Posted on 06/05/2007 10:27:21 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Each year Mexicans in the United States send billions of dollars in remittances back to Mexico. In 2006, Mexicans working north of the border sent back US$23 billion. Remittances have become (after petroleum) the second highest legal source of income for Mexico. And that’s one of several reasons why Mexican leaders don’t want emigration to end.
But are these billions of dollars really helping Mexico?
You might think so, but if you look at the Mexican regions that receive high levels of remittances, they’re not exactly booming economically.
Take for example Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon’s home state. That state is the highest recipient of remittances, with 11.2 percent of its families receiving them. Nevertheless, Michoacan is still one of the more economically undeveloped states in Mexico. Other high-remittance receiving states have also failed to develop.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) did a study of the phenomenon, and according to spokesman Alfonso Sandoval the study determined that remittances in Mexico are not developing the country economically.
Most of the remittance money is spent on groceries or daily expenses, buying fancy vehicles, or remodeling houses. But little of it is being invested in permanent job-generating enterprises. Therefore the regions aren’t advancing economically.
Remittances also encourage some Mexicans not to work, since they can earn more from remittances than working on a Mexican job.
Mexico’s central bank, the Banco de México, has examined this issue. A 2005 study by the bank showed negative correlation between remittances and development. In other words, the more remittances the less development!
It suggested that this dependence on remittances was itself a cause of poverty, since it gave recipients fewer incentives to seek other sources of income.
Remittances even encourage more emigration. Remittance receivers in Mexico are more likely to want to emigrate than those who don’t!
So what’s really being accomplished here?
Not only is emigration of dubious economic value, its social costs are great. It exacerbates family disintegration and sometimes encourages deadbeat dads to abandon their families. Mexican congressman Jose Edmundo Ramirez admitted the problem in Washington, in February: “In addition, [Ramirez] said that ‘one Mexican per minute is leaving his family’ to go to the United States, which disintegrates families and leads to other problems such as alcoholism and drug addiction.”
Psychologically the pull of emigration is strong, and according to polls nearly half the population would emigrate if possible!
Emigration has become a national obsession. It’s really a shortcut to avoid dealing with the real problems in Mexico. It weakens the Mexican family and local communities. It impedes economic development, because the emigration mentality has permeated the whole society. “Why make things better in Mexico when people can just emigrate?” is the mentality. Emigration is like an addictive drug, and the addict needs ever-larger doses for his fix.
Generally speaking, Mexican emigrants are not the poorest of the poor. They’re usually from the upper tier of the poor, with a growing proportion of middle class Mexicans. In the Mexican schools in which I’ve worked, I’ve had co-workers who already had jobs but emigrated for more money.
Visiting Dallas last year, Banco de México chief Guillermo Ortiz said that tougher enforcement on the U.S. side “would be better over the long run” for Mexico.
Mexican vested interests, however, can be expected to oppose meaningful reform. The world’s second-richest man, Mexican Carlos Slim, and Mexico’s other billionaires are happy with the status quo.
Mexico’s own Constitution makes some reforms difficult, so it would need to be amended. And real reforms would be quite controversial.
That doesn’t sound like much fun for Mexican politicians, so they continue in the status quo, hoping Mexicans will continue to emigrate.
Additionally, in a country with a 40 percent (or more) tax evasion rate, the oil monopoly PEMEX is used as the government’s de facto tax collection agency at the gas pump. In 2006, 93.2 percent of its profits were used for government programs, which means not enough is left for oil exploration and processing. Meanwhile, Mexico’s biggest source of oil, the Cantarell field, is in decline, PEMEX is in debt, and restrictive foreign investment laws prevent exploitation of that hard-to-get-to deep oil in the Gulf of Mexico. So PEMEX is in trouble, but reforming it would be contentious.
Therefore, Mexico’s leaders remain committed to keeping Mexicans moving north, which takes pressure off them to reform the economy. What a shame for Mexico and her people.
Allan Wall recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991.
TURN THE ENEMIES WEAPON AGAINST HIM
Call the “Senate Immigration Reform Hotline” at 1 800 417 7666
Press 1 for your senior senator, 2 for your junior senator.
This will connect you DIRECTLY to your senator without going through the congressional switchboard.
JAM THE LINES. LET THEM HEAR OUR ANGER AND FURY.
Mexicans working north of the border sent back US$23 billion.
I don’t give a rat’s behind whether this money is helping Mexico or not. It is $23 billion stolen from the American taxpayer.
Perhaps if a 200% tax was put on the money sent to Mexico, it would help.
While I don’t like illegal immigration or american currency being sent to a hostile nation I’ve seen those guys out there and they earn every cent of it.
I earn every cent of mine too.....legally. And I would rather keep it than pay for illegals healthcare, food stamps, housing, etc. so they can send all their money back to Mexico or wherever they are from.
I don’t disagree with you, but I do disagree with the idea that the money is stolen. Without them to do the heavy dirty labor nobody else would do, who would dish out french fries or bag groceries, or tile my roof?
Get ready for this - and that's ONLY Mexico.
utherdoul says: “ Without them to do the heavy dirty labor nobody else would do, who would dish out french fries or bag groceries, or tile my roof?”
Without them...we would not need to rebuild the infrastructure of what equals the population of 17 states! All those jobs get done in my area without illegal alliens. They barely produce enough to supply themselves!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1840655/posts
Do you realize if this AMNESTY happens we are in effect creating the equivilent of adding over 17 more states to this country? And that’s not even considering the chain migration that is in the Senate bill.
Please look at what giving amnesty to as many as 20,000,000 illegal alien foreign nationals actually represents. More than the population of 16 states and DC!
According to the 2000 census, 18,785,867 is the total populations combined of Wyoming, Dist. of Columbia, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico and Nevada.
THINK about that.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/population.shtml
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1840655/posts
Conversation with a Senator -What does AMNESTY look like?
“Without them to do the heavy dirty labor nobody else would do, who would dish out french fries or bag groceries, or tile my roof?”
My American citizen tax-payer kids “dish(ed) out french fries or bag(ged) groceries” to work their own way through college, and the illegal aliens who tiled your roof were very well paid...
BTW are you suggesting a slave race?
This is a myth.
An American? Novel concept, I know.
They sure as hell don’t earn the $90,000,000,000.00 it costs us annually in state and federal aid.
well maybe its different in other parts of the country (taxachusetts is where I am), around here nobody will take those jobs. A few American teenagers do, but without a large presence of migrant workers things would grind to a halt.
Because taxes and the cost of living are so high here we’ve got a divide between very rich retired folk, and migrant workers who do basic tasks. Reason being there isn’t enough native labor to get those things done at wages which can be paid. Without workers we’d be in a sore spot.
You know I actually have Americans that work for me. I have a LEGAL Basque immigrant from Spain for a gardener. I have a garden variety caucasian gal that cleans my house once a month. When we have trees trimmed. house painted, etc. I always tell every company that I call for a quote that if they hire illegals they will not work for me....and that I will find out and turn them in.
With a little effort it is quite easy to find Americans to do all those jobs.
I call BS. I am in an area inundated by illegals and I still find plenty of Americans to do the jobs I need done.
Anyone that does work, or has ever done work, on my home is an American.
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