Mexico
Pew reports that most Mexicans see life in the US as better than that in Mexico, and 33% of Mexicans would like to come to the US. Some 18% would do so even if it were illegal.
They identify these issues as “very big” problems in Mexico:
- crime — 81%
- the economy — 75%
- illegal drugs — 73%
- corruption — 68%
That is a lot of people interested in a life in the United States, given that Mexico has a population of 111 million, of whom 68 million are over 19.
- 33% = 22 million adults
- 18% = 12 million adults
The poll was of adults over 18 generally, while likely immigrants would be concentrated among young adults, but they would tend to create chain migration that can bring in children and older people.
(Image copyright FutureAtlas.com — usable with attribution and link)
Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New World Order, offers some tips for a new US president in the October issue of Wired, in an article by Daniel Pink.
- The United States can avoid decline by “tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a ‘diplomatic-industrial complex.’”
- The US should create “an energy partnership with Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil,” reducing dependence on oil from the Middle East.
- The US should treat Mexico as the EU does Turkey, “integrating, elevating, and partnering with it.”
- Egypt is “ripe for revolt. We should make friends quickly with other power centers in the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood.”
- The US should offer Iranians a deal: oust President Ahmadinejad, and they will get “everything they want in terms of of Western investment in energy, freer trade, diplomatic recognition, and increased cultural and student exchanges.”
- Uzbekistan merits attention, as the most populous and industrialized country in Central Asia, and the only state that shares borders with all the other “stans.”
- “India will never rival China . . . It’s not a superpower.”
- China’s rise will not be hindered by “demands for such niceties as transparency or free expression,” as “the Chinese people have a preference for stability over another revolution.”
- Russia has more problems than potential: it is “in demographic free fall” and “Chinese immigration is blurring the border.”
A recent report by the US Government Accountability Office suggests why devolution into a narcostate controlled by drug lords must be counted among the possible scenarios for Mexico’s future.
As reported in the Washington Post:
- Mexico is now the principal conduit for drugs into the US.
- Mexican drug cartels now “bring in as much as $23 billion a year in revenue.”
- “Mexican drug cartels generate more revenue than at least 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. government’s highest estimate of cartel revenue tops that of Merck, Deere and Halliburton.”
- “A climate of ‘impunity’” enables the cartels to prosper.
- In some Mexican states cartels are so influential that the government rarely attempts counter-narcotics action there.
Still, the government is not pervasively compromised: it continues to extradite major traffickers to the US, and nearly a 1,000 federal law enforcement officers have been fired since 2000. Overall, the chance of a full-fledged takeover appears low.
Examining a map of the regional split in the Mexican election results, Investor’s Business Daily applies American political analogies: the “red,” sunbelt north of Mexico voting for the conservative PAN party, and the “blue” south going for the leftist PRD.
The analogy is flimsy, however, due to “dyschronicity”: Mexico and the US live in wholly different eras, and no elements of their politics line up neatly beside each other.
The PAN may be conservative, but in the Mexican context that means that they are modernizing, outward-looking, and one sense progressive: they are trying to achieve a functioning modern state in which capitalism can operate. Success would mean making Mexico more like the early 20th century United States: Mexican conservatives can only dream of their country being as capitalist, individualist, and libertarian as “blue America.”
The Mexican south is much farther removed from any American experience, resembling blue America not at all, and red America only by loose analogy, in that both are the traditional, religious, and inward-looking parts of their countries. The dyschronicity with the US is acute: the peasant and indigenous culture that dominate the Mexican south has never existed in the United States, and most Americans’ ancestors have not lived in similar circumstances for 300-500 years. Chiapas resembles Bolivia more than it does Massachusetts.
In short, the Rio Grande is too broad for some analogies to make it across.
[via Social Technologies]
The Boston Consulting Group has released a report on 100 emerging-market companies with global competetive potential, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Firms from China (44 companies), India (21), Brazil, and Russia constitute most of the group, with Mexico also making a good showing.
Companies like these will be the shock troops for the redistribution of global economic power. In the process, they will transform their home countries’ global roles and interests.
An emerging market expert points out that the developed world may balk at the process:
“The whole pace of globalisation may have to slow or it could set off a wave of protectionism. So far the West has mostly been losing jobs at the low end, and the process has been mutually beneficial. There is now a big risk of losing jobs at the high end too now that China and India are moving move swiftly up the ladder, as we have already seen in software. This means that incomes in the West may have to adjust downwards, and the workforce is not going to tolerate this.”
[Via Social Technologies; image: Social Technologies]
The Economist Intelligence Unit released its 2006 e-readiness rankings yesterday. The index is a measure of a country’s readiness for e-business, judged by Internet access, broadband penetration, innovation, information security, and other factors. More telling than the ranking is the country’s distance from a score of 10.
The ratings are a good indicator of general abilities in IT, and thus an important component of present and future competitiveness.
The top countries
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
1. Denmark — 9.00 (1)
2. US — 8.88 (2)
3. Switzerland — 8.81 (4)
4. Sweden — 8.74 (3)
5. UK — 8.64 (5)
6. Netherlands — 8.60 (8)
7. Finland — 8.55 (6)
8. Australia — 8.50 (10)
9. Canada — 8.37 (12)
10. Hong Kong — 8.36 (6)
11. Norway — 8.35 (9)
12. Germany — 8.34 (12)
13. Singapore — 8.24 (11)
14. New Zealand — 8.19 (16)
14. Austria — 8.19 (14)
16. Ireland — 8.09 (15)
17. Belgium — 7.99 (17)
18. South Korea — 7.90 (18)
19. France — 7.86 (19)
Other countries of interest
Rank. Country — score out of 10 (2005 rank)
21. Japan — 7.77 (21)
22. Israel — 7.59 (20)
23. Taiwan — 7.51 (22)
25. Italy — 7.14 (24)
30. United Arab Emirates — 6.32 (X)
31. Chile — 6.19 (31)
35. South Africa — 5.74 (32)
37. Malaysia — 5.60 (35)
39. Mexico — 5.30 (36)
41. Brazil — 5.29 (38)
42. Argentina — 5.27 (39)
45. Turkey — 4.77 (43)
46. Saudi Arabia — 4.67 (46)
48. Venezuela — 4.47 (45)
49. Romania — 4.44 (47)
51. Colombia — 4.41 (48)
52. Russia — 4.30 (52)
53. India — 4.25 (49)
55. Egypt — 4.14 (53)
56. Philippines — 4.04 (51)
57. China — 4.02 (54)
60. Nigeria — 3.69 (58)
61. Ukraine — 3.62 (57)
62. Indonesia — 3.39 (60)
64. Kazakhstan — 3.22 (62)
65. Iran — 3.15 (59)
67. Pakistan — 3.03 (64)
Regional standouts in the developing world are Chile, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. The low scores of some countries, notably India, China, and Russia, disguise significant specialized capabilities in infotech.
The World Economic Forum has released its new report on Latin American competitiveness.
Twenty-one countries are evaluated on the basis of macroeconomy, institutions, infrastructure, health, education, market efficiency, tech readiness, “business sophistication, and innovation. The rankings say a lot about the prospects of these countries — and 20 of the 21 rank poorly.
Country (global rank out of 117 countries)
1. Chile (27)
2. Argentina (54)
3. Costa Rica (56)
4. Brazil (57)
5. Colombia (58)
6. Mexico (59)
7. El Salvador (60)
8. Jamaica (63)
9. Panama (65)
10. Trinidad and Tobago (66)
11. Uruguay (70)
12. Peru (77)
13. Venezuela (84)
14. Ecuador (87)
15. Dominican Rep. (91)
16. Guatemala (95)
17. Nicaragua (96)
18. Honduras (97)
19. Bolivia (101)
20. Paraguay (102)
21. Guyana (108)
Chile is highly competitive, surpassing 13 of the EU’s 25 members.
The rest of the region lags. Despite some improvements
Latin America still suffers from one of the most inequitable income distributions worldwide, social tensions and an increasing sense of reform fatigue. Moreover, the region seems to be losing ground as foreign direct investment and trade shares shift to other developing regions, notably Asia and Eastern Europe.
Still, Latin America had its highest growth since 1980 in 2005, and many structural factors are in better shape than in previous decades.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers has released a study of potential growth in the world’s 17 largest economies out to the year 2050.
The study forecasts the eclipse of the current developed economies. The E7, largest emerging market economies (China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey), were only 20% of the size of the G7 economies at market exchange rates in 2005, but would be 25% larger than the G7 by 2050. By purchasing power, the E7 economies were only 75% as large as the G7 in 2005, but would be 75% larger by 2050.
In purchasing power terms, the shifts in relative GDP would be stark:
COUNTRY — relative econ size 2005 / 2050
US — 100 / 100
Japan — 32 / 23
Germany — 20 / 15
China — 76 / 143
UK — 16 / 15
France — 15 / 13
Italy — 14 / 10
Spain — 9 / 8
Canada — 9 / 9
India — 30 / 100
South Korea — 9 / 8
Mexico — 9 / 17
Australia — 5 / 6
Brazil — 13 / 25
Russia — 12 / 14
Turkey — 5 / 10
Indonesia — 7 / 19
Note that the values are relative within their respective years, but not across them; all economies are projected to be larger in 2050 than at present.
Purchasing power suggests, among other things, the military power the economy can afford to buy, suggesting that the realignment of power toward Asia will have substantially occurred. It will no longer be possible for the US to massively outspend all potential rivals.
The study also offers some startling numbers for per capita income. The figures suggest that the developed countries could have universal prosperity, and the emerging markets could achieve levels of wealth like those of developed countries today, eliminating dire poverty.
COUNTRY — 2005 / 2050 purchasing power GDP per capita (constant 2004 dollars)
US — $40,339 / $88,443
Japan — $30,081 / $70,646
Germany — $28,770 / $68,261
China — $6,949 / $35,851
UK — $31,489 / $75,855
France — $29,674 / $74,685
Italy — $28,576 / $66,165
Spain — $25,283 / $66,552
Canada — $31,874 / $75,425
India — $3,224 / $21,872
South Korea — $21,434 / $66,489
Mexico — $9,939 / $42,879
Australia — $31,109 / $74,000
Brazil — $8,311 / $34,448
Russia — $10,358 / $43,586
Turkey — $7,920 / $35,861
Indonesia — $3,702 / $23,686
These numbers suggest massive value shifts: countries reaching these wealth levels have shifted toward democracy, social freedom, and humane governance.
There is an underlying problem in these hopeful figures: sustainability will be strained with far more of the planet living at developed levels of wealth.