A future US guest worker program may not be made up of very many Mexicans at all. Mark Krikorian at NRO points to the fact that the advantage enjoyed by Mexico’s workers disappears when compared to other potential labor pools. A per capita income of nearly $10,000 a year puts Mexico near the top of the developing world. Many maquiladoras, a cornerstone of NAFTA, have closed shop and moved to China as a result. In an era of cheap transportation, the proximity of Mexico may, as in the cases of the closed maquiladoras, count for little. Krikorian says:
Egypt is home to nearly 80 million people who make less than half the average Mexican. India and Indonesia together have 1.3 billion people with one-third the average Mexican’s income. And Pakistan and Bangladesh together have more than 300 million people with less than one-quarter the average Mexican’s income.
And how much of Iraq’s working-age population would leap at the chance to get out, regardless of the wages offered?
That’s a lot of “willing workers” who will work cheaper than Mexicans.
Will the Mexicans gain their amnesty only to urge Uncle Sam to close the gate behind them?
5 comments:
Last time I looked, Bangladesh was on the other side of the planet from the USA. I don't think they'll be hoofing it in across the Rio Grande anytime soon.
knucklehead:
You read my mind. I wonder at the numbers too.
"I wonder at the numbers too."
Hmmm.. I thought I mentioned that somewhere...
If you're going to fight a chimera, you might as well make it a great big huge chimera that looks like a cross between a griffen and a gargoyle. Give it the gaze of a basilisk while you're at it - and insist that it has the properties of dragon's teeth to boot.
Then call Sancho Panza (having meticulously checked his papers to determine the legality of his status) to bring Rocinante (a unicorn working off the books as a horse) as you don the shining armor of your principles and prepare to set forth on your quixotic quest to rid the realm, once and for all, of the fearsome giants who have ravished the fair land.
Rick:
I love it when you wax poetic.
Glenn Reynolds says we should annex Mexico. Reconquista in reverse.
There is no way anyone can really know. I was talking to some folks who spent some time in Rio Bravo and they were saying that people the locals {Americans and Mexicans] went back and forth across that border all the time. So how would you know who stays where? And there are lots of border towns like that.
I read somewhere that there are illegals working in New Orleans and I thought how do these people saying these things know all those workers are illegal? I mean, are they wearing Tshirts proclaiming their status or something? Sometimes I think people see hispanics and they just assume they are illegals.
Knuck,
That's why the final figures on applicants for citizenship are going to be so low. Who needs it?
If my wife would learn Spanish I'd be looking at Costa Rican beachfront for retirement. Of course, any savings would be chewed up in plane tickets for grandrugrats.
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