Economy: April 2008 Archives

"We are in the throes of a recession," former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on a CNBC business news show yesterday. The anti-immigration activists must be dancing in the streets.

Why? Well they may be losing their own jobs, not to mention their 401(k) profits, houses and cars, but they can rest easy knowing it will mean fewer illegal immigrants to worry about driving without licenses, having babies, stealing their jobs picking strawberries or washing dishes. A weaker economy means Mexican and Central American migrant workers they revile so much (Canadian and European illegal immigrants not so much) won't be risking their lives to cross a border for non-existent jobs.

A story this week by the bastion of conservative thought, the Wall street Journal, reported that "apprehensions" by the border patrol have dropped sharply -- and indication that fewer people are slipping across the border. It also found that money transfers from the U.S. to Mexico and Central America are growing at much lower rates than it has in recent years.

But what's more telling is that while the U.S. is moving inexorably toward a recession, Mexico isn't. In this Reuters story out of Mexico Mexican officials chirp over their fortune.

Mexico's economy has yet to suffer a significant slowdown despite a feared recession in the United States, as industrial output and investment stay fairly healthy, the central bank governor said on Monday.

Experts warn that a drop in the U.S. economy will hurt Mexico more than others in Latin America, but Gov. Guillermo Ortiz, at the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in Mexico City, said recent data suggested Mexico is in relatively good shape.

"So far this year, we haven't really felt an important slowdown in Mexican economic indicators," he said.

Ironically, by the time the border fence is finally finished we may no longer need it. Though, perhaps someday Mexico might put it to good use -- keeping Americans from sneaking across to find jobs in all the factories that relocated to Mexico in recent years.