Tuesday, November 14, 2017

THE WALL: DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

Our president is a great stand up comedian and attending his rallys was lots of fun.  One of his best jokes was "What are we going to do?"  and we would shout Build The Wall.  Then he would yell "And who is going to pay for The Wall?"  And we would scream "Mexico!"  It was very exhilarating.

Mexico, however, was afraid that a lot of Americans and the President might be serious so they kept saying, "We will never pay for the wall."  Eventually the cry became Mexico will eventually pay for the wall.  Finally the President admitted that Mexico wouldn't pay for the wall.  Heck!

But there is a dirty little secret we are not being told.  The biggest joke of all is, if The Wall is to be built, we will undoubtedly use concrete and. actually pay Mexico to build the wall to a great extent.  There are two reasons for this (at least).

One is that the largest company making Portland cement (used in concrete) in North America by nearly a factor of two is Cemex,* a Mexican company.  Furthermore they have operations in the right place, whereas the other large producers are mainly in the East and Midwest.

The second reason is that construction is booming right now so prices of concrete are high and available labor is short.  A home builder owned by Warren Buffet even has a school to train home construction workers.   So we will probably have to "import" Mexican construction workers to build most of the wall.  Times are good in Mexico, so even Mexican workers may not be readily available, but, for a price, maybe they will come.

So yes, if we build The Wall, we will actually pay Mexico to do it to a large extent.  The joke will be on us.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_industry_in_the_United_States

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