Thailand has become quite forward-thinking in the past 4 years or so. It began with being more lenient as far as tourist visas are concerned, then it was the legalization of recreational marijuana that boosted the economy and gave people something to do other than just drink and drive. I jest about the last thing but there are a lot of drink driving deaths in this country and I don't think there has ever been a single accident that was caused by someone being a bit too stoned.
As is a lot of things in this country, and the rest of the world, this is partly because of politics.
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The idea is to create a wallet and give away 10,000 Baht (about $280) to anyone in the country that is over the age of 16. Sounds great, right? Well, if there is one thing that I have learned in my adult life it is that there is no such thing as free. This project would cost around $14 billion US and if you just spend a bit of time outside of a tourist area in Thailand you quickly realize that the government doesn't really have this money to throw at quite necessary things like education and roads, let alone some free stuff for its people.
What makes it more suspicious is that this proposition was brought forth by the Pheu Thai political party, who is not in the majority as far as government seats are concerned. It is being seen by many as a "pay for votes" type of situation. This was something I heard about with an ex prime-minister of this country named Yingluck, who was ousted via yet another bloodless coup d'état a number of years ago.
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While I did not live here, according to people that did live here these tablets were extremely poor quality, most were broken in no time, and the kids, as you would expect kids to do, didn't use them for education. Plus, since the entire idea behind them was purported to be group education projects, it was essential that all of the kids had functioning tablets in order for it to work. Go ahead and send a bunch of kids around with your tablet for a couple days, see if it comes back in working order... go on! I dare you!
Beyond the rubbish quality of the tablets the real problem here was that it was seen as vote-buying because rather than promising increases in education, which is a very vague statement in its own right, this was a tangible "gift" that the people would receive only if she was elected. Therefore I think it is correct to look at this situation and suggest that it is purchasing of votes with money that isn't even her own. She did win though, so I guess it worked.
With the crypto scheme, the idea, or so the politicians say, is to encourage Thailand to become an epicenter of crypto development and use, but at the same time as of March of 2022 it was declared illegal to use crypto as a means of purchasing goods and services. That law remains in effect today.
To me I think this could be a wonderful thing for people out there that enjoy blockchain technology and believe it is the future. For me though, anytime the government gets involved in something I always think there is something fishy going on and in this situation, I think Pheu Thai is merely trying to attract new voters rather than actually stimulate the economy.