Annex Mexico?

Here's an interesting proposition. Instead of worrying about the invasion of Mexico, perhaps Mexico should worry about being absorbed into the United States.

Ten percent of the total Mexican population now lives in the United States. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for Mexico is $9,600 and is "all but flat over the past five years," but the US GDP per capita is $40,100 and "has risen consistently over the years." (Via: Riehl World View.)

The existing Mexican economic structurefavors the few already economically well off at the sacrifice of the masses.

Let me start by putting on the table a central thesis: I think, and my party thinks, that the economic strategy that has been in place for the last 18 years is not delivering for the majority of the people in Mexico. The structural adjustment policies and trade liberalization policies have sharpened inequality and income disparity in Mexico. These policies have benefited only a small circle of economic agents of corporations, mostly those already connected to the international economy, to the detriment of the majority of micro and small and medium businesses, workers and the average Mexican citizen. So when people say that the fundamentals are sound, that the economy is performing well, the relevant question up front is for whom? It reminds me of the saying by our Brazilian friends, when people describe the macroeconomic outlook in Brazil as working very well, they say the Brazilian economy is doing fine, it's just most Brazilians that are suffering.

Getting back to the technology industry discussion referenced above, had Mexico invested over the years in education and technology infrastructure, right now they could be experiencing a tremendous boom. The low wage workers we see marching in our streets today could be living comfortably while developing software for a world and especially a US market far more easily and conveniently than does, say India or China and a number of other countries increasingly coming on line in that respect.

Sadly, rather than invest in such endeavors, the Fox government that would lecture us on what it is our immigration policies should be, is ignoring incredible opportunities for his own nation and peoples at our expense, opting to export poverty to the US instead of addressing it prudently at home.

To a good extent, Mexico's powerful, including its politicians line their pockets and leave their own people to wander through the desert hoping to find a living wage in America. And to date, the same American politicians so baffled by today's immigrations issues have not done one serious thing to make the Mexican government shape up. Until that happens, only a wall is going to keep throngs of impoverished Mexicans seeking an escape.

Is Mexico to become the "New South?" Would Mexican politicians move to Washington to impose these policies on the U.S. masses, thus ruining it for everyone? A "broadening of the middle class" occurs when the wages of laborers are raised while at the same time wages of "educated" laborers are lowered because of an influx of educated foreigners who will work for less. Only those will investment capital will truly prosper. After all a pie can be divided only so many times before the pieces cease to nourish anyone.

Perhaps turning the tables on Mexico has been the plan by politicians and business concerns all along. After all: we have a more numerous population, a larger and more powerful army, and a stronger economy. We would have plenty of oil and a vast numbers of cheap laborers. The downside would be that many would be born and educated in the United States.
Only time will tell which government, which culture, and which class will get the last laugh. I'm sure it won't be the MIDDLE class.