This morning I went to one of those department-wide meetings at work that everybody hates to go to but everybody has to go to. It was all it promised to be, which meant I got in a little nap time (no, I don't snore).
But when I was awake, one of the speakers said that Mexico has the world's tenth largest economy.
Excuse me? If their economy is that great, why on earth do so many of their people come streaming across the border into our country? If their economy is that great, why on earth does the Mexican government itself encourage its citizens to come here?
Is their economy that great because it includes all the money that their citizens send back home from the US?
Or, does their economy's greatness fail to reflect the fact that about 80% of the wealth is in the hands of about a dozen families?
Economic numbers don't give the total picture, and the total picture is one that includes corruption and the exploitation or abandonment of the country's citizens. It's going to take a lot to get Mexico to change, because the people with the power to change things have no incentive at all to do so.
2 comments:
WELL EXUSE ME! BUT I AM MEXICAN AND I LIVE IN MEXICO , AND MY NATION IS DOING WAY BETTER THAN ANY OTHER NATION IN LATIN AMERICA , MEXICO DOES HAVE THE LARGEST ECONOMY IN LATIN AMERICA , AND MORE THAN HALF OF US MEXICANS ARE MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE AND OUR GOVERNMENT DOES NOT ENCOURGE OUR PEOPLE TO FLOCK ACROSS THE BORDER , I AM ONE OF MILLONS OF MEXICANS WHO ARE MIDDLE CALSS , AND YOU KNOW , MOST ILEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE FROM CENTRAL AMERICA , OUT OF A GROUP OF 20 JUST LIKE 4 WILL BE MEXICAN , AND OF COURSE THEIR IS POVERTY IN MY COUNTRY , THERE IS POVERTY EVERY WHERE EVEN IN THE U.S.A AND OUR PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE LIVING UNDER THE POVERTY LINE IN THE U.S.A AND MEXICO ARE NOT VERY FAR APART , IN MEXICO LIKE ABOUT 20 PERCENT LIVES UNDER THE POVERTY LINE OUT OF LIKE 100 MILLON PEOPLE , AND IN THE U.S.A LIKE ABOUT 13 PERCENT OF PEOPLE LIVE UNDER THE POVERTY LINE , SO THOSE NUMBERS ARE NOT VERY FAR APART .
Anonymous,
I have a little trouble believing that only 4 out of 20 illegal aliens in the USA are from Mexico. The immigration protests last month and this month had countless Mexican flags waved and relatively few flags of countries from farther south.
Your government does encourage its citizens to cross the border, even to the point of making booklets to tell people how to safely make it across the border.
Yes, we have poverty and you have poverty, but where the poverty line is drawn differs between our two countries. In the US, our poor live in real buildings, while Tijuana is riddled with areas where the living conditions are appalling, even to America's poor people.
Vicente Fox has been pressuring George W Bush for years to allow a free flow of Mexicans across the border, to give Mexicans Social Security benefits, and more. But at the same time, he keeps tight control on Mexico's southern border.
Your country has amazing natural resources, but for some reason your government hasn't figured out how to use them to strenghten your country so your citizens will want to stay at home.
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