Mexico’s Coming Collapse

The National Anxiety Center ^ | June 2005 | By Alan Caruba

[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.

[smith288]

Mexico is THE most parasitic country in the world.

[manic4organic]

We're gonna need a bigger wall.

[evad]

:) 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?

LOL..
I'm trying to picture this 55 year old loser touring the countryside looking for honest work in his Mercedes with a "Will Work for 100 Grand" sign on the top.

Guess I'm just too cynical...I just don't find it believable.

[starbase]

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.

These are statements of fact, however, the presence of the illegal labor is what drives down what "the market is paying for the services he is able to provide". Saying someone refuses to take a low paying job AFTER illegal labor has lowered its value artificially is rather blaming the victim, isn't it?

[snap54]

It would be 31 new provinces like Puerto Rico. We need to take over all the way to the Panama Canal. No voting rights in congress or national elections, but required to implement minumum wage protection. We get their oil and create an alternative to dealing with OPEC. With this aim, it is a war that I would support. American empirialism has a place, when it promotes the ultimate safety and security of its citizens.

[kindred]

[Pure BS our government is taking steps to INCREASE the Globalization (nafta, cafta) the plan is plain to anyone who looks at the facts: Our Government means to internationalize our laws and form a EU type government with Canada and Mexico..we have lost the right to property (KELO) and have no borders with our mexican and canandian partners..the fall of the Nation called America is very very near..the rule of un elected elites looms larger and larger.]

I believe this also. We are seeing the one world order preceeding the coming of the 'wicked one' and his 7 year rule before the 2nd coming of the anointed one, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

[dljordan]

" B.S. - With 5% unemployment, those that want to work, can work!"

You are aware that the government no longer counts people whose unemployment insurance has run out? That way the unemployment figures look much better for whatever administration is in office.

[TXBSAFH]

Build the wall and station troops. Let it collapse.

[norton]

The only problem with your logic:
"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."

Is that the abundancy of illegals working in many skilled and unskilled trades holds the wage down for anyone else.
It's often possible only because of pooled resources (and overcrowded apartments) which are not a part of typical American social organization.

Holding down those wages, by the way, also leaves a huge gap between entry level and that first step up the wage scale.
It has also cut off things like basic construction, many types of repair, and clerking, which were mainstays of the non-college educated wage earner.

It's interesting to see that the same unions that once drove wages upward to create a semi-skilled middle class are now embracing illegals to increase their numbers.

[norton]

That said, I also find the idea of an email from someone tramping 'round the nation looking for work a bit of a stretch.

[meadsjn]

I also find the idea of an email from someone tramping 'round the nation looking for work a bit of a stretch.

It's not a stretch. Jobseekers access their email and the internet from Job Service Centers, libraries, internet cafes, Kinko's, and a multitude of other access points.

[deport]

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."

---

I'd have to guess the 'non Mexican' hasn't been to any of the states along the Gulf Coast from Houston to Florida... especially in the area 100 miles or so inland. If the 'non Mexican' has then there is something else wrong with him other than being 'non Mexican'.

[Lazamataz]

Mexico’s Coming Collapse

That's because everyone in Mexico will have finally moved to America.

[Lazamataz]

Half the population of Mexico is already there and we can drill in Mexico.

I sure did. It was in Tijuana and her name was Carlita.

*sigh* (smile)

[son of caesar]

if you want a real war, just keep talking about annexing mexico as a new set of states to the usa. anyone with an iq above 3 knows that mexicans love their mexico ten times as much as americans love america in general.

[hinckley buzzard]

Notwithstanding the author's attitude, it does make sense to look at the macroeconomics of Mexico in the current environment. Somewhere back about twenty years ago we had to bail out the peso to prevent the collapse of Mexico, and it seems nothing much has changed down there except for a growth in exports to the US. If the US economy cools and even hits a downturn this year, Mexico could well go into a crisis situation. Their population growth has been horrific, and despite oil wealth, their abortion of a government has done little or nothing to develop the country. If Mexico has an economic meltdown we may need more than a border wall to protect ourselves.

[ßuddaßudd]

Prophetic words.

[TheOracleAtLilac]

Is that a DUNG BEETLE ?

[Red Badger]

I first made that prediction in 1991 to some friends at work. I predicted that the Mexican economy would collapse and their only recourse would be to apply for admission to the United States as a new state or states. When the bailout of the mid 90's came I thought it would happen then, but didn't. It will repeat itself...............

[TheOracleAtLilac]

I heard she was monikered the homophone of Consuelo !