Posted on 03/28/2005 8:32:34 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
Migrants living in the US, Europe and elsewhere around the world sent a record amount of remittances - some $45 billion - to Latin America and the Caribbean last year, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The remittances - or money transfers - sent by Latin American and Caribbean workers living abroad rose nearly 20% over 2003, when $38 billion was sent home, the IDB said.
About three-quarters of the remittances came from the US, while Europe was the second-largest source.
Japan continued to be a major source of remittances to Brazil and Peru with foreign workers in Canada sending their earnings primarily to Jamaica and Haiti.
Mexico remained, by far, the top destination in the region for remittances, receiving about $16.6 billion in 2004, followed by Brazil with $5.6 billion, and Colombia with $3.9 billion.
The IDB said about 25 million adults who were born in Latin America and the Caribbean live abroad, and about two-thirds of them regularly send money home to their families.
Globally, more than 175 million people have left their homelands for economic reasons.
Remittances are typically made by migrant workers in industrialized nations, individuals who send $100 to $300 at a time to their families. Those funds, the bank said, "are a major source of capital for several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean."
In 2004, as in the previous two years, remittances exceeded the combined totals of overseas aid and foreign direct investment received by the region.
The effect of remittances is greater in the region's smaller economies.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, received just over $1 billion in 2004 from its expatriates - more than one-quarter of its gross domestic product.
The IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund, which is conducting research on remittances, said the dramatic growth of these money transfers is "testimony to the hard work and commitment of migrant workers seeking better lives for themselves and their families."
Although remittances are primarily intended to meet the basic needs of families, they also generate opportunities for local communities and national economies, according to the fund.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Latin America and the Caribbean, the largest and fastest-growing recipient market in the world.
The fund said the costs of sending remittances are falling, but they remain too high, particularly in an era of electronic transfer of funds.
Addressing that subject, US Treasury Department official John Taylor said in an October 2004 speech that a $150 money transfer sent coast to coast across the US costs less than 30 cents, using online banking, while a $150 remittance to Peru can cost almost $30 when such banking services are not available.
Taylor, the Treasury Department's under secretary for international affairs, said that because of the growing role that remittances play in the world economy, the Bush administration is working to lower the costs of sending remittances.
Taylor said this effort began in 2001 with the US-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity, which has resulted in a significant reduction in the cost of remittances from the United States to Mexico.
The effort continued at the 2004 Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, where President Bush and the other leaders of the Western Hemisphere set a 2008 goal of cutting the cost of sending home a remittance by 50%.
Taylor, who has announced he will be leaving the Treasury Department next month, said that the US has become so involved with the issue of remittances because the money transfers serve as an important means of reducing poverty and are often critical to the survival of the recipients.
Remittance recipients, he added, "are more likely to send their children to school, have more access to health care and are more likely to start small businesses."
Article of interest for you?
Roxas: Probe bank fees
charged on remittances
By TJ Burgonio
Inquirer News Service
SENATOR Manuel "Mar" Roxas II wants banks investigated for allegedly imposing excessive charges on the dollar remittances of millions of overseas Filipinos workers (OFWs).
Roxas, chairperson of the Senate committee on trade and commerce, on Sunday said the Senate probe would seek to craft legislation to protect overseas workers from "possible abuses."
He cited a local bank that collects $6 for each remittance coursed through a subsidiary in the United States.
"Assuming the OFW concerned sends money home at least once a month, at $6 for each transfer, over 12 months, he or she would have spent a total of $72 [or P4,000], which is equivalent to 16 days' minimum wage here," Roxas said in a statement.
In Senate Resolution No. 216, Roxas, who also chairs the committee on economic affairs, said the Senate would inquire into "possible interventions" that could improve the efficiency of remittances, foster competition and bring down the cost of sending money home to the Philippines.
"The bulk of remittances is meant for low-income families since two-thirds of our OFWs come from the provinces. We must ensure that our OFWs and their families are getting the full value of their money," he said.
Roxas believes there is still "room for a reduction in fees" without eroding the profitability of companies the engaged in the remittance business "considering the advances in technology."
Ensuring the efficiency of remittances, he said, would not only translate into higher incomes for Filipino families, but allow the government "to mobilize" such remittances to achieve its economic development goals.
Remittances by overseas workers are the country's second biggest source of foreign exchange next to product exports.
Annual OFW remittances had risen to $8.5 billion in 2004 from $103 million in 1975, making the country the third-largest recipient of migrant remittances behind India and Mexico, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
At the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterey, Mexico, in January 2004, countries in the western hemisphere called for a 50-percent reduction in the cost of remittances by 2008, according to Roxas.
The finance and central bank chiefs of the Group of Seven -- the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- vowed in April 2004 to work on initiatives "to reduce barriers that raise the cost of sending remittances" and integrate remittance services in the formal financial sector, he said.
New decree squeezes more from remittances
By Vanessa Bauza
HAVANA BUREAU
Posted March 26 2005
HAVANA · Cubans who supplement their meager state salaries and pensions with cash from relatives abroad will bear the brunt of a new banking decree, which is likely to boost the government's hard currency reserves while skimming profits from remittances, analysts said Friday.
Confused and dismayed by President Fidel Castro's 8 percent revaluation of the Cuban convertible peso over the U.S. dollar and other international currencies, many Cubans said the change would hurt their tenuous household budgets.
U.S. dollar remittances are already subject to a 10 percent commission introduced last November when the greenback was eliminated from circulation in favor of the Cuban convertible peso, the currency most consumer goods are sold in.
"With this discount I will get even less," said Jacqueline Socorro, an Old Havana flower vendor who receives $50 a month from her father in Miami to supplement her $8 monthly salary. "It won't be enough, especially when you have a small child."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-acuba26mar26,0,7990926.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba
Remittances boost Indian economy
NEW DELHI: It has been a silent transformation in India's foreign transactions. The receipts categorised as "invisibles" in the RBI's books have turned out to be India's real strength in its external sector.
Invisibles, comprising earnings out of services exports, remittances from Indian workers, income from financial assets and earnings from foreign tourists, have rapidly been catching up with merchandise exports as the principal foreign exchange earners for the country.
Several forces are at work, says a report prepared by the division of international finance of the RBI's department of economic analysis and policy, explaining why "invisibles" have become so important. One, there have been structural shifts in the economy, in which services have a dominant position and drive growth. Two, economic reforms have enabled productivity and cost efficiency to set a cutting edge to international competitiveness. Three, the IT revolution has enabled the reaping of the returns to India's knowledge advantage. Lastly, the changes in the country's macroeconomic environment have made the country the preferred habitat for the financial savings of its diasporas.
Sin duda, this is leading up to allowing the source country to tax the incomes of their "citizens beyond borders." What else is a remittance if not a tax? Not all remittances go to families, "group remittances" go to corrupt government entities to support projects in the workers' hometowns. google, home town associations.
Another thing lurking out there is a World Migration Organization (WMO) to regulate migrant labor as the WTO regulates trade.
The host country will get the benefit of "cheap" labor but must provide "human rights;" e.g., jobs, health care, education, housing, and on and on. The source country will get the taxes.
All this money earned in the United States is being shipped out, untaxed. This makes me angry, because I just paid MY income taxes, just like millions of other American citizens.
In GWB's America, illegal aliens are king. I'll NEVER vote for another Bush again.
Article of interest for you?
Mexico remained, by far, the top destination in the region for remittances, receiving about $16.6 billion in 2004...
Remittances are typically made by migrant workers in industrialized nations...
... because of the growing role that remittances play in the world economy, the Bush administration is working to lower the costs of sending remittances.
... President Bush and the other leaders of the Western Hemisphere set a 2008 goal of cutting the cost of sending home a remittance by 50%.
The IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund, which is conducting research on remittances, said the dramatic growth of these money transfers is "testimony to the hard work and commitment of migrant workers seeking better lives for themselves and their families ongoing fleecing of America."
Environmental justice, economic justice, racial justice, or just plain old social justice. They are all the same to the Davos crowd.
How about a General Agreement on Movements of People (GAMP)?
WMO advocate, Columbia University professor Jagdish Bhagwati, joins Bimal Ghosh, et al. in saying not only yes but hell yes! I guess.
GATT begat WTO, then there's GAMP.
Even without a WMO / NIROMP "free trade" Republicans' partners, the DLC New Democrat Third Way progressives, want to forge strong links between the ILO and WTO.
Yes, the Davos crowd is about to impose "social justice," etc. on their useful idiot partners.
Raising everybody's boat is more complicated that "free trade" transfer of technology, wealth, and jobs to developing nations -- the redistribution of wealth and jobs require developing nations' borders to expand to include their citizens in the U.S.
It's the wave of the future and our businessmen and politicians of both Parties are surfing dudes. "Hang ten" will take on a new meaning once the useful idiots are no longer needed. Got rope?
"Free trade" is technology, wealth (FDI), and production (jobs) transfers to developing countries. The goods and services produced in those countries are then exported for sale here in the U.S.
Your experience shows that "a lot of our development [in the Bahamas] in recent years came from foreign investment. However, the flip side is that many of the profits generated by the foreign investors went out of our country and to their parent country."
If the jobs went to the natives and the goods and services produced were mostly consumed in the Bahamas I'd say that's pretty close to free trade IMO.
I am not knowledgeable about the Bahamas. I do recall hearing a lot about U.S. corporations escaping taxes by moving there so that is not what I personally would call free trade.
One of the bases of the FR discussion IMO is best illustrated by a Northeastern U. labor studies 2000 - 2004
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/7-04/immigration_july04.shtml
If memory serves here we see that some two million recent immigrants (legal and ILLEGAL) obtained jobs during those four years while some 600 thousnad or 700 thousand established immigrants and citizens lost their jobs. The Pew Hispanic Center put out a similar study last year.
(A second factor is the number of jobs outsourced off shore that's being descrbied as "free trade" as mentioned above and in other replies.)
A third factor is the costs of subsidizing a huge portion of immigrants (legal and ILLEGAL). Their "cheap" labor is highly prized by many businessmen but their low wages make it impossible for them to afford basics like health care. Taxpayers pay for those costs plus other social costs such as the huge number of immigrant children.
Do the immigrants pay taxes? Yes in many cases. Are the taxes enough to cover their subsidies? No way, say many studies.
The huge value of remittances is a slap in the face of U.S. taxpayers.
RE: "What no one seems to mention (unless I missed something) is that there are a lot of Americans working abroad that send portions of their income back to the US. Why is everyone in such an uproar because foreign nationals over here are doing the same thing? Not everyone from a different country is here illegally."
I have worked in other countries and indeed much of the money earned stayed in the U.S. I was not there because I worked cheap. I was there because my American employer had something the foreign countries were willing to pay for.
What you described has been common for decades and is esssential for free trade. We benefit from many foreign companies both for their expertise and by their establishing facilities and hiring American citizens to produce goods to be sold here.
What we are complaining about is -- I guess one way of putting it -- the substitution of American workers by "cheap" taxpayer-subsidized labor here and losing jobs to "over there" especially to Red China's PLA and their nuke missiles pointing at us (IMO).
Above I avoided normal immigration.
Normal immigration that is the heritage of the United States of America.
We are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants that U.S. officials deemed welcome for their potential. Immigrants that came here and then had to pass such things as health and character assessments. Or, in the case of immigrants I sponsored, they had to pass those tests first then they were allowed to come here.
Above I talked about ILLEGAL immigrants and the kind of immigration enabled by the fat drunk-driving killer Senator from Massachusetts decades ago (just a couple of years before he killed that girl).
To wit, anyone can come, no skills or personal resources necessary. No offense to the immigrants. Of course most of them turned out to be great Americans. Hey! when my people came here we were not even allowed near urban areas, we were chased into the wilderness of the hills of Kentucky. We done ok, mostly.
In other words, not all legal immigrants are "cheap" labor to be exploited by our businessmen along with the ILLEGAL immigrants. Many have skills and potential deemed necessary and compete with citizens and demand good wages. That's good except IMO we have a glut in some fields.
But IMO there's been a recent development among (but not all) both unskilled "cheap" labor and skilled labor. To wit, the diaspora factor.
That is where the immigrant remains a non-resident citizen of his home country. His stomach is here but his heart is in his home country. He is here to "lobby" for his country whenever the opportunity arises. He is here to support his family and his country. He has little or no interest in becoming an American. America is not his country. America is where he works. Period.
He remains the hyphenated "American." He is for "diversity." He promotes his culture and language. He is often a "victim." Whole industries exist to promote his "rights" and "protect" him from America. We really don't need him. IMO.
FYI. The Rand corporation says that sending money back to "homeland countries" may actually be fomenting global revolution instead of creating global stability, as our "free trader" friends would have us believe...
***
States are neither the only nor necessarily the most important sponsors of insurgent movements. Diasporas—immigrant communities established in other countries—frequently support insurgencies in their homelands.1 Despite being separated by thousands of miles, homeland struggles are often keenly felt among immigrant communities.
Indeed, insurgents in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, India
(Punjab and Kashmir), Indonesia (Aceh), Ireland, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Northern Ireland, and Kosovo have all received various and important forms of support from their respective migrant communities.
Significant diaspora support has occurred in every region of the globe, except Latin America.Migrant communities have sent money, arms, and recruits back to their home countries, which have proven pivotal in sustaining insurgent campaigns. This support has at times significantly increased insurgents’ capabilities and enabled
them to withstand government counterinsurgency efforts.
Reliance on diasporas to wage an insurgency may become an
increasingly common phenomenon in years to come. Such
fundraising efforts are hardly new: Palestinian movements have done so for decades as have the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the PIRA, which have long relied on Kurds in Germany and Irish- Americans, respectively, to provide needed funds. But diasporas may be more important should state funding stop or become unobtainable, forcing insurgent groups to look elsewhere to sustain their
struggle. The withdrawal of superpower support in the early 1990s has already caused the collapse of several insurgencies that depended on Moscow to survive. In addition, the increasing number of ethnic or communal insurgencies relative to ideological conflicts increases the relative prevalence of diaspora support.
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1405/MR1405.ch3.pdf#search='migrant%20diaspora'
Your information reminds me of one of the main reasons I resent some immigrants. To wit, they bring their disputes and wars here. As if we ain't got enough of our own.
Mexciorruption's meddling government is very active in setting up "home town associations (HTA)" among their non-resident citizens living in the U.S. to encourage the flow of remittances particularly "group remittances" to corrupt government entities in Mexicorruption.
Though Mexicorruption is nothing like Hitler's Germany, the last country to make much use of HTAs was pre-W.W.II Germany. Gee, for some reason I am reminded of radical Islam.
Even the liberals had it up to here with this irritant. The federal 1996 immigration and welfare reform legislation stopped the practice of legal immigrants bringing their elderly relatives here and, after a short "deeming" period, they placed the relatives on SSI along with all the other goodies.
SSI is the safety net. Over sixty-five is one category and it's for those who have no qualifications whatsoever for collecting social security checks. Over the years the legislation has been watered down and those collecting it in 1996 still get it but the increases in the number collecting it has leveled off somewhat.
Legal immigrants' elderly relatives still come (legally) and still qualify for most (all?) other benefits: subsidized housing, medical, food stamps, just about everthing but SSI -- I do not know what replaced SSI checks but I bet that new immigrant elderly are getting something to replace the SSI checks.
Social security is going broke we're told. Money for medical care is in much worse condition. Yet they still come, they see, they take.
Occasionally I run across an article like one in a San Francisco bay area newspaper last year. Authorites wanted to move elderly residents of a rent-subsidized apartment complex to a better place. There was a problem. None of the elderly spoke English. The authorities feared that without interpreters the elderly would panic thinking that they were being kicked out into the street. Authorities were desperately looking for interpreters for varous languages.
This in an era when housing in California is beyond a premium.
Before the dot.com bust there were working people living in their cars because they could not find affordable housing. In the Santa Clara area parts of municipal parking garages were set aside for them to park at night. True? Well, that's what one newspaper reported. Is it still going on? I don't know.
A San Francisco newspaper article a couple of weeks ago reported on some people renting closets, for either $200 or $400 a month, in houses that had been converted to "apartments." The owners put dead-bolt locks on the inside of the closet doors and rented the closets.
I've seen studies that reported that 98 percent of the population increase in California in the 1990s was due to immigration, legal and ILLEGAL.
If you follow any of the many immigration threads you'll see more reasons, the crime problem for example -- cost of holding huge numbers of ILLEGAL immigrant criminals, gangs like MS-13. You will also see those Freepers who oppose our views screaming Racists! Bigots! Xenophobes! at us, few have substantive reasons to dispute our reasons for opposing some immigration.
It appeared that you had just joined FR and that's why I went a mite overboard replying with my personal opinions.
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