[Doogle]

...because the US and other free nations keep giving big time cash to tin pot dictators.


Doogle

[vetsvette]

"Why are they here at all?"

A one word answer that is certain to exceed that average liberal's intellectual capacity to comprehend -- SOCIALISM

[edcoil]

Foreign aid. The worst ideas since big government

[Jaysun]

You know, of course, that the liberal answer to this question is that America "oppresses" the rest of the world to gain our wealth. They assert this without ever explaining their reasoning or providing a single shred of evidence. It's one of the tenants of their faith, and the biggest reason they feel compelled to bring us down.

Reading the rest of the article........

[Solamente]

Swiss Bank Accounts. That's why.

[cripplecreek]

What exactly is wrong in Mexico?

Corruption that isn't the exception, it's the norm. One of the presidential candidates is the 3rd richest man in the world. He wants Americans to invest in Mexico so he can make even more money and the peasant class can all come here to send even more money back.

[Buffettfan]

Because mexico is a corrupt filthy sh$thole and nobody wants to live there thats why.

[Fiji Hill]

Taxco, Mexico is a picturesque town with a pleasant climate. One would think that its residents would consider themselves lucky to live in such a place.

However, on a visit there in 1989, I went away from the tourist areas and walked into a disco where the locals hang out. It was full of young people in their teens and 20's. Most, if not all, of those with whom I talked told me that they were planning to come to the US, because there were simply no jobs in Taxco.

[A CA Guy]

The United States for the most part have control of the criminal element and we are not a theocracy.

Theocracies don't run well in general and places like Mexico suffer their drug lords being in control of the government and country.
Kill lots of drug lords and things will turn for the better IMO.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

Another important feature of successful market eccomomic and legal systems is that they have institutionalized policies to deal with failure and liability – for example bankruptcy statutes that remove or limit the obligation to repay debt once it becomes impossible to do so, and shifts a good part of risk to investors and creditors. Otherwise failure (the eventual outcome of virtually all business efforts if one looks at a long enough time span) allows individuals, families and larger economic associations to become burdened with unplayable debts, and raises the risk of economic initiative to the point where it stifles risk-taking and innovation.

[ncountylee]

as Reagan said:

"Government is not the answer, government is the problem"

In many countries, government only aids and protects the elite class. Hell, we see a bit of this in our country.

[sageb1]

I think what he's saying is that Mexicans are coming not so much for jobs, but for the chance to own something where there is a piece of paper that says they own it, and that because of that piece of paper, they don't have to spend all their time worrying about protecting what they own.

If Mexico were to begin a path to formal, legal property rights, and then enforce it, Mexicans would be perfectly happy to stay in Mexico.

[Texas Eagle]

There are said to be 11 million illegals in the country. .... Why are they here at all? Most of them come across the Mexican border.

What's especially perplexing is the fact that we were told that NAFTA was going to result in all the jobs going to Mexico. Whatever happened to that?

We're told these people only come here to work. But if all the jobs are in Mexico that must mean they are here for something other than work.

Could it be the government handouts that are attracting these people?

[Thebaddog]

Remember the Bell curve in school? Somebody somewhere is at the wrong side of the bell. You can look it up. Those poor slobs anchor down the development dilemma.

[TexanToTheCore]

If I remember correctly, 60 families own 40% of the economic output of Mexico.

Most 3rd world countries are ruled by oligarchies and one of the head guy's most important functions is to hand out state sanctioned monopolies to his buds.

Mexico could be rich, but it needs more avenues of wealth creation. Until that happens, nothing will change.

[Caipirabob]

Because, in short, despite some wonderful places and outstanding people who live outside of our dear United States, there is a disproportionate quantity of absolute morons who fill out the rest of the planet.

[alloysteel]

Oh, the Mexicans that are fleeing their country can find jobs in Mexico, if they are willing to live at somewhat lower level than a freed slave turned sharecropper in Mississippi in 1920.

There is an intense internal racial prejudice within Mexico, in which the descendents of the "hildago" class, the most European of the Mexicans, have always retained their position as the (mostly) unelected ruling clique, while the indentured servant class, the "mixed" Mexicans, and relatively unintegrated Indians have always been the underclass. The ruling clique has title to most of the land in Mexico, and have maintained a legal system that preserved the status quo since about the time the Hapsburgs were kicked out of Mexico. There have been various peasant revolutions, but always, the ruling clique eventually reasserts control.

Time for the US to invade Mexico and give them at least as modern a constitution as has been drawn up in Iraq. Or maybe the US could simply annex the entire country and give all Mexicans the same status as Puerto Ricans.

[The Cuban]

The legal infrastructure in developed countries is "the hidden architecture of capitalism," de Soto says.

Used to exist in Cuba. Oh well.

[DC Bound]

Excellent article; thanks for posting. It brings to mind John Locke's contribution to our coutry's foundation. Property is imperative. The corollary, of course, is that until a culture is wise enough to conceive of government as an entity that is subject to the will of men, they will not be capable of establishing property rights within that government. Property rights are tangled up with freedom, equality before the law, etc... and most important, individualism. We have those things here, enshrined in our founding document, and protected by a red-blooded culture. That is why the U.S. is the greatest nation that has ever existed, any way you want to measure it.

And the corollary to that is why the illigal immigration problem is so important. The cultural threat posed by waves of millions of people who seek to get something from government, rather than demand a small government that is limited in power, is the threat we need to have our eye on. We already have enough leftists in this country, gumming up the works. We must protect our culture. Individualism, not pluralism.

[RightWhale]

The secret is that America was constituted to promote commerce.