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.
Mexico: Our 51st State..........
I thought Mexico's economy was crashed in the first place.
>>When your main export is your citizens, your nation is in big trouble.<<
We will be expected to be the compassionate nation who will feed, cloth, educate and medicate our neighbor to the South.
B.S. - With 5% unemployment, those that want to work, can work!
Which Black Spokesperson proclaimed blacks wouldn't take or want menial jobs like those the 'immigrants' are taking?
Sharpton.... I think.
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 $$$$$$.
Lets just trade for Massachutaxitis
A Mexican version of Ronald Reagan.
Well at least he's had a tour of a great country.
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.
I guess that's because as Vincentee would say, Mexicans will take jobs that "even blacks" won't take.
Usually you can tell very early in an article if it's bogus or not and I would say that this one only took two sentences to ring the bell on the Bogus Meter.
Their economy collapsed 40+ years ago and illegal immigration is the only thing that has prevented a violent revolution from occurring. The PRI is just another corrupt quasi-communist political party that stripped their nation's wealth to line their own pockets. They allowed the election of Fox as President just to keep the rightists from defecting from the ruling class. PRI still controls everything.
hmmm.......tempting...........Throw in the rest of New England and we'll talk.......
Usually you can tell very early in an article if it's bogus or not and I would say that this one only took two sentences to ring the bell on the Bogus Meter.
:) You think he sent the email by hiting a wireless router with his laptop while holding a "Will Work For Food" sign at the street corner?
The alternative to the wholesale exodus from Mexico is the US simiply taking it over. Naturally, Mexican bureaucrats prefer calling this 'the US integrating with Mexico'. No wonder they're screaming in terror at the notion of a seven hundred mile fence. Somebody in the admin. had better tell US citizens exactly what's going on and the alternatives to a fence or no fence. It's a shame when we have to find out we're being invaded from Lou Dobbs, Fox or the newspaper. What the heck. The rest of the southern hemisphere's headed north.
ping
"address" it???
Hell!
They CAUSED it!
That's what we call my mother-in-law's kitchen.
Nah. It would be more like our 51-62 states. Mexico is composed of multiple states, at least one of which was in open rebellion not to long ago.
Annexing Mexico would be a VERY bad thing.
It would be much better to build a wall, complete with mine fields and machine guns - sort of an inverse Berlin Wall.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.