Turbulent Mexican Economy

To our southern border lays a land of rich culture, values, history, and beautiful scenery. Despite small truth behind the common stereotype of Mexico as a sluggish land of subsistence laborers, Mexican society is much more than that. Mexico can be depicted by the stark contrast of wealth and poverty in the country, with a small middle class stuck between the elite landowners and investors, and the multitude of urban and rural poor. Nevertheless the daily challenges faced by the developing third-world country, Mexico is still a force to be reckoned with. Mexico is one of the head political and economic forces in all Latin America.

This report provides data on Mexico which includes the economy, geography, its society, and government. It also discusses how Mexico’s economy is becoming orientated toward manufacturing. In addition, it shows that the GDP rate is not growing. The report explores the transnational issues facing the country which are international conflicts, refugees and domestically displaced persons, and drug trafficking. This source will contribute to my final project because it provides facts on the measures I am using to determine the development of a country.

Since labor unions in Mexico were originally formed in the early 1900s, they have maintained a unique system of collaboration and collusion with the government of Mexico. Though many may refer to their system as one of “corruption,” it is a system that has become so deeply imbedded in the relationship between labor unions and the government, that it is now a well-understood unofficial network. Over the past 20 years in Mexico, a great deal of progress has been made toward the liberalization of the Mexican markets. Previously government-owned companies have been privatized, foreign investment has boomed, and a once one-party system has just recently

José de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz Mori, the 29th president of Mexico, opened Mexico to foreign investors and companies who exploited Mexico’s resources such as land, copper, gold, silver, water, and cheap labor for corporate gain. This caused economic instability in the way that Mexico placed power in the hands of large corporations and Mexican politicians.

In the early sixteenth century, Spain conquered Mexico and turned it into one of their most lucrative colonies. In the search for land, labor and natural resources, Spain found everything they were looking for in Mexico. During the colonial period, Mexico was simply another kingdom of the vast Spanish Empire. As Spain largely benefited, the indigenous civilizations of Mexico were ravaged and left to be entirely dependent on their foreign counterpart. It wasn’t until the independence movement in the early nineteenth century that Mexico seemed to have some hope of being released from the hands of imperialism. Unfortunately, following independence, Mexico suffered from a half a century of economic

In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution by Hector Aquilar Camin and Lorenzo Meyer tells a chronological story of contemporary Mexico from the fall of Porfirio Diaz in 1910 to the July elections in 1989. The time period that Camin and Meyer portray in Mexico is one of corruption, civil war, and failure. While Mexico would undergo an era described as the “Mexican Miracle” where the Mexican country would begin to see a positive output in the country, it would be short-lived and Mexico would continue to fall behind as other countries progressed. While In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution is comprised of facts throughout history, one cannot help but feel a sense of sympathy for Mexico. While their corruption, political, and economical,

The first elements Zuloaga points out is that “the protection of the Mexican cultural industry never came up”. (Zuolaga,2001) Indeed, the NAFTA agreements made between major world powers, it is expected that many will question the validity of these agreements on an equality scale for Mexico, known as a weak country on many levels.

During the Pofiriato Mexico wanted to become more modernized and to do so, Pofirio Diaz wanted foreign investment. A lot of the investment came from

In “The Silence of Los Pinos,” the article focuses on how the current President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, is failing to pull his nation out of a downward spiral. The article starts off by saying that during Nieto’s presidency, he implemented a tax-reform that affected private business in a negative manner. During his first few years, Mexican drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, escaped a maximum security prison, and that the people are still worried about “the continued lack of security and the prevalence of corruption” (The Silence of Los Pinos, 2015). Though, the author does briefly mention how Mexico has improved under President Nieto. For example, cell phone dues have declined, education reform has continued, and the car industry

The following section I discuss the following: form government, living standards, labor market conditions, the orderliness of leadership and succession, culture and demographic characteristics of the population, integration with international economic systems and security risk.

Mexico is the 15th largest nominal GDP in the world and the 11th largest by Purchasing Power Parity which is estimated at $2.2602 trillion in 2015 and a $1.3673 trillion in nominal exchange rate. Its annual average growth from 1995 – 2000 was 5.1% but dropped to 3.02 % over the next 10 years. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Mexico GDP further took a nose-drive by a 6.2% decrease; the economy is gradually normalizing as the GDP expanded to at 2.1% in 2014 a two year consecutive growth. It is expected to modestly rebound in 2015 to 2.7% before averaging a robust 3.5% between the fiscal year 2016-2019 this growth when compared with other regional peers is slow, a reflection of the country weak trade ties with Asia. (EIU, 2015) But unlike most countries, it was able to maintain a moderate public debt of 45% of its GDP and a low but permanent current account deficit of 0.8% which can mainly be attributed to the country’s commercial surplus with the United States and a deficit with Asia, China and the rest of the world. It has been argued that successful implementation of structural reform could potentially eliminate some competitive bottleneck thus boosting the economy to 4-5% by 2019 (export.gov) but this is an unlikely achievement in light of the persisting institutional weakness towards implementing government reform program. The country trade balance would suffer from lower oil export as a result of decline in population and weaker oil price

Mexican dependence on the U.S. is notable. After the failure of the drive to diversify trade patterns in the 1970s and eighties (the local equivalent of Canada's Third Option policy), a 'realist' approach began to mark the nation's traditional nationalist and protectionist economy. From opposition to excessive U.S. dependence, Mexico moved to welcome it as inevitable. With time, the Mexican economy became even more dependent on the United States than the Canadian economy.2

In addition, in the decade leading to 1994, the government saw an increasing expenditure for various projects in the country. The result was an increased reduction in the funds of the government. Another more important factor was that the country experienced hyperinflation from 1985 through 1993. This period was also characterized by significant increases in debt loads of the financial sector, as well as the low oil prices that also contributed to the weakening of the Mexican economy (Mathur, 18). One would argue that the Mexican

With the large capital surplus largely arising from foreign investments to support the huge trade deficits in the Mexican current account, all seemed to go well for the Mexican economy until several political crises erupted and several macroeconomics mistakes were left exposed in 1994 which affected foreign investor’s confidence.

The readily identification of debt crisis was Mexico’s inability to serve its outstanding debt of $80 billion debt. And the situation continue to worsen, and one year later, by October 1983, 27 countries owing $239 billion had reschedule debts or in the process of doing so.