http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.a ... E_ID=51012

Thursday, July 13, 2006

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Why Mexico's a basket case

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Posted: July 13, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern



By Joseph Farah



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© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
If you ever traveled to Mexico from the United States on the ground, you were undoubtedly struck with one observation.

There is a dramatic difference between San Diego and Tijuana.

There is a dramatic difference between Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora.

There is a dramatic difference between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

In less than a mile, you can witness some of the starkest contrasts in quality of life, the environment, wealth and poverty, crime and housing. In these border towns, you can walk from the developed world into the Third World.

Have you ever wondered why?


Is it because the natural resources on one side of the border are so far superior to those on the other side?

Is it because people work harder on one side of the border?

Is it because people are smarter just north of the border?

More to the point, and of immediate concern to all Americans, why is the U.S. able to create millions of jobs every year while Mexico produces millions of refugees?

There are, to be sure, many answers to these questions. But there is one that stands out and explains better than any other the poverty and corruption that infect Mexico like a terminal illness.

In Mexico, according to Physicians for Civil Defense, only 6 percent of businesses are legal.

"To get a business legalized requires four years with no guarantee of the result," notes the May issue of Civil Defense Perspectives. "Without a way to enforce contracts legally, an enterprise cannot hope to rise above a subsistence level."

In other words, Mexico has a fundamentally different view of property than we do in the U.S. Ordinary people don't have property rights. The wealthy aristocracy protects its property with small armies. But the plots of peasants are constantly at risk because the government does not protect the poor from victimization and theft.

Of course, this is nothing new in Mexico. So, why in recent years have so many Mexicans fled their home country for the U.S.? Why is it today that roughly 10 percent of all Mexicans live in the U.S. – and roughly 15 percent of Mexico's workforce?

The North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to be a boon to both sides of the border. More openness, more cooperation, more traffic, more investment – they were all to lead to greater prosperity to the south.

It didn't happen. In fact, Mexican peasants found they were worse off. Imagine what it was like for the poor Mexican farmer, just eking out a living on his plot of land, suddenly competing with produce from American agribusiness. That's what happened post-NAFTA. Mexicans, indeed, had access to cheaper and better produce than their own farmers could grow and harvest.

So what happened to the Mexican farmers? They fled north to work for American agribusiness. They could no longer compete.

I don't know if it was part of a plan or not. But that is the reality of what happened. Most Mexicans involved with raising crops were forced out of business as a result of "free trade." Family farmers had to abandon their land and go to work as farmhands in the U.S.

Despite the obvious disaster, President Bush and his globalist friends continue to promote more NAFTA-like solutions to the crises they have created.

Mexico doesn't need more foreign aid. It doesn't need an escape valve for its excess population. It doesn't need more Yankee investment. And it certainly doesn't need more of the exploitation it has seen through the con games of globalism.

What Mexico needs is the rule of law.

Mexico has a hard-working population. It has lots of natural resources.

To create wealth with a working market economy, Mexico needs to protect private property and stop stifling entrepreneurship.