Borders, Trade and International Developments

[Carborendum]

So, it seems the Panama Canal debacle is still up in the air.  At the end of the day, "might makes right" may rule.

China put forth the laughable suggestion that they could create the "Mexico Canal just west of the Yucatan.  I just took a look at the terrain. Yeah, good luck with that. 

I'd really like to see China try that.  It would bankrupt China and Mexico put together.  And this one could be so expensive that it would be difficult for even the US to deal with it.

BTW, China has a terrible track record for infrastructure projects.  If they went through with such an endeavor, it would be fraught with debacle-after-debacle.  China would eventually abandon the project, and Mexico would be stuck with a major disruption in the terrain that might take decades to work around or fix.

Edited Monday at 10:33 PM by Carborendum

[NeuroTypical]

4 hours ago, Carborendum said:

BTW, China has a terrible track record for infrastructure projects. 

Dang Carb, you trying to win some sort of understatement trophy or something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937756

 

[SilentOne]

10 hours ago, Carborendum said:

China has a terrible track record for infrastructure projects

They've got a pretty impressive wall system

[Carborendum]

9 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Dang Carb, you trying to win some sort of understatement trophy or something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937756

 

Well, that's what I do for a living.

I remember an event.  It may have been the Banqiao Dam or the Three Gorges Dam.  But the effect on surrounding buildings was catastrophic.  Many buildings were basically washed away.

Some gigantic building (it was either an office building or an apartment complex) that was built on a hill.  They did a decent job on the structure.  But when the floods came, it washed away most of the hill.

The building actually slid and tipped over without breaking (the entire building moved as a monolithic unit).  Then just before it actually hit the ground at the bottom, it began breaking apart in mid-air.  And great was the fall thereof.

For the size of the building, there were remarkably few deaths.  Then I found out that it was one of those government projects to house a bunch of people in an area where no one really lived.

They just have no clue how populations work.  That is the doom of almost all socialist/communist countries. 

[Ironhold]

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

They just have no clue how populations work.  That is the doom of almost all socialist/communist countries. 

It's also the whole "the powers that be say it must be done on this schedule, so it will be done on this schedule" mindset coupled with the often inferior quality of products they have access to and the lack of training & education that many of their laborers have. 

They can build massive highways and entire cities in short order, only for those places to either go unused because the powers-that-be misread the population movement trends or crumble around everyone because they were churned out too fast for the materials to properly set up.

[mordorbund]

23 hours ago, Carborendum said:

it seems the Panama Canal debacle is still up in the air. 

Isn’t that the passage that connects the East American Ocean and the West American Ocean?

[Carborendum]

And it appears that China has come to the negotiating table.  I hope it turns out ok for everyone.

[NeuroTypical]

28 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

And it appears that China has come to the negotiating table.

Trump and I must have watched the same Law & Order episode back 25 years ago.   Everyone hated the new managing partner, and was preparing to oust him.   Before they got their dirty tricks underway, he called an emergency meeting.  He revealed that he had landed a surprise account for the guy who hated him most.  He then said something about pulling a few strings to get a judge to okay an appeal that would put them back on the map in the legislation world.  Then he pulled out a stack of envelopes and passed them around, saying these were their Christmas bonuses.  A confused partner said "I thought we were circling the drain and couldn't afford bonuses this year."   He replied that he had started shopping around for cheaper office space.  When the partner started to get mad, he said "relax, we're not going anywhere.  But just the threat that we might, brought the building manager to the table and I renegotiated our yearly lease down by enough to get us all bonuses."

Someday I might actually read his 'art of the deal' book.