Frozen Warnings

• Mexico has the second-highest highest Gross Domestic Product in Latin America, after being #1 for several years over second-place Brazil.

• When measured in GDP per capita, Mexico ranks #1 as of 2005, ahead of Chile and Venezuela.

• According to Forbes magazine, a substantial proportion of Latin American billionaires, 10 out of 26, were Mexican as of 2005.

• Mexico raises less revenue through taxation than nearly any other Latin American country, just 12 percent which is one reason why the nation's wealth is not better utilized. By comparison, the United States takes in 25-28 percent of its gross domestic profit in taxes. Even Brazil taxes itself at twice the Mexican rate.

• Economist Gary Hufbauer of the Institute for International Economics has remarked, "It's up to Mexico to solve its problem, and basically the wealthy classes do not want to tax themselves, period. While I'm not usually an advocate for larger government, Mexico is a country where public investment, done wisely, could pay huge dividends."

• Mexico expert Prof. George Grayson of William and Mary College calls Mexico an "immensely wealthy nation."

• Mexico's economy is the world's tenth largest.

• When the ruling party needed a hefty sum for the 1994 election, Presidente Salinas leaned on a group of rich businessmen to write $25 million checks each at an infamous dinner party, where contributions totaled a staggering $750 million by evening's end. Compare that with the measly $150 million campaign chest in spring 2004 that President Bush had accumulated after three years in office.

• Freedom House notes the cost of corruption: "According a recent study by the Mexico chapter of Transparency International, some $2.3 billion-approximately 1 percent-of the country's economic production goes to officials in bribes, with the poorest families paying nearly 14 percent of their income in bribes."

• Sure Things in Mexico: Death, Taxes and Evasion According the recent rankings released from the IMD International, the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development laced Mexico at 56 out of 60 economies examined, largely because of a dearth of investment in everything from infrastructure to education. Due to its pathetic tax collection, Mexico cannot even buy schoolbooks or pay its police enough to live on, much less invest in its future.

• Lou Dobbs Tonight Transcript (12/16/04) The CNN news show shines a light on Mexican wealth. Particularly noteworthy is Prof. Grayson's remark: "There is a
small economic elite who live like maharajas, and there's a political elite that protects them. Our border provides an escape valve which really lets the Mexican political and economic elite off the hook in terms of providing opportunities for their own people."

• While US Focuses on Iraq, Mexico is Collapsing June, 2005, and the symptoms of Mexico's failure as a state are accumulating. The recent takeover of border city Nuevo Laredo by the Mexican army because of the breakdown in law and order was so obvious.