Immigration seems to be the new word in America and officials just don’t know- or can’t make a decision about what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants that enter the U.S. each year, a great majority from Mexico.
Mexico has more to offer American and is tied to energy. It is time to look at the options.
Three years of exploration have enabled Mexico to map oil fields that will more than double its know crude oil reserves. On a conservative estimate, almost 54 billion barrels lie underneath these “new” oil fields. This estimate takes Mexico’s reserves to 102 billion barrels, more than the United Arab Emirates, which has reserves of 97 billion barrels, Kuwait’s 94 billion and Iran’s 89 billion, making it second only to Iraq’s 112 billion.
The discovery would enable Mexico to increase its oil production from the current level of 4 million barrels a day to 7 million. Saudi Arabia produces 7.5 million barrels a day. The good news about the discovery is the magnitude of reserves is larger than Saudi Arabia. The bad news is that the complexity of the technology needed to exploit the oil fields and levels of investment required are beyond Mexico’s nationalized company’s capability, so the company is trying to attract multi-national corporations with enough capital to invest and the most up to date extraction technology.
My point is simple: American oil companies have recently reaped enormous profits because of incidents in the Middle East and the recent threat from Iran to produce nuclear weapons. American technology is the catalyst that could allow Mexico to be the largest oil producer in the world, and be on the American border. With America’s help, Mexico becomes a major world oil exporter, and new revenues help establish a strong Mexican economy. NAFTA now becomes a more viable concept, and at the same time, helps diminish America’s dependence on Arab oil, shielding our economy from the ravages of an unstable energy market.

JUNK THE PROPERTY TAX
Property tax reform?

The best way to fix the property tax is to, junk it. The origin of property taxes goes back over 200 years when the majority of people owned farms. During this era, most income came from “real property.” The more land you owned, the more income you had. But the income was in the form of crops, making it difficult to determine income. The property tax made sense.
Today, farmers are scarce and very few people are receiving income from land and buildings. Consequently, property taxes are crudely based on the ability to pay them because land and buildings are no longer related to our wealth.

Rising sale prices are resulting in increased assessments, but prices are affected by supply and demand. This is an inaccurate measure of property. When demand for housing is high, price is high. When demand is low, price is low. For example, if someone agrees t pay $250,000 for a house assessed for $90,000, that doesn’t mean that the house is worth $250,000.

We are currently experiencing an influx of buyers from New York City who view our real estate prices as bargains, while the majority of young families can’t meet the down payments on handyman specials. Our economy does not provide the means for young families to buy a home, let alone pay the taxes. Taxes in some rural areas of Saugerties are in excess of $5000. Additional mortgage payments of $1000 plus per month are common. This is a recipe for disaster.

The exodus from New York City is the driving force behind exploding home prices. Without a local business base, property taxes will rise to levels forcing us with roots here to sell. The fact that our own college graduates need to find work out of the area, and that our senior citizen population is rising, should be enough to see the handwriting on the wall.