Posted on 05/21/2006 4:06:24 PM PDT by Larousse2
Right now their numbers are manageable.
I saw Dr. Grayson, a Professor at William and Mary College on Lou Dobbs this evening. FINALLY, someone who says Mexico is a very wealthy country in terms of natural resources. Professor Grayson went to say outright about how Mexicans are portrayed as "victims," when such is not the case. Futhermore, Professor Grayson said if Taiwan took over Mexico, in just twenty years' time, we would be complaining about all the wealth SOUTH of the U. S.
Here's more:
Grayson’s thoughts on Mexico
News · W&M News · 2004 archive · Grayson’s thoughts on Mexico
Author: staff, Source: W&M News
Date: Dec 07, 2004
Related content: See W&M News story Government students observe elections—in Mexico.
Problems facing Mexico
—“The greatest creator of jobs in Mexico is the export sector. The problem is that you've got archaic labor, tax, oil, energy and judicial systems. It is one thing to open the economy, but there are still just lots of bottlenecks.”
On Mexican president Vicente Fox
—“Fox has been an incredibly inept leader—can’t build coalitions in congress. Everything that he floats gets blown out of the water, and the PRI is not going to let him have any achievements to help the possibility that another PAN member might win the presidency.”
—“Fox couldn’t organize a one-car funeral.”
—“There are vicious intramural fights in all the parties and among the legislators, who are really not accountable to anyone—they serve one term and they are out; they are unwilling to form coalitions. And Fox has not been astute enough to use the enormous prestige that he enjoyed after his election to unify his own party, which is rule one in politics. Fox, a great campaigner, disdains politics and politicians. He doesn't do the basics of politics, which is coalition building. In fact, he has exacerbated the tensions within his own party.”
On Lopez Obrador (presumed PDR 2006 presidential candidate, who currently is leading in the polls)
—“His party—should lightning strike and he win—won't have anything like a majority in either chamber of the congress, and so he will try at first to bargain, negotiate and compromise. But, he is a person with a mission and he believes he is the savior of the downtrodden in Mexico, lives austerely, is out among the people and he has a daily news conference at 6 a.m.”
—“He’s going to present himself as a kind of savior above party politics.”
—“He can win, and he willl probably try at first to work with the opposition if he wins. But then he believes in mobilizing people, confrontations, demonstrations, sit-ins, and I would suspect that his victory would have a chilling effect on investment in the country. Without investment you don't have job creation.”
—“I can't imagine how he is going to run the economy unless all of this is a game plan to win the presidency and, once he is there, to call in the WOrld Bank and the IMF and say ‘help me get this economy straightened out.’”
On Mexico
—“Mexico is not a Bangladesh. It is an extremely wealthy countrhy, and it is a real shame on Mexico’s small political elite that millions of their fellow citizens come to the United States to try and find work.”
Where Mexico has been
—“It is really a country that has come a long way. When I first started going there, it was extremely authoritarian. I'm sure my phone was tapped on numerous occasions. In fact, you would start conversations with people saying, ‘How many ears are on this conversation.’”
—“It was an authoritarian society where one party called the shots and where the economy was closed. Then, about the same time the Soviet Union was undergoing its change in the 1980s—Mexico began to open up—both Perestroika and Glasnost. Now you have fair vote counts. And Mexico was probably the major impulse behind NAFTA, which took effect Jan. 1, 1994. It is a night-and-day change in terms of greater openness of the society.”
On U.S./Mexican relationships
—“Mexico has virtually dropped off of the radar screen since Iraq, Iran and North Korea.”
—“I think it it is the country that has the greatest impact on the United States because unless Mexico finds a way to achieve sustained, healthy growth, we are going to see the current flood of illegal workers become a tidal wave.”
On NAFTA
—“NAFTA, on balance, has helped because you had to open the economy. You couldn't go back to the status wealth-fare system where the government had a monopoly. There have been innovations that have reduced the amount of corruption that occurs. I think that openness would not have been possible without NAFTA.”
—“So often these free-trade agreements or economic openings have been sold as the way to vault third-world countries to first-world status. It doesn't occur like that, and so you’ve got a lot of masses who have been left out of the progress that has occurred, and this gives rise to populist and messianic politicians.”
Excellent graphic, Phil!
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