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July 09, 2005
Wait a minute! Did you say $16 billion in remittances?
?"Study Challenges Assumptions About Money Being Remitted to Mexico: Researchers say sizable sums don't seem to be going to families of migrants," by Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 7 July 2005, p. C4.
Turns out that of the $16 billion that Mexicans supposedly send back home from America each year, only half—half!—actually go to the families of migrant workers. A mere $8 billion.

Peanuts. Hell, America gives something like $6 billion each year in official development aid each year to the entire Gap!

Hah! And Mexican migrants only provide a mere $2b more to families back home!

Why those lazy . . . !!

So the researchers (Mexican) try to figure out if the rest is being lost or just exaggerated or what.

Good, good.

Mexican government officials contend that better accounting is driving the number up, and that the actual flows are much bigger.

Here's the larger issue at work: Vincente Fox's government claims that people living in serious poverty have dropped from 24 million to 17 million, so any study that downplays the role of remittances makes Fox look like he's accomplished this more on his own.

The reality is that our two economies are more intertwined than ever, with Mexico City less and less in control of its own economic fate. In many practical ways, the United States of Mexico (the official name) have joined the United States of America in economic terms. The politics lags, of course, but this is far more set in stone than any of us realize.

Posted by Thomas P.M. Barnett at July 9, 2005 08:12 AM Evoked? Provoked? Ask Tom or discuss at Blogging the Future