Mexico’s main problem isn’t corruption, graft or lack of infrastructure. It’s the inequality in wealth distribution. IMO the rest feeds off of that. Creating a large middle class such as exists in the US or other developed countries would go a long way to eliminating many of the other problems.
Well… maybe. Personally, I think that incorporation into the USA would be just one small step toward creating a well-off middle class for Mexico.
As far as the graft and corruption go, I believe those problems would persist for decades to come, despite economic improvement. When these things become part of the culture, they can be hard to let go of.
I say this as someone who likewise hails from a Third World country, so I don’t think I’m speaking naively. Also, I’ve observed this in various individuals who immigrated to the USA from graft-ridden countries. I’m not saying that they’re all dishonest crooks, as that would be horribly inaccurate. However, I have seen that many of my own countrymen (as well as some from other nations) still maintain a habit of doing this under-the-table, even though they have large paychecks and have experienced US prosperity for years.
I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. The US has allocated roughly $20 billion to “rebuild” Iraq. The same amount of money is a drop in the friggin’ bucket for a nation of Mexico’s size. Seriously, it’d take more than $20 billion a year for many, many, many years to bring Mexico’s infrastructure up to US standards.
And annexation of Mexico, at least in the short term, would doubtlessly cause businesses to flee Mexico. The reason there are factories is Mexico is because of cheap labor and lax regulation, compared to the US. If labor standards were raised, jobs would move further south. There is, after all, a reason why so many factories were moved out of the US to Mexico to begin with.
Well, the GOP is trying to broaden its appeal among Hispanics… 
I meant what they are spending on the war, 200 to 300 billion and counting. Sorry, I didn’t make that clear.
True, but as the standards of living in Mexico rise, most of that money would come from Mexicans. In the same way, the money to build up Maryland ultimately came from Maryland.
Mexico (and yet I have spent a lot of quality time there) is not an economic basket case. Trust me, I have seen basket cases (Bolivia anyone?). It has a large and growing middle class.
It could be done in a Harry Turtledove sort of world.
(All in all, I think the US missed the boat in not taking The Philippines into the Union. But that is just me.)
The Philippines didn’t want to be part of the Union. They also didn’t want to be part of Spain before that either. They wanted to be independent. I like to think the Philippine leaders of that time were a blame sight better than who’s “running” the show there today.
Yeah, but still … (sigh)
I love the SDMB because someone can pose this type of question and people will respond to it seriously. The idea is really funny. One country just decides to subsume another. Hell, let’s take Canada while we’re at it. I mean, they’re just Mexicans and Canadians. Who cares what they think. Maybe we can even get Kashmir.
Sorry, Monty, I wasn’t responding to you in particular, but rather to the OP.
A slightly less radical proposal: solve the illegal immigrant problem by opening up the border completely. Let everyone in Mexico who wants to live in America come on in and make them citizens. It would pretty much eliminate any border control problems. And it would let all the Mexicans who want be Americans do so.
Also it would avoid some of the problems the OP didn’t. Any Mexicans who wanted to stay Mexican could do so. And there would be no problems about rebuilding Mexico to the US standard.
Best of both worlds.
Seriously, the idea of unifying Mexico and the United States is a non-starter for many reasons.
If Mexico were to be admited to the Union I doubt it be as one state. It’d about 1/4 the seats in the House, but the same Senate representation as Wyoming! Of course splitting Mexico into several states would have it’s one problems. There are too many Mexican states for each to be admitted as a US states. That’d equal 62/64 new senators.
The folks currently hiring illegal immigrants would never let this happen – it’d mean they’d have to actually pay their employees (at least) the minimum wage, and they’d lose the ability to handle disgruntled workers by threatening to call the INS.
Unrestrained immigration, then? Good grief.
And create a whole bunch of new ones. There’s a reason why border control exists, folks.
What if they opened the border with Canada?
The Canadian economy is a tad different than the Mexican economy, IIRC.
Not to mention (which oddly enough, I didn’t mention in the previous post), Canadian politics are also a tad different than Mexican politics.
In a lot of ways, it’s not so much the immigration which is a problem. Simply put, even America can’t take care of all the Mexican immigrants who want to come here, and it puts sever strain on the finances of California and Texas.
Annexing Mexico or opening the borders will not change that.
No one has answered this burning question, so…
5 rows of 8 stars, 6 rows of 7.
In overall size they are pretty much even. Per capita, Canada is of course better off. But I think America’s perception and therefore policy concerning Mexico has historically been based on skin color. They have always had good relations with their white brothers to the north and looked at Mexico and brown skinned Mexicans as inferior. This viewpoint has guided US policy towards Mexico for 200 years.