Johan Norberg writes,
But despite very real problems in Mexico, if you look at the statistics here and here, you see that since NAFTA, Mexico’s income per capita has increased by more than 50 percent, open unemployment has dropped from 4 to 3 percent, inequality has declined from a gini of almost 55 to about 50, child malnutrition has fallen from 17 to 7.5 percent, and infant mortality has dropped from more than 3.7 to 2.4 percent since 1990.
Since the crisis 1994-95 (Mexico has had one in every election cycle) progress has been much more rapid than after earlier crises. Between 1996 and 2002, extreme poverty declined from 37 percent to 20 percent, and unemployment was cut in half. Real GDP growth is expected to be 4 percent this year.
And yet all the bleeding hearts would prefer that we limit trade to protect the jobs and incomes of U.S. workers and then tax the snot out of them to increase our foreign aid to Mexico. Clearly, free trade is a very effective foreign aid programme.
Alfonso,
I was just at Josue’s site about CAFTA, I couldn’t find a thread here on it already, is there one? I want to read up on it more, do you have some sites you recommend? Let me know.
Tambien, tengo dos mas bloggers para Familia Conservativo.
oops,
No >, just W.NM.
Qvo,
Dos mas? Cuando acabo mis clases, conseguiré más en ése.
I haven’t blogged about it much, but I’d recommend this site, this site and this one too.
I liked this entry. Thanks. You’re schooling me, HP.
Here ya go dude,
Michael Calderon:
http://www.michaelcalderonscall.com/
and Josh Trevino is at Politics left to Right (he takes the right position):
http://www.chrisnolan.com/trevino/
I’m still digging! Hey, thanks for the links on CAFTA.
Gracias, I’ll check them out.