Posted on 12/29/2005 5:42:21 AM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
I received an email recently from a 55-year-old, unemployed American who had been to 14 States looking for work. He couldn’t find any, he said, because "I am not a Mexican."
Despite a desire to work, he could not compete with the cheap wages Mexican illegals will take. They do so because wages in Mexico continue to leave a vast portion of that nation’s population in poverty, forced to live on $3 to $4 dollars per person a day.
According to data from the CIA, 40% of the Mexican population lives below the poverty line. The current population is estimated to be 106,202,900 people and the labor force is estimated to be 34.73 million. Despite being rich in natural resources, the Mexican economy is highly dependent on the US economy. We buy 84% of all Mexican exports, compared to Canada that buys a mere 1.8%. "Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal." That’s a diplomatic way of saying a handful of Mexican elites own most of everything.
There are a lot of reasons advanced to explain why the Bush administration will do nothing to stop the flow of illegals across our southern border, the vast bulk of whom are Mexicans, but the one I had not heard until I received the email was that Mexico would collapse without the money sent back by the Mexicans, legal and illegal, among us. When you look at the economic data, it is the one explanation that begins to make sense.
Ignoring the financial and social impact that millions of illegal Mexican workers are having on America may well be the US government’s way of avoiding a tsunami of even more Mexicans crossing over in the wake of an economic disaster, the collapse of the Mexican economy.
The most dramatic change that the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement has had is the way it has emptied out whole sections of Mexico as its former citizens head north. People don’t do this because they have a choice. Mexico is not creating new jobs. It is, instead, sending its people here to take over all kinds of jobs that unemployed Americans no longer can get.
The World Bank confirms the CIA data that nearly half of the Mexican population is just as poor today as they were in the 1960s. That’s not slow growth. That’s no growth.
According to Bloomberg.com, "Mexico’s economy grew at the slowest pace in a year in the first quarter as US demand for the nation’s autos, textiles, and appliances declined."
Surpassing oil and tourism, the estimated $20 billion in US dollars that Mexicans sent home last year is the mainstay of Mexico’s economy. When your main export is your citizens, your nation is in big trouble.
Moreover, Mexico has found a new competitor when it comes to exports. China has surpassed our southern neighbor as the top supplier to the US of a vast array of assembled goods, as well as textiles, office computers, metal parts, and prefabricated construction parts.
Mexico’s problems have become America’s problems despite all the hoopla about NAFTA. The failure to stem illegal immigration and all the problems that go with it will become a major political issue in the 2006 elections and beyond. It simply cannot be ignored, though the Bush administration is doing its best to do just that.
My correspondent is probably just one of thousands of able-bodied Americans who cannot get work because illegal Mexicans will take any job available, but even worse news for Americans is the growing trend of out-sourcing white-collar jobs. Though it is hard to determine due to reporting procedures, there is no debate regarding the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs that will leave many Americans unemployed in the years directly ahead as their jobs migrate to India, China and other nations.
So while the potential of economic collapse of Mexico looms to the south of us, internally jobs are disappearing into cybersphere as workers in developing nations, receiving far less than American workers, are the beneficiaries of the way technology speeds aspects of globalization. Here again, the US government is taking no steps to address this looming crisis. If the US economy begins to falter, Mexico’s will tank.
Is anyone paying any attention to this? Well, I am and so is my out-of-work correspondent. Maybe you should, too?
Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, "Warning Signs", posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.
"They'll drop their rifles and run faster than the French!"
And then a dozen Zapatas would arise and give us Hell for a hundred years.
Even someone 'lucky' enough to out-compete illegals and receive the honor of working two minimum wage jobs full-time, or as close to full time as a company will allow in order to avoid paying benefits like basic healthcare, would be wholly unable to support a family.
I grant you that it would take a while to assimilate former Mexicans deep in-country to the new way of life, but it would happen. In fact, I'd predict a massive flow of people, material, and money to the southwest if this were to happen.
-PJ
"Do you think we should invade Mexico, force a regime change, and install a democratic government down there? "
It's been tried. That's why they celebrate the 5th of May.
Besides, the Spanish brought their culture of corruption with them when they colonized, and it's so entrenched now that I doubt you could find two honest men to run against each other for president.
That's been further exacerbated by a hundred years of commie agitation.
Everybody you put in every government position is going to start demanding bribes, first thing day one.
It's part of the culture, just as much as wearing clothes, and there's no way to get rid of it short of killing every Mexican over the age of six and raising the children as Americans. Which, of course, is not going to happen.
"wealthy retirees, businesses, celebrities looking for new exclusive coastal properties, etc., would no longer put up with such behavior."
We pampered Americans tend not to understand that, in a culture like Mexico's, the only -- THE ONLY -- alternative to putting up with such behavior is killing the offenders.
Not fining them, not jailing them, not reasoning with them...killing them.
Maybe they'll want to join the Army! They can learn a trade, see exotic sights, meet interesting people, do interesting things...
-PJ
Americans of Hispanic ancestry have been some of our finest soldiers. However, the people we are talking about are cut from different cloth.
Appeals to concern for The American Middle Class are the hallmark of phony, anti-conservative populists everywhere.
All the better!!!
Think of it as Liberaland. Let the Left move southwest into a new laboratory to practice what they preach to reform the people. If they're successful, more power to them!
-PJ
Me thinks this fellow is a real looser, or the statement is bunk!
If you can not find employment in 14 States, then you DO have major problems(not Mexican problems).
If one can not rise above Mexican level, in my HO, he has a biiig problem. Not that I am a Mexican lover(far from it), but this story is far fetched and not quite credible.
My Dealership is in the hiring mode, THE LEGAL WAY and nobody shows up!You go figure...
Never thought of that, but I get the feeling you're right.
"...I believe it will be easier to change Iraq than it is to change Mexico."
What's worse, if something is not done... really fast, it's the US that will become more like Mexico... agghhhh!
"...We need to take over all the way to the Panama Canal..."
Naaah, you don't want the 31 Mexican states plus the Central American countries with their vast and profound social and political problems, corruption, etc.
Better fix here what we can.
Just remember, these are jobs that were beneath Americans!
Just remember, these are jobs that were beneath Americans!
"...It's interesting to see that the same unions that once drove wages upward to create a semi-skilled middle class are now embracing illegals to increase their numbers..."
I can vouch for that... I once had to take a job at a union (don't hang me for it, I had to put food on the table and shoes on my family's feet!) and witnessed quite a few things that wanted to make me puke.
... don't if you want to keep your teeth!!!!!
And apparently our leaders have seen to it to support the few communist elites.
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