Would it be a good idea for the US to do to Mexico what it has >?

angela R

The problem with that theory is that most of the Mexican oil was already presold to US years ago.....Is that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? Why would anyone presell oil, you could use it as leverage, as do the Arabs.....

Anyways, the reason it was done is because the president who sold it, I don't remember who it was, sold it to line his pockets, pretty sad eh? Also, you notice Mexico refines none of there oil? The reason for that is they don't need to since its already been sold to US, who does their own refining. But, I think your on the right track....You think deeper then others here....

And for those midgets and morons who say, why should we help Mexico? I say why the **** should we help Iraq? ITS ABOUT THE OIL STUPID! Plain and simple.....We care no more about Iraq, than any other third world country.....period

Bottom line, US already got what they wanted from Mexico, so they have no real interest there, like they do in the middle east, since they don't own the oil in the middle east.

sly

i don't think the US wants to start a war with mexico. A lot of business and trade goes between these two countries. Plus, if the US hasn't even beaten Iraq, with a country being small and poor, what would make you think Mexico is going to be an easy defeat. Sure the US can just take out the government but the mexican gov't isn't just going to give in to US demands. It would be stupid and unwise to start a conflict with Mexico.

Leogirl0804

Nope, The Iraqi infrastructure was in shambles because of the war. Mexico is in shambles because of the corruption. Sorry.....no money for Mexico.

Grey dog

They are a democracy.And their weapons are burritos not bombs

RainCloud

The problem with Mexico is the government.

xSilverStarx

We have helped out Mexico and a lot! Its probably the country the US has helped out more financially! And who cares about Mexico, its all druglords and poor over there because its government is all corruption! I live in a border city along Mexico and trust me its I don't feel bad for Mexico! Besides I have family over there and go sometimes and they are always dissing USA so why help Mexico?

f-u

looks like your head has a little infrastructure problem too. maybe you could use some help.

=)

i'll be more than happy to help you

P.S.: America has the most illiterate, ignorant, idiotic, superficial, and fat population and politicians. Help yourselves out first. =)

Charles D

Almost nothing you've said is accurate. Theres a much smaller amount of oil in Mexico than in the Middile East, do you really want to deal with an Iraq situation in a much larger, more populous, and closer country?? And south america is still oil dependent, only Brazil has a significant ethanol program.

Zoe

Pancha this way your idea want work.From the La Times.MEXICO CITY â€” Output at Mexico's most important oil field has fallen steeply this year, raising fears that wells there that generate 60% of the country's petroleum are in the throes of a major decline.

Production at Cantarell, the world's second-largest oil complex, in the shallow gulf waters off the shore of Mexico's southern Campeche state, averaged just over 1.8 million barrels a day in May, according to the most recent government figures. That's a 7% drop from the first of the year and the lowest monthly output since July 2005, when Hurricane Emily forced the evacuation of thousands of oil workers from the region.

Though analysts have long forecast the withering of this mature field, a rapid demise would pose serious challenges for the world's No. 5 oil producer. The oil field has supplied the bulk of Mexico's oil riches for the last quarter of a century, and petroleum revenue funds more than a third of federal spending.

"Cantarell is going to fall a lot, and quickly," said independent consultant Guillermo Cruz Dominguez Vargas, a former executive with Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex. "I can't imagine the strain on this society if there is nothing to replace it."

It would also be bad news for the United States, for which Mexico is the No. 2 petroleum supplier, behind Canada. And it could exacerbate tight global supplies that have kept oil at record prices.

The world's "elephantine" fields have already been bagged, forcing companies to hunt in ever-more-remote areas for smaller amounts of oil to feed burgeoning demand, according to Houston energy analyst William Herbert.

"Unfortunately, the era of low-hanging fruit â€¦ has really run its course," said Herbert, co-head of research at Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based energy investment bank. He put the odds of finding another field the size of Cantarell in Mexico or anywhere else at "slim and none."

Exceeded in size only by Saudi Arabia's leviathan Ghawar field, Cantarell is a prolific giant that is past its prime. Monthly production peaked in late 2004 at just over 2.1 million barrels a day and has fallen more than 15% since then. Experts agree it has nowhere to go but down.

The multibillion-dollar question is just how quickly Cantarell will lose its productive capacity, and whether Pemex will be able to coax more oil out of existing fields to take up the slack while it searches for new deposits.

Pemex did not respond to requests for an interview. But officials publicly have downplayed prospects of a swoon in the media and in official releases. In fact, the company has projected that its overall oil output will increase slightly in 2006 to an average of 3.4 million barrels a day from 3.3 million daily last year.

The firm has done extensive maintenance on Cantarell to keep the oil flowing. In a December 2005 news release, Pemex predicted that the field will produce an average of 1.9 million barrels a day in 2006, a modest 6% drop from 2005, followed by double-digit annual declines that would reduce average production to 1.4 million barrels daily in 2008.

Other studies aren't so optimistic. Seawater is threatening to swamp the wells of Cantarell as the field's pressure diminishes, a debilitating symptom of old age that makes it tougher to extract the remaining oil. Leaked internal reports of Pemex's own worst-case scenarios published in Mexican newspapers show production plummeting to about 520,000 barrels a day by the end of 2008 â€” a 71% free-fall from May levels in less than three years.

Mexico City energy analyst David Shields said the swift drop over the first five months of 2006, and conversations with Pemex insiders have convinced him that prospects at Cantarell are worse than officials will admit publicly. June figures for the field won't be available until later this month. But Mexico's overall crude production fell in June, the third straight monthly decline, making it unlikely that Cantarell staged a revival.

"It's doing very badly," said Shields, general manager of Energia a Debate, an industry trade publication, and the author of two books on Pemex. "My reading of the situation is that it's dire."

Whether Cantarell's slide prompts changes in Mexico's oil sector remains to be seen. Critics have long lambasted state-owned Pemex as a hotbed of inefficiency and corruption that officials have treated more like an ATM than Latin America's largest company. But record oil prices have lessened the urgency to overhaul the company.

One would never suspect that trouble might be bubbling in Mexico's oil patch from the glut of petrodollars flooding its treasury. Federal officials last year siphoned $54 billion from Pemex to fund government spending that included a baseball stadium in Chihuahua and a gigantic flagpole in Nuevo Leon.

The trouble, analysts say, is that the government's take is so large that it has left little to reinvest in Pemex to keep the black gold flowing.

Despite record sales of $86.2 billion last year, the company lost $7.1 billion after taxes. It's the most indebted oil firm in the world, carrying a staggering $50 billion in loans on its books. Pipeline leaks and explosions are commonplace, in part because the monopoly lacks sufficient funds for basic maintenance of equipment. Proven reserves have tumbled by more than a third since 2000. Mexico buys a quarter of its gasoline from foreigners for want of refining capacity, the equivalent of Hawaiians importing pineapple.

Yet Pemex was not an overriding theme of the recent presidential contest. In fact, the three major candidates usually prefaced remarks about their energy plans with the assertion that the state-owned oil firm must never be privatized. Like Social Security in the United States, Mexico's government-controlled oil industry is the third rail of Mexican politics.

"No Mexican candidate ever earned a single vote by talking about reform in the energy sector," said analyst George Baker, a Mexico expert with Energia.com, a Houston-based consulting firm.

Mexico nationalized its industry in 1938 in response to decades of perceived exploitation by foreign oil interests. The belief that "el petroleo es nuestro" or "the oil is ours" is deeply embedded in the national psyche.

Cantarell is a particular source of pride. Named for a Yucatan Peninsula fisherman, Rudecindo Cantarell, who first noticed crude bubbling to the surface of the Campeche Sound in 1976, the field vaulted the nation into one of the world's oil powers and affirmed the ability of Mexicans to manage their own energy resources.

"We haven't had many successes in our history, but petroleum is one of them," said consultant Cruz.

But he and other experts say Mexico's go-it-alone strategy has become a liability at a time when the nation desperately needs billions in fresh capital to develop new fields. Mexico's constitution currently forbids outsiders from investing in the energy sector in exchange for a share of production, a global practice that has been embraced even by communist Cuba.

Some of the most promising potential reserves lie in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. But that's an expensive undertaking for which Pemex lacks the technical expertise, funding and, perhaps most important â€” time â€” to bring new production along fast enough to offset Cantarell's descent.

"Once Cantarell rolls, conventional wisdom has it that it would roll hard and that the declines would be steep," analyst Herbert said. "It looks like that may be what we're seeing."

Lucky

We gave them Wal Mart what more is there?

Mendi8a

Lets not start a war in Mexico, thanks very much.

sqwirlsgirl

Your question "Would it be a good idea for the US to do to Mexico what is has done in Iraq?"

What is that? What have we done? We have sent our overburdened, tired and homesick troops over there for last 4 years with no GOOD and VIABLE result.

I have no problem "helping" MEXICO become self-sustaining BUT NEVER......NEVER would I wish for us to DO what we are DOING in Iraq.........on anybody.

I agree with the "help my neighbor" theory.....I just don't think we need bloodshed to do that.

Smudgeward

Can't take a little country like Iraq and you're going to take Mexico!

69Stang

Why bother..Everyone is coming over here anyway--so what would be the point? But be sure to know you just may get your idea...However the problem is it may not be as good as it sounds...coming soon the check points around the world starting with the United States.

301grl

I agree with you 100% but to help out Mexico we need another president like Vicente Fox and the rest of the Mexican gov't to support the prez in what he is trying to do

hayleylov

no why don't we just try on mexico's immigration laws ,and a helping hand damn what more do your people want from us ?and we need to quit helping Iraq too ,and worry about home for awhile !

Tonatiuh

read history.....foreign invasions and colonialism never works!!!!!

U.S. has its own problems to worry about...... Latin Americans need to fight their own battles and creating better governments without U.S. interventions!!!!!

Sashie

Nooooooo ... but tell you what ... we could deport the illegal Mexicans who're here back to Mexico ... they're good at digging roads and fix plumbing ... the Mexican government can well afford to pay them decent wages ... honest ...:)

DAR

Do you think they really want us to invade?

Because we've done such a good job in Iraq, perhaps?

trouble

You must have lost your little stupid question asking mind!

gokart121

Not a half-bad idea, but there's some pieces missing, basically Mexico ALREADY owes us a ton of money, and they can build their own roads etc. many hands make light work, they've got 220 million hands, let's see the work...

â€ TENNISâ–¡artistâ€

Oh, the more that I think about it, the more I think you're right - seriously... I do want to share one funny e-mail I received though. I don't agree with how that plan intends to solve the problem, but I hope you'll get a laugh out of it...

A win-win situation:

Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border,
take the dirt and raise the levies in New Orleans,
and then put the Floridaalligators into the border moat!
Any other problems you'd like to have solved?

Terri W is right and by the way, we didn't invade Iraq for the oil and we did find weapons of mass destruction, but the liberal media didn't capitalize on this issue, because then more people would rely on what republicans say rather than the democrats.

If you're strictly talking about oil rather than the war, I just think we need to come up with an alternative fuel source. Canada has oil and so that's why, in part, the U.S. is being nice to Canada. Their oil they have to get out of the dirt and it'll be ready in about 10 years.

meimmoody

I totally agree with you. It would make a lot more sense to help out a neighbor who has become somewhat stable politically. If life could be made more tolerable at home why should they want to roam up this way. They do have a lot of oil they could help us out with for helping them out. All they need is to get rid of all that government corruption. But then could the most corrupt government in the world teach another nation how to not be corrupt? Maybe?? Oh well......., it would make a lot more sense spending all that money here near home than half way around the world.

sqwirl_hater

Why is it up to the U.S. to fix mexico? Hell, we've been supporting their sorry *** illegals for years now. Mexico gets billions of our dollars sent there, from the illegals who sneak over here and steal our jobs, and now you want us to do even more for them? Screw mexico!

Ryan G

Mexico is not a terrorist sponsoring state and I do not think Mexico WANTS to be invaded militarily. Have you gotten the impression that the Mexican people are just itching for the U.S. Military to invade?

electricpole

Mexico is not trying to build a nuke, and is not bent on the elimination of all humans that are not followers of Islam.
So they are on the back burner for now.

Professor Chaos386

I'd rather invade Canada.

Their beer is better.

V Loco

wow you seem to ask an awful lot of racial tension-inducing questions . . . just what we need in '06 - a race war. I recommend all of you invest in a library card and try reading a book, instead of throwing around half-knowledge like grenades.

JOEYSMOM2

It just one big pissing match.....i gut bigger balls then you do....lets fight!

Why dont we just adopt Mexico? Half of the residence are here anyway!

those that really matter to you!

good question. well Bush is the president of the US so he makes all the plans and decions on what to do with the US also he dosent care adout our neighbors beacouse some president like cude and venuzuela hate him so thats way he is helping other countries half way in the world beacouse they treat him nice and thats what he likes people to treat him nice. good question

WorkingTxGirl

Very good point. But that's now why we are in Iraq. We are there b/c we thought there were weapons of mass destruction,(note I am not saying wether they were there or not) and the ties to the Taleban that Sadam Hussein had.

Many people complain about us being in the middle east but I am glad we did it. For one reason and one reason only. We got rid of Hussein. something we should have done in the 90's.

The fact is he was a corrupt de facto dictator that abused and tortured his citizens. The Iraqi people are now truly free whether they realize just yet or not.

This all goes back to the question: Is it better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons?

In my personal opinion, it's always better to do the right thing, no matter the reason.

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