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As my grandmother used to say: "the boy is clever, but he is a fool: he says what one should not listen to".

There is no way that any of these fantasies of province and state travel in either direction are possible without a horrendous shock somewhere in the process. Whether it is a civil war, an international conflict or an asteroid strike, it is, probably, too horrible to imagine. Rather than figuring out the constitutional niceties and healthcare finance, we'd be more likely trying to deal with surviving until commercial electricity is reinvented in some uncertain future.

Otherwise, all quite clever. But horrendously irrelevant.

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Well, of course it's a fantasy. New York is not going to secede and join Confederation.

But these things are back on the table and some observers have claimed that they are impossible. The thought experiment seems to indicate otherwise.

As for your point about a shock, well, I don't know. Stranger things, as you well know, have happened. I don't think that I'm making it more likely that the U.S. and Canada go to war, if that's what you're intimating?

(Outside readers: Andrei and I are friends!)

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Well, as you know full well, I've had some rather direct observation of those stranger things happening (and I was quite happy about those :) ) - but fitting legal and institutional niceties was not remotely the main problem back in the day. For your discussion (quite insightful and enjoyable) to be full, you have to consider what is it that rips NY State off the US - and what happens in the process.

Forget the war and gore. What is the state of the currency at that point? Imagine US starting to fall apart: but the dollar is still the common currency throughout. Does NYFed remain an obedient part of the whole system - or does it start misbehaving, offering cheap credit to the State government (that needs it to deal with whatever else is happening)? The impact on inflation is shared through the dollar area: but the benefit is here, it is local. Do they resist the pressure? And, if it (and other Feds) have been doing it for a few months, what's happening to inflation? What is the exchange rate between the NY dollar and the crypto tokens of the Provisional Defense Force of Utica? Have you factored in the position of the People's Undemocartic Republic of Staten Island? An integration into Canada would be done by THAT New York: not the one we have today.

Yes, a lot of things are back on the table: but they are not on the table in isolation. You go for it - even if you do not get the whole package, you have little choice of what exactly you get.

No, I do not consider you guilty of bringing in the US-Canadian War. Well, may be l-i-i-i-ttle bit :) That baby will have other parents. But I do consider it a rather incomplete exercise on your part. I mean, even if humans and chimps could produce healthy and fertile offspring, if you choose to discuss that, you should not be allowed to avoid imagining the sex that gets us there.

And, yes we are friends :) And we know how each other thinks reasonably well. I hope you do not mind me bringing in some of our normal conversational style into public :) I think they might actually enjoy :)

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