NAFTA Years Later

[Dinner]

I've never actually gotten banned though Ming did give me a 20% PCR for a certain spam job I did in one of the less well known forums.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Oerdin
You sure won't find the US acting so generously now that the Soviet threat is gone so it is unlikely other countries will be able to make as extensive use of the "pick & protect" method as SK and Japan did during the cold war. The most likely method to work now is bilateral free trade agreements though that method will most likely take longer to create large competetors in key industries; over all the economy will most likely grow faster since free trade promotes foreign investment.

But there's no evidence to prove foreign investment necessarily relates to economic grouth. From the empirical PoV just look at Latinamerica, hell look at Mexico, we're the 3rd world country after China which receives the most FDI and look at us... the IMF and the US Treasury might consider us a "model" economy, but I personally spit on those remarks. Come and visit one day and you'll see a much different Mexico than that which the IMF seems to imagine (then again, you can't expect people working in air condintioned cubicles in Washington DC to see the flesh beneath the numbers)

In theory you will also find one paper who says FDI works and the next paper which says it doesn't. That's the beauty of economics...the only science in which you can get a nobel peace prize by saying the exact opposite thing that the last guy said.

Anyway, would love to keep on discussing this but gotta go...

-MZ

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I'd rather not argue with people who apparently are immune to any form of mod reprisal for their flames and insults, because Sloww, if I had said half the things you have in the previous weeks I'd have my ass banned.

As long as I am constrained by having to watch what I say when others have no such constraint, I'll rather leave arguments with these people for other days.

-MZ

Sloww's not on my immune list, I've banned his ass a few times. So has Ming. It just has no effect, he's like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke - no matter how many times you put him in the box, he doesn't get his mind right for very long.

Besides, I had to commute north. If he's running amok in this thread, feel free to respond at the same level, I'm too busy with work for the next little while to read the whole thread.

[/QUOTE]

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SlowwHand

Hell. Ask MtG. That OTHER Mexican.

Little bastard has done it more than once.

Beeg bastard, Sloww. Beeg bastard.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Agreed, but how does this help the Mexican economy? Not one bit. If anything it's increasing the gap between our two countries. Personal wealth means nothing in national aggregate values if it is spent on goods and services of another country.

If Pemex made decent gas for anything other than carbureted 1950's Ford trucks, Petalo made toilet paper softer than 360 grade sandpaper, and Hacienda didn't tax every ****ing thing so that it's cheaper to go to the US to buy electric breakers or printer cartridges made in Mexico, then there would be more domestic consumption.

Money circulates both ways across the borders - the gringos make donations to the policia , (seriously, there's a lot of commerce both directions). However, anybody who can get a border crossing card does so so that they can buy stuff in the US, that's often better quality and cheaper. Or the same stuff, often made in Mexico, but cheaper in the US.

It's pretty ridiculous when the same Home Depot or Office Depot or Costco store in Tijuana sells the same products for 15-25% more than they cost in the US at those same stores. Is that the greedy multinationals? If so, why is it that local stores are even worse?

A big part of what's holding the Mexican standard of living back is the ****ed up "tax everything to death" system that was put in place by the PRIistas, and the do-nothing-but-lick-Bush's boots Fox doesn't have the huevos (or the willingness or ability to work with Congress) to address. You get punished for making money in Mexico, unless you can find a way to hide it from Hacienda.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Sloww's not on my immune list, I've banned his ass a few times. So has Ming. It just has no effect, he's like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke - no matter how many times you put him in the box, he doesn't get his mind right for very long.

Besides, I had to commute north. If he's running amok in this thread, feel free to respond at the same level, I'm too busy with work for the next little while to read the whole thread.

[/QUOTE]

Ok, good to know that, just that lately during the Iraq war threads it seems I'm always the one threatened with "toast" while he's the one who is just threatened to "chill".

As to responding at the same level, tempting but no, I do not stoop so low and if all people like him just try and provoke, they ain't accomplishing it here... .

[Sava]

Sloww gets warned a lot. Usually when I piss him off.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

If Pemex made decent gas for anything other than carbureted 1950's Ford trucks, Petalo made toilet paper softer than 360 grade sandpaper, and Hacienda didn't tax every ****ing thing so that it's cheaper to go to the US to buy electric breakers or printer cartridges made in Mexico, then there would be more domestic consumption.

Money circulates both ways across the borders - the gringos make donations to the policia , (seriously, there's a lot of commerce both directions). However, anybody who can get a border crossing card does so so that they can buy stuff in the US, that's often better quality and cheaper. Or the same stuff, often made in Mexico, but cheaper in the US.

It's pretty ridiculous when the same Home Depot or Office Depot or Costco store in Tijuana sells the same products for 15-25% more than they cost in the US at those same stores. Is that the greedy multinationals? If so, why is it that local stores are even worse?

A big part of what's holding the Mexican standard of living back is the ****ed up "tax everything to death" system that was put in place by the PRIistas, and the do-nothing-but-lick-Bush's boots Fox doesn't have the huevos (or the willingness or ability to work with Congress) to address. You get punished for making money in Mexico, unless you can find a way to hide it from Hacienda.

Petalo is pretty decent actually... . Either that or I don't mind wiping my ass with sandpaper!

But I agree 100% especially on the tax issue, our VAT is incredibly high, 15% although it's 10% at the border is it not? Still, 10% can't compete with the 5% or much less sales tax of most US states. Problem is, without an effective tax collection agency like the IRS, there's no way we can hope to get as much from income tax as the US. Its is much easier for tax evasion (income tax evasion) here, precisely because the SAT (our IRS) is a piece of total ****. VAT is much easier to collect because there is no way to escape it, for that reason it is so much higher... I call it the poor man's tax because poor countries can get much more out of it than rich ones. Unfortunately it is a very regressive tax since poor people spend proportionaly more of their income on consumption, VAT hits them harder than rich people even if rich people on the aggregate pay more.

So, sadly there's no easy way to get rid of the tax problem, unless there's a complete overhaul of SAT and not only that, a complete overhaul of the legal system to hit hard or tax evasion. But an overhaul of the legal system is at this moment politically unacceptable as to many powerful people have A LOT to lose. Sad, but I see this country going nowhere until that is done. You, who has lived here will probably agree that the legal system is a load of crap.

My issues with foreign goods is that is that it does not contribute to national wealth. It is different to buy an imported product than to go to a foreign country and buy it. When you buy an imported good, government gets some cash and it also pumps money into the local economy as the import dealers/distributors/transport co. etc. are usually local firms. So, at least some of that $$ goes back. In the end, however, the price problem is much deeper than just taxes or greedy multinationals. It would take a huge post for me and try to explain it and I'll still leave much of the issue unresolved. Sadly, it is not only a Mexican problem, this sort of thing happens in most 3rd world countries, at least the ones I've visited.

(at least the beer is cheaper... )

-MZ

[SlowwHand]

Can you hook me up with a good deal on Dos Equis?
Sava, will you ask him for me?

[Dinner]

Bohemia is a much better beer then the "two suckies" .

BTW I can testify that the cross border traffic goes both ways. Having grown up in San Diego I often went down to TJ though my trips dropped off substantually after I turned 21.

[SlowwHand]

I don't know that I've had Bohemia.
Good stuff, huh ?

[Plan Austral]

Master Zen, SlowwHand said : Can you hook me up with a good deal on Dos Equis?

[SlowwHand]

Thanks!

See? There are SOME decent folks around.




I think it's rude behavior to put a person on ignore.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I don't know that I've had Bohemia.
Good stuff, huh ?

Best of the mass produced Mexican beers. If memory serves it's made by the same folks who put our Pacifica. The best Mexican beer I ever had was a mcirobrew named Cervasa Mazitlan which was brewed in (you guessed it) Mazitlan. It was very close to Sierra Nevada pale ale with the same sort of big hoppy flavor that is so rare in beers from south of the border.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Plan Austral
Master Zen, SlowwHand said : Can you hook me up with a good deal on Dos Equis?

I'm sure you could pick up two X without paying taxes just by ordering it off of the internet.

Another decent brew availible over the internet is Castile Lager from South Africa. Of course I buy it from a web site based out of New Port Beach but it's still good stuff and they even don't bother checking the IDs of you kiddies.