will it really be any different?

burndtdan: will it really be any different?

I think surprisingly so. I think Mexico is going to nastytown, and it might end up being Obama's hardest work.

hillbillypharmacist: burndtdan: will it really be any different?

I think surprisingly so. I think Mexico is going to nastytown, and it might end up being Obama's hardest work.

Considering how many people jump the fence to greener pastures as it is NOW, imagining it somehow getting much worse could produce a pretty serious crisis for the USA.

Welcome to the 81 states of 'Merica.

burndtdan: will it really be any different?

Yes - it would be very very bad if Mexico were to implode. We're simply not able to handle the impact if/when Mexico finally gives up and fractures into a bunch of tiny little warlord states.

Hello North American Union!

Time for an invasion!

hillbillypharmacist: Hello North American Union!

we really don't want to absorb Mexico. It would be bad for us.

Weaver95: we really don't want to absorb Mexico. It would be bad for us.

It would give us gas - in more ways than one.

Welcome to the 81 states of 'Merica.

No Democrat president would invade Canada, and no Republican president would let that many new Democrats into the country.

My parents spend their winters in Mission, Texas. I sure hope this doesn't happen before May.

Hrm. well. Better than a total eclipse of the heart.

/enjoy the song stuck in your head

Are there Taco Bells in Mexico?

/always wondered

Easy, legalize and regulate all currently illegal drugs. Sell them in pharmacies with no advertising and no branding. Tax them at a reasonable rate like we do alcohol. High enough to generate revenue, low enough so that a significant Grey market can't form.

Suddenly these gangs in Mexico have lost 90% of their income. Crime in the US plummets. Government revenue climbs. We will still have more-or-less the same number of addicts, but compared with the crime/violence of the black market, that is a relatively easy problem to deal with. We have cut tobacco use in the US by half through HONEST education over the last several decades.

We can stop going after users and addicts who aren't causing trouble and go after the people who commit crime to feed their habit. Though that will go down too as the meth heads $200 per day habit will now be $10 per day and he can go unload trucks at UPS or mow lawns with a nail clipper to get that kind of money.

Meanwhile, the people who don't do drugs because they are smart enough to see that they are a bad idea will continue to not use them. Those who do use them can be open about their usage and more readily seek treatment if they want to quit. If they want to keep using drugs. At least they are getting a pure, consistent dosage, eliminating overdoses and other health problems.

Drug use will become more visible in our society, but again, a minor problem compared with the unintended consequences of our current prohibition.

GLove88mph: Hrm. well. Better than a total eclipse of the heart.

/enjoy the song stuck in your head

Hopefully the implosion won't be as bad as the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

/back atcha

hillbillypharmacist: Weaver95: we really don't want to absorb Mexico. It would be bad for us.

It would give us gas - in more ways than one.

I couldn't imagine trying to force mexican industrial manufacturing companies to comply with our EPA regulations. And that's just ONE issue.

hillbillypharmacist: Weaver95: we really don't want to absorb Mexico. It would be bad for us.

It would give us gas - in more ways than one.

hehehe

Weaver95: I couldn't imagine trying to force mexican industrial manufacturing companies to comply with our EPA regulations. And that's just ONE issue.

Another issue is then WE'D be stuck with the drug cartels.
Headless bodies for everyone!

Bukharin

How old is that map? Nunavut isn't even a territory yet and that came into existence in 1999.

From a "neighborhood watch" point of view, NAFTA could have been a very good idea. Move Mexico forward, maybe get the birth rate in harmony with the better parts of the world, and develop, eventually, a solidly aspiring and defensible continent. It took a century to get the US South from total backwardness to reasonably productive. Mexico (and some of the Caribbean) should have been the next task.

Of course, as soon as the ink was dry on NAFTA, we said, "alright, let's open the floodgates from China, and let's see if the Mexicans (and rural Americans) can compete".

Lawnchair: It took a century to get the US South from total backwardness to reasonably productive.

What?

Crosshair: he can go unload trucks at UPS or mow lawns with a nail clipper to get that kind of money.

AND do it quickly!

you know, if it does collapse, that could actually be an opportunity for Obama.

How, I'm not sure. I hadn't thought that far ahead when I posted that.

HowlingFrog: What?

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.

HowlingFrog: Lawnchair: It took a century to get the US South from total backwardness to reasonably productive.

What?

It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US. In the process, plenty of northern industries were concerned of the "giant sucking sound" of textile and chemical jobs moving to the low-wage South. And, in fact, many of those jobs did move. But, eventually, the North and South have at least roughly equalized, and we get on with things.

I'm excited to hear an explanation of how free-trade politics caused this.

I always get all my news from the Guerrilla News Network.

a shovel ready project?

The boarder fence.......

build it

Crosshair: Easy, legalize and regulate all currently illegal drugs. Sell them in pharmacies with no advertising and no branding. Tax them at a reasonable rate like we do alcohol. High enough to generate revenue, low enough so that a significant Grey market can't form.

Suddenly these gangs in Mexico have lost 90% of their income. Crime in the US plummets. Government revenue climbs. We will still have more-or-less the same number of addicts, but compared with the crime/violence of the black market, that is a relatively easy problem to deal with. We have cut tobacco use in the US by half through HONEST education over the last several decades.

We can stop going after users and addicts who aren't causing trouble and go after the people who commit crime to feed their habit. Though that will go down too as the meth heads $200 per day habit will now be $10 per day and he can go unload trucks at UPS or mow lawns with a nail clipper to get that kind of money.

Meanwhile, the people who don't do drugs because they are smart enough to see that they are a bad idea will continue to not use them. Those who do use them can be open about their usage and more readily seek treatment if they want to quit. If they want to keep using drugs. At least they are getting a pure, consistent dosage, eliminating overdoses and other health problems.

Drug use will become more visible in our society, but again, a minor problem compared with the unintended consequences of our current prohibition.

As much as I am for more intelligent drug laws, the drug problems in Mexico are just a very visible symptom of the countries deep rooted issues.

mexico will get it's women to rent all of American then the men will move in a couple of weeks later.

by then it will be too late.

/window seat. kosher.

Lawnchair: HowlingFrog: Lawnchair: It took a century to get the US South from total backwardness to reasonably productive.

What?

It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US. In the process, plenty of northern industries were concerned of the "giant sucking sound" of textile and chemical jobs moving to the low-wage South. And, in fact, many of those jobs did move. But, eventually, the North and South have at least roughly equalized, and we get on with things.


Ahh chemicals.. Jersey's true carpetbagging legacy..

Lawnchair: It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US.

So you equate "agricultural" with "backward"?
A region isn't "productive" unless it's peppered with smoke-belching factories and heavy industry?

You farking yankee.

HowlingFrog: Are there Taco Bells in Mexico?

/always wondered

If only there was some sort of "Searching Engine" to guide you to a "Wiki-encyclopedia" with that information

Wiki (new window)

Mexico
After a failed attempt to enter the market in 1992 that finished with all the restaurants closing 2 years later, in September 2007 Taco Bell returned to the country. The first restaurant in the northern city of Monterrey is part of a plan to open between 8 and 10 more locations in 2008 and eventually reach 300 stores

How old is that map? Nunavut isn't even a territory yet and that came into existence in 1999.

Also, Dakota and Virginia are unified, as is Arizona Territory. Maybe it's one of those "if the South had one the Civil War" speculations. USA (including former English-speaking Canada), Quebec, CSA, and the remains of Mexico.

HowlingFrog: Lawnchair: It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US.

So you equate "agricultural" with "backward"?
A region isn't "productive" unless it's peppered with smoke-belching factories and heavy industry?

You farking yankee.


How about racist, segregationist, immoral, slavery-by-another-name shiathole for 100 years after the civil war? How about that? Don't glorify your (or their in your case) shiatty southern history.

So according to Bukharin's map... North Carolina is part of an independent... Quebec??

Uakronkid: Time for an invasion!

They've been invading for years...I know, remember the Alamo, etc.

holiday_inn_in_cambodia: HowlingFrog: Lawnchair: It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US.

So you equate "agricultural" with "backward"?
A region isn't "productive" unless it's peppered with smoke-belching factories and heavy industry?

You farking yankee.


How about racist, segregationist, immoral, slavery-by-another-name shiathole for 100 years after the civil war? How about that? Don't glorify your (or their in your case) shiatty southern history.
Yes, and the north is so damn wonderful to minorities. Granted, they got rid of slavery sooner, but why are so many Blacks moving back to the south if it is such a shiathole copared to Chicago, NYC, Detroit and other bastions of northern love?

Klingon Penis: I always get all my news from the Guerrilla News Network.

Actually, the source of that is the USJFCOM Joint Operating Environment 2008 report. You should all read it.
Link (new window)

SCUBA_Archer: If only there was some sort of "Searching Engine" to guide you to a "Wiki-encyclopedia" with that information

Wiki (new window)

Google "humor". You might get invited to more parties.

holiday_inn_in_cambodia: How about racist, segregationist, immoral, slavery-by-another-name shiathole for 100 years after the civil war? How about that? Don't glorify your (or their in your case) shiatty southern history

The key word that seems to have slipped under your radar was "productive".
I'm not "glorifying" the sins of the South, and you're not pointing out that big Northern boycott on cotton.

bidness: So according to Bukharin's map... North Carolina is part of an independent... Quebec??

They can have it, I've been there.

/waiting for VITAS.

bidness: So according to Bukharin's map... North Carolina is part of an independent... Quebec??

And Newfoundland. Nobody wants it.

HowlingFrog: Lawnchair: It was a malarial, pellagra-ridden, sharecropping, feudal hole at the time of Reconstruction. Compared to much of the industrialized US north(east) was at the time, it stood where Mexico of today is to the US.

So you equate "agricultural" with "backward"?
A region isn't "productive" unless it's peppered with smoke-belching factories and heavy industry?

You farking yankee.

Considering the sheet amount of destruction the South sustained during the course of the war, it's actually pretty much a given that the South needed a few decades to stage an economic recovery. A number of the major cities had been reduced to rubble, fields were uprooted and destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of people had died or been seriously wounded. Those farms weren't magically restored overnight.

So yes, the South was in a hole for decades following the Civil War.

Asa Phelps
I'm excited to hear an explanation of how free-trade politics caused this.

Mexico was opened up to subsidized corn from the US, forcing millions of peasant farmers into poverty. People from collapsed rural economies flooded into cities looking for factory work, and into the US when the Mexican economy was saturated with desperate workers.

or watch this cartoon

burndtdan: will it really be any different?

Thread over in 1.

Artist depiction what the collapse would look like:

Fook: As much as I am for more intelligent drug laws, the drug problems in Mexico are just a very visible symptom of the countries deep rooted issues.

Yes, but the gang wars going on there over the drug trade are greatly affecting the stability of that country. (5000 drug trade related murders last year IIRC.) It's a problem that can be solved without firing a shot or arresting a single person if the US really wants to.

Man On Fire: /waiting for VITAS.

HMVV is where it's at!

300 Mexicans (new window)

GLove88mph: Hrm. well. Better than a total eclipse of the heart.

/enjoy the song stuck in your head

I came in here to say that. Somehow I knew someone would beat me to it. Good work, sir.