What If -- (Hypothetical Situation)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

Mexico and the USA agreed to merge? Pros? Cons?

[NMDemDist2]

1. self edit n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. self edit n/t

[NMDemDist2]

6. self delete n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. self delete. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

10. ROFL

sorry, but good job

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. no problem --

I have my pet peeves as well.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. The quality of our food would increase exponentially.

Mmmmm.....tacos...emapanadas....mole......

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. wouldn't this automatically make everyone a legal citizen?

[theredpen]

22. Not the illegal Canadians!

Damn Canuck bastards!

[Uben]

5. 50 million more poor people

Yeah, we really need that!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. Mexico is rich in natural resources. n/t

[wuushew]

30. The largest Mexican oil field is peaking as we speak

combined with increasing Mexican demand for oil and you are looking at a very serious economic implosion.

[Ezlivin]

9. Come to Texas - the annexation is well underway

Drive south and at one point you'll think you've already entered Mexico. But you haven't.

I feel the need to learn Spanish to really thrive here; my wife has a Spanish book for contractors that she uses when on job sites.

I do wish that all of the immigrants were legal and went through the proper process. Like my mother did.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

11. Wouldn't the merger automatically eliminate the need for a

"proper process" and automatically make everyone legal citizens?

[Uben]

13. I have been in Texas 52yrs!

48% of Mexicans live on $4 a day or less. The strain on our economy would be unbearable.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

14. Is not the strain on our economy already unbearable? n/t

Wouldn't they now be under the minimum wage act? Wouldn't they broaden our tax base? They would IN the system and paying taxes.

[Uben]

18. Absolutely not!

People who earn minimum wage pay little or no taxes, but they do receive benefits from social programs. The influx of 50M more poor mexicans on top of the 12M or so now, would be our undoing, for sure. We cannot save the world, we do not have the resources ourselves. The dollar is already so weak, it is threatening collapse. On top of that, corruption in Mexico's government is worse than our own!

What were you thinkin?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

21. Just trying to think outside the box and stimulate conversation, --

Minimum wage earners are contributing to Social Security and Medicare.

[Cogito ergo doleo]

29. Timing is everything. If we still manufactured in this country,

and if "fair trade" was indeed fair, there's a chance there would be plenty of jobs for everyone. I just read yesterday where Hershey is closing it's plants here and moving to Mexico. It would appear then, with manufacturing moving to China and Mexico, U.S. citizens are in a bit of crunch, having to move their sights to construction and service jobs. The problem there is that people from Mexico are getting those jobs because they will work for less.

U.S. citizens would probably work for less if they could afford to, but in the 1980's they bought the idea that they could and should buy everything on credit, leaving them with mountains of debt. In addition, they bought into the idea that they could own a home, bring their kids up in a community, retire. Pensions have gone bust, and U.S. citizens don't know what to do at this point.

It's incredible that just as Mexico and the US were merging on a large scale, and manufacturing was being moved offshore, laws were passed to make it more difficult for U.S. citizens to declare bankruptcy. So, here we have a citizenry with large debt, house and car payments and no job that could pay enough to meet their obligations, and no help or solutions to get back on an even keel, rather than divestiture of all they've worked for.

In other words, this merging of countries has all fallen on the backs of U.S. citizens, with no help at all from those who will benefit from this merging, allowing U.S. citizens to be ruined. Banks haven't offered to either cut debt or bend a little on payments. The cost of medical care has gone up, not down. Goods from China are cheaper, but their quality is piteous and there have been some significant issues with the safety of those products. Gas continues to rise.

So, try be patient with those who would rather admire Mexico's vast natural resources and its culture from afar. Give U.S. citizens a chance to digest their current situation and adjust their paradigms accordingly, before you castigate them for not jumping up and down over the prospect of merging. Realize that what U.S. citizens face is total anathema to what we have all grown up believing about what the United States was, and our place as its citizens.

Although U.S. citizens have always been eager to share the wealth, assimilate other cultures, and accept immigrants with open arms, they are being displaced, financially ruined, and bereft of hope that things will turn around. We're trying to take on every new challenge as it comes and adjust - we need solutions along the way, though. At times it's just too much to bear.

[spinbaby]

24. That's a useful skill

After the Bush cabal is through, we'll all be living on $4 a day or less.

[Ezlivin]

27. Texas is so damned big that living in one area is like a "whole 'nother country"

Do you live in south Texas? The last time I drove down to San Antonio I was amazed at the cultural shift. (I'm in the DFW area.)

If I lived in San Antonio I'd already be in night classes for Spanish. That is, if I wasn't already fluent simply by living there.

[Uben]

36. Actually....

,......if you put the entire population of the world in Texas, the density would be no more than that of New York City.
And that is a fact!

[whistle]

15. Then Canada would follow creating a formidable population block

USA population:.........303,474,960
Mexico population:......108,700,891
Canada population:...... 33,085,648

Total population block: 445,261,499

I see no reason for this not to happen except for cultural differences and an agreed form of political established. Canada's parliamentary form of government is really very different and Mexico, well they have a highly structured class system which would require decades to dis-assemble, if it ever could. I think the long term outcome of NAFTA would be a unification of culture and political systems under the U.S. constitutional form of government, if we in fact remain that by the middle of the 21st century.

Why no assimilate the rest of Central America and the Caribbean nation states while we are at it. That could add another 75.0 to 100.0 million people. Wouldn't that give Trent Lott and the Senate Repuke Quartet something to sing about!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

19. Are we not already a "melting pot" of cultural differences?

I don't think Canada would beinterested in merging. Isn't Puerto Rico already a "territory"? What about the American Carribean?

Thanks for thinking outside of the box and taking this question in the manner in which it was intended.

[whistle]

28. I believe that Canada would be interested, only Ontario resists

...look at the trade ties of Quebec and the western provinces, in particular Alberta and even British Columbia. I agree that Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands are a start and the next big big target for assimilation will be Cuba after Castro moves on to Communist Heaven.

I am really trying to visualize what a United North America might look like based on a common economic interest among over 700 million people. Given the hate based genocidal and racist policies as reflected by the programs of extermination taught at the School of the Americas, I suppose the U.S. would have a long way to go before we could be anything but mercenaries of greed and corruption in our own hemisphere and around the world. But, let us remain upbeat, shall we. We still have the U.S. Constitution for the little people.

[lovuian]

16. If we annexed Mexico then the majority of people in America

would be Mexican

so our democracy would switch to a more spanish speaking dominant majority plus Catholic religion would be dominant church

Are we ready for that???

They are a hardworking lovable people

I see it coming as the Amero gets ready to be put into place

They maybe the troops Bush needs for his wars

[SteelPenguin]

17. It would be very hard economically for quite awhile

I think it would be comparable to the German reunification but on a much larger scale. German reunification is still negatively affecting their economy now closing on 2 decades, with the costs over a trillion dollars.

One of the problems would be labor laws, minimum wage, and currency. Germany artificially united their currency and West Germany basically footed the bill. West German investments in East Germany collapsed from competition under equal practices. To this day they put in 10 billion euros a year to the region for development. Much of East Germany has since been de-industrialized, causing massive unemployment in certain areas over 25%, causing workers to migrate to the west, resulting in both loss of work force in the east, and lower wages for certain jobs in the west. Most of their current problems as a nation stem in some way from reunification.

So putting aside all the nationalistic, or jingoistic reasons, economically it would probably be a total disaster to unite the two nations, at least without a long process of bringing Mexico up to our level (or lowering us to theirs). Uniting under one currency, with the same minimum wages and employement rules would soon shutter many factories in Mexico. Workers would flood the former U.S., unemployment in Mexico would increase to epic proportions, and the entire economy would stagnate or even collapse. States in the north would be overwhealmed with new immigrants (legal now) taxing their better systems, without the tax revenue to support it, cuasing near immediate collapse of many social services...

It would just be a nightmare for both countries.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. As we sit back and watch our dollar shrink to the spending

capacity of the peso....

What about the natural resources this merger would bring?

[theredpen]

23. That would mean we'd have to pay Mexican laborers minimum wage!

Oh, the (Republican) horror.

[AlertLurker]

25. Not as hypothetical as one might hope:

http://spp-nau.info/

[faithfulcitizen]

26. Sadly, it's not hypothetical. It's happening already.

[mdmc]

31. Who would the ignorant bigots hate?

[TahitiNut]

33. Gringos?

[mdmc]

34. for shame

peace and low stress to you and your, my friend.

[TahitiNut]

32. Well, the "pro-lifers" would gain ground, that's for sure.

Abortion is generally illegal in Mexico, despite some abortive (pardon the pun) attempts to create safe havens, most recently in Mexico City (i.e. attempted decriminalization).

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/po...

[northzax]

35. it's actually an interesting prospect

and could be looked at seriously ten years ago, when we were rich. alas, now we are poor.

Merger with the US would provide many benefits for Mexico (well, at least Mexicans, if not the country itself) The US has historically done a pretty good job of rooting out corruption and handling criminal gangs, which are, frankly, two of the major problems in Mexico, holding back the growth of opportunity for the population. Yes, yes, we have large scale corruption (see: congress) but you aren't expected to bribe a judge, or a cop, or the mayor, to get something done. that is a big tax on people.

Second is the infrastructure issue. the US alone needs probably a trillion+ dollars in infrastructure improvements, Mexico would need many times that.

but for all the perceived benefits, such mergers never work.

[Blashyrkh]

37. Yeah, what if? It's happening.

Throw "American Union" and "CNN" into google.