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.
"With 5% unemployment"
Are they still skewing that statistic by excluding people who have given up looking for work?
Utterly incoherent. Assuming his correspondent's claim of being unable to get work is accurate, it is not because he is not Mexican.
It is because he demands wages higher than the market is paying for the services he is able to provide. If Mexicans are being hired for these jobs, it is because they will work for less, not because they are Mexicans.
It irritates me when people say they cannot find work, when what they really mean is they cannot find work they would like to do at a wage they would like to get. Two very different things. I've done some very unpleasant work for poor pay when necessary, but I've never been unemployed.
"A Mexican version of Ronald Reagan."
It's kind of a quandary. They need someone like Reagan, but nobody like Reagan would take the draconian, extralegal, blood-soaked measures that would be needed to root out corruption.
ping
Trade California for Mexico and you got a deal. Half the population of Mexico is already there and we can drill in Mexico.
Well said!
Since they've been doing this all along, I fail to see how it "skews" the data from one period to another. Since there is no way to actually compile data on this, it would inevitably be an estimate and highly prone to distortion in the political interest of whoever makes the estimate.
No way! We don't need another rathole to pour our tax dollars down!
"B.S. - With 5% unemployment, those that want to work, can work!"
Only if they will take the job for cash, off the books. If not the illegal gets the job.
They won't notice.
"Mexico: Our 51st State.........."
Only if it doesn't include the population.
These are the very same people that would be content to see the lower working class of Americans descend into abject poverty, to match the millions south of the border.
Slowly but surely this descent will destroy the American middle class.
Second, I really don't think people coming here from Mexico is the problem. People have always come from other places to be here, we just need to make sure they are the 'right' people from Mexico. In order to do that we need to start to provide the right kind of incentives...the following would be a start:
1. Deport all illegals...no amnesty, no grace period.... bye...see ya.
2. No birthright citizenship for children of illegals.
3. No social services of any kind (even medical) for any illegals.
4. Eliminate the minimum wage, and eliminate the 'excuse' for hiring illegals.
5. Prosecute and convict anyone who hires an illegal alien.
6. Make 'basic English' a requirement for anyone here for three years. If you don't pass the test.....bye...see ya.
7. You pay taxes to work in the US from the moment you get here, but don't get a single dime in social services until you have become a citizen of the US. No unemployment, no social security, no medical, no nothing.
People who have been willing to obey the laws, take care of themselves and their families, and assimilate into society have always been welcome here and that shouldn't change because they are from Mexico. We just need to bring Mexicans here who meet those criteria. If they do, throw open the borders and multiply the quota by 100 if you like. We'll only be getting the people we want here in the first place.
"Jessie Jackson was the one who said we couldn't expect young blacks to work for McDonalds and earn minimum wage when they can sell drugs and make $$$$$$."
Well the answer here is obvious. McDonalds should start paying people $100,000 per week.
"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"…. while “a handful of Mexican elites own most of everything.”
Here the author says Mexican culture as it exists today is nothing more than slaves and elites, becuase the vast population is being "forced" to live at poverty levels. In the meantime freemen, US citizen workers, have more and more problems finding work in the US, because no business is going to survive if they have to “pay” for their labor when their competitors can get it free.
Capitalism has a limit, and stops at slavery. Also, capitalism cannot exist without law and order. Our politicians are selling out capitalism and democracy by allowing this modern day slavery to creep back into our society against the will of the majority of the populace, by taking support from special interest modern day plantation owners, thus refusing to enforce existing labor laws and visa laws which have been established for the protection of capitalism.
So while this author seems to paint a dooms day picture that we need to allow the invasion to continue or else face a collapse of a country (which is already collapsed) , the other extreme is we turn our noses to this type of corruption and we return to a pre- civil war nation where human rights and the dignity of souls do not exist.
On the contrary, if we open our boarders and annex the slave peasant way of life of Mexico, and do not enforce law and order, as the status quo is heading today, we open ourselves to the collapse of our capitalistic democracy, and as a result there are plenty of enemy forms of governments just lurking to fill the void.
This country lost more of its citizens fighting the civil war than any other, and the 14th amendment was supposed to end slavery. How quickly we forget history and turn our backs on our own fallen solders who gave their life’s for this great capitalistic democracy.
"With 5% unemployment"
Are they still skewing that statistic by excluding people who have given up looking for work?""
The statistic is consistent with the formula used 60 years ago.
If you change the formula, then comparisons cannot be formed against prior numbers.
If you want to include "the people who have given up looking for work", may I insist that you include ALL the welfare recipients of every kind into that number????
They aren't "looking for work" either......
It would be our 51st through 82nd IIRC. I think Mexico has 31 states.
31, plus Mexico City (D.F.).
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