


Senator is concerned that the plants would damage wildlife












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RE: Watermelon
By Solandri on 12/23/2009 1:19:11 AM , Rating: 2
If you cared to think about human need, you would understand that borders do not mean much to people who are in desperate need of employment in order to survive.

You're focusing on the symptom, not the problem. The real problem is corruption in the Mexican government. They country is pretty rich, with oil reserves that rank it #11 in the world, and it has a per capita GDP of ~$14,000 (PPP). But the high level of corruption has concentrated the money and power in a small fraction of the population. It has a rather high Gini coefficient of close to 50. Most Western countries, including Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, are in the 20s or 30s. The U.S. is around 45, but that's offset by its $47,000 per capita GDP - even the poor people are relatively wealthy.

In addition, with regard to Mexico, international trade agreements (predominantly NAFTA), have uprooted millions of subsistence farmers in mid to southern Mexico, who have since migrated to where jobs exist, which happen to be in the US.

Eh? That's a new one. All the complaints I've heard about NAFTA so far were that it sent U.S. jobs to Mexico. Not vice versa.

Accepting immigrants from Mexico with open arms may temporarily ease the symptom, but it worsens the problem. The real solution is for the Mexican government to get its act cleaned up. And ultimately that sort of domestic issue needs to be solved domestically - by discontent Mexican citizens standing up for their rights and demanding change. Simply giving discontent Mexican citizens easier access to U.S. citizenship actually hurts that goal.

The point of open trade agreements like NAFTA is to provide an economic stimulus, increasing the standard of living in countries like Mexico and China. A subsistence farmer making $100 a year is not going to wield much clout with his government. But turn him into a middle-class worker earning $10,000 a year and suddenly things change.

RE: Watermelon
By ImJustSaying on 12/23/2009 7:22:39 PM , Rating: 2
NAFTA allowed multinational agricultural companies full access to Mexican agricultural land. These corporations then either purchased or took the land that the subsistence farmers were renting/living on, and concentrated farming. Sure, they streamlined farming processes and increased efficiency and food output, which has its own merit and value, however, they helped displace millions of people that had to go somewhere for work. That's my point; the displacement of families has contributed to the massive influx of Mexican immigrants, legally and illegally, to the US.

The issue of corruption is yet another problem that exacerbates the general poverty and disfunction of Mexico's government and populace.

We don't seem to disagree, really.

