“I pointed out that the Mexican economy suffers from a lack of rule of law, corruption, pervasive crime, poor provision of public goods, shaky governance, limited economic freedom (although with very high trade openness), and has a dominant culture that rewards evading the system. Many of Mexico’s problems are long term: It doesn’t help that Mexico has had intermittent socialist tirades, during which private wealth — e.g. land, natural resources — is confiscated without regard to the impact on long-term economic welfare or growth. It didn’t help that the Mexican government borrowed (and foreigners lent it) tremendous sums of money that it could not repay. It doesn’t help that property in land is not secure and not easily mortgageable. In short, a big chunk of the needed improvement for a solid Mexican economy is outside of the influence or direct control of the American government”. –Kevin Brancato, Economic Ph.D. student at George Mason University, writing in the Truck And Barter blog
Mostly just wanted to show-off the gravatar (finally got approved).
But I intrigued by the problems facing the Mexican economy. A few years ago my wife & I visited her cousin in D.F. Her husband was working at Serfin at the time. I was shocked to hear that the majority of the top companies - banks, gas, industry, etc. - were all foreign-owned. At the same time, many top-500 wealthiest people in the world live in Mexico, a lot in Guadalajara. Go figure.
I’m not sure what the solution is (your pet peeve), but it does seem problematic to have a national economy so dependant on and so dominated by foreign companies - regardless of the short-term impact on jobs. On some level, the gov’t or the banks should offer incentives for more in-house economic development. Brancato is correct in identifying Mexico’s economic problem’s as being long-term.
…and anti-immigration people wonder why half the country lives in the U.S…