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Quote by: rmnunez  Though the Mexican government could certainly do more to promote conditions fostering employment, governments in general don't control their economies which tend to improve and generate jobs or not based on market trends and business cycles. |
"Bryan R. Roberts and Agustin Escobar Latapi examine Mexican socioeconomic policies and conditions as potential factors in Mexican emigration, which, according to most analyses, rose to unprecedented levels in the 1980s and 1990s (in absolute numbers). They conclude that the most significant of these has been the failure of Mexico's cities to accommodate the large numbers of Mexican migrants. They stress that Mexico's education, health, and infrastructure policies and conditions were not factors in Mexican emigration: there was no substantial deterioration in social welfare throughout the country in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the student-teacher ratio improved, and illiteracy among those 15 and older dropped between 1980 and 1990. Life expectancy rose in many areas, and the percentage of Mexicans living in homes without running water dropped in that same decade. Despite the country's economic problems in the last two decades, real income levels rose in some areas, leading the authors to conclude that this did not act as a significant push factor. Mexico's rural areas saw few of the improvements mentioned above, however, and that fact, combined with federal policies designed to adjust and restructure economic activities, put pressure on Mexico's cities, which proved unable to support the number of migrants that poured into them. The resulting income inequality, unemployment, poor housing conditions, high local taxes, and limited opportunities for increased income, especially in border cities, led to the rise in Mexican emigration. Mexican social policy should, therefore, make its first concern the improvement of conditions in the country's growing cities. Roberts and Latapi's conclusions contradict the 1980s literature which stressed the impact of Mexico's agricultural crisis on emigration. Their ultimate recommendation that the Mexican government address the "ability of the urban system to absorb Mexico's working population and provide it with long term security" (p. 71) ignores the root of that urban crisis: the fact that Mexicans in rural areas have no recourse except to go to the cities.
The Mexican government has reversed its policy of intensive participation in the agricultural sector in recent years, ending or revising its subsidy programs and dissolving some of the organizations and institutions that have supported Mexican farmers. Further, it has brought about tremendous changes in land tenure and has reduced protective tariffs. Mexican farm output has declined from a high of 6.6 percent average annual growth in the 1950s and 1960s to only .33 percent annually in the 1980s and '90s. Today agriculture is in crisis, a factor that will likely drive many in rural Mexico to seek a livelihood elsewhere. Many of them will relocate, at least temporarily, in the U.S."
H-Net Review: Elaine C. Lacy <elalacy@vm.sc.edu> on At the Crossroads: Mexico Migration and U.S. Immigration Policy
Seems clear to me that the Mexican government is actively promoting migration of the poorest and least useful of it's citizens. The costs of social programs to support these people would be enormous, therefore, it's in the governments interests to dump those costs of gullible American taxpayers.
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Quote by: Keith Hamburger Perhaps one option would be to remove restrictions on foreign investment in Mexico. |
"In a series of papers, Shang-Jin Wei, formerly of the Kennedy School at Harvard and now with the IMF, explored the economic effect of corruption. Contrary to the notion that corruption is a relatively minor cost of doing business, Wei found that corruption has a stifling effect on foreign investment and economic growth.
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Wei found that reducing the level of corruption from the Mexican level to that in Singapore would have the same effect on foreign investment as reducing the tax on capital income by 50 percentage points. In other words, corruption reduces foreign investment as much as a tax that takes half of net income!"
Greasing Palms: Corruption in Mexico by Bernard Wasow - The Globalist > > Global Economy
Corruption is endemic in Mexico. Until the Mexicans themselves clean up their country foreign investment will be limited to those enterprises able to afford the bribes required to do business.