Transcription
Today, we will discuss the topic of crises and opportunities that may arise. Therefore, it is a good question for all of us to first understand what a crisis is, in order to interpret what the opportunities that may arise for us will be. What I would like everyone to consider first is that the word "crisis" feels too negative, doesn't it? What is happening now has happened twice before in this world. The first time was over 200 years ago, during the French Revolution, which we will not go into that deeply. And another time started in 1907 and lasted until the end of World War II in 1945. This means that within one person's working lifetime, they are living with what is called a system change. Therefore, the root cause of 1907, and all the challenges that occurred and were similar to this period, were three things. The first is what is called an economic crisis. And what causes an economic crisis? It stems from the Third Industrial Revolution. The Third Industrial Revolution had the effect of disrupting industries from the Second Industrial Revolution before the Third Industrial Revolution emerged, and they did not see what is called the "wind of change." For example, during that period, we had companies that had been building horse-drawn carriages for 2,000 years. Imagine looking back, and everyone would think, "What could possibly replace a horse-drawn carriage?" There is nothing. And what happened next was the emergence of the automobile, which came and replaced the horse-drawn carriage. Today, it is the same thing happening again. We have electric vehicles. In 2018, people said, "Oh, there's no way they can replace cars." But today is the answer. What we see on the streets generally, we find there are electric vehicles everywhere, right? This is a new industrial revolution, driven by what is called new innovation. We can see the structure, can't we? The existing automotive industry is asking itself, "What next?" The question "What next?" impacts the entire supply chain of the automotive industry, involving thousands of companies and thousands of factories. Today, many in Thailand are asking, "What next? Should I continue? Should I close down my business? Or what?" They are in a state of confusion. Both of these are the same thing in that an economic crisis occurs, and it is based on the emergence of new innovation, or what is called an industrial revolution. Therefore, if we look at the examples of both times it happened, I will use the example of 1970. The causes of the change process were economic booms and the biggest economic crises in the world, which were in 1907 and 1928, known as The Great Depression. Before The Great Depression, there was World War I and World War II, and everything began to fall into a new world order in 1945. Why do I mention this first? I want everyone to see that what is happening repeats itself over and over again. Therefore, we are in a situation that occurred 100 years ago and has come back in a loop after another 100 years. At this moment, I do not want to use the term "economic crisis" or "global political crisis" or "political crisis." I want to use the term "system architecture," which is the process of designing the entire global system. Within the subset of designing the entire world order system, it is the process of changing the old world order to a new world order. Therefore, if we see this first, we might be in the process of designing the old world system towards a new world system, which may take 10-20 years from now. The first beginning of this process started in 1972, just a few days ago, when we were about to enter what is called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. After that, there were catalysts that pushed us into the process of change, which was the financial crisis in 2019. This was a liquidity crisis. After that, they solved the liquidity crisis at that time by the emergence of the virus, and we were shocked by the virus for two years, not knowing how life would go on. Many people said that was not a financial crisis. I thought perhaps it was a festival or holiday that made us stay home. That depends on the perspective. Therefore, in that process, it caused similar severity in two or three other matters. The first is the decline of governance systems, leading to changes in governance from absolute monarchy in that era, ruled by kings, to democratic, Marxist, Fascist, or Nazi systems. This was a process to see which system would work for this world, dividing the world into two poles by the same group of thinkers, and designing their way of thinking. Then, economic decline led to the design of a crisis to bring about World War I. Therefore, what we learned in history that World War I was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that was the designed solution to the preceding problem, which was that the banking system in England and London did not have enough gold for people to withdraw. People were about to rush to withdraw, causing the banking systems in England and Germany, which was then called Prussia, to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Imagine this: there was 60 million pounds of gold, and people wanted to withdraw 300 million pounds, and the banks did not have it. At that point, the entry into the governance system of that era, something interesting happened, similar to today. Do you know what it was? The incurring of debt and the use of debt as a weapon to collapse systems. I will give two examples of regions during that period. The Ottoman Empire, which had existed for over 600 years, controlled the world, encompassing Europe, Asia, and Africa. It was the center of world travel. And the Russian Empire. Russia also experienced a change in governance during that time. What was the cause? At that time, the world had a new innovation in travel called the railway. Do you picture the railway? It turned out that a German banker spoke with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, offering a loan to build a railway line parallel to the Suez Canal, by building a railway from Istanbul to Baghdad. Imagine that Islam does not allow lending; lending is a sin. But the Sultan sinned against Allah by borrowing money from a German Jewish banker for the construction of the railway. But think about it, when we go to Europe and look down from an airplane, we see vast deserts, right? As businessmen, consider the investment return between Istanbul and Baghdad in that era, with a small population. Would there be enough train passengers to make it worthwhile? Think about our BTS, which is so crowded every day and still incurs losses, and we don't know why. We look for the reasons, and we will know. But at that time, there was no such return, which caused the debt incurred to make the Ottoman Empire unable to generate money to repay it. This led to a state of economic depression. Furthermore, the Ottomans could not acquire modern technology, which led to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire into smaller countries like Syria and Turkey, due to the Turkish revolution. Therefore, the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire was brought down by debt. Today, what do we see? The world is full of debt and driven by debt, right? This is an opportunity for the collapse of empires to transfer power and change governance to another system. Simultaneously, in Russia, German banks also lent money to the Tsar to build a railway from the western part of the Russian capital to the eastern part. Imagine the vastness of Russia from east to west, and it is very cold. The question is, when investing in building a railway, it seemed like a good idea, but where was the investment return? This also led to the Russian state being unable to repay its creditors. This resulted in the bankers taking over the business, and another banker supported the Bolshevik Party to overthrow the monarchy and establish the communist system as planned. The two families involved were the Warburg family, who founded the Federal Reserve, and the Rothschild family, who had businesses in Russia, which led to the collapse. In England, they lent money for railways in Argentina, and Argentina could not repay, leading to the collapse of the Barings Bank. I am trying to make everyone see something related to this current time: money from around the world suddenly concentrated in one business, the technology business, leading to technology companies with immense value, such as Nvidia, valued at 4% of global GDP. Do we eat chipsets as food? Not to that extent, right? But in related businesses, money is not flowing in; it is concentrated. They can create that money. But the question is, in those businesses, will money and investment return be the answer? And that is the reason why businesses worldwide are collapsing, and money is not circulating globally, you see? And we, since the pandemic, have been injected with liquidity, causing us to be heavily in debt. And we are in debt during a period of low interest rates. When everyone is heavily in debt, interest rates are raised. If you run a business, you know how brutal every 1% increase in interest rates is to our cash flow. Therefore, what the world is facing is this: what we faced over 100 years ago, up to the present, in the next 100 years, in the third cycle, we are facing a global economic and political crisis and disruption. Then, it is the entry into transformation. Transformation is the transformation of the world to another point. From the present, we are at a point where the world will never return to its former state. That is what we must learn. Therefore, from now on, what will we face? First, a global economic recession. Within the next two years, we may see the world economy falter simultaneously. Why? Today, no country in the world, except Vietnam, has an economy that grows faster than its interest rates. No country's economy grows faster than its interest rates. And what is hidden there is that these interest rates are government interest rates, not including private sector interest rates, and not including household interest rates. Global GDP cannot cover this growth in the current economy. Second, companies are confused about themselves. If we take the automotive industry as a simple example, the gasoline-powered automotive industry, do you think it is heavily impacted now? And the electric vehicle industry is also heavily impacted. But what is different is that electric vehicle owners still have positive thinking; they believe they can move forward and are doing everything to move forward and change. Whereas owners of gasoline-powered car industries are in a state of stagnation, wondering what to do next with their businesses. And this has an impact on the supply chain. I see these businesses becoming zombies because they cannot transform. And when they cannot transform, it leads to layoffs, job losses, bad debts, and economic crises. Therefore, we will see many protests happening around the world, with increasing severity. First, we will see international conflicts. Today, we are at a point where the world has no rules anymore. Today, we are returning to an era of the law of the jungle. If you want to arrest a country's leader, you just go and arrest them. Plan it and go arrest them. Those who claim to control the world system are the ones doing what the system dictates, but they are not doing it. And they are interfering in the politics of Iran. If we look at the news, there are two news reports that are propaganda from the West. But what is perceived in Tehran or Iran by Iranians themselves is the opposite: those who were shot dead were activists who were hired. In this world, there is a profession called a revolutionary. It has existed for over 200 years. The profession of a revolutionary. Therefore, these revolutionaries will interfere everywhere in the world, including Thailand. We may have revolutionaries as MPs. World leaders will change everything, but change what, we don't know. It's hope for what, we don't know. [Laughter] They themselves don't know, so what can we hope for? But they believe there is hope. It's okay. We are in a country where we keep losing time every four years. Let's try this year, it's okay. In four years, we will try again. And we keep trying like this. I have been trying since I was over 50 years old, since 1932. And it has gone as far as we can see, and it cannot go further. For this reason, I want to tell everyone that if we call this process a crisis, we will be defeated. But I want us to call it what is called system architecture, the design of a new world order, a new world system, which must have all three things happening simultaneously. Therefore, these things affect us, and I feel very excited to give this lecture today because all of you are at the forefront who will definitely face severe volatility. Therefore, when I gave the example of 100 years ago, you all began to see the picture, didn't you? It's starting to feel familiar. Therefore, today, in terms of economics, there are two things: whether what we are experiencing is right or wrong. Therefore, this transformation is very important. Do you know what it is? If it is not right, we must quickly cut our losses. I have many followers who tell me they thought it was not right since 2018, and they quickly cut their losses. In the end, they still have money. But it turns out that those who continued to do business like them today have not only had their assets mortgaged to the bank but are also in debt more than their assets. If they close down, they still have liabilities that they cannot repay. This is a painful situation. Therefore, when buying or selling shares, if it is necessary, and we see that it is not right, we should cut our losses with the least pain, leaving as much as possible, and ask ourselves, "Where are we going next?" I had a meeting recently, just this morning. Some businesses are not right, so cut them. Some businesses are right, so go on. It will be painful at first, but it will not be devastating in terms of attitude during this time. What we must be most careful about is that our business has been around for three generations. Let's count. The past three generations were the previous industrial revolution generation, growing within the structure of the previous industrial revolution, in the old technological system. But today, it is entering a new era. We are in a mode of change, and with this change, we will see many companies disappear overnight. And banks will be the ones facing this. Do you realize that if we close our companies and run away, defaulting on our debts, all debts will be gone? Therefore, I define this year as the year of debt default, debt default for banks, etc. Therefore, this is one risk in managing your cash flow, especially regarding credit. Therefore, old familiar practices must be extremely careful because we have no way of knowing what those we extend credit to are involved in. Therefore, managing credit is extremely necessary to be extremely careful. Because I define this year that issuing bonds, lending money, etc., will be defaulted on, not because they want to default, but because the business situation is not moving. According to my definition of business, as reported in various media, if it is 100%, then 75% is businesses returning to growth. Returning to growth is 75%. But last year, I gave a figure of 50%. How did you all feel going through last year? 50%. You all have the answer. But this year, I give 40%. "Wow!" Next year, 30%. You might ask, "Where did these numbers come from?" I just made them up. Think about it, by the time the election is over, it will be around May, which is half a year. Half a year is two quarters. When doing business, it's month-to-month. We have to do accounting month-to-month for cash flow. And we watch how they will divide it, whether it will be settled. Once settled, we will see that everyone claims to be acting for the benefit of the people. Have we ever asked ourselves? We are confused, thinking, "Is this what we want?" We want sustainable national development, right? We want a government that earns money and repays national debt. How can the country earn more money, not just spend it carelessly on policies? Everyone gives handouts, and we have seen the collapse of handouts worldwide, even in America. Today, their political and demographic crisis is very bad.