Transcript of the above video:

I don't usually make videos like this. It is kind of more of a news oriented video but I have noticed it all around, there seem to be a number of I hate using the term conspiracy theories, but there seem to be a number of rather outlandish speculations out there about the remodel of the present US Consulate in Chiang Mai.

Let me be clear, I am not overly familiar with exactly what's going on up there but this does happen periodically. I remember some going on 12 probably 13 years ago, the Consular section of the US Embassy down here in Bangkok was being remodeled. I even remember you used to walk, there is sort of this water, I don't know what you would call it, it is not a Koi pond but it is a little water area, it's got a fountain and there is water, like a little pond, I remember you actually had to walk over that when I first came here years ago and I would deal with US Immigration cases at the Consular Section over there. You actually came in sort of from the back from where you come in now and you walked over this little pond in order to get to the actual Consulate. It wasn't optimal, they were doing a remodel and then they did a remodel again shortly thereafter. For those who are unaware, and I will get into this in a little bit further detail but budget issues make up a major reason why these things occur the way that they do. 

But yeah regarding the speculation, there seems to be a lot of speculation out there that there is something nefarious or covert going on in the remodeling of the US Consulate up in Chiang Mai. To be clear it is my understanding that that Consulate, they are using a building, I believe it is an old teak building, it is old and it is relatively small compared to the needs of the region. It certainly sets off kind of red flags in my head that the main concern about this remodel is that the budget appears to be around about a quarter of a billion US dollars, around 250 million US dollars to do this remodel. Well that sounds like a lot and I would love to have a quarter of a billion dollars, I will tell you I often wonder if I would be doing videos right now if I had a quarter of a billion dollars but Uncle Sammy money, in Uncle Sam kind of accounting, I don't even know if a quarter billion dollars is a rounding error these days when it comes to the US Federal Government and what they spend and how they spend it. Also the thing you have to keep in mind again these budget issues, when you are budgeting for something and you are a Federal Agency for example US State Department you can get Congress to sort of open up their wallet, you get everything you can and you are looking to front load money that you are going to be using on stuff that will have 10 year or 20 year implications and not in any kind of super spy 007 kind of stuff, we are just talking about, "hey if we need coffee cups for the next 5 years what is that going to cost? Shove that into the budget." I am being a little bit facetious here but you have got to keep that in mind. I think there is a lot of speculation swirling that is really kind of unfounded. Yeah it seems like a ton of money and the other thing you got to keep in mind is State Department builds things at their specifications; it has to be vetted through all sorts of security protocols in order to maintain the integrity of the chancery compound. A chancery is actually the physical structure of an Embassy or Consulate. They have to be sure, there is a lot of bureaucracy that goes into this. You have to use certain contractors who quite frankly charge a certain amount of money, in my opinion it is sort of fiscal conservative, I think they probably charge way too much money, but that is a political issue not really pertinent to this. 

Again a quarter of a billion dollars sounds like a ton of money to build a Consulate, if you are looking at a Consulate like "oh you know you can just have a couple people in a house doing visas!" Well that is not what the US Consulate in Chiang Mai is doing. They are providing regional services and also in a lot of different ways and they are also connected to the Embassy, but they have a fair number of people too to house. I mean when the American Government send folks abroad, they send a pretty sizable delegation. The long story short of this video I can't say I know for sure everything that's going on up there and at first glance I said "wow, a quarter of a billion dollars, that's a lot of money" until you think about it in the context of the US Federal Government. I mean the paper bills of the Federal Government are probably in the billions somewhere so a quarter of a billion dollars it is a lot, it's real money, there is no doubt about it but in terms of the Federal budget it is basically the cost of maintaining what I would probably call a standard Consulate for the United States of America.