did you see the name on the door when you came in the airport? It is called Thailand. They can do that. If they want to sell watermelon by the side of the road, they are Thai, it is what do. You are not and again, not to be condescending, not to be snarky it's just the facts of the matter. Yes it will cost a little extra money to get into legal status, oftentimes to get into proper legal status here in the Kingdom of Thailand.