Mexico votes for Obama as their stock market tumbles

Mexico votes for Obama as their stock market tumbles

I’ve done my best – which is to say not very well - to follow the financial crisis and U.S. electoral saga from Mexico. I thought I might give you a sense of what these crises look like from south of the border.

As you can imagine, the newspapers are full of reports of the stock market crack, crash, meltdown, collapse – not sure what exactly it’s being called up there. The Mexican market has followed with similar huge losses and the peso has lost ground against the dollar (that is, as lousy as the dollar is right now, the peso is worse).

But the majority of ink and worry is devoted to the long term impact of a US financial crisis on Mexico. They have a saying here: when the US economy comes down with a cold, Mexico catches pneumonia. Mexican migrants lose their jobs in the US and remittances (funds sent back to families) dry up, cash-strapped US tourists stay home with the consequent economic losses for Mexico. Remittances from Mexicans account for over $20 billion of income a year, second only to petroleum exports in economic importance. The safety net is broken here as public spending has been slashed over the years – the safety net IS remittances. As unemployed Mexicans in the U.S. return home, the Mexican government has no plan for how to re-absorb them –despite the headline above translated as “Anti-crisis Plan to Save the Economy” and "24,000 immigrants return from the U.S." (that number referring to the state of Oaxaca only).

I’m not suggesting that Mexico become a U.S. state but with approximately 20,000,000 people of Mexican origin in the U.S. and with the impact of U.S. policies like the U.S. Farm Bill leaving such a heavy imprint down here, maybe they should have the right to vote in U.S. elections. From what I can tell, Mexico’s electoral votes would send Obama over the top. He’d win in a landslide.

Don’t get me wrong, I voted enthusiastically absentee. Nevertheless, I’ve felt like a bit of a wet blanket with my Mexican friends, suggesting that the issues that pain Mexican most, immigration and trade, might not be treated terribly differently by the two candidates. I remind them that it was the last democrat, Clinton, who championed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which perhaps has not been as dramatic as the currently U.S. crash, but has meant a slow and steady bleed for nearly two decades here. For a sobering view on this score, read Mike Davis’ devestating piece http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/mike-davis-can-obama-see-grand-canyon.html. On the lighter, more hopeful side, take at look at Obama’s pitch to Mexican-Americans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fd-MVU4vtU.