[Cincinatus' Wife]

You can't please all the people all of the time.

[El Gato]

We're losing our Mexican identity and instead absorbing the values of North Americans

Strictly speaking, Mexicans *are* North Americans. Central America starts at Mexico's southern border and ends at Colombia's border with Panama.

[El Gato]

But he lives in a cement hovel.

Which better than the tin and straw hovel he'd be in if still in Oaxaca. He said he tried to find a factory job, but no one would hire him because he has only a few years of schooling.

And whose fault is that? AFAIK, Mexico has free public schooling, (although it's pretty bad in some places, since it's teachers are often relatives of political types not really qualified for the job, or any other for that matter) and it's theoreticaly mandatory for more than "a few years".

[driftless]

So true. Free trade and lot of local enterprise by the people are creating wealth for everybody. So you'd think everyone would be happy, right? Well not so. There will always be the requsite socialists who will carp about the monetary disparities....in other words, everyone should have the same amount of money or else it's a rotten capitalist tragedy. In short, to them it's much better if everyone lives in unimaginable squalor. At least it's egalitarian.

[RippleFire]

UN_List: for United Nations articles. 

Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register

Don't forget:

• UN International Conference on Financing
  for Development in Monterrey, March 18-22

• 2nd World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid,
   April 8-12

• Special Session on Children in NYC, May 8-10

• World Food Summit in Rome, June 10-13

• World Summit on Sustainable Development
  in Johannesburg, Aug. 26 - Sept. 4

[Willie Green]

With more millionaires per capita than any other area in Mexico...
the urban minimum wage is $4 a day -

Kinda sez it all.

The PRI is very successful at maintaining a two-tiered socio-economic structure.

[FITZ]

I only saw Monterrey once and it was at night ---but I've heard it's the most advanced city in Mexico. It shows the right way ---bring American type businesses and American culture into Mexico. They are so worried about keeping the border open for Mexicans to come shop in the US ---but it seems to me a lot better if they'd put the Walmarts and McDonalds on their own side ---then they wouldn't have to wait in line at the border, there'd be a lot less traffic and driving, they'd have nicer jobs that could pay better. Even if they didn't get US salaries like they do by working in a US Walmart, they could get close ---and have lower prices.

[doc]

I've been to Monterey and if they are trying to convince us that this city is like an American city, BS. However, after Bush's amnesty program this article could be considered quite "progressive".

[antidemocommie]

"Monterrey is playing host to the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, an unprecedented world summit on how to combat poverty and redistribute wealth around the globe. Fifty-two heads of state are expected to attend, including President Bush and Cuban President Fidel Castro. "

Let me see,,.....Can you say NEW WORLD ORDER??? Oh, we better be quiet! We might get labeled like the anti-globalization crowd has been! Shhhh! Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil!

[Justa]

Monterrey, Mexico Government building.

Hmmm, now what does this remind you of?

[varon]

With more millionaires per capita than any other area in Mexico, the Monterrey metropolitan area of some 3 million people boasts the highest standard of living in Mexico. ……/……. Mercedes and BMWs zoom to strip malls and supermarkets. Many residents spend weekends at beach homes on Padre Island off the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and have adopted English words like "shopping."

We're losing our Mexican identity and instead absorbing the values of North Americans, which are well, consumerism, yes, consumerism and that's about it."

OK now, let me get this straight, Jose. Your fellow countrymen ( 11 million +) break our laws by sneaking in across our borders in the middle of the night to, supposedly, have a chance at a better way of life. Yet it is this better way of life that you condemn when it exists in your own country. What gives?

You bitch about North American values of consumerism as being bad, if so why are so many of you over here trying to gobble it up as if there’s no tomorrow?

You say you are losing your Mexican identity based on prosperity so you should understand how we feel about losing our identity from hordes of illiterate illegals that do not speak our language, put a financial drain on our education systems, medical facilities and all municipal services and turn our neighborhoods into barrios with the God-awful murals on the side of every building in sight.

Tell you what Jose, you get your 11 million + brethren to hightail it back across the border and I’ll gladly write a letter to McDonalds asking them to change the name of their Mexican franchises to McPedros so as not to rob you of your identity. Deal?

[RnMomof7]

I was in Monterrey a year ago...Boy they must have done some miracles since I left.......Oh see I was there on a Mission Trip. I got to see the underbelly of the beast...14 people living in a two room cinder block house.No telephone lines..dirt streets..(and this was a "middle class" neighborhood)

See the Volkswagon cabs running along side the horse and carts on paved highways..

Monterrey is a city full of warm and wonderful people..but a model I thnk not..

On second thought it may be what the US will look like in the One World Bush Order)

[Pagey]

"I met a family who bought 20 or 30 stuffed animals because they were in fashion, but they lived in a shack".

Well,those people,as parents,need to learn more discipline.I went w/ out alot growing up (though I didn't know that then)and we were middle class-I didn't have to have the latest 'anything' but I had what I needed,and that's what mattered.Hearing the word 'No, not right now' was something I naturally accepted and coming to understand later,that it was a 'Struggle' to BE middle class (which I didn't comprehend then)has made me value,EVEN MORE,everything I've earned so far in my life.Just because things are there, doesn't mean you HAVE to HAVE them.So,I have very little sympathy for the '20 stuffed animal' comment.It was a good attempt though.

[mafree]

Pinging some FR economic experts!

I have a question- Assuming this article is an accurate portrayal of Monterrey, is it possible to get all of Mexico to be this way or not? (If so, that would seem, to me, to be a way to stem the northward immigration flow)