From Xico

Mexico's Economic Crisis

I am posting below Laura Carlsen's artice which gives an excellent summary of the economic situation here in Mexico.  Americas Program is the group I sometimes translate for.  Felipe Calderón received degrees in Mexico as well as a Masters in Public Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  This is a pretty straightforward biography at Wikipedia. Mexico and the Crisis of a Dependent Economy Laura Carlsen | November 10, 2009
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org
The well-known 19th century Mexican saying—"poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States"—has become more poignant today than ever in the context of the global economic crisis. This year Mexico will be one of the worst-hit countries due to the crisis that began in the United States and quickly spread all over the world. It has lost more than 600,000 jobs in the formal sector and may lose as many as 735,000 in total this year, according to official statistics. The shrinking of the economy could fall between 6.5% and 7.5% in 2009, according to the Bank of Mexico, who attributes this decrease to "the increased dependency that Mexico has on the economic cycle of the United States." The Bank reports a 33% shrinkage in imports, worse than the previous crisis of 1995. In recent years, the poor have depended on government subsidies and remittances in order to survive. "Free" trade has destroyed the production structure of the rural regions where poverty is concentrated and there is almost no investment from the private sector. The remittances sent from Mexicans in the United States have fallen by 12% due to the crisis there and the government has announced cuts in social programs and federal funds to the municipalities. The latest reports, which do not take into account the worst of the crisis so far this year, show an increase from 44.7 to 50.6 million people below the poverty line between 2006 and 2008, reaching a total of nearly half the population. This could very well be a conservative estimate; an independent study estimates the number of Mexicans living below the poverty line patrimonial at 80 million. In rural areas and urban peripheries, many families are finding it hard to buy basic foods. Around 80% of Mexico's exports go to the United States as a result of NAFTA. The country maintains a negative trade balance of $4 billion with its neighbor to the north. Despite the supposed attempts of the government to diversify trade, it has not come to pass. The U.S. foreign investment that was supposed to be the driving force of the economy, according to the trade model, is drying up resulting in the cutting of existing jobs within the most integrated sectors such as the automobile industry and maquiladoras. It is true that Mexico is confronting the convergence of a multitude of problems that are not all related to its economic dependence on the U.S. economy. The other major factor is the country's dependency on oil. Between January and June, the revenues made from crude oil exports fell 41% relative to the same period just one year before. And if that wasn't enough, tourism in the country lost some $2 billion due solely to the A/H1N1 influenza. However, it is not clear that the crisis facing Mexico is merely a short-term problem. As a result of the crisis, U.S. consumer patterns are reaching more sustainable levels, which could be good news for the environment. The slowdown in investments in countries that offer cheaper labor entails the need for structural changes. The response from Felipe Calderon's government recently has been to announce an increase in the price of petroleum and electricity and new taxes. A popular movement has responded by boycotting the payment of electricity bills, resulting in arrests and the cutting of power to the most vulnerable communities. The elimination of the Central Light and Energy Company and its union has exacerbated the problem. An increase in food costs, also the result of dependency on international markets and U.S. imports, is further pushing families toward poverty and desperation. There is a lesson to be learned from the current suffering in Mexico and its inability to confront the crisis. However, the government continues to show signs that it hasn't learned anything. Instead of restructuring the economy by diversifying trade, protecting at-risk productive sectors, and building a safety net for the growing number of poor families, it has launched an offensive against labor and reiterated its reliance on the free-trade model that has clearly failed the Mexican people. The cost of economic dependence on the United States is being paid by the poor, in clear violation of their social and economic rights. The question is: to what point will the people tolerate this and what has to happen to make the government change its course. Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org) is the director of the Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org) for the Center for International Policy in Mexico City.

Juan Pablo Goes to the Doctor in Coatepec

Our gardener Guillermo's eight-year-old son, Juan Pablo, has been living through a miserable year.  He's been in the hospital twice with pneumonia, and has never turned back into a playful, energetic kid. Instead, he spends mch of this time lying in bed watching television in his dark, damp house.  For months, every time Guillermo came to work, I'd ask him how Juan Pablo was.  "Poco bien," he'd say. I'd ask him to please let me know if there was anything we could do.

Guillermo and his wife, Adelina, have been taking Juan Pablo to the Hospital Civil in Xalapa.  They do this as beneficiaries of the program of Seguro Popular, or people's insurance.  The Mexican Constitution guarantees health care:

Toda persona tiene derecho a la protección de la salud, Toda persona tiene derecho a disfrutar de vivienda digna y decorosa, Es obligación de los padres satisfacer las necesidades y la salud física y mental de los menores”.

Which, translated, says, "Every person has the right to protection of their health.  Every person as he right to enjoy decent and respectable housing.  It is the obligation of the parents to take cae of the necessities and of the physical ad mental health of their dependent childen."  Of course there's a gap between the Constitution and reality, but still, the ideal is there. And the efforts to fulfill the obligation are visible everywhere, from the hand-painted health education signs on buildings in the smallest town to the very large Hospital Civil in Xalapa.

The Hospital Civil is a crowded, busy place, and yet it gives good basic care, and that's just what Juan Pablo got, except that for country people, it is confusing.  From a large variety of providers they received tons of instructions, all carbon copies, all in small letters and complicated words. There also came to be a significant number of tests and medicines they had to pay for themselves.   

And the energy-boosting diet for Juan Pablo was beyond their means. As an aside here, poor nutrition is a substantial problem. I've harped on this before.  Junk food is ubiquitous and often less expensive and obviously more eye-catching than nourishing food, and in any case, money is tight and fresh food not so available.*

We helped some financially, but the family struggled to make sense of what was going on.  I decided to call Charlie Swindull, a retired nurse who lives in El Grande, outside of Coatepec.

Charlie is a rather remarkable American woman.  If I remember correctly (I am sure she will correct me if I have this wrong) Charlie decided she couldn't retire and live decently on her pension in the US, so she would move to Mexico.  She didn't want to go to one of the standard US retirement communities, but took a pin (that may be metaphorical) and blindly stabbed the map of Mexico and hit our area. Arriving a year before we did, she knew no Spanish, no people and was single.  Yet she has managed to make quite a fine life here.

I think most of her time is spent taking care of health problems for poor kids, mostly dental and eye difficulties.  She has created a network of doctors and dentists for them and a small foundation which provides some financing, although I suspect Charlie provides a fair amount herself.  I have created a page which you can find in the left sidebar which is Charlie's last email to supporters in the US.  It explains what she does quite well. Please check out the page.  If any of you would like to donate money, please just use the comment form below to ask.  I will then see your email via the magic of TypePad, and I will provide you with the information you need.

Anyway, Charlie made an appointment for Guillermo's son, Juan Pablo, with la Dra. Jania Vargas in Coatepec.  La doctora went over all the papers Guillermo and Adelina had collected and summarized the important items on one piece of paper, with very clear and to-the-point instructions and suggestions for further nutritional additives. She spoke clearly and directly, never condescended, answered all the parents' questions.  She said she would see Juan Pablo again in February if all went well.

Here is a picture of Juan Pablo and la Dra Jania after the appointment.

This seemed to make a huge difference to Juan Pablo and his parents.  He laughed and skipped back to the car holding Guillermo's hand.  Guillermo and Adelina hugged him and laughed with him.  

There is more to this story.  Soon.

*Fresh fruits and vegetables are available, but for people in the informal economy as Guillermo is, or as housekeepers or small store owners or people who work on building local houses and so forth are, the fruits and vegetables are not cheap.  For us they are cheap, for them, no.  In our colonia, most people do not grow many of their own vegetables as they really don't have space even though we are surrounded by countryside planted in coffee and bananas. 

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2650 This link will lead you to a letter from the Sierra Club to Bill Gates who is massively pushing transgenic agriculture across the continent of Africa. He may listen to some questioning voices, but he really doesn't have to.
This is what's hideously wrong with private charities and foundations with huge amounts of money to dole out. They can literally affect the fate of billions, of the environment, of our social networks, etc. No input from other sources necessary, no legislative approval necessary, nada. I do hope Bill Gates is able to hear protest. His systems approach to problem-solving doesn't bode well.

A good article on international aid by http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/Kristof-t.html Kristoff:
Really, our task is how to turn down the volume on the extreme right and on those only committed to political interests and move ahead with discussions of and action on reasonable agendas.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/11/cubas_soft_powe/

A really good post on Cuban-American relations and a huge Cuban export: Doctors.

Attitudes towards Abortion in the State of Veracruz

Translated by me from Agenda Veracruz: Analisis Crítico de las Noticias de Veracruz by Thomas Quinteo Buendia

 The Secretary General of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), Hortensia Aragón, called "incongruent"  the declaration of the governor of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera Beltrán, that he is "against abortion" and especially his notice that  he would send a reform inititiative against abortion to the Congress of the Union (Veracruz legislature).  

The leader of the party  Sol Azteca said that Fidel Herrerra's reading of the situation will have national repurcussions since in Veracruz a diversity of organizations "are in agreement that women have freedom over their bodies and that they can decide whether or not to have an abortion or not when they find themselves pregnant."

Massive Hacker Protest in Mexico: Official Home Pages Boycotted

Below is a translation of an article in today's El Processo by Alejando Saldívar

 With the rallying cry, "Viva México, You Sons of Bitches!" on a tricolor flag, a group calling itself "Ciber Protesta Mexicana (CPM)" modified 33 home pages of some state governments, local newspapers and businesses.

This protest, of a kind not seen before, adds itself to the outbreaks of civil disobedience against the policies of the government of Felipe Calderón and the political parties in the Legislature.

The group of hacktivistas make a call to the political class with the following message:

In a country in which our governors, deputies and senators think that we ae blind, that we ae dirty, that we are mute, that we will wait patiently with fear, without will nor protest, we Mexicans undertake this peaceful internet protest and we say..."

The virtual protest [continued], condemning monopolies like Telmex, Pemex and CFE (the government-controlled electric company).

The modified sites called to visitors to leave citizen proposals.Among the messages left, you can read:  "Less politics, more transparency," "increase the budget for culture and the development of technology," "HACK CONGRESS'S HOME PAGE AND ASK FOR THE DISAPPEARANCE OF PLURINOMINALES [I can't translate plurinominales.  Help, please],"Say no to rising CFE (electric) rates," "The internet is not a luxury, it is a tool for knowledge!! More bandwidth for Mexican sons of bitches!! (sic)"

By 7:00 pm, there were more than three hundred comments against the increase in the IVA (sales  tax) and in general opposition to "corruption, nepotism, abuse of power, ineptitude, influence peddling, embezzlement of funds, shamelessness, lives, thievery, illicit enrichment, favoritism, hypocrisy, and useless political parties."

Among the government sites the [the hacktivistas] modified are found:  http://www.colima.gob.mx,http://www.tuxtla.gob.mx, http://www.casadelarchivo.gob.mx, 

http://www.sdr.gob.mx, http://www.liconsa.gob.mx, y http://www.michoacan.gob.mx.

Other sites include:  http://www.mexicosos.com.mx/,http://eldiariodechihuahua.com.mx/, 

http://www.arrobajuarez.com,http://www.lapuertanoticias.com, http://www.almargen.com.mx/,

http://www.eldiariodedelicias.com.mx/, http://juanmanuelpresidente2009.com/,

http://ligadeunidadsocialista.org/, http://pulidodipan.org.mx/

"Defacement" [of web pages] is a means of cybernet attack generally for political purposes.  The protestors thanked the solidarity of the cyber-community in all of Latin America.

Uh Oh. Monsanto victory again?

From La Vida Locavore:

This is bad news for the developing world and good news for Monsanto. Rajiv Shah, who used to work on agriculture at the Gates Foundation, is going to head up USAID - the U.S. Agency for International Development. That's the part of the government that is currently working on helping the 1 billion hungry people in the world by giving them better agricultural knowledge and technology.

The choice of Shah is a crystal clear sign of the direction the Obama Administration plans to go on fighting hunger. The majority of the world has signed onto a UN/World Bank study (the IAASTD report)  calling for agroecological farming methods as the way to solve world hunger. The IAASTD report says that GMOs are not the way forward to help hunger among smallholders in Africa and South Asia and that our free trade agenda actually harms these farmers. The Gates Foundation (and presumably, Shah) takes the opposite view - against the conclusions of the 400 scientists from around the world who worked on the IAASTD report - that GMOs are the way to go. And, obviously, Obama is following Clinton and Bush as a die-hard free-trader.

This is not unexpected, but it's bad news. Bad, bad, bad news.

Just because Obama's smart doesn't mean he knows a lot.  Smart people often delude themselves into thinking they can learn everything important about everything really fast, like learning medicine from books only....which reminds me of my dear departed father the very smart cardiologist who thought psychiatry was "baby medicine" so he could do it without more than reading a few books by Freud. 

Obama is stuck with his turning the big ship slowly metaphor, perhaps.  But sometimes you have to jump ship and row like hell.  I sure hope that everyone is wrong about this guy Rajiv Shah.

Carlos Pascual Not to Head USAID

Here is info on the nominee, Rajiv Shah, announced today.  Shah appears to have plenty of good administrative experience at least in running large aid organizations and projects.  I'm glad it's not Pascual.   I wanted to keep watching him as Ambassador to Mexico.

Cofre de Perote -- The Other Side of the Mountain -- And What Do You Think We Saw

Part of what we do on our small excursions here in Veracruz is play a giant-sized version of connect-the-dots. We come to one place and recognize that we've been near it before, coming at it from the other side. Then we feel compelled in a small way to close the gap from the other side, or, if you will, the other dot. Cofre de Perote has been something of a big dot in this game. We've travelled many different roads now to connect to it, many of them unpaved, wandering through small pueblos and ever-changing weather and landscapes. We’ve found different places which tempt Jim as beginnings of not driving, but hiking routes to the top. Jim, mountain person that he is, also has sought routes by looking down from the top. When we drove, years ago for the first time to the top of Cofre, Jim spotted a lake down the southwest side that didn't appear to have a trail to it and of course the seed to hike down to it was planted. Last winter we did, or at least Jim did.  My brother-in-law John and I got maybe half way down (Jim says a third). John would have gone farther, but he very gallantly kept me company while Jim and two of the dogs made their way along bases of bluffs and through small passes to find it. 

From the top of Cofre, one can see that the lake lies along a not-marked but possible route up from Los Altos/La Toma.  The next challenge of course was how to connect the dot of the summit to the dot of the lake to a dot lower down near La Toma/Los Altos that we could hike up from. 

Jim stores a lot of this information in his mind long after I forget about it, and I suspect the first time he decided you could summit from Los Altos was when we drove through it on the way to a tree-planting/reforestation event maybe three years ago which was sponsored by some local environmental groups. On that trip, we followed a rough road out of Los Altos, then hiked a bit higher with the group to a place that had been prepared – little holes dug, little seedlings placed carefully next to them -- so that accompanying dignitaries wouldn’t have to get their hands dirty -- I remember being totally breathless. I cannot remember if we saw the summit itself or not from our tree-planting site. I do remember some spectacular views, two rattlesnakes and some delicious pombazo sandwiches. Jim I think filed this trip away for future reference for climbing. 

The next time we drove up to Los Altos was on our way to La Gloria last spring. Here you can see some photos of the area we took on that trip. As you can see, it was during the dry season. On that trip, we discovered that in fact there is another town, quite small, a bit higher up called La Toma, and it was here that we headed yesterday, via Los Altos. The first thing I have to get out of the way is a picture to show how Happy often sits in the car.  Happy said I could put it on the blog.

Below is a snapshot of the very colorful primary school in La Toma:

 

Below is a public health sign on the side of a building addressing diarrhea prevention. As I’ve mentioned and illustrated before, such signs painted on buildings are very common in small pueblos, and I suspect they have some effect. I don’t know who does the actual painting, but it seems likely it is someone local. I would think if this is the case, the signs might be even more effective than big, slick, impersonal posters, though this one looks past its prime.

 

There’s actually a road from La Toma to El Conejo which is the pueblo on the north side on the way to the paved road which reaches all but the top of the rock on Cofre. One day I would like to try this road, connecting two more dots -- from La Toma to El Conejo. Since both La Toma and El Conejo are around 10,000 feet in altitude, this will be one high ride. We drove a little way down this road from La Toma road thinking it was the one that led to the path to the lake. We saw a field of stones:

And many fields with corn shocks marching across them. Jim knew they were corn shocks, having learned the word from his father some 40 years ago.  In the US where almost everything is machine-harvested, it would be rare to see them.

And some goats (and more corn stocks).

 

As you can see, it isn’t so dry now as it was in May. Back in La Toma, we stopped and talked to a woman and her daughters who told us where the path up to the lake from near their house began and directed us to park at the church, which we did. There, four children who were enchanted with our dogs and a little bit apprehensive about us sat in a row on a low wall and asked us quite a few questions, giggling and wiggling the whole time. We asked a cluster of men who were hanging out in front of a little tienda how long it would take to climb to the lake. They thought two or three hours and advised us that it was too late to try today. Thank goodness, I said. I didn’t have a clue how I could possibly make it to the lake, which was another two or three thousand feet higher than we already were. The men looked like they didn’t have a clue how I would, either, no matter what time we started. Clouds drifted across the blue sky, sometimes heavy and dark, sometimes light and puffy. 

 Jim at the beginning of the trail:

Trail scenery:

 

(Can you find Rita in the picture above?)

Agave with graffiti below:

 

And of course a few dog shots.  Notice how Rita and Happy stand so well at attention.  Cosi is found something more important to look at:

 

Giaco resting regally:

 

The trail climbed toward the pine forest.

There was a small house just below it.

 

A dog came running down towards us barking loudly.  Since we didn't want to cause a ruckus with our dogs, Jim walked up to the house while the dogs and I  waited. He found a woman and her four daughters living there. We imagine that her husband works on the farmland around and below it. Jim said she was very hospitable and forthright and not shy, which is how people here usually are, even when they don’t live near where foreigners often appear. Jim told her he thought maybe she lived in the highest house in Veracruz.  Its altitude was 10,700 feet.

This was as high as we got due to me. Jim really wanted to go as high as the beginnings of the pine forest which wasn’t really much further, but I had started finding myself saying to myself, if you’ve seen one pine forest, you’ve seen them all. So we turned around. Jim is very gentle with me, his weak partner.

Going down was much easier than going up. We hardly noticed the altitude any more. Soon, the oldest daughter from the house near the pine forest, a tall, sturdy beauty of about 16 or 17 passed us, leading a burro, and of course we said hello. Jim asked her to show us the best path to go to the lake, which she pointed out. He also asked her how long it would take. She said, it depends on who is walking. She is the first person who has ever asked this. Normally people just give you kind of broad estimates.  Looking at us, she said, "Maybe three hours from here."

She made it down to La Toma long before we did (her mother said she could get down in 15 minutes and up in 20. Jim said it had taken us an hour to go up. The mom said it took her an hour: none of us are so young anymore). We saw the daughter’s burro parked by the side of the road and then we saw her walking down to the center of town with a group of friends. She was wearing boots with heels.  Could she have walked the whole way on them? We decided maybe she’d ride the burro back up after dark when he would be more sure-footed than a person would be. 

All the way from La Toma to the house at 10,700 feet, fields were used for agriculture: corn, potatoes, bees, goats and sheep. A truck passed us going up an impossibly rutted (it seemed to us) track, and a couple of people who looked like they were walking to or from some work or other did, too. I mentioned to one person that we’d seen the a fat hose carrying water quite high up. He said, that, yes, indeed, that hose brought water down to the community from the lake.  The temperature started to fall in the late afternoon. Back in La Toma, as we were loading dogs into the car before leaving, a couple of men stopped to chat, and we talked about the cold. They were expecting snow soon.