mysteryman wrote:Hey DTOM,
Good to see ya!!!
I understand what Calderon is saying,and it troubles me a little bit.
To hear that he thinks the US should invest in Mexico to keep Mexican citizens there surprises me.
He seems to be saying that the US should fix Mexico's economy,and I gotta ask when did that become our job?
Also,wouldnt we then be accused of meddling or interfering in another countries internal affairs?
Assuming we go along with Calderons plan,would the US firms that invest in Mexico be allowed to have US citizens running the Mexican operations?
Would those companies be allowed to control how their money is spent,and by whom?
There are to many questions to be answered.
i see what ya mean. however, it would be worthwhile, i think, both socially and politically to help mexico out a bit more.
why?
socially, i really just don't see that it's good for either mexico or the u.s. to have the massive migration of nationals bailing out in such a relatively short period of time. there's been a lot of discussion so far about the effect of what amounts to "dumping" cheap labor on the native born and naturalized american worker (which despite what some say, has had a negative impact on wages. and not just at the bottom.), but like i mentioned, some areas of mexico (and other latin american countries) are really getting dinged by the loss of workers, unskilled and professional alike.
i can't remember when you said you left california, but it's pretty apparent to me in discussions i have with most of the mexicans (and others) that other than the better wages here, they'd rather be home in mexico if they had their druthers. sounds natural to me.
so it seems like the best way to satisfy the needs of both of our countries is to give calderon (seemingly the first non-socialist type mexican presidente) some help transforming what is an otherwise perfectly viable country from a struggling former empire holding to a 21st century nation.
unlike that
other place we won't mention, mexico has a genuine unique national identity.
as far as whether or not investing branches of american companies would be run solely by americans there, i couldn't say. but it would probably be of a better purpose to recruit successful mexicans to perform most of the managerial and administrative with tight oversight by folks from the "home office" for a while to get them trained up. then hold the locals accountable for performance and profitability. a couple of corporations that i've had to deal with followed that model to pretty good results, although they are not "mega-corps".
that might also be helpful in avoiding accusations of meddling by yankee imperialists.
politically, leftist or socialist or communist (or whatever) types like chavez are gaining popularity again down south.
and what do they always use as a sales pitch ? "those bastard americans are down here screwing us again!" it keeps working too, because nearly all of the aid that gets sent down there winds up going into the war on drugs.
for a lot of people in poor countries, the only way to get by is some degree of invilvement in drug cultivation or distribution. if we do send down the cia, military detachments and contractors to irradicate drug crops without making a realistic determination of what types of new crops the same locals can be involved in and thrive, seeing that they can make a better and honest living, then all those folks will see id that we simply took away their livelyhood. i guess that's piss me off a little too.
so when some guy shows up with his rhetoric, he has a captive audience. it costs him little to spread a little cash with the local bigshots (which is all they care about anyway. little pond, big fish) and even less to toss out some frijoles and tortillas to the others. and viola, he's an instant hero. now
he's the one that gets to exploit them.
too me, that's why south america keeps having false starts.
we (and other countries) have been just enough to get the door open and then taking off. that's still a lot of money, but frankly i rather see the money that we've given to a lot of other countries do some good closer to home.
sorry if this is a little disjointed, but i'm on a tight schedule tonight (ms. dtom has a honey-do list for me..
).
any thoughts ?
