A Bit about the Current State of Mexico

Last week I went to a presentation by Ross Gandy at Universal, the language school where we are studying Spanish. Below are some notes I took during the presentation on the current state of Mexico, from his perspective. These are just a few notes I took. To get a clearer, more in depth perspective, I recommend reading some of Mr. Gandy’s books. He has written 10 books about Mexico.


2/3rds of the multi-national companies in Mexico are U.S. companies.

In 1998, President Zedillo privatized the railroads.

In Mexico City, there are 4 ½ million cars and 25 million people. (That is ¼ of the people in the entire country live in Mexico City.) There are so many cars in Mexico City, the traffic barely moves. It takes most workers 2 ½ hours each way to commute to their
factory jobs on public transportation. Many do not see their families in the daylight.

Mexico City is an environmental catastrophe. There are 4 million people in Mexico City without a toilet. Big corporation leaders are now part of Mexico’s Environmental Protection Agency, so they will now regulate themselves.

10% of the people are “rich”
20% are “middle class”
70% are “poor” or marginalized

The daily minimum wage is 50 pesos, or 5 dollars.

30% of the people in the country can buy the high quality consumer goods in supermarkets, etc.
The other 70% of the people in the country are marginalized.

Jobs: the 3 biggest exports in Mexico are: tequila, oil, and Mexicans (at the rate of 1 million a year.)

With all of the multi-national corporations now, there isn’t much to do (job-wise) in the countryside.
40 million people (out of the total 100millon people in Mexico) live off of remittances from the U.S.

Last month there was a secret meeting between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to unify their security systems into one big unit.

School – students have to buy their own textbooks, at 20 to 30 pesos each.
Schools are falling apart.
2 out of every 10 university graduates goes to the U.S.

Mexico has no tax base. Few people pay taxes. The government has no money because they don’t tax themselves. Here, tax evasion is not a serious crime.

The government controls T.V.
4% of Mexicans ever buy a book. There are very libraries.
2% of the people buy newspapers.
Social movements can’t get on T.V., so they can’t get their message out.

Mexico is at the bottom of the Human Rights Abuse list, with China. Abuse and torture are common with the police (forced confessions).