Thread: Searching for greener pastures

http://www.alamogordonews.com/news/ci_5199647
Searching for greener pastures leads immigrants into perilous ground
Editor's note: The American Society of Newspaper Editors organized a fact-finding trip to Mexico from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2. Daily News Managing Editor Michael Becker was on that trip and has written a three-part series about the complicated relations betwee
Alamogordo Daily News
By Michael Becker, Managing Editor
Alamogordo Daily News
Article Launched:02/10/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Ask people in Mexico why so many of their countrymen leave for greener pastures, and several reasons will be given.

The country's drug trade has begun to spill into its own cities, driving up crime rates. The nature of Mexico's economy makes it hard to find good work. And then there's la impunidad impunity.

If an official is caught with his hand in the till, he's more likely to be promoted than punished. Getting anything done often requires a mordida (literally, a "bite") a bribe. Drug lords are arrested and then proceed to run their operations from jail. No one is held accountable.

Alejandro Junco, chief executive officer of Grupo Reforma, a Mexican newspaper chain, estimates 20 million Mexicans residing in the United States, legally and illegally. The reason, he says, is because Mexico is a "dysfunctional" society.

Following the rules can be a lengthy and ultimately frustrating process, Junco said. He noted he likes to hunt, and getting a hunting license can take as long as two months. Obtaining permits to set up a business, or seeking justice through the courts, can strain even the most patient of individuals.

He said Americans don't understand the level of frustration Mexicans must live with daily.

"You assume that your paradigms are true for the rest of the world," he said. "And, they're not."


Inequality abounds

Mariana Rangel, an immigration analyst based in Monterrey, noted 20 percent of Mexicans live in "food poverty," meaning they don't have enough to eat on a daily basis. Another 25 percent also have no access to good health or education services, she said, and another 50 percent live in "asset poverty" they don't own homes, land or have savings. Some 80 percent of the population earns an average of $600 a month, she said.

The country's economic disparities are rooted in its politics. For some 70 years, Mexico was essentially a one-party state ruled by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI for short.

Dan Lund, president of MUND Americas, a consulting firm in Mexico City, said the party and the government soon became so intertwined, it was hard to tell where one started and the other stopped. He noted that Latin American novelist Mario Vargas Llosa once called Mexico "the perfect dictatorship."

Part of the PRI's bargain with businesses was that it would protect their privileges while shielding them from competition. The result has been the creation of a small number of huge conglomerates that control wide swathes of Mexico's economy.

Mexican journalist Jorge Zepeda called Mexico one of the most inequal countries in the world, based on differences between rich and poor. He said 1 percent of the population controls 40 percent of the assets, while the poorest 10 percent have less than 1 percent of assets.

Due to this lack of competition, not only are good jobs scarce, but prices are exorbitant. Lund said Mexicans can expect to pay two to three times what Americans pay for building materials, telephone service, electricity even beer.

"This is a country of monopolies," he said.

The government and government-owned companies are just as adept at extracting huge prices and paying the handful at the top vast sums of money. Lund said justices on Mexico's top court earn three to four times more than a U.S. Supreme Court justice; Mexico's president earns more than George W. Bush, and Mexican congressmen are paid more than French parliamentary deputies.


Disappointing results

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed more than 10 years ago, Mexico had high hopes for it. The results so far, however, have been mixed.

Some export sectors have benefited. Other parts of Mexico's economy, such as the agriculture sector, have not.

Rangel, the immigration specialist, said NAFTA has only generated 300,000 new Mexican jobs a year, not the 1 million originally hoped for.

A glaring example of the negative impact was seen when the group this correspondent traveled with was in Mexico City. Mexican farmers were exercised about American corn imports. American corn farmers receive large subsidies; Mexican farmers do not.

The growing interest in ethanol prices has driven corn prices up 83 percent over the past 12 months on the Chicago Board of Trade; corn prices in Mexico have spiked 120 percent.

The price hikes filtered through into the cost of tortillas.

A poll published Feb. 2 by Reforma, a Mexico City daily, found 75 percent of low-income people polled said corn tortillas were their main staple; 38 percent of those polled with high incomes said the same.

The result on Feb. 1, an estimated 100,000 people marched on the presidential palace in Mexico City protesting the huge hike in tortilla prices, and there were demonstrations in 11 other cities.


Educational woes

Receiving a decent education is not a foregone conclusion in Mexico. Much of the blame is placed on the all-powerful teachers union. Such is the union's clout that it, not the government, decides who can and cannot be a school principal.

The result is an education system that performs dead-last among the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Even the country's private schools lag the rest of the world in terms of student performance.

"Education is not a system of meritocratic improvement," said Carlos Elizondo, a professor at Oxford University who is an adviser to Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

The same can be said of the economy. In Mexico, Elizondo said, who you know is far more important.

"This is an economy much more based on networks than merit," he said, adding that one Mexican poll found more than half the respondents said they got their current job based on who they knew.

In the state sector, a little bit of cash can also help. Elizondo said a poll of Mexican teachers revealed that 40 percent said they knew of cases where someone had paid a bribe to get a job.

The country's court system is more hindrance than help when it comes to improving the economy. Lund described Mexico's justice system as "pathetic." Elizondo said it often works at odds with government attempts to make the economy more efficient.

Big businesses are very good at mounting legal challenges to government attempts to regulate them and reduce their monopoly power, Elizondo said. They are also good at using the legal system to avoid paying taxes.

Companies can and do challenge just about every new regulation or tax decision. As a result, Mexico's supreme court "makes decisions on tax policy based on firms' ability to litigate."

Small firms can't afford to do this, and the court's rulings apply only to the company that challenges the government's action. Add to that the fact that the "rulings of the Supreme Court are completely inconsistent," Elizondo said, and the result is increased inefficiency. One of the reasons why there is little research and development spending by large Mexican companies is because it is cheaper to hire lawyers and seek tax and regulatory advantages in the courts.

As a result, productivity levels in both the public and private sectors are very low. Elizondo said Mexico's growth rate has, on average, lagged behind the United States' growth every year since 1990. The continued presence of state and private monopolies, and the lack of meritocracy in the job market means "this has been a society ` impermeable to competition," he said.

The net result is people can see no option but to leave.


The good and the bad

The bad news for Mexico is that it is the skilled and the middle class who head for the border. As Lund noted, the poorest of the poor don't even try to migrate because they can't afford it.

The good news for Mexico is that those who do leave send money home. Huge amounts of money.

On Feb. 2, El Financiero reported on a study done by Bendixen and Associates for the Multilateral Investment Fund on remittances to Mexico. The study found 4 million Mexican families, including 10 million adults, benefit from those remittances. The study also found that one-third of families who receive such remittances can be considered "middle class."

Much of the money is spent on food, education, making improvements to homes (in many cases replacing thatch with a concrete roof, or laying concrete over a dirt floor) and other necessities. Between 10 and 15 percent is saved, according to the study.

The amount sent back south is enormous the study estimates that by 2010, remittances to Mexico will total $50 billion.

Yet, while Mexico's economy needs the money, the resulting brain drain is doing the country no favors. U.S. officials in Mexico estimate that half the male population of the state of Zacatecas now works in the United States.

Donald Terry, manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund quoted by El Financiero, noted this should not be a point of pride; the numbers indicates the Mexican economy is not generating enough jobs.

Not all those who leave do so illegally. Tens of thousands have entered the United States through various guest worker programs. During World War II, Mexicans worked here through the bracero program, which ended in the 1950s. Now, some 60,000 Mexicans obtain H2 visas annually, according to figures from the U.S. embassy in Mexico.

The supply exceeds the demand on both ends. The consulate in Monterrey alone interviews 100 to 150 visa-seekers a day. And American companies request more workers than the number of visas approved.

The exodus is a point of ambiguity for Mexicans. For many years, those who left Mexico were branded by successive PRI governments as traitors. When Vicente Fox, of the Partido Accion Nacional, ended the PRI's lock on power in the mid-1990s, he chose to instead celebrate the country's emigrants as heroes.

Elizondo, the Oxford professor, has a different take. He calls it a "national shame."


On Sunday, Becker will address what American and Mexican officials believe both countries can to do to help address Mexico's problems.

There is no rule of law in Mexico, so let's go to the United States illegally, then demand an amnesty, and destroy the rule of law in the United States.

The most important thing we can do is NOT give any amnesty, pardon, or allow current illegals to become guest workers. Only by upholding the rule of law can we teach Mexico about the rule of law. If we talk about the rule of law, but then don't live by those words, we are hypocrites and teaching Mexico hypocrisy.

As I was reading about what Mexico is like, it seems that in the
last 4 years, the US is doing much of the same things.

So, it is Mexico's "middle class" who are the illegals coming to
the US--causing a brain drain. Excuse me. So, it is Mexico's
middle class who are the rude, takers in this country. These
are the "brainy" middle class who drop out of US free high schools, who
aren't learning English (because it is too hard).

I think the author lives in a bubble.

a three-part series about the complicated relations

Complicated? There is nothing complicated. Only to you and the rest of the OBL is it complicated.

Enforce the law. Deport law breakers. Enforce employment law with regards to illegals, cut off cash flow and secure the border. Not complicated!

Ditto everyone.

Originally Posted by CCUSA

Ditto everyone.

HEAR!!HEAR!!!!must agree!!