Mexican Economy is Booming
The Contra Costa Times has a good story about the little-noticed fact that the Mexican economy is booming.
Lost in all the publicity about the rising tide of poor Mexican workers besieging the U.S. border in search of better-paying jobs is one fact: From Tijuana on the border with California to Merida in the Yucatan peninsula, oil-rich Mexico is booming. Inflation remains low, economic growth is steady, and salaries are rising. The Mexican government has more than $76 billion in foreign-currency reserves, the most in its history.
Mexico’s annual per-capita income has more than doubled in the past decade, to more than $7,000, the highest in Latin America. The inflation rate is less than 3.5 percent per year, lower than the United States’.
All of these are positive trends. Those people who are concerned about Mexican immigration into the U.S. (for the record, I’m not concerned at all) should particularly stand up and take notice at this news. After all, the better the Mexican economy is, the less likely it is that the desperate will try to jump the border in order to build a better life.
I’ll gladly stand up and cheer — just as soon as illegal immigration slows down to a trickle.
Until then, these economic figures are only that — figures.