An argument for Jillian! (Mexico/USA)
 

So dude, seems a while since I have seen you in a long drawn out argument (because I haven't been around much lately! Kinda like saying "art is dead" because one hasn't been to a gallery in years) so I thought I would pick a fight. Yeah, I will lose, but it will be fun in the meantime!

So here is the premise: Mexico has a smaller GNP and overall lower standard of living than the United States. Is this because it cannot get out from under the shadow of the United States, or because of innate limitations?


I take the position of the latter reason (although you may wish to begin further back at how I even establish Mexico has an overall lower standard of living), because history shows conquest and piecemeal purchasing has whittled away at the Mexican country and populace such that a solid core for infrastructure and social momentum respectively could never be attained, and that the governing leadership, lacking consistent support from the populace, has thus not been able to institute an enduring foundation for growth and prosperity.

What say you? I'm all ears.

EDIT: I just realized my statement "because history shows conquest and piecemeal purchasing " would be evidence of the former, not latter position, so I haven't differentiated two positions. (sigh)

I would first argue about the financial consequences of NAFTA on the manufacturing industry. I did a research on this and I'm actually going to publish it by next year. But I'll respond with hard figures of this when I find that paper and when I'm not so blue, I just found out I'm too poor to buy a new saxophone and can't stop being emo about it.

So by your admission it seems your individual circumstance supports the founding premise of the standard of living. Not joking by the way, and I was going to offer to buy you one until I checked the prices for saxophones and learned that even at Walmart they are almost $400 US:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...ndingMethod=rr

Getting back to the argument will have to wait until I check the NAFTA results, I would have thought that Mexico would have benefited from NAFTA, but now I recall you mentioning in another thread somewhere that NAFTA actually hurt Mexicans economically.

DAMN, 400 dollars for a brand new sax isn't bad, or maybe they're just ridiculously overpriced here. Jillian, have you tried getting one second hand? I assume they're much cheaper that way, I once thought about selling mine and the best offer I got was 200 dollars.

/threadjack

Someone is requesting an arguement with GSJ. That's novel.

Catch has something useless to say. How surprising.

I think NAFTA is a great move. With the Euro in play, combining the Americas is a logical solution. People focus on Mexico, yet Canada is growing in power. They have a great economy and now have diamond mines. Transition is difficult. Canada is also inflated. They pay a lot for a liter of gas. Between everything it should even out in the next few years the Americas will be stronger than ever. We should expand NAFTA to include all of Central and South America along with the various islands in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Oh yeah, because they totally didn't implement it a decade and a half ago with two massive devaluations of the Peso and a constant decrease in wages.
Such as the FTAA?


SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU CUNT. You obviously have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

Does she ever know what she's talking about?

No, she just haphazardly copies and pastes things from various places.

Right. I never graduated college with a bachelor degree in business and do well in International studies whenever possible. Oh yeah and it wasn't a university in Texas where Mexico is a constant topic of interest. The Mayor also didn't stop by to tell us a little about how they are expanding I-35 from Mexico through Texas so small towns like Temple, TX will be the new business hubs. Whatever they want, it is definitely not turning Texas into the transportation hub between Mexico and the USA with potental warehousing so companies like HEB and Wal Mart are competing to gain local support near border cities. Yep, just be a weirdo out on me own with none of that educational type thinkin'

And yet you apparently didn't know NAFTA is over ten years old, and the FTAA encompasses all countries in America.

Flaunt your unimpressive education and supposed experience as much as you want. If you're posts read like they're cobbled together from factoids and sound bites, or if you're straight up wrong and/or don't make any sense, you're still a moron.

You got one thing right.

I found my paper. I'm going to write a small argument first and then tell the summary of my research as I read it (because frankly I don't remember everything I found). The point of this research doesn't answer the question which is broader, but it is very important.

Now, first, the argument. First of all, you're grouping GDP and standard of living together. But they don't go hand in hand. In fact, Mexico's GDP has increased a lot, its exports tripling, since the implementation of NAFTA, but the standard of living has barely improved, and in the south even worsened. If revenue equated to standard of living, then Mexico's standard of living would have tripled just as well, unless, as it happened, the degree of inequality only rose exponentially.
My paper doesn't answer WHY - we can talk about that later on - but it gives some cold facts on the consequences of NAFTA on the one industry it should have helped the most: manufacturing.

Since NAFTA, almost 90% of Mexico's exports go to either Canada or the United States.
Real wages had still not recovered by 2000 compared to pre-NAFTA wages.
Illegal immigration exploded after 1994.
Exports have become 25% of Mexico's economy compared to 13% in 1993.
Then there's three graphs showing Mexico's GDP, exports, and average wages in more than twenty different manufacturing branches
GDP as in 1990 around $200 billion, in 1995 around $300 billion, and by 2002 around $630 billion.
Exports were about $25000 million in 1991 (no data for 1990), in 1995 around $70000 million, and by 2002 around $150000 million
But average wages in 1991 were 1500 pesos a month, in 1995 they were about 1600 pesos, and in 2002 about 3500 pesos. This is without counting inflation, and when we consider the crisis in the peso in 1994, the increase in 100 pesos a month (about 8 dollars) still meant that wages were significantly lower than in 1991. For further reference, ignoring the economic crisis in 1994, the peso to dollar tends to be 10=1 to 13=1.
After running the statistics of GDP, exports in each industry, and wages for males and females separately, on spss, for every million dollars of exports, male wages increased one Mexican centime, .07 american cents. And for every billion dollars in GDP, wages increased 4.6 pesos, or 4 american cents. Females saw 3.7 pesos instead.
The increase in monthly wages after ten years of NAFTA was 136 pesos for males and 104 pesos for females, while exports tripled in that same amount of time.

The amount of natural resources Mexico has, and the tripling of industrial production, mean that it's impossible that Mexico has "innate limitations" which was a laughable assumption to begin with, but now there's concrete bases to decry that assumption.
So if exports tripled, and yet the workers of the most prosperous industry in Mexico only saw an increase of 5.5% in their economic gains, it is obvious that the majority of Mexico's population lies in an economic stalemate due to increasing economic inequality.
As a socialist I will argue that this economic inequality is perpetuated by neoliberalism, which can't be argued positively by my research, but whoever objects to this conclusion needs to justify the correlation between the implementation of trade agreements and the concentration of wealth in smaller percentages of the world population.

ISO is available in all countries world wide. That doesn't mean much.

The USA isn't doing so well either. A lot of people are losing their jobs. There is some job creation in border cities, but I don't think there is actually a direct connection between NAFTA and the recession. I won't produce any evidence, so don't ask.

The US (and subsequent global) recession is a recent phenomenon. Jillian is talking about Mexico over the past 15 years. Try again.

"Now, first, the argument. First of all, you're grouping GDP and standard of living together. But they don't go hand in hand. In fact, Mexico's GDP has increased a lot, its exports tripling, since the implementation of NAFTA, but the standard of living has barely improved, and in the south even worsened. If revenue equated to standard of living, then Mexico's standard of living would have tripled just as well, unless, as it happened, the degree of inequality only rose exponentially.
My paper doesn't answer WHY - we can talk about that later on - but it gives some cold facts on the consequences of NAFTA on the one industry it should have helped the most: manufacturing.

Since NAFTA, almost 90% of Mexico's exports go to either Canada or the United States.
Real wages had still not recovered by 2000 compared to pre-NAFTA wages.
Illegal immigration exploded after 1994.
Exports have become 25% of Mexico's economy compared to 13% in 1993.
Then there's three graphs showing Mexico's GDP, exports, and average wages in more than twenty different manufacturing branches
GDP as in 1990 around $200 billion, in 1995 around $300 billion, and by 2002 around $630 billion.
Exports were about $25000 million in 1991 (no data for 1990), in 1995 around $70000 million, and by 2002 around $150000 million
But average wages in 1991 were 1500 pesos a month, in 1995 they were about 1600 pesos, and in 2002 about 3500 pesos. This is without counting inflation, and when we consider the crisis in the peso in 1994, the increase in 100 pesos a month (about 8 dollars) still meant that wages were significantly lower than in 1991. For further reference, ignoring the economic crisis in 1994, the peso to dollar tends to be 10=1 to 13=1.
After running the statistics of GDP, exports in each industry, and wages for males and females separately, on spss, for every million dollars of exports, male wages increased one Mexican centime, .07 american cents. And for every billion dollars in GDP, wages increased 4.6 pesos, or 4 american cents. Females saw 3.7 pesos instead.
The increase in monthly wages after ten years of NAFTA was 136 pesos for males and 104 pesos for females, while exports tripled in that same amount of time.

The amount of natural resources Mexico has, and the tripling of industrial production, mean that it's impossible that Mexico has "innate limitations" which was a laughable assumption to begin with, but now there's concrete bases to decry that assumption.
So if exports tripled, and yet the workers of the most prosperous industry in Mexico only saw an increase of 5.5% in their economic gains, it is obvious that the majority of Mexico's population lies in an economic stalemate due to increasing economic inequality.
As a socialist I will argue that this economic inequality is perpetuated by neoliberalism, which can't be argued positively by my research, but whoever objects to this conclusion needs to justify the correlation between the implementation of trade agreements and the concentration of wealth in smaller percentages of the world population."

What does that have to do with emo saxophones?