A clueless Vatican chancellor didn't mean to step into US politics and

[nadinbrzezinski]

70. You mean the NEO LIBERAL PRESIDENT of Mexico did

the Mexican people disagree.

And those better jobs and better economy are ghosts. Don't tell me I have no idea, I go to Mexico often.

But what about Mexico? Didn't Mexico at least benefit from the agreement? Well if we look at the past 20 years, it's not a pretty picture. The most basic measure of economic progress, especially for a developing country like Mexico, is the growth of income (or GDP) per person. Out of 20 Latin American countries (South and Central America plus Mexico), Mexico ranks 18, with growth of less than 1% annually since 1994. It is, of course, possible to argue that Mexico would have done even worse without NAFTA, but then the question would be, why?

From 1960-80 Mexico's GDP per capita nearly doubled. This amounted to huge increases in living standards for the vast majority of Mexicans. If the country had continued to grow at this rate, it would have European living standards today. This is what happened in South Korea, for example. But Mexico, like the rest of the region, began a long period of neoliberal policy changes that, beginning with its handling of the early 1980s debt crisis, got rid of industrial and development policies, gave a bigger role to de-regulated international trade and investment, and prioritized tighter fiscal and monetary policies (sometimes even in recessions). These policies put an end to the prior period of growth and development. The region as a whole grew just 6% per capita from 1980-2000; and Mexico grew by 16% – a far cry from the 99% of the previous 20 years.

For Mexico, NAFTA helped to consolidate the neo-liberal, anti-development economic policies that had already been implemented in the prior decade, enshrining them in an international treaty. It also tied Mexico even further to the US economy, which was especially unlucky in the two decades that followed: the Fed's interest rate increases in 1994, the US stock market bust (2000-2002) and recession (2001), and especially, the housing bubble collapse and Great Recession of 2008-9 had a bigger impact on Mexico than almost anywhere else in the region.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/nafta-20-years-mexico-regret

There is more than just the Guardian. And it has also been a disaster for the environment... and education.