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President Trump: Part II

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Even if some legal mechanism lets them hit individuals but not businesses, Mexico can retaliate in a way that puts a squeeze on some baby boomers retirement investments and all they can do is set their alarms for 2:45 am, put on some coffee and watch their President rant about it on Twitter.

ETA: For those who think Obama caused us to 'lose respect' in the rest of the world, oh just you wait.
 
Bob001 said:
Yeah, I get what they're talking about. My question is whether there are legal and financial mechanisms that can stop it without obstructing desirable transactions, like payments for Mexican goods and services. If they make wire transfers harder, can they keep people from mailing money orders to Mexican addresses? Or packages of cash? Or sending guys across the border with suitcases full of cash in individually addressed envelopes? Will people leaving the country be searched for money? And I can't imagine how they could keep people from sending money to an account in another country to be forwarded without having a massive negative effect on all commerce. What I can imagine are a lot of bad things growing out of efforts to impose limits, including robbery and fraud.
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Agreed. A complete ban on remittances would be a ridiculous nightmare for everyone but currency smugglers and bitcoin investors. A tax, though, could be done by just copying the Oklahoma model. Cut the states in for a piece of the action so they won't complain too much.

Bob001 said:
This is just stupidity. And I note once again that in all the chatter about "send'em home" and "build a wall" and "block their money," the Repubs aren't talking about making e-verify mandatory, with penalties for non-compliance, because that would hurt the businesses that depend on and benefit from low-paid illegal workers.
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Well, yes. That would make sense if your actual goal was to reduce the number of illegal workers. No one wants to do anything crazy like that.
 
Spindrift said:
So he's going to stop people from Mexico coming in and he's going to pay for it by charging the people from Mexico who come in, a wire transfer fee? There might be a problem with that scenario.
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A wire transfer fee on the money sent home, plus redacting some of the financial aide money sent to Mexico. I don't know if anyone has figured out how many centuries that would take, the cost of a wall is yuge.
 
The proposed wall would be 2000 miles long, as opposed to 5500 for the great wall of China , so I wouldn't say it's not possible from an engineering standpoint, but it seems unlikely.
 
Marcus said:
The proposed wall would be 2000 miles long, as opposed to 5500 for the great wall of China , so I wouldn't say it's not possible from an engineering standpoint, but it seems unlikely.
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China's Great Wall isn't nearly tall enough to keep people out. Trump's wall has to be much taller and probably a different design.
 
The always smart and practical Dutch have sent an introductionary video to Teh Donald, to avoid being bombed by accident - they understood that the danger now might be larger than back when it was only the announced punishment for starting trials against Yankistanis in their cute "courts".

 
Another Forbes article explains how Trump probably could make 'Mexicans' (as opposed to 'Mexico') pay for building the Wall by levying a tax. Two problems:
  1. If the tax was fairly high it would invite efforts to circumvent it by using third country transfers.

  2. Estimates for the cost of the Wall are in the ten billion range so paying for it via a money transfer tax would take decades.
A tax that imposed a significant burden would only end up driving Mexico-bound remittances to “informal” channels or to circuitous routes via third countries. Perhaps a 1 percent tax collected from banks and money transfer operators, such as Western Union and MoneyGram, could generate revenues of $100 million to $150 million, after leakages to the untaxed sector. link
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The wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem.

"The facts have not changed," Hurd said. "Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border. Each section of the border faces unique geographical, cultural and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the agents on the ground with the resources they need."

Besides, the unforgiving border terrain won't allow for such construction, he added. As such, building a wall is an "impossible" dream.

"A wall may be an effective tool in densely populated areas, but a variety of tools are needed between Brownsville, Texas and San Diego, California," Hurd said. "The 23rd District of Texas, which I represent has over 800 miles of the border, more than any other Member and it is impossible to build a physical wall in much of its terrain."
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William Parcher said:
China's Great Wall isn't nearly tall enough to keep people out. Trump's wall has to be much taller and probably a different design.
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True, the Great Wall maxes out at 26 feet, and they are talking about a border wall 40 ft high plus 7 ft underground. Construction techniques and equipment have advanced though, I think the new wall is possible but not feasible. More likely it will be a hodgepodge of walls and fences, and never actually completed.
 
newyorkguy said:
Another Forbes article explains how Trump probably could make 'Mexicans' (as opposed to 'Mexico') pay for building the Wall by levying a tax. Two problems:
  1. If the tax was fairly high it would invite efforts to circumvent it by using third country transfers.
  2. Estimates for the cost of the Wall are in the ten billion range so paying for it via a money transfer tax would take decades.
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10 billion is very optimistic, more likely the wall as envisioned would be closer to 40 billion.
 
Marcus said:
10 billion is very optimistic, more likely the wall as envisioned would be closer to 40 billion.
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Forbes used the ten billion dollar figure based on what Trump says it will cost. Below is a quote from the BBC:
Mr Trump claims the total cost of the wall will be $10 billion to $12 billion. But estimates from fact checkers and engineers seem to be universally higher. Link to BBC report
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I don't think I've seen estimates as high as forty billion. Do you have a cite?
A study by the Washington Post estimated the cost of the president's wall would be closer to $25 billion.
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Marcus said:
10 billion is very optimistic, more likely the wall as envisioned would be closer to 40 billion.
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Well at least it's not wasted money.

A thousand years from now archaeologists will be excavating the Southern Wall, the building of which coincides with the collapse of the United States and being divided up between Mexico, Canada and St. Lucia. Legends will be told that it was used to keep out immigrants, but all the 40 foot ladders and ropes will disprove that. The Wall will generally be accepted as a physical fitness test so that they US knew the immigrants could do all the manual labor that the residents of the USA refused to do. There is even anecdotal evidence that the USA said the Mexicans would pay to build the wall but that is so ludicrous and has as much credence as the rumor that Donald Trump was the inventor of Twitter.
 
Marcus said:
A wire transfer fee on the money sent home, plus redacting some of the financial aide money sent to Mexico. I don't know if anyone has figured out how many centuries that would take, the cost of a wall is yuge.
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Trump does not have the authority to do this.
 
I'd suggest simply building a smaller, less expensive wall over only a small portion of the border. Then just lie and say that entire wall has been built. Denounce any attempts to expose this as politically-motivated fake news.
 
wall-2400pxb.jpg
 
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