How Big Is Mexico?
vividmaps.com
vividmaps.com
That's buried levels of undiscoverable.
Atlases can help by showing geographical regions in appropriate projections on each page, but again you can't easily see full page appropriate projections of both Europe and Mexico at the same time because they'll be on far separated pages.
Of course you can, try it in Google Map's globe view.
Daily reminder that Europe is a nanocontinent, not a country.
For reference: this is the world map I know from school in the 1980's which is much less distorted than 'plain old Mercator':
It's a case of "pick your poison" and maps tell us as much about the mind of the map maker as about geography, sometimes more.
So maps tend to display and emphasize what's "important" to the map maker, which means a lot of them exaggerate the size of developed countries and give short shrift to other countries.
For some cool insight into that, Google up maps of Oceania on YouTube. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCsHWmAKCgQ
That means the meridians (the vertical lines you see on a map) which are perpendicular to the parallels (the horizontal lines on the map) intersect themselves at the poles (!). You can easily see how this leads to distortion of the areas closer to the poles (like Europe) on any projection where the meridians are parallel. Projections like Mercator account for this distortion by making the distances between the parallels bigger as one moves towards the poles. That's what makes Europe and Greenland huge, but more importantly makes it possible that any arbitrary straight line on a Mercator map corresponds to a straight line on the globe, which was huge for navigation.
That might have been the case 50 years ago but far less today.
But I knew Mexicans who genuinely wished they were still a Spanish colony and thought Mexico would be a much better county today if it were.
Regular users of (say) Google maps aren't generally exposed to a mecator projection as they zoom in from a rotating globe dwn into a local area of interest.
"Map Projections - A Working Manual" is, in my humble opinion, THE definitive reference for map projections and the author, John P. Snyder is the expert. [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Map-Projections-Working-Geological-Pr...
( IIRC that might be a free digital d/load direct from the USGS )
Would not be easy but could bring huge benefits, solve Drug violence, solve Southern Border problem and bring a massive reduction in Mexican poverty since it would unleash a tremendous wave of dynamism and growth.
Would also maintain US lead over China as the world’s dominant economy for much longer.
How does that figure? It's not like the US doesn't have its own drug violence, and lots of it. A lot of Mexican drug violence would probably move to the north, where the more lucrative markets will be, especially since movement would be much easier.
>solve Southern Border problem
It wont solve it in the sense of addressing the concerns behind those seeing it as a problem today: it will just declare it not a problem.
It also ignores these being two different nations, with different cultures, priorities, etc., as if the peoples in them are mere assets to be managed/merged/unify/etc for economic benefit.
I'm not so sure Mexican native "indians" for example will be very happy with their most likely treatment from WASP Americans (given how the latter treat and view their "own" minorities).
You speak as if Mexico doesn’t have its own problems with racism/discrimination/prejudice/etc against its indigenous peoples
Latin America has its own history of racism. On the whole, more subtle, less in-your-face, less over-the-top extreme, than that of the US, but still very real
Mexico can and does have its own problem against its indigenous people, and the situation under a supposed "merger" (not that it will happen) can still get much worse.
Mexico has its own equilibrium and power balances regarding its racial issues, developed over the centuries, that wont be transferrable to a whole added country of 350 million different people, a good chunk of which already considers the whole population, latinos and natives, as inferior and "not belonging here", and has worse skeletons in the closet regarding the treatment of its own natives.
Well, hypothetically speaking (given we both acknowledge a US-Mexico merger is rather unlikely to ever actually happen): yes, it could be worse, maybe even “much worse”; but it could also be largely the same; it could even be better.
One way in which it could be largely the same: the remaining racism in the US is largely of the subtle/systemic kind rather than the blatant apartheid/Jim Crow kind, which makes the racism problems of the US and Latin America much more alike today, despite historically the former being drastically worse than the latter
One way it could be better: for all their limitations, American tribal governments actually have significantly more powers than their Mexican equivalents - federally-recognised US tribal governments are partially exempt from state jurisdiction, while all Mexico has is indigenous-controlled local governments with significantly less legal autonomy. So you could argue that the US shows greater (albeit still limited) respect for indigenous peoples’ rights to autonomy and self-governance, and if a merger of the US and Mexico happened, it might result in that US approach being adopted in Mexico too, resulting in improved rights of autonomy and self-governance for Mexico’s indigenous peoples
It wouldn’t make sense for the nations to further merge; the government’s true constituents (the corporations) already have the best of both worlds.
From what I can tell, young people move to where the job market is hot (e.g. Germany) to work and that's pretty much it. They might return when they retire (but let's face it, after 30 years, they'll have a life and friends and a family in Germany, and they'll likely stay), or, if you're Spain or Portugal, you might get some German retirees in return, but it doesn't seem to do much closing the gap.
Essentially, local companies just can't hire people locally, and they can't raise their wages easily, because it's still a single market, so they'll compete with every other company on that single market, and the most efficient one (or the one where government subsidies are hidden the best) wins. If you have fewer people to hire, your best chance is probably to move your company to where the people are.
Of course that shouldn't be the only factor, and it isn't; the EU also invests in its poorer members. Ireland in particular is a massive success story in that regard. It was poor when it joined the EU, and now it's rich. I hope more countries will follow that path, but obviously there are tons of other factors at work as well; government policies, corruption, etc.
Sure, if there's demand for jobs. But when you can't hire people, how do you keep your company running? And how do you compete without the appropriate number of people? Not being able to hire has an effect on the economy as well, and companies will likely be outcompeted by those that can hire. And if the company goes away, who's trying to hire people, driving up the wages?
I believe that's why you'll often see a combination of high unemployment, low wages and high emigration.
And sure, investments will work, but I'm not sure if you can replicate Ireland's success to e.g. Portugal or Spain. You can't turn every country into a tax-scheme for multinational corporations with a friendly regulatory environment regarding privacy, we don't have enough Googles and Facebooks for that, and transitioning that into continuing success isn't as easy when your country isn't English speaking.
We'll see how it plays out, but in general, I'd say that if goods, services and money can cross borders with no problems, people should be able to do the same.
However that's the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
It should never have been about blindly stopping everyone. America used to have the right idea, paperclip in the best and brightest to fuel the next business revolution. A rational policy isn't about denial, it's about control and management. To legalize, to tax (profit from), to regulate.
Seasonal labor work visas, documented workers; and for the workers, safer working conditions and better pay (though still not the pay a farm would have to give Americans to make them want to do that job). Even a real process for identifying an applicant's history so that refugees can be integrated, positive influences can be allowed through, and criminals can be (mostly) stopped at the border.
The natural southern border is Panama. That's where you want your bunkers and siege tanks.
* ducks and exits conversation *
The Mexican political system isn’t really that different from the American - both are federal presidential republics. If you are looking to give the US a better political system, merger with Mexico wouldn’t make a huge difference
A merger with Canada would be a different story. Many political scientists argue that parliamentary systems (a Prime Minister, with the executive de facto subordinated to the legislature) provide superior political stability and effectiveness compared to the presidential system found in the US and most of Latin America. Allowing the executive to be independent of the legislature instead of subordinated to it results in ineffective governance due to legislative-executive conflict, and centralising so much executive power in a single individual with very limited accountability promotes the development of strongmen with personality cults (caudillos) such as Peron, Bolsonaro or Trump. So if the US adopted Canada’s political system (whether by merging with it or otherwise), that would arguably be a big improvement.
Of course, Canada is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, and many Americans may object to coming once more under the British Crown. But you can have a parliamentary republic, with a figurehead/symbolic President with little real power, and a Prime Minister making the big decisions - as in Ireland or Israel or Finland. You can even have a federal parliamentary republic, with states, as in Austria or Germany. Australia voted on switching from a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy to a federal parliamentary republic in 1999-the republican side lost, but most people expect there will eventually be a re-run in which they win. If Australia goes down that road, it increases the odds that Canada may eventually follow. The thing about Canada’s system which would arguably really improve the US is the parliamentary vs presidential distinction, not the republic vs monarchy one
Why not having a single statal system - possibly a bad one?
Why not having a single computer operating system - possibly a bad one?
Why not having a single cuisine - possibly a bad one?
Etc.
This is more than Mercator etc.
Turn a globe upside down. Turn it sideways. Try to think of it as ball of dirt in space rather than The Earth.