Kenders' Musings

On May 27th, 2005, the Independent Task Force on the future of North America met in New York. This is the line up of speakers that were there. Pay close attention when you read who they are, where they are from and what they once did for work, as there will be a test later.

Speaker: William F. Weld, co-chair, Independent Task Force on the future of North America, former governor of Massachusetts and assistant U.S. attorney general

Speaker: John P. Manley, co-chair, Independent Task Force on the future of North America, former deputy prime minister and minister of finance, Canada

Speaker: Pedro C. Aspe, co-chair, Independent Task Force on the future of North America, former finance minister of Mexico

Speaker: Robert A. Pastor, co-chair, Independent Task Force on the future of North America, director of the Center for North American Studies, American University

Presider: Anthony DePalma, correspondent, the New York Times

Now we will get into the meat of this meeting. I have edited this transcript heavily, as these people are government types so they tend to be wordy, as evidenced by the fact that a reporter would sum up their "short" speech into bullet points at the end of their remarks.

Pay close attention folks, this gets a little long. And pay close attention to the highlighted words.

On May 27th, 2005, John P. Manley, co-chair, Independent Task Force on the future of North America, former deputy prime minister and minister of finance, Canada said:

Our border procedures find their origins in the 19th century when they were created in order to generate revenue for government. And over the years, as the collection of revenue has become less important, a myriad of other responsibilities have been heaped on the border.

In effect, we once guarded the borders solely for economic reasons, but now we must protect the borders from criminals and people that would just stroll in for whatever purpose they have in mind.

And I think what we came to realize was that, if our two borders between Canada and the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. became a frontline for security, that the impact that that would have on normal relations and economic relations would be very profound.

In other words, we can't make the American Borders a frontline for security. What the hell are these people THINKING???? Making our borders the fromt line for our security is EXACTLY what needs to be done!!! But in the interest of "NORMAL and ECONOMIC RELATIONS" we apparently are not entitled to have secure borders. To sum that last bit up, it is more important for our country to have easy border access for good that flow into and out of America (including tourists and illegals) than it is to make certain that we don't have muslim ectremists sneaking into the country with a suitcase nuke.

Now it goes on to some other insane conclusions:

We made a number of important recommendations, I think. The key one is to think in terms of a security perimeter surrounding a zone of security. We make the point that it is important for all three governments to commit themselves to security within that zone, thereby alleviating some of the need to try to build barriers at our mutual borders.

Pardon me?

A "security perimeter" SURROUNDING a "zone of security"?? Exactly how does one "commit themselves to security within that zone? without building barriers?

It sounds like a fence within a fence to me.

Here is a recommendation for you guys, chip in and build a FENCE along borders and you man your side and we will man our side. Anyone sneaking over, under or through the fence will either be caught or killed, depending on how intent they are about getting into the country.

Now this next bit worries me:

n the case of Canada and the U.S., the extent to which we inspect vessels and particularly container traffic coming into the continent has been sporadic and weak. In fact, as I told my one-time counterpart [former Homeland Security Secretary and] Governor [Tom] Ridge [R-Pa] at one point, you know, you inspect more thoroughly grain cars entering the United States from Saskatchewan than you do container traffic entering the United States from the Middle East, and I think that’s still the case.

If this is still true then someone needs to be fired and procedures put in place to inspect EVERYTHING that comes into this country. You wanna help those lazy buggers in New Orleans? Train them and put them to work inspecting anything that comes into this country. There is plenty of work, and I would rather my hard stolen money be spent on employing people rather than on handouts.

NOW IT FALLS TO US TO BUILD MEXICO???

This is from the remarks made by Pedro C. Aspe;

Why the north took advantage so much of NAFTA? The reason is because two very good frameworks. It has fairly good, fairly decent physical infrastructure— that’s roads, telecommunications— but they were not as good as in the U.S., but they were OK, and they’re improving very, very fast. They’re converging to the south of the U.S.....On the south we have terrible growth.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is simply economics at work. The fact is, the closer you get to the U.S. the more development there is going to be. I call it the Bleed Through Effect. Prosperity bleeds through the border. Especially when companies move to Mexico for cheaper labor. Of course they will be closer to the U.S., as it costs them less to move their product up here.

Pedro continues;

We don’t have bridges. Telephone communications are pretty bad....so we have really lack of infrastructure..."

So there is a lack of infrastructure in central and southern Mexico. Guess who is going to foot the bill for building that up?

And to address this thing we have to do three things. First, we have to change our own economic policy. We have innovative fiscal and budgetary policies.

Here is a change for you Mexico, stop sending your people to America to work so they can send money home. Money sent home to Mexico is the second largest part of their economy. (and no I don't have that link at the moment. Stop being lazy and google it) I would have to say that their "innovative fiscal and budgetary policy" is to illegally export people and have them send as much money home to Mexico as they possibly can coupled with paying their police forces poorly which causes corruption to spread like mad.

And we have very low productivity growth....so we do have a problem.

Would that "low productivity growth" have anything to do with the fact that out of 106 million people you have about 40% of your people under the poverty line? It seems to me with a workforce of almost 35 million and an official unemployment of just 3.2% (with UNDEREMPLOYMENT of about 25%) your problem lies with the fact that you have not developed your resources and your government is corrupt in the extreme.
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First, we in Mexico have to put our house in order in this in reform. But second, the Task Force has been putting forward these three ideas, which I think they are very good. First, the extension of NAFTA to the sector that was not included at the time— which, by the way, at least from the Mexican point of view, the sectors that were not included are the ones whose relative productivity have fallen the most.

So what is he saying here? That NAFTA didn't cover the south of Mexico? BTW, CAFTA came about as a result of this kind of thinking.

Second, we have to increase infrastructure linked to trade. Since the expansion of trade has been so successful, our infrastructure linked to trade has fallen short in part in highways.

There he goes talking about a lack of infrastructure again. He reminds me of a relative that is down on his luck and needs some cash to tide him over. Can you just see this same speech being made while the speaker has his hands in his pockets and is staring at his boot idly drawing circles on the carpet?

WITH SOCIALIST POLICIES TO BOOT

Third, we have to bring equity— capital— private capital to the south— to the center and to the south of the country.

AND NOW FOR THE PITCH!!!

And there we propose that the three countries get together and create an investment fund for bringing infrastructure— physical infrastructure....to the southern parts of Mexico,

Uh huh.....and where is this money going to come from? Why, our pockets dear taxpayers.

...this would only be done if we in Mexico do our homework and get together with all political parties for this big, big road to the south— the big road to equalize the opportunities across the country.

No, what you should have said, Pedro, is this will only be done once Mexico is not rife with corruption and full of drug lords amking war in one of YOUR cities on our border. But you didn't say that did you Pedro? Is it because you realize that Mexico is culturally predicated to corruption?

AND SO GOES THE HOUSE OF CARDS

Former Governor William Weld also spoke at this event, but to see what he said you must go read it your self.

To sum this up, they are attempting to create an economic parity in North America.

This is exactly WHY Bush, nor any other President, will secure the border. There are groups working against us, and our safety, in the furtherance of ECONOMIC PARITY.

Socialists have infiltrated our government apparently, and are hard at work to create a socialist paradise at the expense of not only America's hardwon security, but they want to take down Canada too.....

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XPOSTED at Cao's and wideawakes