GOP Hearing Alleges Risks Of Terrorism Along Border

LAREDO, Tex., July 7 -- House Republicans brought their get-tough immigration proposal on Friday to the city dubbed the nation's "Gateway to Mexico" to make their case for tightening the border as a way to prevent terrorist incursions.

"It's elementary that to defend ourselves against our determined and resourceful enemies, our border must be secure," said Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism. "Border vulnerabilities are opportunities for terrorists."

The deep question is how do you make Mexico a first class country. This is something that Vincente Fox brought up frequently in May and June.

The trouble is that no one quite sees that the very best thing we could do for Mexico is to send their now well trained citizens home.

Suddenly Mexico would have a skilled workforce who knew something about how a world class country worked.

Think these folk would propel a great leap forward for Mexico?

I do.

Basically the ruling class in Mexico is preditory to its own detriment and will not change of its own volition--even if those changes were in its own interest. But it can be forced to change.

The Mexicans in the USA have had the picture of what a well run country looks like tatooed on the back of their eyeballs. And they'll have an idea of how to get there. Send them back to Mexico and they'll get a revolution in Mexico that'll do that country some good.

The shock troops for that would be the 12 million repatriated Mexican citizens. Having seen what a well run country looks like they would not want to be stuffed back in the old wineskin.

Also, Mexico will need a stronger dose of of the Peruvian Hernando Desoto ideas. Basically DeSoto asked the question why are some countries poor and some countries rich. The basic answers is that in poor countries most of their economy is informal or off the books and their property--ie--land is not formally recognized. (Therefor these countries have no borrowing power and property has no value that can be transferred or liquidated.)De Soto's solutions are being implimented successfully in countries around the world. http://www.ild.org.pe/home.htm

Hernando de Soto's organization was invited to Mexico and did some work on the question. He says that only 6 percent of Mexican enterprises are legal, the rest are informal or off the books. So how do you reverse that so that only 6% of the economy is informal -- as is the case the USA. De Soto would provide the ideas around which the 12 million american trained Mexican returnees could rally.

There's something more.

I follow water desalination research pretty closely. While water desalination costs have dropped to about a third of what they were 15 years ago--the rate at which prices will drop over the next seven years will accelerate considerably. imo in even the next five years we will see desalination costs drop to 1/10th of today's costs. Or even faster than the fall the 3/4 fall that the LLNL researchers suggest.
http://www.physorg.com/news67262683.html
Basically, the foundations are being laid today to make it economically feasable to to turn all the world's deserts green. (The proper way to look at this is to recall that cars, tv's and computers were at first rich men's toys but when prices came down they changed the world. Desalinised water is still relatively speaking -- a rich man's toy. But when the price drops sufficiently--desalinised water will change the world--because most deserts are right beside the ocean. Pumping the water 1000 miles inland will require that the scientists collapse the cost cracking out hydrogen from water. I think that this nut will be cracked sooner than desalination.)

imho cheap desalinised water will do for the republicans (if they can get this on their agenda or even the democrats if the pubbies drop the ball) what the great dam building projects & the tva of the 1930's & 40's did for democrats because 1/3 of the US is deserts. We would increase the habitable size of the USA by 1/3.

Dirt cheap desalinised water will also do things like make it possible to double the habitable size of Mexico. Cheap water is no magic bullet but it will give the Mexican Nationalists a way to dream while the Mexican people do the real work.

A first generation crop that might be appropriate would be one that India has chosen for ist biofuels program. The crop is Jatropha Curcas - a bush. This shrub produces a seed containing oil. This oil works well for biodiesel production ( see http://www.d1plc.com ).

Jatropha Curcas is native to Mexico and Central America (probably originated there). This shrub can be grown in large plantations on marginal soil - assuming some reasonable amount of, say, desalinated water).

Think Jatropha Curas could take up the slack from current oil production? I do.

But years before the USA collapsed the cost of desalinised water--the USA could change the future by announcing that the goal of American research is to kill the cost of water desalination and transport so that it becomes economically possible to turn the world's deserts green. Reagan changed the future by announcing star wars. Bush could change the future by announcing the plan for the greening of the world's deserts.

And desalinated water in tandem with repatriation of now skilled Mexican citizens would propel Mexico into being a world class country.

There is a winner here. The winner is Mexico.

The US profits too by having a prosperous politically stable country with a broad middle class to the south as we do to the north.

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