Mexican Worker Money Transfers Drop at a Record Pace
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Mexicans working abroad, mostly in the U.S., reduced money transfers to their families at home at a record pace in January as a U.S. housing slump squeezed construction employment.
Remittances, the second-biggest source of dollar flows into Mexico after oil exports, fell 5.9 percent in January to $1.65 billion from a year earlier, the central bank said today. It was the biggest decline since Banco de Mexico began records in 1995.
The drop may crimp spending by Mexican families and reflects weakness in U.S. construction, the biggest employer of Mexico’s migrants. Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, the nation’s largest retailer, fell for the first time in three days in Mexico City trading.
“What’s a little disturbing about the data is that, at least historically, remittances tended to turn up when the Mexican economy was showing some slowing,” said Gray Newman, chief Latin America economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Mexico’s government expects economic growth to slow to 2.8 percent this year from 3.3 percent in 2007 because of slowing demand in the U.S., which buys about 80 percent of Mexican exports.
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The U.S. construction industry accounts for about 20 percent of jobs for Mexicans living in the country, according to the central bank. Almost 90 percent of transfers go to consumption.
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(Posted on March 6, 2008)
Comments
Too bad we can’t send them to mexico as easy as we can send money by wire….gessh if only the technology existed….
Posted by lydia at 12:17 AM on March 7
The reason is that more US banks are opening accounts for illegal aliens. The illegal aliens do not have to mail their money home for safe keeping, they can now deposit in checking and savings accounts. The Federal Government must have granted permission to bypass the Homeland Securiety regs for banks to open illegal alien accounts without ID
Posted by the Soviet Republic of New Jersey at 12:35 AM on March 7
The parsite has nearly killed its host! V
Posted by Vickie at 2:29 AM on March 7
When the illegal immigrants start leaving, that is a good sign that the recession has finally arrived. It’s going to get worse, much worse in the next six months.
Posted by Sardonicus at 2:12 PM on March 7
If any of the media outlets survive, it will be interesting to learn the effects in Mexico of the America teat running dry. When we go under, Mexico will go under; then what, Mr. Let-Them-Go-North?
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 7:26 PM on March 7
WAIT A MINUTE! Just hold on there hoss. Did you just say that the construction industry was the BIGGEST employer of Mexican illegals? I thought these sleazes were only coming here to do jobs that Americans wouldn’t do? Eh? Since when is construction a job an American won’t do?
Didn’t you just get caught in your own lie? Of course I knew that. All you have to do is look around at city and State road crews these days, and at any construction crew, to see them staffed mainly by illegals with a few white overseers. But don’t ever try to sell us the excuse they are here to pick lettuce for us because we won’t do it.
Put pressure on your States folks, to follow the lead of Oklahoma. And ensure they enforce the laws they pass diligently. Then expel all the socialists in Congress giving our mfg and high tech jobs away to China, Mexico, Korea and India and return those jobs. Punish corporations who use illegals or go off shore, and our economy will suddenly boom again with Americans having jobs again.
Posted by at 5:26 PM on March 8
The solution to the drain on US funds is simple: place a 50% tax on any and all remittances to south of the border. Or, one could of course just decide to actually enforce current immigration law—-what an outlandish idea!
The facts are: illegals do jobs that many Americans would love to do; illegals draw on tax supported social services much more than natives; illegals commit violent crimes at a rate much higher than that of natives; by taking low level jobs from Americans, illegals effectively impoverish the native working class; once here, illegals receive the status of protected minorities; illegals contribute nothing to this country(we don’t need their work, their crime, or their drain on social services, much less their language).
Remember that there is a problem here on two levels: 1) the current law is horribly flawed and 2) it is not even being enforced as written. Eddy Kennedy promised that there would be no change in the ethnic composition of the US as a result of the 1965 immigration bill which he sponsored—perhaps that is the biggest lie since Hubert Humphrey said that the civil rights bill would never be used for affirmative action or he would eat the bill on the floor of the Senate, page by page.
Well, the civil rights bill did lead directly to massive affirmative action and court order busing and the immigration reform bill led directly to a decline in the percentage of non-hispanic whites from over 85% to somewhere around 67% today(looking to drop below 50% by mid-century). Politicians have made a virtue of lying. The fact that Kennedy is still in the Senate is a sure sign that modern democracy is a sham.
Posted by at 11:24 AM on March 10