Case
AT: Relations Advantage
AT: Relations Impact
No mechanism for effective cooperation
Danelo, 11 [T OWARD A U.S. - M EXICO S ECURITY S TRATEGY : T HE G EOPOLITICS OF N ORTHERN M
EXICO AND THE I MPLICATIONS FOR U.S. P OLICY By David J. Danelo,
https://www.fpri.org/docs/Toward_a_US_Mexico_Security_Strategy_Danelo.pdf]
The problems along the Rio Grande were confirmed in October 2010, just two weeks after Mexico’s
bicentennial celebration. David and Tiffany Hartley, a married couple who had moved to the border from Colorado three years earlier for a job in the oil industry, 1 The worst
massacre of migrants chronicled by international media happened in August 2010 in Tamaulipas, where the bodies of 72 migrant workers were
discovered. Members of Los Zetas reportedly were held responsible. 2 Statistics reported in northeastern Mexico, September 2010. 5 Foreign Policy Research Institute ventured illegally on jet skis into the Mexican
waters of the Rio Grande. As the Hartleys searched for an abandoned Catholic church they had previously tou red for recreation, Mexican bandits allegedly ambushed them in speedboats. The husband, David, was missing after
the encounter and, according to Tif fany, was wounded and killed.
The incident illustrated the lack of an effective cooperative
security
strategy between Mexico and the U nited S tates. Although both nations have pushed forward diplomatic
platitudes, the current absence of security along the U.S.-Mexico frontier is both unacceptable and
unsustainable . Indeed, the furious reactions to the Hartley incident appear similar to Arizonans ’ responses in April 2010 to the death of rancher Robert Krentz, whose murder preceded the state legislature’s
passage of SB 1070, Arizona’s controver sial illegal immigration law. Despite the well - publicized capture o f Mexican cartel kingpins, there are no signs that the anarchy south of the border will soon abate. Mexico’s inability to
control the cartels has exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Mexican state, particularly in the north. Regional kingpins continue to seek authority over local governments and businesses in addition to control over smuggling
These developments are a natural consequence of many forces — including NAFTA, migration,
economic inequality, law enforcement corruption, and political repression — that have plagued Mexico
for decades. The outcome of this twenty - first century irregular war, which may become even more violent during the course of this decade, will have far reaching consequences for the United States. Barring an
unlikely increase in Mexico’s nationwide security capacity, the anarchy will continue unchecked. This situation has the potential to threaten both the
legitimacy of the state and the fabric of Mexican society.
routes.
AT: Economy Key to Relations
Economic relations not key – security is a pre requisite
Schaefer, 13 [Agnes Bereben is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corp.,
based in Santa Monica, Calif, If U.S.-Mexico Get Security Right, Other Good Policy Will Follow
http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/05/if-us-mexico-get-security-right-other-good-policy.html]
During their joint news conference, Obama and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto touted their work on economic cooperation and commercial integration.
Likewise, Obama's speech to the Mexican people and a joint statement from the two presidents stressed economic ties and shared opportunities while only briefly
mentioning such difficult security issues as drugs, guns and crime. Headlines
suggested that the economy will become the
driving force behind future U.S.-Mexico relations. Let's not get carried away. While security isn't the
only topic confronting Washington and Mexico City, it's still likely to consume the lion's share of
attention in this crucial relationship. After all, between Peña Nieto's inauguration in December 2012 and the
end of April 2013, 5,296 people were killed in Mexico in drug-related violence — about 35 every day. That
level of violence alone would keep security issues as a high priority for the United States and Mexico. Moreover,
drug trafficking in Mexico continues to affect the U.S. Mexico is the largest supplier of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines
to the U.S., and Mexico is the shipment point for 95 percent of the cocaine brought into the U.S. So over the past six years, the U.S. has embarked
on a strategic partnership with Mexico that has focused on drug-related violence. This partnership has
meant closer U.S.-Mexican cooperation on several fronts, including an unprecedented transfer of U.S. equipment, U.S. training of Mexican security
forces and U.S. access to Mexican security agencies. But while security will remain central to the U.S.-Mexico relationship,
the two sides may well change how they handle it. The new Peña Nieto administration is re-evaluating Mexico's recent close
cooperation on security. The new Mexican leader's overall security strategy is evolving, but he has embarked on some important reforms to defense institutions.
Peña Nieto has called for a more centralized approach to security issues that would eliminate inefficiencies and redundancies across government agencies. He is
also pushing to develop a new National Intelligence Agency — similar to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence set up after the 9/11 Commission to
quarterback the U.S. intelligence community — that would streamline Mexico's intelligence collection and analysis, which is now conducted by many disparate
agencies. The most important unanswered question is how involved Peña Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party want the U.S. to be in future efforts to
decrease drug-related violence. Some Mexican leaders and commentators are calling for the U.S. to back off, and some are explicitly asking to roll back the
cooperative mechanisms of the past several years. As Peña Nieto refines his national security strategy, he will need to navigate these domestic pressures — and,
ultimately, decide how much U.S. assistance he will consider, and in what form. Peña Nieto isn't the only one facing domestic pressures, of course. Obama could
almost hear the heated debates in Congress on immigration reform and border security from Mexico City. So the two leaders emphasized economic cooperation at
their summit not because security issues have gone away, but because the new rules of the game in this nascent relationship between Obama and Peña Nieto are
Economic cooperation is of course also exceedingly important. The United States is still Mexico's largest trading partner. In
2011, U.S. trade with Mexico totaled $500 billion, and Mexico was the United States' second-largest goods export market in 2012. But let's not assume
that economic issues will displace security issues at the top of the U.S-Mexico agenda. Because
security issues are not going away, the two sides need to tackle them as best they can. The Obama and Peña Nieto administrations should build
evolving.
on the unprecedented levels of cooperation developed over the past six years — and if they get security right, they will be far better-positioned to broaden the
relationship to focus on other issues such as economics, energy and the environment. If the two sides continue to invest together in security today, they may find
themselves with far more opportunities for broader cooperation tomorrow.
AT: Advantage General*
Interdependence means cooperation is inevitable – economic growth slays the case
Epatko, 12 [Larisa, PBS News Hour, U.S. and Mexico: Ties That Bind,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/06/us-mexico-ties.html]
"There's probably no other country in the world that's as intertwined with the United States. Our economies
are intertwined ; Mexico is now the second destination for U.S. exports and the third largest trading partner overall," said Shannon O'Neil, fellow
for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.¶ The U.S. automotive, food, and computer and
electronics industries depend on Mexican consumers, said O'Neil. "For 21 out of 50 states, Mexico is
the No. 1 or No. 2 destination for their exports," she said. "And it's not just the states on the border that
have huge trade with Mexico, but as far away as New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan and Indiana."¶ Mexico also is
a friendly source of oil, O'Neil noted. It's the United States' third largest supplier behind Canada and Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.¶ "So keeping our lights on and our cars going depend today much on Mexico ," she said.¶ Since the two
countries share a border, they also share the problems and responsibilities of regulating the environment, preventing drug trafficking and maintaining security.¶
Every president of Mexico has had a different take on U.S. relations, but all of the top contenders in the current race have indicated they will work with the United
States, said O'Neil.¶ The
economy in Mexico is recovering faster than the U nited S tates. Helping transform
Mexico's economy is a growing middle class, she said. View a chart of GDP growth in both countries:¶ Source: World Bank¶ "Thirtyplus years ago, Mexico was a commodity-driven, oil-driven, inward-looking economy," said O'Neil. "Today
it is a manufacturing and services-based economy, export-led with a focus on the U.S. market and that
is fundamentally different than just a few decades ago."¶ Partly because of Mexico's economic
growth, immigration between the two countries has slowed to a net zero last year. The slowdown also
can be attributed to a demographic shift in Mexico in the last several years, O'Neil said. "There are fewer
Mexicans turning 18 and looking for jobs than there were in the past. And more and more Mexicans
are staying in school longer and investing in their future and investing in their skills. So they're not
leaving the country. They're not thinking about going abroad at 15 or 16 anymore, they're staying in
school."¶ Mexico is becoming an increasingly urban society as well, said O'Neil. "So the old days of a campesino (peasant) wearing a sombrero riding a burro -it's a reality for a few Mexicans now, but very few. It's a more urban society. And that's a total transformation from back in the '50s or '60s."¶ Helping drive
the current conditions is a transformed government. "There are still problems with corruption, accountability and transparency -- in
particular at the state level," she said. "But it also is a democracy. They're about to have elections that almost everywhere in the world people think are going to be
free and fair. And that's something new."
AT: Relations Advantage – 1nc
Disputes over border fences are an alt cause to relations
BMO, 6/26 – Buisness and Legal resource published by international expert to discuss Mexico (Business
Mexico Online, “As US Senate contemplates immigration reform, Mexico says “walls are not the solution,”
BMO, 6/26/13, http://business-mexico-online.com/as-us-senate-contemplates-immigration-reform-mexicosays-walls-are-not-the-solution/)//SMS
Secretary of Foreign Relations José Antonio Meade yesterday called on the United States to work together with
Mexico to create prosperous, safe and sustainable development of the border region without implementing
“Walls are not the solution to the migration phenomenon and they
said Meade in a press conference. [See the video of the press conference below.]
measures that could affect the ties between the two communities.
are not congruent with a modern and secure border,”
Monday the U.S. Senate
voted for a plan that double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol and require another 350 miles of fencing at the boundary
with Mexico, at a price tag its backers say will reach US$38 billion. The security amendment was demanded by Republicans in order to
support the immigration reform bill. Mexico, on the other hand, would prefer to put those efforts into developing
infrastructure in the border region to provide jobs and business opportunities, according to a press release of Meade´s
“They don´t contribute to the development of the competitive region that both countries want to foster.” On
conference issued by the Secretariat. These are the types of priorities that are more important to allocate resources to, said Meade.
Squo solves – Mexico’s economy and standard of living is massively improving already
O’Neil, 13 – Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies at CFR (Shannon K., “Mexico Makes It,” Council
on Foreign Relations, March/April, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexico-makes/p30098)//SMS
Today, Mexico has shaken off this volatile past to become one of the most open and globalized
economies in the world. It maintains free-trade agreements with over 40 countries. The country's
trade as a percentage of GDP -- a useful measure of economic openness -- is 65 percent, compared with 59
percent in China, 32 percent in the United States, and 25 percent in Brazil. No longer addicted to oil, Mexico's export
economy is now driven by manufacturing, especially of cars, computers, and appliances. The shift from commodities and
agriculture to services and manufacturing has catapulted the country forward, and Mexico is outpacing many
other emerging-market countries, including China, India, and Russia, in making this economic transition. These fundamental changes began in
1982, at the onset of the Latin American debt crisis. Hit by rising interest rates and declining oil prices, the Mexican government stopped
payment on some $80 billion in foreign obligations, mostly to U.S. commercial banks. The ensuing financial crisis further crippled the economy
and cost millions their livelihoods, but it also forced the government to consider drastic economic reforms. President Miguel de la Madrid led
the charge after 1982, cutting public spending, reducing subsidies, and signing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the predecessor of
the World Trade Organization), which committed Mexico to lowering tariffs and trade barriers. His successor, Carlos Salinas, was even more
aggressive. He eradicated the traditional ejido (communal landholding) system, privatized hundreds of public companies, and negotiated
NAFTA with the United States and Canada, a treaty that was, at the time, the most comprehensive and ambitious free-trade agreement in the
world. These policies helped, but in 1994, Mexico stumbled again. An overvalued peso, a weak banking sector, dwindling foreign reserves, and
the PRI's elevated preelection spending led to yet another financial mess. The peso lost half its value in just weeks, GDP fell by seven percent,
inflation soared to triple digits, and over one million Mexicans lost their jobs. Fortunately, due to the trade security provided by NAFTA and
earlier reforms that had opened the economy, the recession was relatively short, with recovery beginning in 1996. Even better, Mexico
emerged with a strong fiscal management system, including an independent central bank dedicated to curbing inflation and a finance ministry
The combination of permanent access to the world's largest consumer
market, through NAFTA, and currency devaluation made Mexican businesses more globally
competitive and led to a manufacturing boom and a fourfold surge in exports between 1990 and 2000. Industries producing
committed to balancing the federal budget.
goods such as auto parts, electronics, and apparel added some 800,000 jobs, pushing the total number of factory workers to well over one
million. Foreign direct investment poured in, averaging $11 billion a year in the late 1990s. Other economic transformations also accelerated
during this time. Over two million farmers were put out of work as small-scale agriculture became unprofitable in the face of subsidized U.S.
agribusiness. This reflects the harsh implications of NAFTA, but it is also a trend that is common to many industrializing economies, in which
manufacturing and services replace agriculture as the drivers of economic growth and employment. In addition, oil became much less
important to the economy. To be sure, it still funds over a third of the federal budget, but as a share of GDP, it fell from a peak of nearly 20
percent in 1981 to around six percent today. MEXICO'S MIDDLE
Along with these economic reforms came significant
social changes, especially the rise of Mexico's middle class. By the early 1980s, the country's middle class had grown to
about a third of the population, thanks to the PRI's commitment to accessible education and the expansion of public-sector employment. But
the 1982 financial crisis and the subsequent reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s hurt the government-nurtured middle class by trimming
public-sector jobs and government subsidies and largess. At the same time, these reforms opened up the space for a more diverse, less PRI-
The past 15 years of economic stability have bettered the lives of many
Mexicans, whose savings and investments are no longer repeatedly wiped out by financial crises.
NAFTA has both increased investment in the economy and lowered costs for average Mexicans. A study
dependent middle class to grow.
by Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Institute shows that the agreement has lowered the price of basic goods in Mexico
by some 50 percent, making salaries go much further than in the past. In addition, growing access to credit has enabled millions of Mexicans to
buy their own homes and start or expand businesses. As a result, modern Mexico is a middle-class country. The World Bank estimates that
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) also puts most of Mexico's population on the upper rungs, estimating that 50 percent of
Mexicans are middle class and another 35 percent are upper class. Even the most stringent measurement,
some 95 percent of Mexico's population is in the middle or the upper class.
comparing incomes alongside access to health care, education, social security, housing, and food, finds that just over 45 percent of Mexicans
are considered poor -- meaning that almost 55 percent are not. According to the World Bank, more than three-quarters of Mexicans are city
Today's middle-class Mexicans are also much less
dependent on the government than their parents were, as most work in the private sector. These professionals
dwellers, and the growing middle class is a decidedly urban phenomenon.
frequently fill jobs as accountants, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs, specialized factory workers, taxi drivers, or midlevel managers in
Mexico's growing service and manufacturing sectors. In addition, Mexico's work force includes more women than ever before. Forty-five
percent of Mexican women now work outside their homes -- more than double the rate of 30 years ago. Although there are fewer dual-income
households in Mexico than in many other developing countries, they are increasingly common. This trend is tied to a change in average family
size, which has allowed women to pursue their own careers. In the 1970s, the typical Mexican family included seven children. Today, most
women have only two children, which is the average in the United States.
And Mexican children now spend much more
time in school than they did in the past. In 1990, most children made it through only the primary grades. Today, the majority
remain through high school. As the number of Mexicans with greater earnings has increased, so, too, has consumption. With middleclass annual individual incomes estimated at somewhere between $7,000 and $85,000, households
now earn enough to buy modern appliances, such as refrigerators, televisions, and washing machines.
Approximately 80 percent of all Mexicans own a cell phone, half own a car, and nearly a third own a
computer. The media might depict Mexico as a crime-ridden battlefield, but the country boasts a
middle-income, emerging-market economy.
Relations are strong and resilient – their evidence is just media sensationalism
O’Neil, 9 – (Shannon K.“U.S.-Mexico relationship remains strong,” Marketplace, April 16, 2009,
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/us-mexico-relationship-remains-strong)//SMS
Kai Ryssdal: President Obama is meeting with his Mexican counterpart today in Mexico City. He and President Felipe Calderon will talk national
security, the drug trade and the global economic crisis all in just a few short hours. Then they will both head out to Trinidad and Tobago for a
Summit of the Americas conference later this week. The U.S.-Mexico relationship is long and it's complicated. Shannon O'Neil is the Douglas
Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Shannon, good to have you with us. Shannon O'Neil: Nice to be here.
The
economic relationship with the U.S. and Mexico is really quite strong. Since NAFTA came into effect 15
years ago, trade between the two nations has tripled. And it's the most important trading relationship in
many ways for both countries -- or particularly for states in the United States. So it's the third-largest trading partner for
the United States and it's the second-largest destination of U.S. exports. So it's quite important. Ryssdal: And yet all we've
Ryssdal: Give us a sense, would you, of the state of the economic relationship between the United States and Mexico. O'Neil:
been hearing in the lead up to this trip by the president is: drug violence, the prospect of Mexico as a failed state, how NAFTA really hasn't
U.S.-Mexico relations goes through its
patterns. And as happens in many relationships, you focus on the complaints rather than the positives, at least in
the discussion. So that's really what's happening here. We're focused on the violence -- which is really,
and has increased in the last several months -- but in many ways, the real substance of the relationship
and the positives fall by the wayside in those sound bytes.
worked out for Mexico. How do you explain that difference? O'Neil: You know,
AT: Mexican Economy – Strong Now
Mexico’s economy is strong and growing
Zacks Equity Research, 6/7 – leading investment research firm focusing on stock research, analysis
and recommendations (“Time to Worry about the Mexico ETF?,” ZER, 6/7/13,
http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/101032/Time-to-Worry-about-the-Mexico-ETF)//SMS
Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America and a popular vacation destination for many
Americans. However, the country has begun to attract many American investors as well, thanks to its economic
resilience in the latest slowdown, and its quickly growing economy. The country has turned into something of a
manufacturing powerhouse, and it has stolen share from other big emerging nations such as China.
Additionally, the nation has made several moves on a political and policy front, and many believe that these
ensure favorable financial conditions and economic growth for the nation’s future. Economy Outlook In fact, Mexico
has a great potential for accelerating economic growth. In 2012 Mexico maintained a strong growth at
3.9%, while some believe that higher rates could be in the country’s future should the American economy continue to improve as well (See
Why Mexico ETF is a long term Winner) The country also represents a very large market as it ranks 8th in the emerging
world, and 11th overall in terms of GDP size. To top things off, it also received a solid BBB+ rating from Fitch
suggesting that the nation has a solid economic foundation, and that its reforms are well received (See Time to Buy These Top Ranked Latin
America ETF) News in Favor Mexico’s growth prospects are attracting investment banks and investors hunting for ways to gain greater exposure
to international markets. “It’s the coming of age of the Mexican market,” said Eduardo Cepeda, J.P. Morgan’s senior country
officer (See Inside the Surging Mexico ETF) The market for credit is also growing, and the banks are strongly capitalized and have complied with
International Basel 3 standards. Local
companies are generating cash and are looking to expand in the domestic
and international markets. The foreign manufacturers are also returning to Mexico as the country has
a rich industrial base. The automakers plan to invest $10 billion in new assembly plants this year alone.
AT: Income Gap – decreasing now
Income gap has massively decreased in Mexico
GEI, 3/28 – a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international
economic policy (Global Economic Intersection, “Income Inequality: China, U.S. Increasing, Mexico
Decreasing,” GEI, 3/28/13, http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2013/03/28/incomeinequality-china-u-s-increasing-mexico-decreasing)//SMS
Over the past 2-3 decades Mexico has experienced improving income distribution. The GINI coefficient
come down from averaging above 51 in the 1990s to 0.483 in 2008, according to the World Bank. However, another source,
the CIA World Fact Book reports GINI still above 50 for Mexico in 2008 so there is some uncertainty about just how fast Mexico GINI is improving. The same source also reports GINI for China
in 2009 at 0.48. Numbers from all sources for the U.S. are in close agreement.
AT: Relations – Alternative causalities
Divides over gun control, immigration, drug policies, and crime cause splits between
Mexico and the US--alt cause to relations collapse
Hakim 13, President emeritus and senior fellow of the Inter-American Dialogue He writes articles about
foreign policy issues, many of which have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, NYT, the
Washington Post, Miami Herald, LA Times, etc. Former professor at MIT and Columbia. Member of the
Council on Foreign Relations(Peter, "Which Mexico for Obama?" 5/1/13, Reuters,
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/05/01/which-mexico-for-obama/)//AD
Mexico, he will be visiting a country that was much maligned
throughout his first term. Washington has viewed Mexico largely as a source of problems for the
United States in the past six years. Many Mexicans, in a mirror image, consider the United States the
origin of their troubles. They blame Mexico’s epidemic of violent crime on an insatiable appetite for
drugs and loose control over gun and ammunition sales in the United States. In addition, the U.S. financial crisis left the
When President Barack Obama meets this week with President Enrique Peña Nieto in
Mexican economy reeling in 2009. But in the past year, particularly since Peña Nieto’s election in July 2012, Mexico’s standing in the United States and internationally has increased
organized crime and violence remain key concerns for Mexico,
dramatically — along with its national self-esteem. Though
stories of
economic and social reform are now among the headlines. A November Economist article about Mexico was titled “From Darkness, Dawn.” And that message has become a standard media
refrain. Some in Washington talked about Mexico as a likely failed state, but that has been decisively debunked. Mexico is now viewed as on the rise, though its homicide rate has fallen only
there are many Mexicos for Obama to deal with — the
successful and prospering; the backward, corrupt and stagnant; and everything in between. This mix is not
unusual. It is characteristic of most nations, even the United States. Obama needs to bring an optimistic perspective with him to
Mexico, reflecting the growing confidence that Mexicans have in their country — and the image they
project internationally. In this, Obama has little choice. No country is likely to affect the future of the United States more than Mexico, just as none will affect Mexico’s
slightly and no one is sure that improvements can be sustained. In fact,
future more than the United States. No two nations have more to gain from energetically pursuing closer cooperation. Mexico’s reinvigorated economy has proven more resilient and vibrant
than anyone expected. It shrank by more than 6 percent in 2009, one year after the Wall Street financial collapse, but economic expansion since has been faster than at any time in the past
two decades. Mexico’s growth, while modest by Asian standards, has in the past three years been more robust than that of Brazil, one of the region’s strongest economies. It is also competing
successfully with China in U.S. markets. Mexico will displace Canada as the largest U.S. trade partner within roughly six years, according to some economic projections. Close U.S.-Mexico
economic ties, once seen as the culprit in our southern neighbor’s sluggish growth and sharp downturn, are now, as the U.S. continues to recover, a prime explanation for Mexico’s rising
economic fortunes. The future may be even brighter. Peña Nieto has launched an ambitious reform agenda to overcome the many obstacles to stable, rapid economic growth. He is
demonstrating the political talent needed to get his policies approved and put into practice. The Mexican president, for example, managed to negotiate the Pacto por Mexico, an accord among
the country’s three major parties that bridged many of their long-held ideological differences and secured their agreement on a broad package of economic changes. Despite suffering some
tangles and setbacks in recent weeks, the Pacto continues to provide a path forward to far-reaching reform. Peña Nieto plans to revamp Mexico’s oil industry and open it to foreign investment
could reverse the decline in oil production and assure that the country remains a leading exporter. Proposed changes would also pave the way for the systematic exploitation of Mexico’s huge,
untapped deposits of shale gas and oil. Other reforms are designed to augment government revenue and improve fiscal management. Peña Nieto wants to increase competition in
telecommunications and other critical sectors, and upgrade the country’s mediocre schools and universities to raise productivity and create paths for social mobility. This explosion of reform
initiatives has helped change opinion in the United States about Mexico. Less than a year ago, Mexico was widely viewed as an increasingly dangerous neighbor. Today, it is talked about as a
promising economic partner. The partnership will be far stronger if — as now appears likely — Congress passes sensible and humane immigration reforms. The Mexican government seems
most encouraged by the prospect of U.S. legislation that would include an expanded temporary worker program and would provide immediate legal status and a path to citizenship for most
.
Mexicans have long been angered and insulted by U.S. debates on immigration, including insistent
demands that the border be walled up; the spread of anti-immigration (and often anti-Latino)
legislation in many states and communities, and absurd and offensive proposals like GOP presidential
nominee Mitt Romney’s call for migrants to “self-deport.” Equally important, immigration reform will offer an array of economic benefits to
both nations. Despite the Peña Nieto administration’s impressive start, however, there is reason for caution
in thinking about the future of the country and its relationship with the United States. Mexico clearly looks better
currently undocumented immigrants ‑ about half of whom are Mexican nationals. These changes could substantially eliminate a persistent tension in U.S.-Mexican relations
than ever, but it was never as seriously endangered as it was reported to be. It was never close to being a failed state. It is true that its homicide rate and violence rose rapidly in the past five
years — and the associated brutality was unparalleled. But Mexico’s murders per capita are still far from the highest in Latin America. They regularly trail those of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela,
most of Central America and the Caribbean. On the economic side, yes, Mexico has only recently emerged from some 15 years of listless growth. During that period, however, the economy
and banking system were well managed. Mexico maintained ample reserves and a low ratio of debt to gross domestic product. Inflation was kept firmly under control. For more than two
decades now, Mexico has been building a modern economy with vibrant manufacturing and export sectors well integrated into U.S. supply chains. The Mexican economy was never as troubled
as it was portrayed — and now the opportunities for improvement are greater than ever. Still, Mexico is not the sure bet that many believe it to be. It has to demonstrate that it can make its
economy grow faster. The past 30 years offer little evidence that Mexico has the potential for sustained, rapid expansion, or for carrying out the reforms that such growth will require. The
Peña
Nieto’s reform initiatives are just getting started. The legislature has already given its initial approval
for changes in education, labor laws, telecommunication policy and some other sectors. But in many
cases, original proposals have been watered down, additional legislation will also be required in
almost every area and effective implementation is still to come. Success will depend heavily on Peña Nieto’s political skills — as well as
Mexican economy has long suffered fundamental shortcomings that restrain its productivity, job creation and capacity to compete. The obstacles to change remain formidable.
the technical mastery of his advisers and managers. It will also hinge on whether the fragile inter-party consensus backing the Pacto por Mexico can be sustained and popular support
Crime and violence are likely to remain unrelenting challenges for Peña Nieto.
mobilized for change.
They could even take
central stage again. In fact, public security may not improve anytime soon — despite the new government’s multiple initiatives. Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Felipe Calderón, learned how
arduous a task it is to reform Mexico’s police and its justice system, and restore public confidence in them. Now, Peña Nieto is making clear his deep dissatisfaction with — and his intention to
overhaul — Calderón U.S.-supported approach to security and drug issues. The expected changes will almost surely irritate many in Washington and may even become a new source of friction
in the bilateral relationship. But neither the United States nor Mexico is perfect. The two nations cannot look at each other only as sources of opportunity and gain; cooperation is needed to
address risks and problems. Neither country has much of an option, however, because their economies and populations are so deeply integrated. There is no turning the clock back. Mexico
and the United State have to solve their problems together and find ways to generate and exploit new opportunities jointly. If they can do it, the payoff will be enormous.
Alt cause to relations collapse--new border fence construction and controversies over
the flow of river water guarantee a split
Sherman 12, Rio Grande Valley correspondent for The Associated Press(Christopher, "U.S. And Mexico
Disagree Over Border Fence" The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2012/07/26/usand-mexico-disagree-over-border-fence_n_1706983.html)//AD
McALLEN, Texas -- An agency that monitors the U.S.-Mexico boundary is agreeing to a U.S. proposal to
build border fence segments in a South Texas flood plain, a move Mexico opposes. The decision by the
U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission comes despite objections from its Mexican counterpart. Mexico
argues the fence would deflect floodwaters to its side of the Rio Grande and violate a bi-national
treaty. The Associated Press on Tuesday obtained a letter the commission sent to U.S. Customs and Border Protection noting it will not
oppose the project. The commission says its analysis found that the fence proposed for three areas in South Texas would not be a significant
obstruction to river waters. Half of the 14 miles proposed would be in the flood plain. "When it comes right down to it, the scientific analysis is
what we have to fall back on," John Merino, principal engineer with the U.S. commission, said Tuesday. In his February letter, Merino wrote
that after a thorough review, the agency concluded that the project "will not cause significant deflection or obstruction of the normal or flood
flows of the Rio Grande" and is consistent with the treaty. Jenny Burke, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said that one
of the segments, in Los Ebanos, is no longer considered necessary and more funding is needed to build the other two in Rio Grande City and
Roma. Merino also pointed out that the government would have to bring back detailed construction drawings of the fence for approval before
proceeding. Still, the green light for a permanent fence made of spaced vertical steel tubes is a significant reversal for an agency that expressed
concerns when the government was still proposing a "moveable" fence in 2008. A 1970 treaty between the United States and Mexico called on
both countries to prohibit the building of anything that "may cause deflection or obstruction of the normal flow of the river or of its flood
flows." In July 2008, Al Riera, then the principal operations engineer for the U.S. boundary commission, told a citizens forum, "If they
(Department of Homeland Security) don't show us they have something in place to guarantee removal of the (fence) panels ... the commission
would never agree to something like that." That movable fence was planned to involve a base of concrete barriers topped with about 15 feet of
tightly woven steel fencing that could be removed in advance of floodwaters. Merino said the project had not been analyzed when Riera made
those comments. Riera is no longer with the commission. But a
letter from a Mexican engineer to Merino in December 2011 said
the project represented a serious obstruction. "The location, alignment and design of the proposed
fence represent a clear obstruction of the Rio Grande hydraulic area, since in the towns of Rio Grande City and
Roma, (Texas), the fence would occupy nearly all of the hydraulic area on the U.S. side, causing the deflection of flows towards the Mexican
side," wrote principal engineer Luis Antonio Rascon Mendoza. Jesus Luevano, secretary of the commission's Mexican section, said in an email
Tuesday that Mexico's position is that the
"wall constitutes an obstruction of the normal current ... in terms of
the 1970 Boundary Treaty, therefore we continue fighting its placement with respect to the Rio
Grande flood zone." He added that Mexico recognizes the border fence is a unilateral endeavor, but
said it wasn't improving relations between the neighbors. The U.S. has built about 650 miles of border barriers along
the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary. In Texas, the fence segments have been built more than a mile away from the river in some rural areas,
but the three segments recently reviewed by the commission would be built closer because all three communities abut the river. In 2008, the
Department of Homeland Security waived a host of environmental regulations to allow speedy construction. Merino said the disagreement
stems from differing assumptions. He said Mexico looks at the fence as a solid barrier like a dam that would not allow water to pass through.
U.S. engineers believe water will pass through it as long as it's kept free of debris. Jeffrey Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, said he will send a letter to the commission Wednesday demanding an explanation for the agency's new
position. He noted that the proposed fencing would cut through a national wildlife refuge. "We don't know the reason that all of these
concerns evaporated," Ruch said Tuesday.
Alternative causalities to relations collapse--rising tensions over the perceived
militarization of the Mexican border is a thorn in the side of relations
Fauset 13, Richard Fausset covers Mexico and Central America for the Los Angeles Times(Richard, "In
Mexico, U.S. border 'surge' proposal stirs outcry" 6/25/13, LA Times,
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/25/world/la-fg-mexico-border-anger-20130626)//AD
The U.S. Senate's proposal to spend $46 billion to help secure the country's southern border
is generating some serious grumbling in
Mexico. "We are 'friends and neighbors,' as is repeated ad nauseam," Fernando Belaunzaran, a congressman with Mexico's left-wing
Democratic Revolution Party, tweeted this week, "but the U.S. is about to militarize the border with Mexico as if we were at
war." "Neighbors don't do this to each other," Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos wrote in the newspaper Reforma. On a national radio
show, Lorenzo Meyer, a respected columnist and academic, suggested that Mexico retaliate by kicking
out CIA and Defense Department officials who are collaborating with the government in the fight
against drug cartels. Or perhaps, Meyer mused, Mexico could get back at the U.S. by refusing to accept any more American retirees. The proposed spending spree at the
MEXICO CITY —
may or may not persuade skeptical colleagues in the House to support broader immigration reform. But the proposal
border — which supporters have labeled a "surge," after the 2007 U.S. troop increase in Iraq — was included as an amendment to a broader immigration bill that appears almost certain to
pass in the Senate this week. The additional spending would add nearly 20,000 Border Patrol officers, roughly doubling the current force. It would also fund the completion of 700 miles of
border fencing and 24-hour surveillance flights by drones. The Senate voted 67 to 27 on Monday to end debate on the amendment. Supporters are hoping that a lopsided approval of the
immigration reform bill in the Senate will build momentum for the proposal as it heads to the House of Representatives. In the lower chamber, some conservative lawmakers do not want to
support the bill's provision of a "path to citizenship" for unauthorized immigrants, particularly because they fear it will encourage more people to sneak in. But supporters of the surge are
hoping to convince skeptical House members that slipping across the border will become far more difficult. The plan's American critics include immigrant rights advocates, budget hawks and
In Mexico, most of the complaints have come
from the left, whose leaders have reiterated the long-held opinion here that U.S. border policy, with
its walls, fences and armed border agents, is an insult to their nation. A number of critics also have
taken aim at the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto for not speaking out more forcefully.
"The passivity and negligence of his government is incomprehensible; it's as if this had nothing to do
with him, as if this was not going to seriously affect millions of Mexicans," Ramos, the TV anchor, wrote in his column Sunday.
Peña Nieto's team has chosen to hang back from the immigration debate north of the border,
apparently out of fear that any cheerleading for the cause could be construed by American
conservatives as unwarranted meddling. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox's efforts to persuade Americans to accept immigration reform in 2001 led to
civil libertarians wary of the expanded surveillance capabilities the Border Patrol would be granted.
a substantial backlash. Fox's former foreign secretary, Jorge Castañeda, who helped lobby for a change in immigration law in 2001, said the Mexican government needed to speak out about
the plan. "Mexico can't say nothing in the face of a reform that includes doubling the number of Border Patrol agents," he said in a radio interview Monday. "It strikes me as shameful." On
Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Jose Antonio Meade delivered a measured statement in which he reiterated the government's contention that U.S. immigration reform would help millions of
fences, Meade said, "are not the solution to the phenomenon of migration, and aren't consistent
with a modern and secure border. They don't contribute to the development of the competitive
region that both countries seek to promote." The apprehension of Mexicans at the U.S. border has been trending dramatically downward since fiscal
Mexican migrants. But
2000, when 1.6 million Mexicans were detained. In fiscal 2012, the number was 262,000. It's likely that fewer Mexicans have been trying to cross in light of the sputtering U.S. economy,
stricter border control and fear of Mexican criminals who prey on migrants. U.S. government statistics show that the number of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border, most of whom were
Central Americans, also declined from fiscal 2005 to 2011. But the number doubled from 2011 to 2012, to 94,000, probably a result of rising violence and instability in several Central American
countries. Maria Garcia, the president of the Mexico City-based Aztlan Binational Migrants Movement, said that increased border enforcement would force migrants to find even more
dangerous and remote places to cross the border, putting their lives at greater risk. She also doubted that a more heavily fortified border would do much to scare off migrants seeking better
wages. "Hunger is too strong," she said. "They'll keep risking their lives." But Alfredo Rodriguez, a 59-year-old hardware store clerk, said he could live with the border plan if the U.S. gave
Mexicans more legal avenues for employment, such as temporary work visas. In any case, he said, the Americans were within their rights to beef up their security. "If you invade someone's
property," he said, "obviously, there are going to be consequences."
Anti-immigration initiatives, NAFTA policies, loose gun laws, drug demand and lack of
cooperation compromise relations--ideological splits hurt relations
Stevenson 11, Writer for the Huffington Post(Mark, "Mexico President Visits U.S. Amid Tension" 03/
2/11, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/mexico-president-visitsu_n_830463.html#)//AD
MEXICO CITY — The
human and financial costs of Mexico's drug war, diplomatic cable leaks, the influx of
U.S. arms and a wave of anti-immigration initiatives in the United States are all taking a toll on
Mexico-U.S. relations that had shown steady improvement in recent years. As President Felipe Calderon prepares for an official visit to
Washington on Thursday to meet with President Barack Obama, frustrations have come out into the open and the
rhetoric in some ways has regressed to the 1980s, when the two governments routinely traded barbs
about drugs, money laundering, trade and investment issues. The visit comes a little more than two weeks after the
killing of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot to death on a highway in northern Mexico on Feb. 15 –
with a gun that was smuggled in from the United States. The killing brought back U.S. doubts about Mexico's ability to control violence, at the
same time Mexico is
beginning to chafe under what it sees as a lack of U.S. willingness to reduce its
demand for drugs or stem the flow south of guns that fuel a conflict that has cost more than 34,600
lives here since Calderon took office in 2006. "As far as reducing the demand for drugs, they haven't done so. ... As
far as reducing the flow of arms, they haven't, it has increased," Calderon said in unusually harsh comments the week
before the visit in an interview with the newspaper El Universal. " Institutional cooperation has been notoriously
insufficient."
Calderon "has not gotten a response beyond rhetoric on the gun issue ... and I think he is bothered by the prospect that
special-interest groups in the United States have more influence than Mexico's entire leadership," said Raymundo Riva Palacio, a veteran
columnist and political observer in Mexico City. According to Mexican officials, the Calderon-Obama meeting was planned before the Zapata
killing, and will focus on economic issues, anti-crime cooperation, and conditions for the estimated 12 million Mexican migrants living in the
United States. But Calderon's most important meeting may be with the new U.S. House Speaker, Republican John Boehner, according to Pamela
Starr, professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. It may be Mexico's best opportunity to defend the next
phase of the $1.4 billion U.S. Merida Initiative anti-drug aid plan. Calderon "wants to make sure they don't cut the funding for Merida, in their
zeal to cut," Starr said. Contributing
to the friction was the release of leaked cables written by U.S. Embassy
personnel depicting Mexico's armed forces and police agencies as inefficient, corrupt, riven by
infighting and "reliant on the United States for leads and operations." Calderon's response was furious and, at
times, personal. The cables "have done a lot of damage with the stories they tell that are, in truth, distorted," Calderon said. He objected to
cables that talked about a lack of coordination among Mexican agencies. "I do not have to tell the U.S. ambassador how many times I meet with
my security Cabinet. It is none of his business. I will not accept or tolerate any type of intervention," he said. "But that man's ignorance
translates into a distortion of what is happening in Mexico, and affects things and creates ill-feeling within our own team," Calderon said.
Calderon's office refused to say whether the "ignorance" remark referred specifically to U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual. The office said Pascual
has met regularly with Calderon, despite local news media reports suggesting Calderon was avoiding him. Julian Ventura, Mexico's assistant
secretary of foreign relations, denied reports of disenchantment and said the government had "a direct, intense relationship" with Pascual. But
the ambassador may have stepped on some toes in Mexico. Calderon complained that "the ambassadors or whoever wrote these cables are
pushing their own agendas." Riva Palacio noted there was a "self-congratulatory tone" in cables like the one sent after Mexican marines killed
drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva in a December 2009 shootout. "The impression they left was of a big celebration what 'we' (the United States)
did," Riva Palacio said, despite the fact that Mexico has borne the human and economic toll of the drug war. Pascual may have also ruffled
feathers in the government and the ruling National Action Party by dating the daughter of Francisco Rojas, the congressional leader of the
former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Rojas' office and the U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the issue. "It can't help since
she's the child of a PRI leader and Calderon is anti-PRI to the core of his being," Starr said. "Calderon will do whatever he can to defeat the PRI.
He's convinced the worst thing that could happen to Mexico would be a return to the PRI." In practice, the day-to-day contacts across the
border between regulatory and law enforcement agencies, private companies and investors are immeasurably better than in the 1980s, when
the U.S. suspected top Mexican officials of complicity in drug trafficking, money laundering or attacks on U.S. agents. Things got so bad that in
1990 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration paid operatives in Mexico to kidnap and bring north a suspect in the 1985 torture-murder of
DEA Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. But things changed. Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, the PRI lost its 71year grip on the presidency in 2000, Mexico began extraditing record numbers of suspects and Calderon launched an offensive against the
cartels in 2006. The country has also opened to investment, inspection and regulation to such a degree that some U.S. agencies now operate
what are essentially satellite offices here. But
while the United States wonders if Mexico can control violence and
bring criminals to justice, Mexico has just been left wondering whether that opening is reciprocal.
Mexico continues to wait for the opening of U.S. highways to Mexican trucks, something it is entitled
to under NAFTA. The U.S. Congress has simply blocked that program under pressure from industry groups with arguments about
highway safety. And Mexicans have been angered at tough measures to crack down on illegal immigration
in several U.S. states. They are especially alarmed about proposals that aim to deny citizenship to children of undocumented migrants
born in the United States. Two days before Calderon's visit, the Mexican Senate urged him to "express emphatically and categorically" Mexico's
opposition to such measures in his meeting with Obama.
Relations already low – increased security measures and decreased intelligence
sharing
Archibold et al. 13 – Bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, New York Times
(Randal C., Damien Cave, and Ginger Thompson, “Mexico’s Curbs on U.S. Role in Drug Fight Spark
Friction,” New York Times, 4/30, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/americas/frictionbetween-us-and-mexico-threatens-efforts-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//SY
But shortly after Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, took office in December, American
agents got a clear message that the dynamics, with Washington holding the clear upper hand, were
about to change.
“So do we get to polygraph you?” one incoming Mexican official asked his American counterparts,
alarming United States security officials who consider the vetting of the Mexicans central to tracking
down drug kingpins. The Mexican government briefly stopped its vetted officials from cooperating in
sensitive investigations. The Americans are waiting to see if Mexico allows polygraphs when assigning
new members to units, a senior Obama administration official said.
In another clash, American security officials were recently asked to leave an important intelligence
center in Monterrey, where they had worked side by side with an array of Mexican military and police
commanders collecting and analyzing tips and intelligence on drug gangs. The Mexicans, scoffing at
the notion of Americans’ having so much contact with different agencies, questioned the value of the
center and made clear that they would put tighter reins on the sharing of drug intelligence.
There have long been political sensitivities in Mexico over allowing too much American involvement.
But the recent policy changes have rattled American officials used to far fewer restrictions than they
have faced in years.
Alt cause to relations – lack of cooperation in law enforcement and intelligence
Archibold et al. 13 – Bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, New York Times
(Randal C., Damien Cave, and Ginger Thompson, “Mexico’s Curbs on U.S. Role in Drug Fight Spark
Friction,” New York Times, 4/30, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/americas/frictionbetween-us-and-mexico-threatens-efforts-on-drugs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//SY
If so, it would represent a step beyond the Mexican discomfort with Americans operating on their turf
that emerged in December, just after Mr. Peña Nieto’s inauguration. It solidified after an explosion on
Jan. 31 at the office complex of the state oil company, Pemex, in which 37 people died and more than
120 were injured.
Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were invited to help investigate.
But after they suggested in a preliminary assessment that a bomb might have caused the blast, the
agency’s role in the investigation was cut short, American officials said, adding that Mexican officials
canceled a visit by a team of investigators from the United States.
An administration official said that while American explosives experts were not allowed to contribute as
much as they could have to the investigation, creating a sense that the Mexicans were rushing to
conclude that the blast was an accident.
On Feb. 4, the attorney general of Mexico announced that the cause was an unexplained buildup of gas,
possibly methane, that was ignited by a spark in the basement of one of the buildings.
The American ambassador was invited to the news conference on the findings, but a State Department
official said the level of American involvement in the investigation did not warrant the ambassador’s
presence. With the American agents leaving the cooperative center in Monterrey, which was first
reported by The Washington Post on Sunday, and the development of the one-stop intelligence
mechanism, the United States is worried and is seeking more information.
“We’re still figuring out what that means,” a senior administration official said of the new intelligence
arrangement.
But the fear is that it will diminish the access that American law enforcement and intelligence
agencies have established with branches of the Mexican police and military. Those hard-fought
relationships could disintegrate if American agents have to go through a central office to communicate
and share knowledge with their Mexican counterparts, some American officials say.
Alt cause to relations – Peña Nieto’s rejection of US-based security approach
Hakim, 13 - President emeritus and senior fellow, Inter-American Dialogue (Peter, “Which Mexico for
Obama?” Reuters, May 1, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/05/01/which-mexico-forobama/)//SY
Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Felipe Calderón, learned how arduous a task it is to reform Mexico’s police
and its justice system, and restore public confidence in them. Now, Peña Nieto is making clear his deep
dissatisfaction with — and his intention to overhaul — Calderón U.S.-supported approach to security
and drug issues. The expected changes will almost surely irritate many in Washington and may even
become a new source of friction in the bilateral relationship.
Relations already past brink – mutual blame over drug war and economic problems
Hakim, 13 - President emeritus and senior fellow, Inter-American Dialogue (Peter, “Which Mexico for
Obama?” Reuters, May 1, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/05/01/which-mexico-forobama/)//SY
When President Barack Obama meets this week with President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico, he will
be visiting a country that was much maligned throughout his first term.
Washington has viewed Mexico largely as a source of problems for the United States in the past six
years. Many Mexicans, in a mirror image, consider the United States the origin of their troubles. They
blame Mexico’s epidemic of violent crime on an insatiable appetite for drugs and loose control over
gun and ammunition sales in the United States. In addition, the U.S. financial crisis left the Mexican
economy reeling in 2009.
Can’t solve relations – counternarcotics disagreements have already destroyed the
relationship
Barry, 13 – Senior Policy Analyst and Americas Policy Program Fellow, Center for International Policy
(Tom, “Changing Perspectives on U.S.-Mexico Relations,” North American Congress on Latin America,
May 2, https://nacla.org/news/2013/5/2/changing-perspectives-us-mexico-relations)//SY
While the shape of the strategy remains unclear, dramatically reducing the pervasive and proactive
military presence throughout much of Mexico has been an appropriate first step. The Mexican
president has narrowed the window of U.S. involvement in intelligence, counternarcotics operations,
and Mexican military affairs—a clear rebuff to the U.S. government. The Obama administration may
be justifiably concerned about the ability of the new government to diminish the power and reach of
criminal organizations built largely on drug-trafficking, yet President Obama should, in a gesture of
solidarity and shared responsibility, acknowledge the systemic flaws in U.S. counternarcotics and antiorganized crime strategies.
Pervasive patterns of human rights violations, impunity, and police and judicial corruption/reform
should be top among U.S. concerns at the presidential meeting. At the same time, however, President
Obama should acknowledge that the United States’ four-decade strategy of attempting to reduce the
flow of illicit drugs has not only failed, but also led to a raft of adverse consequences.
US-Mexico relations terrible now – ideological differences between PRI and previous
administration that plan can’t resolve
Priest, 13 – Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter, Washington Post (Dana, “U.S. role at a
crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels,” Washington Post, April 27,
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-27/news/38861969_1_u-s-embassy-cartels-nationalintelligence/4)//SY
MEXICO CITY — For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have put aside their tensionfilled history on security matters to forge an unparalleled alliance against Mexico’s drug cartels, one
based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational planning.
But now, much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in jeopardy.
The December inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto brought the nationalistic Institutional
Revolutionary +Party (PRI) back to power after 13 years, and with it a whiff of resentment over the
deep U.S. involvement in Mexico’s fight against narco-traffickers.
The new administration has shifted priorities away from the U.S.-backed strategy of arresting
kingpins, which sparked an unprecedented level of violence among the cartels, and toward an
emphasis on prevention and keeping Mexico’s streets safe and calm, Mexican authorities said.
Some U.S. officials fear the coming of an unofficial truce with cartel leaders. The Mexicans see it
otherwise. “The objective of fighting organized crime is not in conflict with achieving peace,” said
Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States.
Mexico-US relations already strained over drug war – plan can’t solve
Priest, 13 – Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter, Washington Post (Dana, “U.S. role at a
crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels,” Washington Post, 4/ 27,
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-27/news/38861969_1_u-s-embassy-cartels-nationalintelligence/4)//SY
Also unremarked upon was the mounting criticism that success against the cartels’ leadership had
helped incite more violence than anyone had predicted, more than 60,000 deaths and 25,000
disappearances in the past seven years alone.
Meanwhile, the drug flow into the United States continued unabated. Mexico remains the U.S.
market’s largest supplier of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine and the transshipment point for
95 percent of its cocaine.
No one had come up with a quick, realistic alternative to Calderon’s novel use of the Mexican military
with U.S. support. But stopping the cartel violence had become Peña Nieto’s top priority during the
campaign. The U.S. administration didn’t know what that meant. Some feared a scaling back of the
bilateral efforts and a willingness to trade the relentless drive against cartel leaders for calmer streets.
Security issues complicating US-Mexico relations – plan can’t solve
Castillo, 13 – Newsdesk Editor for Latin America at CNN (Mariano, “Security dominates talk of U.S.Mexico relations,” CNN, May 2, http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/world/americas/mexico-usrelations)//SY
(CNN) -- Ahead of their meetings in Mexico City this week, President Obama and Mexican President
Enrique Peña Nieto hinted that they wanted to put economic ties atop their agenda. But reports that
Mexico is restructuring the way it cooperates with American officials on security matters -- in essence
restricting communication -- threaten to impose a shadow over the positive economic story the
leaders want to tell. The apparent friction highlights the critical security relationship and illustrates the
complexities of U.S.-Mexico relations. "We spend so much time on security issues between the United
States and Mexico that sometimes I think we forget this is a massive trading partner, responsible for
huge amounts of commerce and huge numbers of jobs on both sides of the border," Obama said this
week. But writing a new narrative on U.S.-Mexico relations that doesn't lead with Mexico as a major
transit point for narcotics, or the United States as a market hungry for the drugs, isn't easy. That was
made clear by the spate of news reports this week on both sides of the border about changes to how
Mexico cooperates with the Americans. Under the new rules, all U.S. requests for collaboration with
Mexican agencies will flow through a single office, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong
confirmed to Mexico's state-run Notimex news agency. It is a drastic change from recent years, when
U.S. agents enjoyed widespread access to their Mexican counterparts. So in the days leading up to
Obama's arrival in the Mexican capital, the buzz was not about the economy, but whether Mexico was
being uncooperative with the United States. Osorio Chong downplayed the idea that the change
signified a retreat in security cooperation. The United States "should have the confidence that things are
on a good path," he told Notimex. In a conference call with reporters, Obama administration official Ben
Rhodes said it was natural that Peña Nieto, who has been in office for only five months, would want to
revisit its security structure. "We're currently working with the Mexicans to evaluate the means by which
we cooperate, the means by which we provide assistance, and we're certainly open to discussing with
Mexico ways to improve and enhance cooperation, streamline the provision of assistance," said Rhodes,
who is the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. "Our goal is not to have a
certain amount of presence in terms of security efforts in Mexico; it's to cooperate with the Mexicans so
that we can meet the interests of both our countries." But analysts say impact of the changes should
not be underestimated. U.S. officials who had built rapport and personal relationships with Mexican
counterparts now have an obstacle to their communication, said George Grayson, an expert on
Mexican security issues and professor of government at the College of William & Mary. "The door is
not wide-open like it used to be," he said. There is a lot to boast of on the economic front, but security
will likely remain a key part of how U.S.-Mexico relations will be judged. Among U.S. officials, there is
an unspoken concern about whether Peña Nieto will merely give lip service to the the idea of security
cooperation or whether he will provide real substance, said David Shirk, former director of the TransBorder Institute in San Diego. "I've talked to many people at very high levels that have expressed these
concerns," Shirk said. "There is a kind of wait-and-see attitude. I think U.S. ofificals want to give Peña
Nieto the benefit of the doubt." What is clear is that Peña Nieto rejects the "kingpin" strategy of his
predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who made the capture of cartel leaders the centerpiece of his security
plan. A number of high-ranking drug cartel leaders were killed or captured during Calderon's term, but
the results usually backfired -- new leaders rose in their place, rival cartels fought for the leftovers and
a high level of violence persisted. Peña Nieto has talked about focusing on violence reduction, and
engaging in educational, social and economic reforms. But this broad vision has not yet produced a
defined security strategy. "The question is, what (do) you replace the kingpin strategy with?" Grayson
said. The changes to protocols between U.S. and Mexican officials are likely part of the process to
figure that out, but one that could rankle the United States, said Tony Payan, a Mexico expert and
fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. The previous strategy of
identifying kingpins and going after them suited the United States, which has the tools and
capabilities to aid in those operations, Payan said. A more hands-off approach may not go over well.
"Clearly, there is disagreement on how to approach this issue," he said.
US can’t shake perception of being drug market – barrier to relations
Shirk, 13 – Associate professor of political science, University of San Diego (David, “U.S.-Mexico
Relations Complicated, Conditioned By Drug War,” NPR, May 4, interviewed by Scott Simon,
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/04/181053775/u-s-mexico-relations-complicated-conditioned-by-drugwar)//SY
SHIRK: I think that there are a lot of people who would agree with that idea. And in some ways, you can
see that the drug war, as it's played out over the last 34 years, in particular as a U.S. proxy war. That
said, over the last six years, working with Mexico, U.S. officials have consistently tried to let Mexico set
the agenda. U.S. officials that I spoke to, repeatedly - and Mexican officials - repeatedly expressed the
understanding that Mexico and the United States were working together because they had a shared
responsibility to deal with the problem of drug trafficking and organized crime. But I think U.S. officials
are really waiting to see whether they will be able to cooperate with the Pena Nieto administration
and in what areas. Because there is some sense that the trust and collaboration that was built up over
the last six years is at least on hold, if not in recession.
SIMON: It seems to me - I've spoken with Mexicans, who, to deal in shorthand, are sick of the drug wars
and sick of the cartels and blame them for thousands of deaths, and yet at the same time, in some
ways, they blame Americans for being the market for those drugs.
SHIRK: Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, first of all, I think many Mexicans are tired of having their
country portrayed as a lawless, violent and corrupt place. That said, I also think that, for many
Mexicans, this incredible fight that they've made over the last six years to try to take on organized
crime has not yielded major gains in stopping the flow of drugs in even necessarily breaking down
some of the major cartels that operate in Mexico. So, there is a sense that they've made all of this
effort and it's primarily to prevent U.S. drug consumers in engaging in an illicit market activity. I think
some Mexicans may simply say this is not worth the effort. This is not our fight. Let's let the drug
traffickers get back to business as usual and we can get on with our lives.
Increasing demand for drugs in the US and lack of intelligence cooperation mean aff
can’t solve US-Mexico relations
Walser, 13 – Senior Policy Analyst specializing in Latin America at The Heritage Foundation (Ray,
“Obama in Mexico: Change the Reality, Not the Conversation,” The Foundry, May 1,
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/01/obama-in-mexico-change-the-reality-not-the-conversation/)//SY
Yet addressing hard, seemingly intractable issues related to the illicit traffic in drugs, people, guns, and
money moving with relative ease across the U.S.–Mexico border remains a major challenge for both
leaders.
The Obama Administration has done little to reduce drug demand in the U.S. Consumption of
marijuana is on the rise among teens. There is legal confusion in Washington following passage of
legalization measures in Colorado and Washington. Resource reductions for drug interdiction and
treatment are built into the fiscal crisis. Prior objectives for drug prevention and treatment established
by the Obama Administration have not been met, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Meanwhile, cash and guns flow south largely unchecked into Mexico.
Cooperation with Mexico may be scaled back or waning as U.S. officials are excluded from intelligence
fusion centers the U.S. helped to set up. A new emphasis on citizen security may take the law
enforcement heat of trafficking kingpins, who will likely attempt to move drugs across Mexico with less
violence and greater efficiency as Mexican law enforcement focuses on the most violent criminal
elements.
Changing a conversation is easy. Politicians and diplomats do it all the time. But hard facts and real
deeds shape the bedrock of reality. On both sides of the border, the U.S. and Mexico are far from
resolving the insecurity-producing challenges posed by transnational crime, drug consumption, human
trafficking, and border insecurity. Happy talk and wishful thinking will not make these problems go
away. In fact, they have a reasonable chance of allowing them to worsen.
Skepticism and decreased cooperation in drug war is an alt cause to relations
Althaus, 13 – Senior correspondent for Mexico and Central America, GlobalPost; Mexico City Bureau
Chief, Houston Chronicle (Dudley, “Obama's Mexico trip: What they probably won't say, but should
,” GlobalPost, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/130430/obamamexico-costa-rica-trip-enrique-pena-nieto-trade-immigration-drug-war)
“Peña Nieto campaigned on promises of a re-calibrated strategy on security and the Mexican public
has been patient in granting his administration time to develop its approach,” Tony Garza, the US
ambassador to Mexico during the Bush administration, said in a statement.
“But there are risks in the pace his team seems to have adopted, including mounting skepticism — at
home and to some extent in the US — that the issue has not been given the priority it deserves.”
Peña's team has moved to consolidate the anti-crime effort under his powerful interior ministry —
rather than having the various US and Mexican security and law enforcement agencies cooperate
separately as occurred under Calderon. That may cripple the close working relationships that have
been forged by lower-level agents from both countries, some analysts fear.
Over the past six years, US agencies, including the CIA, had direct access to Mexican counterparts and
US planners favored working directly with the Mexican navy special forces in targeting major kingpins.
Rivalries multiplied within the Mexican security forces, often hampering operations. That's being
changed.
"Far from having a large number of agencies without coordination that are knocking on every door, the
Mexican government has a single door called the Secretary of the Interior, " Sergio Alcocer, deputy
foreign secretary for North America, told The Associated Press.
“There's a worry,” Shannon O'Neil, author of the just published "Two Nations Indivisible," a study of
US-Mexico relations, says of the impact on joint anti-gang efforts. “The only way it really works is
when you trust your counterpart. And now your counterpart is a bureaucracy.”
Mexican resentment and distrust over broken promises a major barrier to relations –
prevents aff solvency
Condon, 13 – Staff writer covering the White House for National Journal (George, Jr., “Why Mexico Will
Always Play Second Fiddle,” May 9, National Journal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/whymexico-will-always-play-second-fiddle-20130509)//SY
Now reelected, Obama is determined to force Mexico onto the foreign policy agenda—and not as a
border or immigration issue. In part, that is because he sees Mexico as a crucial part of his top priority of
creating more American jobs. With that in mind, Obama scheduled the visit to Mexico City and San
Jose, Costa Rica, as the first foreign trip of his second term. “It really is an effort to elevate what we’re
doing in the Americas,” said Ricardo Zuniga, the president’s new top Latin America adviser on the
National Security Council. But Zuniga realizes that Hamilton is correct: Latin America is waiting to see if
Obama delivers. “Mexicans have deeply resented that we go down there and we give speeches about
how important the relationship is, and then it falls off the calendar completely,” Hamilton said. “It
creates a kind of anger on the part of many countries. What is true of Mexico is true of Latin America in
general. Latin Americans feel greatly neglected.”
Zuniga is experienced enough in the region to recognize that anger, and to know of the long trail of
broken promises. “It’s a fair point,” he said, acknowledging that U.S. security interests elsewhere often
trump a president’s engagement with Latin America, just as they did after 9/11. “One of the reasons
why you constantly hear that the Americas don’t receive the attention that other parts of the world
receive is because there are other issues going on in the world that are directed at our national
security.”
AT: Development Gap
Development gap in Mexico already decreasing – middle class showing significant
growth
World Bank, 12 – (“Mexican middle class grows over past decade,” 11/13,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/11/13/mexico-middle-class-grows-over-pastdecade)//SY
Inequality declines in Mexico
From 2003 to 2009, the middle class - people who are not poor, nor vulnerable, but not yet rich – has
grown 50% in Latin America, more than it has ever grown before, according to the new World Bank
report “Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class”.
Mexico’s middle class is among those that have grown the most in Latin America in 15 years. In fact,
17 percent of its population joined the middle class between 2000 and 2010. Moreover, inequality in
the country has gone down, according to international standards ( about 7 points on the Gini Index,
the international index to measure income inequality) in a decade, more than Argentina or Brazil.
Income inequality in Mexico steadily decreasing, even in periods of low economic
growth
Gaspirini, et al. 11 – Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales, Universidad Nacional de
La Plata (Leonardo, “The Rise and Fall of Income Inequality in Latin America,” Tulane University
Department of Economics, February, http://econ.tulane.edu/RePEc/pdf/tul1110.pdf)//SY
After the period of rising inequality in the 1980’s and early 1990s, Mexico’s income inequality has
been falling since the mid-1990s. Between 1994 and 2006, Mexico’s Gini coefficient fell from 0.564 to
0.506.35 The incomes of the bottom 20 percent grew more than twice than the incomes of the top ten
percent. The faster growth of incomes at the bottom of the distribution happened during a period of
lackluster aggregate economic growth . After the 1995 peso crisis, when GDP contracted by around 8 percent, the economy
quickly recovered. Between 1996 and 2000 Mexico’s per capita GDP grew at a rate of 4 percent per year. However, between 2000 and 2006,
growth slowed down significantly; per capita GDP grew at only 1 percent per year. Mexico
experienced a period of slow propoor growth. The decline in inequality coincided with the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 and with a
shift in government spending patterns. Since the early 1990s, public spending on education, health
and nutrition became more progressive. Also, in 1997 the Mexican government launched the conditional
cash transfer program Progresa (later called Oportunidades), a large-scale anti-poverty program which reaches
around 5 million poor households. These changes made the post-fiscal income distribution less
unequal, reenforcing the trend followed by income inequality shown above. Esquivel, Lustig and Scott (2010) analyze the
proximate determinants of the decline in income inequality between 1994 and 2006. Using nonparametric decomposition methods and
standard benefit-incidence analysis, the authors examine the roles
played by changes in the distribution of labor
income, demographics, and government transfers in accounting for the decline in inequality. The results
suggest that the increase in the proportion of adults and of working adults was equalizing but the
impact was modest compared to the equalizing effects of changes in the distribution of labor and
non-labor income.
AT: Income Gap
Plan can’t solve the development gap – increasing supply of skilled workers key to
solve inequality
Campos et al., 12 – Professor, Center for Economic Studies, El Colegio de Mexico (Raymundo, Gerardo
Esquivel, and Nora Lustig, “The Rise and Fall of Income Inequality in Mexico, 1989–2010,” Society for the
Study of Economic Inequality, September, http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2012267.pdf)//SY
Changes in returns can be due to changes in the relative demand and supply of workers of different
characteristics (in particular, education used as a proxy for skill) and/or changes in institutional factors such as the
minimum wage and the unionization rate. We apply the methodology proposed by Bound and Johnson (1992) to shed light on
which factors were predominant. The results suggest that institutional factors and the increase in relative
demand for skilled workers (workers with high school education and more) explained the increase in hourly wages
(earnings) inequality between 1989 and 1994. This result is consistent with the findings of a large body of existing research (see,
for example, Revenga 1997; Hanson and Harrison 1999; Bosch and Manacorda 2010). Institutional factors, however, did not
account for the decline in wage inequality between 1994 and 2006. The evidence suggests that wage
inequality fell because the supply of skilled workers outpaced demand. The slightly rising trend in
wage inequality during 2006 and 2010 appears to be the consequence of a weakening in the relative
demand of low-skilled workers (workers with secondary education or less).
Economic inequality almost completely reversed in Mexico – openness of economy
and better social programs
Esquivel, 8 – Professor, Centro de Estudios Económicos, Colegio de México (Gerardo, “The Dynamics of
Income Inequality in Mexico since NAFTA,” Center for International Development, Harvard University,
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/Economia/GEsquivel.pdf)//SY
This situation, however, could have started to change in recent years. In this paper we provide evidence on the
reduction in income inequality that has taken place in Mexico since 1994 and we discuss some of the likely sources
of such process. The recent trend in inequality in Mexico is important for at least two reasons: first, because it
has almost completely reverted the widely documented increase in inequality that occurred in the
1984-1994 period; and second, because this reduction seems to be the outcome of two important structural
changes in the Mexican economy: on the one hand, a reduction in labor income and wage inequality that could be
associated to the openness of the economy and, on the other, to the role of better-targeted social
programs such as Progresa/Oportunidades. Therefore, this suggests that both actors, the market and the State, could
have contributed to the recent dynamics of inequality in Mexico. A third, although not quite positive, contributing
factor to the recent reduction in inequality seems to have been the growing flow of remittances that
many millions of Mexicans living abroad send to their families that were left behind in Mexico.
Statistics prove wealth distribution in Mexico improving – plan not key to solving
inequality
Esquivel, 8 – Professor, Centro de Estudios Económicos, Colegio de México (Gerardo, “The Dynamics of
Income Inequality in Mexico since NAFTA,” Center for International Development, Harvard University,
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/Economia/GEsquivel.pdf)//SY
The evolution in the distribution of monetary income in Mexico can also be analyzed using the Growth
Incidence Curves (GICs) suggested by Ravallion and Chen (2003). These curves show the percent change in per capita
income along the entire income distribution between two points in time. Figure 5 shows the GIC for the entire 1994-2006
period at
the national, urban and rural levels. The negative slope in the first graph clearly show why
Mexico’s income inequality diminished during this period: throughout the period, the income of the
bottom part of the distribution grew faster than the income from the middle and the top segments of
the income distribution. Figure 5 also shows the different patterns followed by the urban and rural income distributions during this
period: in the urban areas, income growth was pretty flat across the entire distribution except for the
top three deciles which experienced smaller and in some cases even negative income growth rates; in
the case of rural areas, two aspects are salient: first, average income growth was greater than in urban areas (an
effect that given, the relatively large rural-urban gap, is inequality-reducing) and, second, the rural GIC curve also had
a negative slope, so that the bottom half of the rural income distribution had higher income growth
rates than the top segment of the distribution. All these facts contributed to the reduction in income
inequality in Mexico that has taken place since 1994.
Development has been decreasing in Mexico – better wage distribution
Campos-Vázquez, 10 – Professor, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos (Raymundo M.,
“Why did wage inequality decrease in Mexico after NAFTA?” Centro de Estudios Económicos, October,
http://cee.colmex.mx/documentos/documentos-detrabajo/2010/dt201015.pdfhttp://cee.colmex.mx/documentos/documentos-detrabajo/2010/dt201015.pdf)//SY
As explained above, inequality has continuously increased in developed countries since the 1980s. In
contrast, Mexico exhibits a decrease in inequality after 1994, and in this paper I explore the causes of such a decline.
This is important for at least three reasons. First, societies generally value a more egalitarian
distribution of resources. Hence the example of Mexico may be useful to other similar countries that
desire to attain lower inequality levels. Second, it is also interesting to investigate whether Mexico has "job polarized" as other
countries and analyze how this process modiÖes the wage distribution. Finally, other Latin American countries have seen a
decline in wage inequality recently, hence the Mexican experience could help in building a consensus
on why wage inequality has fallen in the region.6
AT: Economy impact
Mexico’s economy is resilient
IMF 12 (International Monetary Fund, “Mexico Banks Resilient, But Global Risks Need Care”, 3/30/12,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2012/car033012a.htm)//WL
Mexico’s banking system is resilient and well capitalized, and stress tests indicate that it would be
capable of sustaining significant shocks, the IMF said in its latest assessment of the country’s financial system.However,
Mexico, the current president of the Group of Twenty (G-20) advanced and emerging economies, will need to be vigilant to risks from outside
the country and should strengthen the institutional framework for its supervision of financial regulation by establishing a fixed term for the
President of the Banking Commission, rebalancing its Board and promoting stronger legal safeguards for its personnel, the IMF said.“Our
assessment of Mexico’s financial system is very positive,” said Fernando Montes-Negret, a senior financial
expert in the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department and head of the team that conducted the assessment.Cross-border
linkages“The country has better tools for systemic crisis management and competent supervision . However,
there have been episodes of distress in recent years and given Mexico’s significant linkages to the global economy and to Spanish banks,
authorities need to monitor closely and respond quickly to emerging risks,” Montes-Negret said. The assessment was published on March 30.In
the wake of the global economic crisis, the IMF has strengthened its surveillance of countries’
financial systems. Since 1999, the IMF has monitored countries’ financial sectors on a voluntary basis through a joint review process with
the World Bank called the Financial Sector Assessment Program.Mexico is one of the major 25 financial sectors that must undergo a review of
its financial health as part of the IMF’s economic surveillance and monitoring. The global economic crisis laid bare the devastating economic
consequences a financial crisis in one country can have on the global economy. Countries with financial sectors that have the greatest impact
on global financial stability are now required to undergo in-depth reviews of their financial health by the IMF every five years.In its assessment
of the health of Mexico’s financial system, the IMF recommended the government enact a series of reforms as Latin America’s second largest
economy continues to modernize.
Mexico Heavily Resilient – recent reforms and strong consumer base
Zacks Equity Research 6/6 – Investment Company that reviews investment opportunities (“Time to
Worry about the Mexico ETF?”, 6/6/13, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/time-worry-mexico-etf-215612997.html)//WL
Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America and a popular vacation destination for many Americans. However, the
country has begun to attract
resilience in the latest slowdown, and its quickly growing
economy.The country has turned into something of a manufacturing powerhouse, and it has stolen share from
other big emerging nations such as China. Additionally, the nation has made several moves on a political and policy front ,
and many believe that these ensure favorable financial conditions and economic growth for the nation’s
future.Economy OutlookIn fact, Mexico has a great potential for accelerating economic growth. In 2012 Mexico maintained a strong growth at 3.9%, while some
many American investors as well, thanks to its economic
believe that higher rates could be in the country’s future should the American economy continue to improve as well (See Why Mexico ETF is a long term Winner)The
country also represents a very large market as it ranks 8th in the emerging world, and 11th overall in terms of GDP size. To top things off, it also received a solid
BBB+ rating from Fitch suggesting that the nation has a solid economic foundation, and that its reforms are well received (See Time to Buy These Top Ranked Latin
America ETF)News in FavorMexico’s growth prospects are attracting investment banks and investors hunting for ways to gain greater exposure to international
markets. “It’s
the coming of age of the Mexican market,” said Eduardo Cepeda, J.P. Morgan’s senior country officer (See Inside the
banks are strongly capitalized and have complied with
International Basel 3 standards. Local companies are generating cash and are looking to expand in the domestic and international markets.The foreign
Surging Mexico ETF)The market for credit is also growing, and the
manufacturers are also returning to Mexico as the country has a rich industrial base. The automakers plan to invest $10 billion in new assembly plants this year
alone.Bad News LatelyRecently the Mexican government has cut its growth outlook for 2013 to 3.1% from 3.5% after a soft first quarter. Mexico’s near-term
slowdown is largely driven by short-term external factors that are likely to lose relevance in the second half of 2013.A policy shift towards urbanization has drawn
mixed results. Moreover, mixed signals from the U.S. may limit the growth outlook for Mexico. Analysts expect the central bank could cut interest rates again once a
current spike in inflation subsides.Outlook and Mexico ETFStill, despite some of this near term gloom, the
future for the Mexican economy is
bright. The country is relatively correlated to the U.S.—which is a good thing now that the American economy is back on track—while it has a
massive consumer base of its own, along with a booming industrial production market as well. Given this,
some long term investors may want to consider now as an attractive entry point for the Mexican economy ,
especially after the recent slump in equity prices. For these investors, a closer look at the Mexico ETF, described below, could be warranted:iShares MSCI Mexico
Capped Investable Market Index Fund (EWW).Launched in March 1996, EWW tracks the MSCI Mexico Investable Market index, which consists of stocks traded
primarily on the Mexican Stock Exchange. EWW is a large blend fund with net assets of $3.1 billion and a trading volume of more than 2.6 million shares a day.The
fund holds 47 stocks in total and the top ten stocks make up 60% of the fund. EWW holds 42% giant and 38% large cap stocks with maximum exposure in the
consumer staples (30%), materials (19%) and telecommunication sector (18%) sectors.The ETF charges 52bps per year in expenses. The fund has a yield of 1.09%
and has a low tracking error of .54% with its index. The product is more volatile as compared to the S&P 500, though its growth outlook is far brighter as well.The
Bottom LineMexico is a key emerging market that has a huge potential for growth. Recent
reforms would further back the country’s
strong fundamentals, attracting more investors to Mexico. This is especially true since many of these reforms are in visible sectors like services and
financials. The main fund to play Mexico has surged over the past 12 months, but there has been significant near term weakness in the fund, like in many other
emerging markets.Still, we view this drop as a potential buying opportunity, as we are maintaining our top Zacks ETF Rank of 1 or ‘Strong Buy’ on this product,
suggesting that a rebound and outperformance are in this ETF’s future, at least based on our models for the next one year time frame.
Mexico is resilient – ability to easily overcome past crises
Hall 1/24 - Vice-President and Chief Economist at Export Development Canada (Peter G, “Mexico's Resilience”,
Export Development Canada, 1/24/13, http://embamex.sre.gob.mx/canada_eng/images/pdfs/mexico_resilience.pdf)//WL
Mexico's ResilienceFew economies escaped the global slowdown in the summer of 2012. Mexico was
a rare and notable exception. While marked deterioration in China, India and Brazil grabbed the
headlines, Mexico quietly hummed along, generating remarkably smooth growth. For an economy so tied to US
fortunes, that is quite an achievement. What is the secret of Mexico's success?GDP statistics tell the tale. India's growth
plunged from 8 per cent in mid-2011 to just under 3 per cent last summer. Brazil's long slide saw year-to-year increases tumble from 8 per cent
in mid 2010 to less than half of one percent in the second quarter of 2012. China's slowdown was less dramatic, sliding from 9 per cent at the
end of 2011 to 7.4 per cent by mid-2012 - but given that China's economy experiences serious dislocation at around 6 per cent growth, its dip
was too close for comfort. Thankfully, the worst seems to be over, and these economies are now on the mend.At the same time, Mexico
steadily generated quarterly growth in the 3.5-to-5 per cent range, with no discernible down-trend.
True, the latest GDP figure is the weakest showing since the recession in 2009, but over the course of a year, growth fell by a mere 1 per cent,
in terms of net steadiness,
Mexico still comes out on top. How do the numbers add up?Delving into Mexico's national accounts is revealing. Consumers
were surprisingly resilient in the post-recession period, but they are currently less enthusiastic; growth recently receded from
to a still-healthy 3.3 per cent. Among major emerging markets, only Russia showed similar resilience - but
the steady 4 per cent pace to just 2.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2012. Private investment saw an even steeper decline. From an impressive
8-10 per cent pace, private construction registered a stunning 20 per cent year-on-year gain at the end of 2011 - only to see growth completely
vanish by the summer of 2012. Similarly, private sector machinery and equipment investment - accustomed to hefty double-digit increases sunk to a year-on-year gain just shy of 4 per cent early last fall.So far, the Mexican economy doesn't seem much different from the rest of the
world. What is keeping its overall numbers afloat? Throughout 2012, the growing private investment void was filled in by a surge of public
investment - mostly construction projects. On paper it seems too good to be true, but the government's intervention couldn't have been better
timed and the amounts could hardly have been better calibrated. In the history of fiscal timing, it's probably one for the record books.But the
story doesn't end there. Notwithstanding the very recent lull, rising
private investment speaks to Mexico's ongoing
success at attracting large amounts of foreign investment. Production arising from these investments
is boosting Mexico's exports, which over the past two years have outpaced import growth, yielding a decent net contribution to the
economy. That's something the other large emerging markets were not been able to say until very recently, and highlights the underlying
strength of the US economy, the main driver of Mexico's export success.Will Mexico's enviable record continue? The keen interest of foreign
investors in Mexico suggests that the slowdown of private investment is temporary - good news for the government, which can't afford to
offset private investment indefinitely. More importantly, the export potential that justifies foreign investments is strong, thanks to resurgent US
housing, consumer and corporate markets.The
bottom line? Mexico's recent growth run is impressive, and is set to
continue. Over the coming months, this market will be one to watch.
More evidence – Ability to weather Global Recession and Eurozone meltdown
Cañas 12 - business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas he analyzes the regional
economy. Has a BA in economics (Jesus, “Mexico resilient in 2011 amid global uncertainty and sluggish U.S. growth”, The
Southwest Economy, Q2 2012, http://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/research/swe/2012/swe1202c.pdf)//WL
Mexico Resilient in 2011 Amid Global Uncertainty and Sluggish U.S. Growth Mexico navigated a new
wave of international financial volatility during the second half of 2011, growing 3.9 percent for the year—slower
than the 5.5 percent pace in 2010 but ahead of the 2.2 percent annual average of 2001–11. The recent performance overcame
a period of heightened European financial tension, sluggish growth in the U.S. and global supplychain disruptions related to Japan’s natural disasters. Weaker manufacturing output growth and a 2.3 percent decline in
oil activity slowed expansion in 2011. Agricultural output also stagnated in 2011, while construction improved after experiencing no growth in
2010. The 2012 consensus forecast for a 3.4 percent rate of expansion is modest compared with the prior two years’ data (Chart 1). In
contrast to the U.S. upturn, robust job growth has characterized Mexico’s recovery since the 2009
recession. Formal-sector employment—defined as workers covered by Mexico’s social security system—grew 4.1 percent in 2011, with
more than 600,000 jobs created. Manufacturing accounted for 27 percent of the new jobs, while trade was responsible for 25 percent and
business services for 18 percent. Domestic demand also bounced back. Buoyed by relatively healthy banks, rising household
credit and greater employment, retail sales increased 3.1 percent in 2011— sales volumes surpassed the precrisis peak year of 2008. Household
credit rose 19 percent in 2011 after posting no growth in real terms in 2010. Manufacturing and Trade Growth Mexico’s rebound began in
summer 2009, led by manufactured goods exports to the U.S., where the recession had ended that June.1 This reliance on manufacturing and
exports leaves Mexico vulnerable to global events. Notably, Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incidents in March 2011 arrested
Mexican manufacturing growth. After annual average expansion of 6.8 percent during first quarter 2011, Mexico manufacturing decelerated in
the second quarter to 5 percent as supply-chain disruptions took hold. Anecdotal evidence indicates that Mexican plants scaled back
production, reflecting increased lead times for machine tools, wire harnesses and other Asia-made inputs. In the second half of 2011, when
uncertainty abated, supply chains were reestablished and orders returned to Mexican facilities. Manufacturing production rose 4.8 percent
year over year, with manufacturing exports gaining 10 percent. Total exports grew 14 percent in 2011. Mexico continues to be one of the best
manufacturing platforms to meet U.S. demand. Proximity, quick turnarounds on manufacturing design changes and a skilled and experienced
manufacturing labor force are important advantages (see the box “IntraIndustry Trade: The U.S.–Mexico Connection in Import, Export Data” on
page 13).2Transportation equipment manufacturing, which includes motor vehicle production, has been crucial to Mexico’s recent economic
recovery and impressive job growth. Transportation equipment employment growth averaged 17.1 percent in 2011, up from 12.6 percent in
2010 (Chart 2). The sector represents 22 percent of Mexico’s manufacturing production and 17 percent of its manufacturing employment. Thus,
the uncertain performance of the U.S. economy and the question of whether the recent run-up in U.S. automotive demand can be sustained
remain significant downside risks for Mexico. Withstanding
Global Shocks Mexico also navigated financial
disruption in Europe in the latter half of the year. When global markets go awry, investors withdraw capital from emerging
markets in search of safer outlets. The premium Mexico must pay on its debt relative to comparable U.S. instruments jumped more than 55
percent from July to September and reached levels not seen since July 2009 (Chart 3). Foreign portfolio investment in Mexico, which tripled in
2010, grew just 4.1 percent in 2011. The diminished rate of investment flows helps explain a 15 percent peso depreciation against the dollar
from July to December. In turn, the weaker peso fueled increased imported goods prices, pushing up inflation by year-end. Mexico’s
solid
macroeconomic fundamentals and the credibility policymakers earned over the past decade helped
persuade the international community that the inflation pickup and peso depreciation were
transitory.3After spiking during the third quarter, the global Emerging Markets Bond Index spread declined significantly. And, in a vote of
confidence by international investors, Mexico in January issued $2 billion in 10-year bonds yielding 3.7 percent, the lowest rate the country has
obtained for the maturity. Additionally, financial markets stabilized, with inflation slowing from November’s levels.
Even more evidence – sustainable fiscal and economic policies
Nevaer 9 – New America Media Reporter (Louis, “In Global Economic Crisis, Mexico Is Resilient”, New America Media, 2/6/9,
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b8dc03d6f2792eba9e84392106c2c6f4)//WL
The economic crisis sweeping the globe has spared no nation, but some are showing remarkable
resilience. Mexico's economic performance, for example, has shown tremendous strength. When the U.S.
Federal Reserve extended a loan of $30 billion each to the central banks of Brazil, South Korea, Singapore and Mexico, Mexico did not touch
those funds. It simply reinvested them in Treasury bonds, leaving them in accounts in New York. This is no accident. It stems from prudent
economic policies implemented after the December 1994 devaluation of the Mexican peso that sent the economy into a tailspin. At that time,
President Ernesto Zedillo had been in office a few days, and his entire agenda was thrown into disarray by the crisis. The Clinton administration
had to issue an emergency $50 billion loan –- which Mexico paid back ahead of schedule and with interest -– and the International Monetary
Fund, or IMF, helped craft a recovery program. It was a painful adjustment as budgets were slashed, fiscal restraint was implemented across
the board, and the Mexican people saw their investments and savings diminish. That was 15 years ago, and the lessons learned the hard way
are now paying off: Mexico's stock market fell 23 percent in 2008, the "best" performing major index at a time when the U.S. markets fell 38
percent and Russian markets collapsed by an astounding 70 percent. Last fall, some feared that the Mexican economy would not be able to
escape the turmoil engulfing the United States, and the Mexican peso fell almost 30 percent vis-à-vis the American dollar. It has since
recovered, although it has suffered a 20 percent devaluation since the economic crisis began last summer. These currency fluctuations reflect
the fact that, because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, neither Mexico nor Canada have "decoupled" from the U.S.
economy. There
are several reasons for Mexico's economic resilience. One is the fiscal restraint that
Zedillo initiated and that his successor, Vicente Fox, continued. Fox, a former corporate executive, made
significant strides in eliminating Mexico's foreign debt. Mexico's current president, Felipe Calderon, has kept spending in
line, even as revenues have increased. When disaster struck, Mexico had a balanced budget, almost no foreign
debt and rising federal revenues, allowing it to intervene to stabilize prices . Mexico also dodged the
housing speculation that brought its neighbor to its knees. Mexico's financial system has always been stringent in
extending credit. Americans roll their eyes at the bureaucracy this entailed –- two forms of ID are required to open a
bank account in Mexico; when customers request checks, they have to pick them up at the bank, where their signature and ID are verified;
credit card applications must be made in person at the financial institution, and not over the phone or through unsolicited mail-in applications.
As a result, "identity theft" is almost non-existent in Mexico, and it was nearly impossible for a
housing bubble to emerge there. Another factor is the windfall oil profits – despite the sudden drop in
oil prices. When oil peaked at $147 a barrel last summer, there was disbelief around the world: Would it shoot up to $200 or fall back? The
conventional wisdom was that $100 a barrel for oil was the new reality going forward, and there was a
frenzy to lock in prices through futures contracts. Mexican officials at Pemex, the state-owned oil monopoly, didn't
believe that price was sustainable; their economic models indicated that, with slacking demand due to
the recession, a price range between $60 and $80 was "sustainable." Other countries -– most notably Venezuela
and Russia –- were more ambitious, and reckless. Both countries let spending explode, believing that they could finance anything they wanted.
The economies in both countries today are in freefall. Mexico, by comparison, was
prudent, saving the oil windfall, and
Mexican traders implemented a strategy that hinged on the price of oil falling below the $60 to $80
range. "They're great traders," Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., said of Pemex futures traders. "If the economy continues to
slow, they're looking like geniuses." The world economy has more than slowed: It has hit a wall. And Mexico is collecting
$90 to $110 per barrel today, for oil that is trading in the $38 to $45 range at the beginning of 2009. Having hedged its
exports, Mexico is getting a premium, and a significant windfall that will total several billion dollars
this year, enough to sustain social spending without massive federal deficits. Will this be enough to prevent
Mexico from slipping into recession in 2009? Probably not, but the fact that it has managed to escape a debilitating slowdown –- the United
States is in its 14th month of official recession –- suggests that whatever economic slowdown there is will be relatively mild, considering the
global situation. "The U.S. needs to show some proof they have a plan to get out of the fiscal problem," Ernesto Zedillo told reporters at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week. "We, as developing countries, need to know we won't be crowded out of the capital
markets, which is already happening."
AT: Immigration Advantage
AT: Immigration Increasing Now
No impact, the damage has been done– nobody will immigrate
Cave 4/13 – Damien Cave is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, based in Mexico City, (“In
Mexican Villages, Few Are Left to Dream of U.S.”, April 2, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/world/americas/new-wave-of-mexican-immigrants-seemsunlikely.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//sawyer
EL CARGADERO, Mexico — The pretty houses in the hills here, with their bright paint and new additions, clearly display the material benefits of
having millions of workers move to the United States over the past few decades. But these simple homes also reveal why another huge exodus
would be unlikely: the bulk of them are empty.
All across Mexico’s ruddy central plains, most of the people who
could go north already have. In a region long regarded as a bellwether of illegal immigration — where
the flow of migrants has often seemed never-ending — the streets are wind-whipped and silent. Homes await
returning families, while dozens of schools have closed because of a lack of students. Here in El Cargadero, a
once-thriving farm community of 3,000, only a few hundred people remain, at most. “It’s not like it used to be,” said Fermin Saldivar Ureño, 45,
an avocado farmer whose 13 brothers and sisters are all in California. “I have three kids, my parents had 14. There just aren’t as many people to
go.”
As Congress considers a sweeping overhaul of immigration, many lawmakers say they are deeply
concerned that providing a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally
in the United States would mean only more illegal immigration. They blame the amnesty that President Ronald Reagan
approved in 1986 for the human wave that followed, and they fear a repeat if Congress rewards lawbreakers and creates an incentive for more
immigrants to sneak across the border. “The big problem with immigration is convincing people in the country that it won’t turn into a 1986
endgame,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is in the bipartisan group of senators working on a bill. But past
experience and current
trends in both Mexico and the United States suggest that legalization would not lead
to a sudden flood of illegal immigration on the scale of what occurred after 1986. Long-running surveys of
migrants from Mexico found that work, not the potential to gain legal status, was the main cause of increased border crossings in the 1990s
and 2000s. And as Mr. Saldivar points out, times have changed. The American economy is no longer flush with jobs. The
border is more
secure than ever. And in Mexico the birthrate has fallen precipitously, while the people who left years
ago have already sent their immediate relatives across, or started American families of their own. “It’s a
new Mexico, it’s a new United States, and the interaction between them is new,” said Katherine Donato, a
sociologist at Vanderbilt University who specializes in immigration. As for Congressional action spurring a surge of illegal crossings, she added:
“You’re just not going to see this massive interest. You don’t have the supply of people. You
have a dangerous trip that costs a
lot more money, and there has been strong growth all over Latin America. So if people in Central America are
disenfranchised and don’t have jobs, as was the case in Mexico three or four decades ago, they might decide to go south.”
Immigration is declining – four reasons
Llana 11 - masters in journalism from Columbia University and a BA in history from the University of
Michigan, Christian Science Monitor’s European Bureau Chief (Sara, “Four reasons why illegal
immigration across the US-Mexico border has dropped,” CSM, 10/26/11,
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/1026/Four-reasons-why-illegal-immigration-acrossthe-US-Mexico-border-has-dropped/Tougher-US-measures)//AC
From 1970 to 2010, more than 10 million Mexicans migrated to the US. Now, after decades of rising
numbers immigrating to the US, a new demographic trend is playing out: illegal immigration is waning.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a 2010 report that the number of immigrants residing unauthorized in the US, 62 percent of
whom come from Mexico, has declined from a peak of 11.8 million in January of 2007 to 10.8 million in January of 2010. US
Customs and
Border Protection also released data showing that the number of those arrested trying to cross the
border illegally is is down sharply – by 58 percent since fiscal year 2006. The Pew Hispanic Center, using Mexican
government data, estimates that the number of Mexicans annually leaving Mexico for the US declined by 60 percent from 2006 to 2010. Many
dispute the reason why. Here
are four factors that play a role. Tougher US measures In the same period that
arrests have gone down along the US-Mexico border, the number of agents placed there has doubled.
The Obama administration is responsible for a historic number of deportations. Recent figures from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency (ICE) show that nearly 400,000 individuals were deported between October 2010 and September 2011. Some believe that tough state
laws like those in Arizona and Alabama have also had a deterrent effect. Critics
argue that tougher enforcement does not
have a direct link to reduced migration flows. Still, a tougher US stance has had an indirect one: It has
pushed up smuggler fees, making it too difficult for some migrants to pay. A bad American economy Aside from
cases of family reunification, migrants leave their communities for one reason: jobs. If there are no jobs, there is
no reason to uproot. The Pew Hispanic Center says that declining job opportunities state side have played a major
part in the US no longer seeming as attractive an option as it once was to potential migrants. The
recession had a significant impact on industries such as construction and manufacturing, which
disproportionately employ Latino immigrants. Many have stayed in the US to ride out turbulent economic times, but the
remittances that they send home ebb and flow with their ability to earn. A better Mexican economy Most Mexicans say they would
actually prefer to stay home. If they could find viable jobs in Mexico, they would gladly work in them.
Now, there is some indication that a brighter economic reality for Mexico has meant less of an incentive to leave.
The New York Times recently quoted experts on both sides of the border showing that a rise in wages in Mexico, and greater
access to education, has meant that generations of Mexicans no longer see a stint in the US as a “rite of
passage.” Others dismiss this as a reason. The prospect of wages far higher than what they earn at home has always been a mighty pull to
the US. About one fifth of Mexicans still live in extreme poverty, and 50 percent of the population is considered poor. With a population of 113
million, that is a lot of potential economic migrants. Crime in Mexico Mexico’s migration commissioner,
Salvador Beltran
del Rio, recently said that there has been a reduction in the number of Central Americans being
apprehended in Mexico. The number has fallen from 433,000 in 2005 to 140,000 in 2010. Many of them have said that they are no
longer willing to risk their lives, as drug trafficking organization have become increasingly involved in
human smuggling. In August 2010, 72 migrants, mostly from Central America, were found murdered in a mass
grave in the northern state of Tamaulipas, reportedly for refusing to work for a drug gang. Many migrants, both from Mexico
and beyond, have gone missing in their northward treks toward the US, a powerful incentive to stay
home.
No risk of illegal immigration – statistics prove Mexicans are less likely to cross the
border illegally
Khazan, 4/17 – The Atlantic's global editor (Olga, “Mexico Is Getting Better, and Fewer Mexicans
Want to Leave,” The Atlantic, 4/17/13,
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/mexico-is-getting-better-and-fewermexicans-want-to-leave/275064/)//SMS
Shortly after the new bipartisan immigration bill was released this week, one opponent, Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, said it contained
"a fatal flaw:" the provision for a 10-year process through which some illegal immigrants could gain citizenship. "It legalizes almost everyone in
the country illegally, also known as amnesty, before it secures the border," Smith said. "As a result, the Senate proposal issues an open
invitation to enter the country illegally." Smith voices a common fear among border-security hawks: That any so-called "amnesty" or
legalization plan will somehow spur more foreigners to make unauthorized dashes across the border. A recent poll by the Rasmussen company
found that nearly half of respondents thought a pathway to citizenship would lead to more more illegal immigration. But here's one thing that
might allay those fears: Mexicans, who
make up the plurality of illegal immigrants, are feeling better and
better about their country, and fewer are interested in moving across the border. Though an estimated
300,000 people still enter the U.S. illegally each year, that represents a precipitous fall from the first half of the
decade, when the number was 850,000. In 2010, net migration to and from Mexico was approximately zero. Part
of the reason, of course, is the global economic downturn, which eliminated many of the low-wage job opportunities that
Mexican immigrants might have come to the U.S. to seek. But in addition to the U.S. becoming a less attractive destination,
part of the explanation for the drop is that prospects in Mexico are actually looking up. Even though Mexico is clearly still
struggling, there are signs that the country is gradually improving. Crime is down in border cities like Ciudad Juarez.
Mexico's fertility rate is falling and its population is aging, meaning there are fewer young workers
scrambling for jobs (half of all Mexican immigrants are under age 33). For the first time in decades, Mexico has a fledgling
middle class. Its GDP growth rivals Brazil's, and economically, some economists think the country is
doing even better than the United States. According to the OECD, Mexicans are about as satisfied with their lives
as people in Iceland or Ireland are.
They have it backwards – Mexicans are returning home due to better conditions and a
poor US economy
Cafferty, 11 - former CNN commentator and occasional host of specials (Jack, “Illegal aliens leaving
U.S., returning to Mexico for better life?,” CNN, August 3, 2011,
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/03/illegal-aliens-leaving-u-s-returning-to-mexico-for-betterlife/)//SMS
Illegal aliens are leaving the United States and returning to Mexico in search of a better life. You heard that right. One
Mexican official tells the Sacramento Bee that Mexico has "become a middle class country" where it's now easier to
buy homes on credit, get higher education and find a job." Not so here in the U.S. where the employment
picture remains grim. Just today came announcements from Cisco and Goldman Sachs that they're cutting thousands of jobs. Plus - a
report from payroll processor ADP shows that although the private sector added jobs in July, growth is below what's needed for a steady
Mexico's unemployment rate is 4.9%...
compared to 9.2% in the U.S. You do the math. It's estimated that about 300,000 illegal aliens have left California
alone since 2008. Experts say the weaker U.S. economy along with rising deportations and tougher border
enforcement means fewer illegal aliens. But - there have also been significant improvements in Mexico's
society. Its economy is growing at 4-5% and, according to the UN, Mexico's average standard of living - which includes
things like health, education and per capita income - is higher than in Russia, China and India. Turns out Mexicans might just
recovery. Meanwhile - As we wait for the monthly jobs report Friday, consider this:
have better luck of achieving the American Dream south of the border.
Better quality of life in Mexico coupled with US economic stagnation means illegal
immigration is massively declining
Capobres, 2/26 – Reporter for Fox News Latino (Kacy, “Mexico’s Strengthening Economy Could Bode
Well for Immigration Reform,” Fox News Latino, 2/26/13,
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2013/02/26/mexicos-strengthening-economy-could-bodewell-for-immigration-reform/)//SMS
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2013/02/26/mexicos-strengthening-economycould-bode-well-for-immigration-reform/#ixzz2XvdU4kFe,”
Thanks to an improving economy in their country, Mexicans are staying home. A Gallup poll released Monday said
just 14 percent of Mexicans say they would emigrate from the country, compared to 21 percent in
2007. In an interesting twist, the current numbers are almost identical to the 11 percent of Americans who say they would leave the U.S. if
given the opportunity. Since taking office, Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has made it a point to stress that
his country "will work to improve the quality of life and opportunities in Mexico so that migration is a
personal decision and not a necessity." Due to burgeoning economic opportunities, the United States' largest immigrant group
already has few reasons to cross the border. As the United States continues to struggle to gain economic momentum following
the 2008 recession, the Mexican unemployment rate has dropped to just 5 percent. U.S. Hispanics still
have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 9.8 percent. Antonio Garza, a former U.S .Ambassador to
Mexico, says the poll “is a snapshot of a trend that you have seen in the country over the last several years.” “An expanding middle
class in Mexico means more people are working here,” he said. Mexico’s economic performance is closely linked to the
U.S., where it sends almost 80 percent of its exports. But thanks to a spike in the agriculture industry, Mexico’s economy grew by
close to 4 percent last year, compared to just 2 percent in the U.S. “More jobs are being created in Mexico
which means there is less pressure for people to emigrate,” Manuel Suárez-Mier, a Mexican national and economist at
American University’s School of International Service, told Fox News Latino.
Analysis suggests net immigration from Mexico is slightly negative
Cave, 11 – foreign correspondent for The New York Times, based in Mexico City. He covers Mexico,
Central America and the Caribbean.(Damien, “Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North,” New
York Times, July 6, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html)//SMS
Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican
emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the U nited States for the first time had fallen to
its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said,
referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little
bit negative.” The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The
Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.
the illegal Mexican population in the United
States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico
settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some
American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that
advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal
immigrants have been arriving in recent years.
AT: Terrorism Impact
No internal to terrorism – alt causes
Tierney 06 - John Tierney writes a column, Findings, for the Science Times section, (“Throwing Hawks a
Bone”, may 16, 2006, NY Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/opinion/16tierney.html)//sawyer
But if terrorists are smart enough to plan such an attack, they're smart enough to get into the United
States, no matter how many agents and troops are on the Mexican border. If terrorists have the
determination to train for years, if they can pay for flight lessons or anthrax or a nuclear bomb, then
they can easily bribe or forge their way into America — or waltz in with legitimate visas. Mohamed Atta
did not have to hire a coyote or swim across the Rio Grande. He and the other hijackers entered the
country legally. The 500,000 or so people who manage to sneak in from Mexico each year are a
minuscule fraction — about 1 percent — of the tourists and students and other visitors who enter
America legally. Mexico is not the preferred route of the suspected terrorists caught so far because they
prefer more convenient options, like the Canadian border. Even if the northern border were sealed with
the Great Wall of Saskatchewan, there would still be thousands of miles of unsecured coastline — and
plenty of drug runners with boats and planes who would have no trouble delivering a terrorist or a
suitcase bomb.
AT: Econ Add-On
Illegal immigrant’s effect on wages is exaggerated – analysis doesn’t account for the
economic benefits they produce
Porter, 6 – New York Time correspondent (EDUARDO, “Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than
Meets the Eye,” April 16, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/business/yourmoney/16view.html)//SMS
CALIFORNIA may seem the best place to study the impact of illegal immigration on the prospects of American workers. Hordes of immigrants
rushed into the state in the last 25 years, competing for jobs with the least educated among the native population. The wages of high school
before concluding that immigrants are undercutting the
wages of the least fortunate Americans, perhaps one should consider Ohio. Unlike California, Ohio remains
mostly free of illegal immigrants. And what happened to the wages of Ohio's high school dropouts from 1980
to 2004? They fell 31 percent. As Congress debates an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, several economists and news media
pundits have sounded the alarm, contending that illegal immigrants are causing harm to Americans in the competition for jobs. Yet a more
careful examination of the economic data suggests that the argument is, at the very least, overstated.
There is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have caused any significant damage to the wages of
American workers. The number that has been getting the most attention lately was produced by George J. Borjas and Lawrence F. Katz,
dropouts in California fell 17 percent from 1980 to 2004. But
two Harvard economists, in a paper published last year. They estimated that the wave of illegal Mexican immigrants who arrived from 1980 to
2000 had reduced the wages of high school dropouts in the United States by 8.2 percent. But the economists acknowledge that the number
does not consider other economic forces, such as the fact that certain businesses would not exist in the United States without cheap immigrant
labor. If it had accounted for such things, immigration's impact would be likely to look less than half as big. Mr. Katz was somewhat taken aback
by the attention the study has received. "This was not intended," he said. At first blush, the preoccupation over immigration seems reasonable.
Since 1980, eight million illegal immigrants have entered the work force. Two-thirds of them never completed high school. It is sensible to
expect that, because they were willing to work for low wages, they would undercut the position in the labor market of American high school
Over the last quarter-century, the number of people
without any college education, including high school dropouts, has fallen sharply. This has reduced
the pool of workers who are most vulnerable to competition from illegal immigrants. In addition, as
businesses and other economic agents have adjusted to immigration, they have made changes that have
muted much of immigration's impact on American workers. For instance, the availability of foreign
workers at low wages in the Nebraska poultry industry made companies realize that they had the personnel to
expand. So they invested in new equipment, generating jobs that would not otherwise be there. In California's strawberry
patches, illegal immigrants are not competing against native workers; they are competing against
pickers in Michoacán, Mexico. If the immigrant pickers did not come north across the border, the strawberries would. "Immigrants
come in and the industries that use this type of labor grow," said David Card, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. "Taking
all into account, the effects of immigration are much, much lower." In a study published last year that compared
dropouts. This common sense, however, ignores half the picture.
cities that have lots of less educated immigrants with cities that have very few, Mr. Card found no wage differences that could be attributed to
the presence of immigrants. Other
research has also cast doubt on illegal immigration's supposed damage to the
nation's disadvantaged. A study published earlier this year by three economists — David H. Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Mr. Katz of Harvard and Melissa S. Kearney of the Brookings Institution — observed that income inequality in the bottom half of
the wage scale has not grown since around the mid-1980's. Even economists striving hardest to find evidence of immigration's effect on
domestic workers are finding that, at most, the surge of illegal immigrants probably had only a small impact on
wages of the least-educated Americans — an effect that was likely swamped by all the other things that hit the economy, from the revolution in
technology to the erosion of the minimum wage's buying power. When Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz assumed that businesses reacted to the extra
workers with a corresponding increase in investment — as has happened in Nebraska — their estimate of the decline in wages of high school
dropouts attributed to illegal immigrants was shaved to 4.8 percent. And they have since downgraded that number, acknowledging that the
original analysis used some statistically flimsy data.
Immigrants have a slightly positive effect on the economy and alt causes like industrial
automation and global trade outweigh
Davidson, 6 – International Business and Economics Correspondent for NPR (David, “Is illegal
immigration an economic burden to America?,” Pro-Con, March 30, 2006,
http://immigration.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000788)//SMS
"[M]any economists say the effect of an estimated 11 million undocumented workers is minimal. While
illegal immigrants have a negative impact on unskilled workers — many of whom lack technical training
or a high school diploma — economists believe that overall, the American economy benefits a small
amount from illegal immigration — a little bit less than 1 percent... That finding... suggests that neither
side of the immigration issue has a strong economic argument to make... Illegal immigration has both
negative and positive impacts on different parts of the economy. As noted above, wages for low-skilled
workers go down. But that means the rest of America benefits by paying lower prices for things like
restaurant meals, agricultural produce and construction. Another negative impact is on government
expenditures. Since undocumented workers generally don't pay income taxes but do use schools and
other government services, they are seen as a drain on government spending. There are places in the
United States where illegal immigration has big effects (both positive and negative). But economists
generally believe that when averaged over the whole economy, the effect is a small net positive.
Harvard's George Borjas says the average American's wealth is increased by less than 1 percent because
of illegal immigration. The economic impact of illegal immigration is far smaller than other trends in the
economy, such as the increasing use of automation in manufacturing or the growth in global trade.
Those two factors have a much bigger impact on wages, prices and the health of the U.S. economy."
Corruption Good
Anti-corruption efforts threaten economic collapse--drug trafficking is a billion-dollar
industry, the cornerstone of the Mexican economy
Caputo 09, Philip Caputo is a prolific writer, journalist and author. He wrote "A Rumor of War," a
memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam war. He is a frequent contributor to newspapers like the
New York Times and the Atlantic(Philip, "The Fall of Mexico" 12/1/09, The Atlantic,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-fall-of-mexico/307760/3/)//AD (recut from
Pappas's email)
But a larger question arises. Even if tomorrow the Mexican military began waging its anti-narcotics campaign with
the probity of, say, the Swiss Guard, could it overcome the power of cartels? The drug bosses and their organizations have
become integrated into Mexican society, corrupting every aspect of the nation’s life. The U.S. government estimates that
the cultivation and trafficking of illegal drugs directly employs 450,000 people in Mexico. Unknown
numbers of people, possibly in the millions , are indirectly linked to the drug industry, which has
revenues estimated to be as high as $25 billion a year, exceeded only by Mexico’s annual income from
manufacturing and oil exports. Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute in Mexico City and a senior legal and economic adviser to
the UN and the World Bank, concluded in a recent report that 17 of Mexico’s 31 states have become virtual narco-republics, where organized crime has infiltrated government, the courts, and
the police so extensively that there is almost no way they can be cleaned up. The drug gangs have acquired a “military capacity” that enables them to confront the army on an almost equal
footing. “This in itself does not prove that we are in a situation of a failed state today,” Buscaglia wrote. He seemed to be suggesting that the situation could change tomorrow—and not for the
better.
Further anti-corruption efforts threaten to push the country off the brink--extreme
political partisanship, protests, economic slowdown will increase. Pena Nieto will
become a lightning rod for oppostion--further fragmentation
Cattan and Martin 12, Nacha Cattan is a reporter for Bloomberg News, stationed in Mexico City. Eric
Martin is a reporter for Bloomberg News, stationed in Washington DC(Nacha/Eric, "Pena Nieto AntiCorruption Focus Slows Mexican Economy Overhaul" 7/25/12, Bloomberg News,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/pena-nieto-anti-corruption-focus-slows-mexicaneconomy-overhaul.html)//AD
Two weeks after Enrique Pena Nieto won Mexico’s July 1 presidential election, he unveiled his most pressing priorities for action. The contrast with his preelection agenda was unmistakable. His first order of business when Congress convenes in September will be three bills to tackle corruption and
increase transparency in government and media, Pena Nieto wrote in a July 16 column in Reforma newspaper. Proposals to revamp the economy will be offered “in their
own time,” he said, without specifying when that will be. This marks a change in emphasis from the campaign, when Pena Nieto pledged to open the state-run oil industry to outside investment -- a measure he called his “signature
issue” -- and overhaul tax and labor codes as soon as possible, said Jorge Chabat at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. “I don’t think any of these economic reforms will be passed between now and December
because the post-electoral atmosphere won’t permit it,” said Chabat, a political science professor at the Mexico City-based university. “It’s important to pass these laws in the beginning, because it’s when presidents have the most
Pena Nieto’s decision to push first for an anti-corruption panel, transparency requirements for
local authorities and a citizen watchdog to oversee government spending on the media came amid
protests that have brought thousands onto the streets of Mexico City each weekend since the
election. Many are supporters of runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 58, who has challenged the results, alleging that local officials of the winner’s
Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, embezzled public funds to buy millions of votes. Protests Protesters against
power.”
Pena Nieto, 46, the former governor of Mexico’s biggest state, have sought to revive memories of the PRI’s 71-year hold on power that ended in 2000 and which they say was marked by corruption, cronyism and repression. Pena
Nieto, who takes office Dec. 1, beat Lopez Obrador by 6.6 percentage points, about half the margin forecast by most opinion polls before the election. The PRI failed to win a majority in either the Senate or the Chamber of
Pena Nieto’s attempt to placate his opponents with anticorruption proposals risks postponing policies needed to boost economic growth that averaged 2.3 percent over the past decade,
Deputies. While the nation’s top electoral court is unlikely to throw out the election,
said Enrique Alvarez of research firm IdeaGlobal. “He has to demonstrate that his pledges are more than just political rhetoric,” Alvarez, the head of Latin America fixed- income research at IdeaGlobal in New York, said in an
If you had a very sharp focus on economic reform and understood that it was critical for the
Mexican economy, you’d have left politics aside and continued to stress this.” Investor Optimism Signs that
Pena Nieto may need to delay his economic agenda haven’t affected investors’ optimism. The extra
yield investors demand to own Mexican dollar debt instead of U.S. Treasuries has fallen 14 basis
points since the election to 188, compared to a gain of 2 points to 210 for Brazilian dollar debt,
according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s EMBI Global Index. Mexico’s benchmark IPC stock index has climbed 9.8 percent this year, reaching a record on July 17,
interview. “
while the peso’s 1.7 percent advance to 13.7090 against the dollar is the second- biggest gain among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. In a May 30 interview, Luis Videgaray, Pena Nieto’s campaign chief, stressed that the
incoming president wants to ask Congress to approve changes to the constitution to allow companies to own stakes in oil fields before he takes office in December. In an interview in November, Pena Nieto said such proposals
would be the “signature issue” on which he wanted to be judged. No Distraction The focus on tackling graft won’t distract from the longstanding goal of overhauling the economy, Pena Nieto wrote in Reforma. “While these are
my three first bills, my team will also be working on economic reforms that I promised, and in their own time, I’ll present them to Congress,” Pena Nieto wrote. Videgaray said on July 11 in an interview broadcast on Radio Formula
that the transparency legislation will require a two-thirds vote to amend the constitution. Since the PRI’s alliance didn’t win an outright majority in either the Senate or lower house, it would need support from other parties to pass
the measures. PRI ‘Smokescreen’ The announcement of the measures follows Lopez Obrador’s complaint that the PRI bought millions of votes using pre-paid supermarket and bank cards. Veronica Juarez, a spokeswoman for his
Democratic Revolution Party, said by phone that Pena Nieto’s anti-corruption bills are a “smokescreen” and
that transparency efforts should start with clearing up irregularities in the election. PRI President Pedro Joaquin Coldwell in
turn yesterday at a press conference accused the PRD of breaking campaign finance rules to bankroll Lopez Obrador’s run. The PRD has denied the PRI’s charges, while Coldwell yesterday reiterated that the PRD’s charges against
Pena Nieto’s campaign have no merit. Josefina Vazquez Mota, 51, the candidate of the ruling National Action Party, who finished third, also raised the ghosts of past PRI misconduct during the campaign. In a June 10 debate, she
Pena Nieto represents
“corruption, authoritarianism and surrender before organized crime.” Pena Nieto said at a July 18 press conference that
while he’s committed to pushing the economic proposals, he recognizes the importance of transforming the PRI. “The party has to modernize, be updated and
reform itself,” he said. “My participation will be ongoing and active during this process.” Skepticism Students
who for months marched against the return of the PRI will have a hard time believing Pena Nieto will
keep his word to boost transparency and fight corruption, said Roberto Rios Orozco, a representative of the protest movement known as #YoSoy132, in
associated Pena Nieto with a former PRI governor accused by U.S. prosecutors of taking millions of dollars in drug cartel bribes, and at a rally the next week she said
reference to its origin on Twitter. “There will be a great push in the media to make us believe him,” Rios Orozco said. “I like the proposals, but I don’t think Pena Nieto or the PRI will carry them out.” Making the fight for
government fairness an initial focus could be a good strategy if it helps unify Mexico’s divided political parties behind a common purpose, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington. That
would help build goodwill for Pena Nieto’s economic proposals, which will probably be more controversial, he said. Labor Overhaul “If his first success is in the realm of anti-corruption, that’s going to cause critics to be a little
circumspect and give the guy room to operate,” said Farnsworth. “It’s tough to criticize somebody for doing what you say needs to be done.” While Lopez Obrador’s legal challenge and the PRI’s lack of a congressional majority
may slow Pena Nieto’s economic agenda, they won’t prevent him from eventually moving forward, said Carlos Ramirez, an analyst with Eurasia Group, a Washington- based research organization. The labor overhaul, which the
ruling PAN party has proposed in the past, stands a strong chance of passing this year even with Pena Nieto’s new anti- corruption focus, Ramirez said. “It will probably slow it down a bit, but not derail it,” he said in a phone
interview. “Economic reforms have been waiting for 15 years. They can wait three more months.”
Corrpuption Good – Links
Reform programs are aimed at overhauling every aspect of Mexico's financial sector-comprehensive efforts are going after special interests, reducing corruption
Al Jazeera 13, Broadcast and news service covering stories from the US, Europe, Middle East, AsiaPacific, and Africa. News stories deal with finance, weather, sports, politics and current events(Al
Jazeera, "The political cost of Mexico's reforms" 4/26/13, Al Jazeera,
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2013/04/2013426101540753152.html)//A
D
As Pena Nieto faces the biggest political crisis of his presidency thus far, we examine how far reforms should go. Protests by
striking teachers in the Mexican state of Guerrero intensify as President Enrique Pena Nieto's plan to
make sweeping changes to the country's economy wavers. Pena Nieto is facing what has been described as the biggest political crisis of his
presidency so far. Allegations of vote buying by members of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have the potential to derail the president's "Pact for Mexico" - a plan to radically change
Other industries due to see changes
are Mexico's powerful telecommunications monopolies and the oil sector. Pena Nieto began his
reforms in education earlier this year, and teachers in Guerrero state have intensified their protests. Pena Nieto overhauled
Mexico's educational system, making teachers subject to testing. But some teachers say the reforms will mean massive layoffs and
privatisation. Powerful teachers' union leader Esther Elba Gordillo was arrested on charges of embezzling $160m shortly after the law went into effect. Pena Nieto has also
introduced reforms to Mexico's telecommunications duopoly aimed at making cell phone and TV
services cheaper and more regulated. But critics say it is a measure that will benefit well-connected businessmen looking to break into the telecom market
rather than new companies. Another key element of what is called Pena Nieto's Pact for Mexico has been boosting
private investment in the state oil company. Pena Nieto has also enacted reforms within his own party
- he ended legal immunity for lawmakers and civil servants, but kept it for himself, the president. He also rewrote party rules to incorporate
the president into the PRI's leadership structure, in an attempt to ensure his control of his party. The president has been praised for going after
powerful interests in his own party to reform Mexico's historically corrupt political system. But some say these
the country's economy. The allegations led to the postponement of the unveiling of the finance industry reform this week.
reforms do not adequately tackle the broader problems of inequality or hit hard enough at Mexico's elite. So how far should reforms in Mexico go? And who is paying the price of Mexico's
reform?
Plan gives a mandate to supplement Pena Nieto's current anti-corruption programs-includes restructuring of the Mexican economy
Siskind 12, Latin American expert and research analyst for Control Risks in Mexico City, writer for World
Politics Review(Cory, "To Reform Mexico's Economy, Peña Nieto Must Tackle 'Culture of Monopolies'"
World Politics Review, 12/04/12. http://www.worldp oliticsreview.com/articles/12539/to-reformmexicos-economy-pena-nieto-must-tackle-culture-of-monopolies)//AD
Newly inaugurated Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto promised during his campaign to triple Mexico’s GDP growth rate to 5-6 percent annually. In order to even approach that lofty goal,
Peña Nieto must confront the country’s bloated monopolies that discourage competition and raise
the cost of goods and services for Mexicans. Complicating this already monumental task is Mexico’s
entrenched culture of monopolies, which will be harder to defeat than the actual monopolies
themselves. When it comes to Mexican monopolies, the big offenders are well-known: Telmex, the telecommunications conglomerate owned by the world’s richest man, Carlos
Slim; Televisa, the largest multimedia company in Latin America; Cemex, a building material supplier and cement producer with a reported market share of nearly 90 percent; and Walmex,
Wal-Mart’s branch in Mexico and the nation’s largest private sector employer, to name a few. According to the OECD, the lack of competition in Mexico’s economy has cost the country $129.2
Peña Nieto has stated broadly that Mexicans should have more
consumer choice and that companies should be made to compete, ensuring lower prices and better
quality. But although he has promised to “fight” monopolies, he has avoided mentioning the specifics of which ones and how. To
complicate matters, the Mexican government runs two of the country’s largest monopolies, both of which are
constitutionally mandated. Pemex, the state-owned petroleum company and one of the world’s top petroleum producers, controls all of the country’s oil and gas
billion between 2005 and 2009, or 1.8 percent of GDP per year.
exploration, drilling, transportation and sales. Mexico’s state-owned electricity monopoly, the Federal Electricity Commission, is responsible for generating, controlling and transmitting all of
Both companies are notoriously inefficient.
the country’s electricity.
Mexico’s labor unions are not by definition monopolies, but they too succeed in
exercising undue influence over the government, thereby making Mexico’s labor force less competitive. Over their history, labor unions have won important rights for Mexico’s workers.
Mexico’s unions have today become disruptive behemoths, focused primarily on their own selfpreservation. Year after year, unions have evaded government regulation by auctioning their political
capital to the highest bidder. Union-led protests frequently shut down Mexico City’s main avenue for hours, causing massive traffic jams in an already congested city.
Meanwhile, union leaders, some of whom have been in office for decades, have politicians fearful of crossing them, and have been accused of everything from influencepeddling to corruption and mismanagement of funds. It is therefore no surprise that unions managed to escape relatively unscathed from
However,
Mexico’s recently approved labor reform bill, which seeks to modernize the country’s inefficient labor sector. The bill makes it easier to hire and fire workers, eases restrictions on part-time
work and updates outsourcing practices. However, as a result of their alliance with the majority PRI party, which returned to the presidency with Peña Nieto, unions succeeded in enfeebling
measures intended to make them more accountable, democratic and transparent. Transportation monopolies also negatively impact Mexico’s growth. In a country with sprawling urban
centers and an increasingly fast-paced life, good public transportation is paramount. But centrally planned public transportation projects aimed at reducing traffic and pollution are often
obstructed by taxi and bus drivers’ unions eager to protect their monopolies. The unions have already succeeded in obstructing the construction of streamlined metro-bus systems in Acapulco
and Puebla, both important and populous cities. Such public transportation systems would encourage competition by offering travelers an alternative to often overpriced taxis and dangerous
buses. Instead, the existing transportation monopolies inconvenience passengers and present a significant challenge for city planning and development across Mexico. In Mexico City, for
example, thousands of unregulated “pesero” buses drive recklessly and pollute heavily. Because they compete for fares, they often race other buses to pick up passengers, adding to the chaos
of driving in a metropolitan area of more than 21 million people. Mexico’s supposedly free-market economy has long been held hostage by monopolies that control up to 80, 90 or even 100
percent of market share. Injecting competition into the economy and regulating monopolies requires a tough stance toward big business and unions. Peña Nieto’s PRI party is allied with both.
In order for the new president to even approach his growth promise -- not to mention keeping Mexico competitive in the global economy -- the incoming administration must tackle
Peña Nieto
claims that addressing Mexico’s monopoly problem is part of his proposed structural reforms.
Specifically, his team has proposed harsher penalties for monopolistic behavior, and antitrust courts
that would embolden Mexico’s competition authority, Cofeco. Peña Nieto also proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow private
monopolies in a meaningful way. This means not just confronting big companies but also unions, low-level monopolies and the government’s own state-run companies.
and foreign investment in Pemex, arguing that Mexico should increase production capacity and emulate Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras. This Sunday, on his second day in office,
Peña Nieto signed a pact with the chairmen of rival parties the PAN and the PRD to work
collaboratively to, among other things, weaken Mexico’s telecommunications monopoly.
Still, Peña Nieto would
not be the first Mexican president to implement pro-competition and antitrust reforms. The Mexican Antitrust Act was strengthened twice under former President Felipe Calderón, in 2006 and
2011. Cofeco even succeeded in slamming Telcel mogul Carlos Slim with a record $1 billion fine in April 2011. The question is whether Peña Nieto can take reforms further than his
he has presented himself as the “new face” of the PRI, many are skeptical that Peña Nieto
will break from the party known for its corruption and cronyism. Peña Nieto ran on a platform of economic reforms that would
predecessor. Although
improve the everyday lives of Mexicans. Real change in Mexico will require addressing the culture that allows monopolies to flourish. Unless Peña Nieto is willing to jeopardize his close ties to
the political elites, unions and big business that underlie this culture, Mexicans are likely looking at six more years of subpar economic performance.
AT: Overpopulation Add-On
Global population is slowing and will soon decline – it is consumerism, not population
that causes their impacts
Pearce, 10 – is an English author and journalist based in London. He is a science writer and has
reported on the environment. (Fred, “The overpopulation myth,” Prospect, March 8, 2010,
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-overpopulation-myth/#.UdNcSvnDxHY)//SMS
Many of today’s most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that our efforts to fight climate change and
other environmental perils will all fail unless we “do something” about population growth. In the Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking declares that,
“in the last 200 years, population growth has become exponential… The world population doubles every forty years.” But this is nonsense. For a
there is no exponential growth. In fact, population growth is slowing. For more than three decades now, the
average number of babies being born to women in most of the world has been in decline. Globally, women
start,
today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and,
if it helps the planet too, then so much the better. Here are the numbers.
Forty years ago, the average woman had
between five and six kids. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the replacement level which, allowing for girls who don’t
make it to adulthood, is around 2.3. As I show in my new book, Peoplequake, half the world already has a fertility rate
below the long-term replacement level. That includes all of Europe, much of the Caribbean and the far east from Japan to
Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia. It also includes China, where the state decides how
many children couples can have. This is brutal and repulsive. But the odd thing is that it may not make much difference any more: Chinese
communities around the world have gone the same way without any compulsion—Taiwan, Singapore, and even Hong Kong. When Britain
handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, it had the lowest fertility rate in the world: below one child per woman. So why is this happening?
Demographers used to say that women only started having fewer children when they got educated and the economy got rich, as in Europe. But
tell that to the women of Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest nations, where girls are among the least educated in the world, and mostly
marry in their mid-teens. They have just three children now, less than half the number their mothers had. India is even lower, at 2.8. Tell that
also to the women of Brazil. In this hotbed of Catholicism, women have two children on average—and this is falling. Nothing the priests say can
Better healthcare and sanitation mean that
most babies now live to grow up. It is no longer necessary to have five or six children to ensure the
next generation—so they don’t. There are holdouts, of course. In parts of rural Africa, women still have five or more children. But even
stop it. Women are doing this because, for the first time in history, they can.
here they are being rational. Women mostly run the farms, and they need the kids to mind the animals and work in the fields. Then there is the
middle east, where traditional patriarchy still rules. In remote villages in Yemen, girls as young as 11 are forced into marriage. They still have six
babies on average. But even the middle east is changing. Take Iran. In the past 20 years, Iranian women have gone from having eight children to
less than two—1.7 in fact—whatever the mullahs say. The big story here is that rich or poor, socialist or capitalist, Muslim or Catholic, secular or
devout, with or without tough government birth control policies in place, most countries tell the same tale of a reproductive revolution. That
doesn’t mean population growth has ceased. The world’s population is still rising by 70m a year. This is because there is a time lag: the huge
within
a generation, the world’s population will almost certainly be stable, and is very likely to be falling by
mid-century. In the US they are calling my new book “The Coming Population Crash.” Is this good news for the environment and for the
planet’s resources? Clearly, other things being equal, fewer people will do less damage to the planet. But it won’t on
its own do a lot to solve the world’s environmental problems, because the second myth about population growth is
that it is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet. In fact, rising consumption today far outstrips the rising
headcount as a threat to the planet. And most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up
numbers of young women born during the earlier baby boom may only have had two children each. That is still a lot of children. But
adding substantial numbers to their population, while most of the remaining population growth is in countries with a very small impact on the
By almost any measure you choose, a small proportion of the world’s people take the majority
of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution. Let’s look at carbon dioxide emissions: the biggest
current concern because of climate change. The world’s richest half billion people—that’s about 7 per cent of the
global population—are responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest
planet.
50 per cent of the population are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions. Virtually all of the extra 2bn or so people expected on this planet
in the coming 30 or 40 years will be in this poor half of the world. Stopping that, even if it were possible, would have only a minimal effect on
global emissions, or other global threats. Ah, you say, but what about future generations? All those big families in Africa will have yet bigger
The carbon emissions of one
American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 40 Nigerians
families. Well, that’s an issue of course. But let’s be clear about the scale of the difference involved.
or 250 Ethiopians. A woman in rural Ethiopia can have ten children and, in the unlikely event that those ten children all live to adulthood
and have ten children of their own, the entire clan of more than a hundred will still be emitting less carbon dioxide than you or me. It is
over-consumption, not over-population that matters. Economists predict the world’s economy will grow by 400 per cent
by 2050. If this does indeed happen, less than a tenth of that growth will be due to rising human numbers. True, some of those extra poor
people might one day become rich. And if they do—and I hope they do—their impact on the planet will be greater. But it is the height of
arrogance for us in the rich world to downplay the importance of our own environmental footprint because future generations of poor people
might one day have the temerity to get as rich and destructive as us. How dare we?
No overpopulation – immigration is the only thing preventing rampant underpopulation
Wise, 1/9 – contributing editor at Travel + Leisure and Popular Mechanics, he has also written for The
New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Details, Men’s Journal, and many others(Jeff, “About That
Overpopulation Problem,” Slate, January 9, 2013,
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/01/world_population_may_actually_star
t_declining_not_exploding.html)//SMS
*Cites UN Predictions and academic reports
The world’s seemingly relentless march toward overpopulation achieved a notable milestone in 2012: Somewhere on the planet, according to
U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 7 billionth living person came into existence. Lucky No. 7,000,000,000 probably celebrated his or her birthday
sometime in March and added to a population that’s already stressing the planet’s limited supplies of food, energy, and clean water. Should
this trend continue, as the Los Angeles Times noted in a five-part series marking the occasion, by midcentury, “living conditions are likely to be
It took humankind
13 years to add its 7 billionth. That’s longer than the 12 years it took to add the 6 billionth—the first
time in human history that interval had grown. (The 2 billionth, 3 billionth, 4 billionth, and 5 billionth took 123, 33, 14, and
13 years, respectively.) In other words, the rate of global population growth has slowed. And it’s expected to
keep slowing. Indeed, according to experts’ best estimates, the total population of Earth will stop growing within the lifespan of people
alive today. And then it will fall. This is a counterintuitive notion in the United States, where we’ve heard often and loudly that world
bleak for much of humanity.” A somewhat more arcane milestone, meanwhile, generated no media coverage at all:
population growth is a perilous and perhaps unavoidable threat to our future as a species. But population decline is a very familiar concept in
the rest of the developed world, where fertility has long since fallen far below the 2.1 live births per woman required to maintain population
In Germany, the birthrate has sunk to just 1.36, worse even than its low-fertility neighbors Spain (1.48)
and Italy (1.4). The way things are going, Western Europe as a whole will most likely shrink from 460 million to just 350 million by the end
of the century. That’s not so bad compared with Russia and China, each of whose populations could fall by
half. As you may not be surprised to learn, the Germans have coined a polysyllabic word for this quandary: Schrumpf-Gesellschaft, or
equilibrium.
“shrinking society.” American media have largely ignored the issue of population decline for the simple reason that it hasn’t happened here yet.
Unlike Europe,
the United States has long been the beneficiary of robust immigration. This has helped us not
only by directly bolstering the number of people calling the United States home but also by propping up
the birthrate, since immigrant women tend to produce far more children than the native-born do.
Tons of alt causes to population growth
Oak 11 – Staff Writer for Buzzle, previous computer science engineer (Manali, “Causes of
Overpopulation,” Buzzle, 7/11/12, http://www.buzzle.com/articles/causes-of-overpopulation.html)//AC
The main factors contributing to excessive growth of population are: Increased birth rate Increased
longevity Reduced infant mortality Decreased death rate Lack of education Cultural influences
Immigration/Emigration Another reason behind growth in human population is that there is no
particular breeding season in human beings. They can mate and have children any time of the year,
unlike other animals whose mating season is restricted to only a particular period of the year. Also,
developments in the medical field have increased the average lifespan of human beings, thereby
boosting population growth. Let's take a closer look at the different causes of overpopulation. Decline in the Death Rate: Reduced
mortality rate is one of the leading causes of overpopulation. Due to medical advancements, many of the once incurable
diseases have cures today. Owing to advances in both preventive and curative medicine, diseases have either
been eradicated or have more effective treatments now. There are effective ways to control epidemics
and there are better measures to treat critical health ailments, thus leading to a drop in death rates.
Developments in medicine have led to reduced mortality and increase in the average life expectancy of humans. Infant mortality rates are very
low and cases of deaths during childbirth are less frequent. Good
prenatal care has improved the chances of survival for
both the mother and the baby. Rise in the Birth Rate: Once again owing to advances in medicine, the average birth rate has gone up.
Due to various fertility treatments available today, there are effective solutions to infertility problems, which increases
chances of conception. Due to modern medicine, pregnancies are safer. In case of conception after a fertility treatment,
there are chances of a multiple pregnancy, further contributing to increasing birth rates. In addition to this,
there is a social pressure to have children. This further contributes to overpopulation. Early marriages also
contribute to population growth as getting married at an early age increases the chances of having more children. And especially so
with the uneducated class where family planning is not adopted. Lack of Education: Illiteracy is another important factor that
contributes to overpopulation. Those lacking education fail to understand the need to curb population
growth. Modern methods of birth control and family planning don't reach the illiterate sections of society. Furthermore, due to lack of
awareness there is resistance in adopting such methods. The illiterate are unable to understand what impact overpopulation can have. The
educated class can make more responsible decisions about marriage and childbirth. Thus education is an effective tool to curb overpopulation.
The concept of birth control is not widely accepted. Adopting birth control measures is
considered taboo in certain cultures. Some cultures foster beliefs where marrying at a certain age or having a certain number of
children is considered to be ideal. In some cultures male children are preferred. This indirectly forces couples to
produce children till a child of the preferred gender is conceived. Plus, there is a pressure from the family and society to
Cultural Influences:
have children. Social norms influence decisions of starting and extending one's family. In cultures where a woman's role is considered to be that
of a child-bearer, large families become the norm. Migration: Immigration is a problem in some parts of the world. If the inhabitants of various
countries migrate to a particular part of the world and settle in that region, the area has to face the negative effects of overpopulation. If the
rates of emigration from and immigration to a country do not match, it results in increased population density in that country. The area
becomes thickly populated. People inhabiting the area experience scarcity of resources. This leads to uneven distribution of natural resources
which is a direct consequence of overpopulation. Though migration of people between regions does not affect the world population figure, it
does lead to something that can qualify as localized overpopulation. Increase in population is an increase in the number of human resources
which means more working hands. But we cannot ignore the fact that an increase in the number of producers implies an increase in the
number of consumers too. We need to strike a balance between population growth and resource consumption. Resources are limited,
population growth needs to be controlled. We need to take steps, now.
The population will inevitably decrease
Thornton 13 - research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of classics and humanities at
California State University in Fresno, California (Bruce, “The Coming Demographic Crisis: What to Expect
When No One Is Expecting,” 4/25/13,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/25/the_coming_demographic_crisis_what_to_expec
t_when_no_one_is_expecting_118128.html)//AC
The most general cause of population decline is modernity itself; birthrates started declining in the
nineteenth century when industrialization and technological advances began to accelerate. Better
nutrition, sanitation, and health care, for example, have reduced infant mortality in America from about
300 babies dying out of 1,000 live births in 1850, to about six today. More babies surviving lessened the
need for multiple pregnancies, which in turn reduced family size. During the Industrial Revolution,
migration to cities made children less useful than they were on farms and more expensive. Easier
divorce, reliable birth control, cohabitation replacing marriage, and women entering the workforce in
greater numbers––since 1990, about 70 percent of women have been working at any given time––have
all contributed to the decline in marriage and the diminishing centrality of children in people’s lives.
These forces have created disincentives to reproduction, not the least being the $1.1 million price tag
for rearing and educating a child today. Two larger cultural trends have reinforced the effects of
technological developments and industrialization. As Last points out, fertility rates among the educated
classes began falling in the middle of the eighteenth century, which was about the same time as the rise
of capitalism. The pursuit of individual initiative and self-interest contributed to the erosion of
community and family. Economic advancement requires mobility and fewer obligations; constraints
hamper self-improvement and risk-taking, after all. Having children, perhaps the greatest constraint of
all, became less and less a factor in people’s calculations of their self-interests. Something else would be
required to get people to procreate. That imperative to reproduce used to be grounded in religion, but
during the eighteenth century, secularization began to loosen the hold that religious practice––actually
going to church rather than just self-identifying by sect––used to have on people’s behavior. The effect
of religious practice on fertility is obvious from statistics. Indeed, the effects of religion on fertility can be
“so powerful that even if you’re not the churchgoing type yourself, you’ll be affected if your parents
are.” People whose mothers never went to church are twice as likely to cohabit than those whose
mothers went more than once a week. The direct effects of churchgoing are even more dramatic. A
woman who never attends church is seven times more likely to cohabit than one who goes weekly.
Cohabitation in turn affects marriage and divorce, making marriage less likely and divorce more likely.
Churchgoers have happier, more stable marriages, contributing to the chance they’ll have more
children. This effect can be seen in “desired fertility” statistics, a measure of the number of children
people say is ideal. Among non-religious Americans, 21 percent say three or more children make the
ideal family size. Among weekly churchgoers, 41 percent do. Last concludes, “Religion helps marriage
and marriage helps fertility––the end result being that religiosity winds up being an even better
predictor of fertility than either education or income.” Fertility rates prove Last’s point. Observant
Protestants and Catholics have a TFR of 2.25 compared to secular Americans’ 1.66. The highest fertility
rate in the U.S. is in Mormon Utah, at 2.60.
Stopping immigration isn’t key – Mexican fertility rates will decrease
Thornton 13 - research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of classics and humanities at
California State University in Fresno, California (Bruce, “The Coming Demographic Crisis: What to Expect
When No One Is Expecting,” 4/25/13,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/25/the_coming_demographic_crisis_what_to_expec
t_when_no_one_is_expecting_118128.html)//AC
For two centuries, overpopulation has haunted the imagination of the modern world. According to
Thomas Malthus, writing in 1798, human population growth would always surpass agricultural
production, meaning “gigantic inevitable famine” would “with one mighty blow level the population
with the food of the world.” Later, eugenicists like Margaret Sanger in the 1920s fretted over the wrong
people reproducing too much, creating what she called “human weeds,” a “dead weight of human
waste” to inherit the earth. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich predicted that in the 1970s, “hundreds of millions of
people are going to starve to death” because of the “population bomb.” These days, environmentalists
worry that too many people will overload the natural world’s resources and destroy the planet with
excessive consumption and pollution, leading to catastrophic global warming. A strain of anti-humanism
has always run through population paranoia, a notion that human beings are a problem rather than a
resource. But as Jonathan Last documents in his new book What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, it
is not overpopulation that threatens the well-being of the human race, it is under-population. As Last
writes, “Throughout recorded human history, declining populations have always been followed by Very
Bad Things.” Particularly for our modern, high-tech, capitalist world of consumers who buy,
entrepreneurs who create wealth and jobs, and workers whose taxes fund social welfare entitlements,
people are an even more critical resource. The Facts of Population Decline Last, a senior writer for the
Weekly Standard and father of three, provides a reader-friendly but thorough analysis of the
demographic crisis afflicting the West and the “Very Bad Things” that will follow population decline.
Clearly argued and entertainingly written, Last covers the how and why of our refusal to reproduce, and
the consequences that will follow. The facts of population decline are dramatic. Women must average a
total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 children apiece for populations to remain stable. But across the developed
world, and increasingly everywhere else, fertility is quickly declining below this number: “All First World
countries are already below the 2.1 line,” Last writes, and the rates of decline among Third World
countries “are, in most cases, even steeper than in the First World.” Japan and Italy, for example, have a
1.4 TFR, a “mathematical tipping point” at which the population will decline by 50 percent in 45 years.
As for the rest of Europe, by 2050 only three countries in the E.U., which today has an average rate of
1.5 TFR, will not be experiencing population declines. Those countries are France, Luxembourg, and
Ireland. Immigration from the Third World will not provide a long-term solution, as fertility rates are
declining there as well. The average fertility rate for Latin America was six children per woman in the
1960s; by 2005, it had dropped to 2.5. At that rate of decline, within a few decades, Latin American
countries will likely have a fertility rate lower than that of the United States. Compared to Singapore’s
1.1 TFR, or Germany’s 1.36, the U.S.’s 2.0 (an average of varying rates ranging from 1.93 to 2.18) looks
pretty good. But, in Last analysis, the negative trends do not bode well for the future. The large numbers
of Hispanic immigrants reached 50.5 million in 2010, compared to 22.3 million in 1990, a doubling of
their population in 20 years. Hispanic women are outpacing the U.S. fertility rate with their 2.35 TFR. But
that number represents a decline from 2.96 in 1990, plunging nearly 10 percent just between 2007 and
2009. Last warns, “Our population profile is so dependent on Hispanic fertility that if this group
continues falling toward the national average––and everything about American history suggests that it
will––then our 1.93 fertility rate will take a nosedive.” The United States should not count on a
population surge via Mexico, where 60 percent of the Hispanic immigrants into this country come from.
Mexico’s fertility rate has fallen from 6.72 in 1970 to 2.07 in 2009, a trend that points to further decline.
In addition, labor shortages in Latin America will likely lead to diminished emigration. Causes and
Consequences Such are the brute facts of population decline. Why it has happened, what the
consequences of it will be, and what we can do to arrest it make up the remaining bulk of Last’s book.
Overpopulation is a myth to scare people into accepting an agenda – population is
declining
Melton 12 - experienced researcher, graphic artist and investigative journalist (Melissa, “Overpopulation
Is a Eugenics Agenda Lie,” Infowars.com, 11/1/12, http://www.infowars.com/overpopulation-is-aeugenics-agenda-lie/)//AC
Dropping Birth Rates The mainstream media always tosses out a lot of broad, vague concepts about how
the world is overpopulated to the total detriment of the environment, as if it is just an accepted,
incontrovertible fact. Are we in dire straights? Is the Earth becoming so overburdened by the burgeoning
human population that it’s about to plummet out of space? No. Not even close. In fact, when the actual
data is considered, the only thing dropping, and fast, are human birth rates. Many countries’ have zero
or even negative population growth, with birth rates below national replacement rates — the degree
upon which a population replaces itself. As it stands, the Western European countries of Germany,
Holland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Sweden have total fertility rates below the replacement rate.
Denmark saw 4,400 fewer children born in 2011 than in 2010, with projections in 2012 on track for the
nation having its lowest birth rate on record since 1988. Canada’s birth rate fell to 10.5 per 1,000 people
in 2002, the lowest it had been since 1921. New figures in 2011 showed it had dipped even further to
10.28. Australia’s birth rate decline over the past two decades is so worrisome to its government that it
introduced “extensive changes” to taxes and benefits that would assist families and encourage growth.
China, a nation typically (but incorrectly) called out as experiencing a continuous population boon
comparative to rabbits, has seen its birth rates decline from 16.12 per 1,000 people in 2000 to 12.31 in
2012. Mexico’s population explosion is now a myth similar to China’s; in 2010, The Economist declared
the country’s birth rate to be in “free fall.” Russia’s 2012 birth rate was lower at 10.94 per 1,000 people
than its death rate at 16.03 per 1,000 people. Russia has the second highest death rate of any country in
the world. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared South Korea to have the world’s
lowest birth rate for the second year in a row; North Korea’s birth rates were also in steep decline, from
20.43 per 1,000 people in 2000 to 14.51 per 1,000 people in 2012. Japan’s government is now
estimating that if birth rates in the country continue to decline on the same trend as seen in the past
few decades, the nation’s population will shrink 30 percent by 2060. Morocco, Syria, and Saudi Arabia’s
fertility rates have all declined nearly 60 percent overall. Singapore’s birth rates dropped so low in 2012
(1.2 per 1,000 people), the nation’s Prime Minister’s office released a paper to combat the “serious”
issue entitled, “Our Population Our Future.” While birth rates for both boys and girls are dropping in
India, baby girl births are showing a much sharper decline than baby boys. Poland officially has one of
the lowest birth rates in the world as well. Finally, American birth rates have fallen to the lowest levels
since the Great Depression, with the 2011 fertility rate being the lowest reported in all of U.S. History.
The highest birth rates in 2012 were reported in the African nations of Niger and Uganda, but these two
countries also have some of the lowest overall life expectancy rates at 54 and 53 years respectively as
when compared with the U.S. or the U.K., where life expectancy rates are nearly 30 years higher.
According to a population growth study conducted by University of Minnesota Ecology Professor
Clarence Lehman, “Human population growth has turned ‘a very sharp corner’ and is now slowing, on its
way to leveling off in the next century.” Rising Disease Rates While birth and fertility rates are dropping
en masse, other figures are rising just as quickly. WHO has estimated that Alzheimer’s and other
debilitating dementias effect 24.3 million people and are rising in developing countries; WHO has
announced this number is now expected to double every 20 years. Childhood Leukemia and brain
cancers are on the rise as well, with figures jumping about one percent every year for each of the last 20
years. Autoimmune diseases are rocketing off the charts. Celiac disease — an autoimmune disorder
that causes the body to attack the small intestine which has the primary function of nutrient absorption
— now afflicts five times as many Americans than it did in the 1950s. According to the American
Diabetes Association, the incidence of type 1 diabetes in American youth increased 23 percent just
between 2001 and 2009. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted in a study released earlier this
year that autism now afflicts one in every 88 children. “It clearly suggests that environmental factors are
at play due to the significant increase in these diseases,” explained Virginia Ladd, President and
Executive Director of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA). “Genes do not
change in such a short period of time.” Are We Killing the Environment or Is It Killing Us? What
environmental factors could be making people so abundantly ill? There are so many lovely options to
choose from. Could it be the vaccines laced with heavy metals and formaldehyde? Isn’t it ironic that
public service announcements constantly tell us smoking is bad because cigarettes contain
formaldehyde and formaldehyde causes cancer, something even the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) warns us about, but shooting a baby up with formaldehyde in a vaccine is somehow supposed to
be perfectly acceptable? Administering a two month old one shot for diphtheria, tetanus, acellular
pertussis, and hepatitis B, and one shot for polio would mean shooting 200 micrograms of formaldehyde
straight into the infant’s bloodstream; that’s just one set of vaccines. The average American child is set
to receive 36 inoculations by the time he or she is five years old. Perhaps it is the genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) in our food which have been shown in studies (the ones not funded by Monsanto) to
cause everything from infertility and liver disease, to tumors and death, all courtesy of Big Agra, the
same companies to bring us DDT and Agent Orange. Or is it geoengineering otherwise known by some as
“chemtrails,” science’s “answer” to the man-made global warming hoax that involves planes spraying a
chemical mixture of strontium, barium salts and aluminum particles into our atmosphere? Michael
Murphy of the chemtrail documentary “What in the World Are They Spraying?” notes that the effect of
having these toxic chemicals sprayed on us without our consent “has been devastating to crops, wildlife
and human health.” The latest proposal to geoengineer our planet will only cost us a mere $5 billion
dollars per year, and although there is evidence these programs have been going on since at least the
’90s, officials still will not fully admit it. The mainstream media has to sell it to us first. As if our air and
food being poisoned isn’t enough, artificial fluoride, a chemical waste byproduct of aluminum and
phosphate fertilizer manufacturing, is being dumped into municipal water across the U.S. and all over
the world. The water in Nazi concentration camps was purposefully fluoridated, and it’s not likely Adolf
Hitler was worried about the inmates’ dental health. Studies on fluoride’s detrimental health effects are
numerous; fluoride has been shown to negatively impact every soft tissue in the body. Fluoride has been
tied to kidney damage, arthritis, thyroid disease, pineal gland calcification, endocrine disruption,
infertility, bone cancer, cardiovascular disease, joint damage, gastrointestinal issues, and lowered IQ.
What’s even more twisted? If Americans want artificial fluoride removed from our public water sources,
we actually have to fight our city councils in many cases. Perhaps it’s all the pharmaceuticals people are
taking. In the U.S. alone, prescription medications kill an estimated 300% more people than illegal drugs.
The American Medical Association (AMA) admits that, conservatively, the adverse reactions of FDAapproved medications kill nearly 300 people every single day — causing over 106,000 deaths in the U.S.
per year. This means pharmaceuticals kill more Americans than most cancers (except lung), Alzheimer’s
disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, kidney disease, liver disease, traffic accidents or violence. And
that’s just here in the United States. Overpopulation Is a Myth This depopulation agenda is foisted on
people through the “green” movement, something that can make people feel all warm and squishy
inside because they’re doing something “good” for the environment; the flipside to that coin is the
elites’ ultimate agenda for mass death under the guise of saving the Earth. According to the Population
Research Institute (PRI), the myth of overpopulation has been brought up again and again over the
past few centuries for to scare people into accepting a eugenics agenda: Multiple sources from PRI to
National Geographic’s Robert Kunzig claim that, when the math is done properly, every family on the
planet could have a house with a yard and reside in a land mass the size of Texas. Texas is just under
269,000 square miles of the entire Earth’s 57.5 million square miles of land. Perhaps the state would not
readily have the resources to support that many people, but that is not the point. The point is that it
could be done. British Scholar Thomas Malthus (1766-1838) is credited with the original theory of
population “growth” which was, really, just an argument for population control. Malthus argued that
population increases would eventually lead to starvation and poverty, thus he felt the lower classes
should have their family sizes regulated. Darwin admitted in his autobiography that his theory of natural
selection was based in part on Malthus’ work. Fast forward to today, when we have eugenicist
billionaires with enough money to affect global change like former Vice President Al Gore claiming
population stabilization is the only way to combat global warming; Bill Gates lecturing on how we could
save ten teachers’ jobs if we cut end-of-life care for grandma; and CNN-founder Ted Turner (who has
five children of his own) talking about how everyone else should be forced to adhere to a one-child
policy for 100 years to reduce the world down to 2 billion people. Fearmongerer Gore stands to make
billions off his global warming carbon tax initiatives should they pass; while Gore flies around in private
jets and spends $30,000 a year in utility bills for his 20-room mansion, he basically wants to tax
breathing for everyone else. Gates’ “charitable” foundation has a mission to “vaccinate the planet” —
vaccination that he admitted will reduce the world’s population by 15 percent. Gates’ valiant mission
recently left nearly 48,000 children paralyzed in India. Turner recently announced in a television
appearance he thinks it’s “good” that record numbers of U.S. soldiers are committing suicide. Notice all
of these people are advocating population reduction, but none of them are personally volunteering to
go first. Al Gore, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and others like them, are using their power, wealth, and
influence to play God, but they are not gods; they are mere men who, because of their wealth and
power, believe themselves to be above the rest of us. They believe they alone can make decisions on
who is worthy to live and die. The eugenics agenda lives on, and the bought and controlled media
continues to churn out propaganda telling us we have to die so that the Earth (and the elite) may live.
Every day we are being poisoned, robbed and lied to on a massive scale. We have to wake people up to
what’s really going on here, before it’s too late.
AT: Overpopulation – Clean Tech Turn
Your overpopulation claims are false – immigrants are key to develop clean energy
and save the environment
Ewing 10 - Ph.D., is the Senior Researcher at the Immigration Policy (Walter, “Immigration and the
Environment: Why the “Over-Population” Argument Doesn’t Hold Water,” Immigration Policy Center
(IPC), 10/13/10, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/13/910043/-Immigration-and-theEnvironment-Why-the-Over-Population-Argument-Doesn-t-Hold-Water)//AC
A new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) thoroughly debunks the simplistic claims of
nativist groups that immigration to the United States fuels the destruction of the U.S. environment by
contributing to “over-population” of the country. The report, entitled From a “Green Farce” to a Green
Future: Refuting False Claims About Immigrants and the Environment, points out that the “overpopulation” argument of the nativists is based on the false premise that more people automatically
produce more pollution. However, the truth of the matter is that “more people do not necessarily equal
more stress on the planet, and stopping the flow of immigrants to this country will not solve our
environmental challenges.” In fact, the report finds that “immigrants actually live greener than most
Americans and they can play a critical role in solving our environmental challenges .” In contrast to the
“over-population” arithmetic of nativists, the CAP report notes that the United States produces 70
percent more greenhouse gases than the nations of the European Union (EU)-15, even though it is home
to 23 percent fewer people. In other words, the EU-15 countries manage to produce less pollution with
more people while maintaining a standard of living comparable to that of the United States. Moreover,
within the United States, immigrants are more likely than the native-born to live in “high-density”
metropolitan areas where recycling, conservation, and use of public transportation are the norm. That is
why the U.S. cities with the largest immigrant populations—such as Los Angeles, New York, San Diego,
and El Paso—are characterized by relatively low per capita carbon emissions; while the cities with the
highest per capita “carbon footprints”—such as Knoxville, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and Cincinnati—are
home to relatively few immigrants. The CAP report also points out that “ immigrants are integral to
driving clean energy innovation ” given that so many scientists and engineers in the United States are
foreign-born. This conclusion echoes the findings of a June 2010 report from the Immigration Policy
Center (IPC), which notes that “America’s young scientists and engineers, especially the ones drawn to
emerging industries like alternative energy, tend to speak with an accent.” In fact, according to the IPC
report, “nearly 70 percent of the men and women who entered the fields of science and engineering
from 1995 to 2006 were immigrants.” Not surprisingly, nativists conveniently fail to mention the pivotal
role which immigrants play in developing high-tech solutions to our environmental problems. As the CAP
report correctly concludes, nativists are attempting to “present Americans with a false choice between
achieving fair and humane immigration reform and climate legislation that will respect the environment
and lead our country to a clean and prosperous energy future.” The report calls upon environmentalists
to resist this siren call and to “reject false choices and distractions from…the true causes of pollution and
climate change: our dependence on fossil fuels and our unsustainable systems of energy consumption.”
The “over-population” argument being advanced by nativists with dismal environmental records is
simply a fig leaf behind which they attempt to conceal their anti-immigrant political agenda.
AT: Overpopulation - Underpopulation turn
Population will decline – underpopulation leads to extinction
Wise 13 - New York-based magazine writer and author of Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in
Danger. A contributing editor at Popular Mechanics and Travel + Leisure, he specializes in aviation,
adventure, and psychology (Jeff, “About That Overpopulation Problem,” Slate, 1/9/13,
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/01/world_population_may_actually_star
t_declining_not_exploding.2.html)//AC
The world’s seemingly relentless march toward overpopulation achieved a notable milestone in 2012:
Somewhere on the planet, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 7 billionth living person came
into existence. Lucky No. 7,000,000,000 probably celebrated his or her birthday sometime in March and
added to a population that’s already stressing the planet’s limited supplies of food, energy, and clean
water. Should this trend continue, as the Los Angeles Times noted in a five-part series marking the
occasion, by midcentury, “living conditions are likely to be bleak for much of humanity.” A somewhat
more arcane milestone, meanwhile, generated no media coverage at all: It took humankind 13 years to
add its 7 billionth. That’s longer than the 12 years it took to add the 6 billionth—the first time in human
history that interval had grown. (The 2 billionth, 3 billionth, 4 billionth, and 5 billionth took 123, 33, 14,
and 13 years, respectively.) In other words, the rate of global population growth has slowed. And it’s
expected to keep slowing. Indeed, according to experts’ best estimates, the total population of Earth will
stop growing within the lifespan of people alive today. And then it will fall. This is a counterintuitive
notion in the United States, where we’ve heard often and loudly that world population growth is a
perilous and perhaps unavoidable threat to our future as a species. But population decline is a very
familiar concept in the rest of the developed world, where fertility has long since fallen far below the 2.1
live births per woman required to maintain population equilibrium. In Germany, the birthrate has sunk
to just 1.36, worse even than its low-fertility neighbors Spain (1.48) and Italy (1.4). The way things are
going, Western Europe as a whole will most likely shrink from 460 million to just 350 million by the end
of the century. That’s not so bad compared with Russia and China, each of whose populations could fall
by half. As you may not be surprised to learn, the Germans have coined a polysyllabic word for this
quandary: Schrumpf-Gesellschaft, or “shrinking society.” American media have largely ignored the issue
of population decline for the simple reason that it hasn’t happened here yet. Unlike Europe, the United
States has long been the beneficiary of robust immigration. This has helped us not only by directly
bolstering the number of people calling the United States home but also by propping up the birthrate,
since immigrant women tend to produce far more children than the native-born do. But both those
advantages look to diminish in years to come. A report issued last month by the Pew Research Center
found that immigrant births fell from 102 per 1,000 women in 2007 to 87.8 per 1,000 in 2012. That
helped bring the overall U.S. birthrate to a mere 64 per 1,000 women—not enough to sustain our
current population. Moreover, the poor, highly fertile countries that once churned out immigrants by
the boatload are now experiencing birthrate declines of their own. From 1960 to 2009, Mexico’s
fertility rate tumbled from 7.3 live births per woman to 2.4, India’s dropped from six to 2.5, and Brazil’s
fell from 6.15 to 1.9. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where the average birthrate remains a relatively
blistering 4.66, fertility is projected to fall below replacement level by the 2070s. This change in
developing countries will affect not only the U.S. population, of course, but eventually the world’s. Why
is this happening? Scientists who study population dynamics point to a phenomenon called
“demographic transition.” “For hundreds of thousands of years,” explains Warren Sanderson, a
professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics
and wars and famine, birthrates had to be very high.” Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates
started to fall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In time, though,
birthrates fell as well, and the population leveled out. The same pattern has repeated in countries
around the world. Demographic transition, Sanderson says, “is a shift between two very different longrun states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and low birthrates.” Not only is
the pattern well-documented, it’s well under way: Already, more than half the world’s population is
reproducing at below the replacement rate. If the Germany of today is the rest of the world tomorrow,
then the future is going to look a lot different than we thought. Instead of skyrocketing toward
uncountable Malthusian multitudes, researchers at Austria’s International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis foresee the global population maxing out at 9 billion some time around 2070. On the bright
side, the long-dreaded resource shortage may turn out not to be a problem at all. On the not-so-bright
side, the demographic shift toward more retirees and fewer workers could throw the rest of the world
into the kind of interminable economic stagnation that Japan is experiencing right now. And in the long
term—on the order of centuries— we could be looking at the literal extinction of humanity . That might
sound like an outrageous claim, but it comes down to simple math. According to a 2008 IIASA report, if
the world stabilizes at a total fertility rate of 1.5—where Europe is today—then by 2200 the global
population will fall to half of what it is today. By 2300, it’ll barely scratch 1 billion. (The authors of the
report tell me that in the years since the initial publication, some details have changed—Europe’s
population is falling faster than was previously anticipated, while Africa’s birthrate is declining more
slowly—but the overall outlook is the same.) Extend the trend line, and within a few dozen generations
you’re talking about a global population small enough to fit in a nursing home. It’s far from certain that
any of this will come to pass. IIASA’s numbers are based on probabilistic projections, meaning that
demographers try to identify the key factors affecting population growth and then try to assess the
likelihood that each will occur. The several layers of guesswork magnify potential errors. “We simply
don’t know for sure what will be the population size at a certain time in the future,” demographer
Wolfgang Lutz told IIASA conference-goers earlier this year. “There are huge uncertainties involved.”
Still, it’s worth discussing, because focusing too single-mindedly on the problem of overpopulation
could have disastrous consequences—see China’s one-child policy. One of the most contentious issues
is the question of whether birthrates in developed countries will remain low. The United Nation’s most
recent forecast, released in 2010, assumes that low-fertility countries will eventually revert to a
birthrate of around 2.0. In that scenario, the world population tops out at about 10 billion and stays
there. But there’s no reason to believe that that birthrates will behave in that way—no one has every
observed an inherent human tendency to have a nice, arithmetically stable 2.1 children per couple. On
the contrary, people either tend to have an enormous number of kids (as they did throughout most of
human history and still do in the most impoverished, war-torn parts of Africa) or far too few. We know
how to dampen excessive population growth—just educate girls. The other problem has proved much
more intractable: No one’s figured out how to boost fertility in countries where it has imploded.
Singapore has been encouraging parenthood for nearly 30 years, with cash incentives of up to $18,000
per child. Its birthrate? A gasping-for-air 1.2. When Sweden started offering parents generous support,
the birthrate soared but then fell back again, and after years of fluctuating, it now stands at 1.9—very
high for Europe but still below replacement level. The reason for the implacability of demographic
transition can be expressed in one word: education. One of the first things that countries do when they
start to develop is educate their young people, including girls. That dramatically improves the size and
quality of the workforce. But it also introduces an opportunity cost for having babies. “Women with
more schooling tend to have fewer children,” says William Butz, a senior research scholar at IIASA. In
developed countries, childrearing has become a lifestyle option tailored to each couple’s preferences.
Maximizing fertility is rarely a priority. My wife and I are a case in point. I’m 46, she’s 39, and we have
two toddlers. We waited about as long to have kids as we feasibly could because we were invested in
building our careers and, frankly, enjoying all the experiences that those careers let us have. If wanted
to pop out another ankle-biter right now, our ageing bodies might just allow us to do so. But we have no
intention of trying. As much as we adore our little guys, they’re a lot of work and frighteningly
expensive. Most of our friends have just one or two kids, too, and like us they regard the prospect of
having three or four kids the way most people look at ultramarathoning or transoceanic sailing—
admirable pursuits, but only for the very committed. That attitude could do for Homo sapiens what
that giant asteroid did for the dinosaurs . If humanity is going to sustain itself, then the number of
couples deciding to have three or four kids will consistently have to exceed the number opting to raise
one or zero. The 2.0 that my wife and I have settled for is a decent effort, but we’re not quite pulling our
weight. Are we being selfish? Or merely rational? Our decision is one that I’m sure future generations
will judge us on. Assuming there are any.
Underpopulation raises taxes and increases costs for healthcare and social security
Thornton 13 - research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of classics and humanities at
California State University in Fresno, California (Bruce, “The Coming Demographic Crisis: What to Expect
When No One Is Expecting,” 4/25/13,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/25/the_coming_demographic_crisis_what_to_expec
t_when_no_one_is_expecting_118128.html)//AC
The dire economic and social effects of plummeting birthrates remind us that marriage and childbirth
are not just private lifestyle choices. A country with fewer children becomes, on average, increasingly
older. Cities and towns begin to empty, while the cost of caring for retirees and elderly sick people
skyrockets. Old people spend less and invest less, shrinking capital pools for the new businesses that
create new jobs. Entrepreneurs do not come from among the aged: countries with a higher median age
have a lower percentage of entrepreneurs. Most important, a shrinking labor force means fewer
workers contributing the payroll taxes that finance old-age care. The Social Security program is already
beginning to be impacted by the decline in the worker-to-retiree ratio. In 1940, there were 160 workers
for each retiree. By 2010, there were just 2.9. Once some 80 million Baby Boomers retire, the number
will plummet to 2.1. This means taxes will have to increase and benefits be cut substantially to keep the
program solvent. Medicare is similarly threatened by declining fertility. Both programs will cost more
but have fewer workers footing the bill.
AT: Border Terrorists
Airport entry and self-radicalization are comparatively more likely to allow terrorism
Powell, 11 – Reporter for Chron (Stewart, “Terrorism threat on Mexican border: Reality or political
scare tactics?,” Chron, March 28, 2011, http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2011/03/terrorism-threat-onmexican-border-reality-or-political-scare-tactics/)//SMS
Texas continues to be the land route of choice, with 739 suspects from “special interest” countries
nabbed during illegal crossings into the Lone Star State over the last five years, according to Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus
Christi. An independent analysis by Vanderbilt political science and law professor Carol M. Swain and Saurabh Sharad found a 67 percent
increase in the number of arrests of border crossers from suspect nations &#151 up from 213 in 2000 to 355 in 2009.
Yet none of these
suspects has faced terror-related charges or carried out a terrorist act, according to senior federal law enforcement
officials who have checked government records. The single greatest terrorist threat to the United States remains alQaida affiliated recruits slipping through 327 airports and other ports of entry with legal or fradulent
passports the way the 19 suicide hijackers gained entry to carry out the 2001 attacks. Radicalized volunteers from
countries that are not on any watch list remain an ongoing threat, as do self-radicalized U.S. citizens such as accused
Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist charged with a rampage in 2009 that killed 13 and wounded 29. Indeed, suspects
in at least 24 of the 27 terrorist plots unmasked in the United States over the last two years have either
been radicalized U.S. citizens or foreign nationals already residing in the United States. “I’m not aware
that anyone who has committed a terrorist act in the United States had crossed the southwest
border,” a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Houston Chronicle, speaking on
condition of anonymity. “It’s an arduous trip through multiple countries to be smuggled across the southwestern border as opposed to using a
None of Texas’ terror-related cases has
involved a suspect who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
passport, getting a visitor’s visa and just flying into any airport,” the official said.
AT: AFF – Links to itself
All the negative effects of immigration the aff claims will be applied to Mexico
Dorton 7/1/13 – Contributor to the Daily Caller (Elizabeth, “Former Mexican official: Immigrants will
become Mexico’s burden if US doesn’t take more,” The Daily Caller, 7/1/13,
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/01/former-mexican-official-immigrants-will-become-mexicos-burden-ifus-doesnt-take-more/)//AC
A former Mexican cabinet member says the U.S. should accept more low-skill migrants from Central America,
because otherwise the migrants would stay in Mexico. If they can’t get into the United States, “they’re
going to stay in Mexico, creating a burden for us that we have to carry,” Jorge Castañeda said on “Al Punto,” a
Spanish-language show on Univision. “I think Mexico should raise its voice much more clearly and forcefully to say
that if the United States wants a wall, it needs to have more doors in this wall, with more bells at these
doors so that Mexicans and Central Americans can enter the United States with papers,” he said, as translated.
He criticized the items in the bill meant to address border security, as well as concern to the number of temporary work visas the bill will
create, which he believes to be too small. The Center for Immigration Studies reports that Castañeda criticized the Mexican government for
being too passive when discussing the bill with the United States, out of respect for not becoming involved in foreign affairs. Immigrants
hoping to enter the United States, legally or illegally, will invariably pass through Mexico to get there,
Castañeda said. Assuming they can’t get into the country, with the heightened border security, he
predicted that they will just stay in Mexico. The U.S. needs to provide more temporary work visas to
ensure that these illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens, rather than a “burden” that Mexico will have
to deal with. Castañeda projected that the number of temporary work visas the bill will create, currently sitting at 20,000 per year, should
be raised to “at least 150,000 to 200,000.” Mexico has a Gini index at 0.48, a measure of income inequality, meaning that economic distribution
has a nearly 50/50 rate of unequal dispersion in Mexico. Compared to the United States’ 0.38 index, it stands to reason that Mexican citizens
would like to immigrate.
Econ
Illegal immigrants are key to the economy – this evidence cites the economic
consensus and assumes all their warrants
Davidson, 13 – economist for the New York Times and co-founder of Planet Money, NPR’s team of
economics reporters whose goal is to translate often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and
financial news (Adam, “Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?”, The New York Times,
2/12/2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigrants-actually-hurt-the-useconomy.html?pagewanted=all) // MS
The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the
University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets
in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented
workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. Economies, as Adam
Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks
among themselves. Pedro Chan’s ability to take care of routine tasks on a work site allows carpenters
and electricians to focus on what they do best. In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri
said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew.
From 1990 to 2007, undocumented workers increased legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up
to 10 percent.
I saw this in action when Chan took me to his current work site, a two-story office building on Coney
Island Avenue. The skilled workers had already installed wood flooring in a lawyer’s office and were
off to the next job site. That left Chan to clean up the debris and to install a new toilet. As I looked
around, I could see how we were on one end of an economic chain reaction. Chan’s boss no longer had
to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks. That lowered the overall cost of construction,
increasing the number of jobs the company could book, which meant more customers and more
money. It reminded me of how so many restaurants operate. Without undocumented labor performing
routine tasks, meals, which factor labor costs into the price, would be more expensive. There would
also be fewer jobs for waiters and chefs.
Earlier that day, I was reminded of another seldom-discussed fact about immigrant life in the United
States. Immigrants spend most of the money they make. Chan had broken down his monthly expenses:
$400 a month in rent, another $30 or so for gas, electric and Internet. He sends some money home and
tries to save a few thousand a year in his Citibank account, but he ends up spending more than $10,000
annually. That includes the $1,400 or so he pays the I.R.S. so that he can have a taxpayer I.D. number,
which allows him to have a credit score so that he can rent an apartment or lease a car.
There are many ways to debate immigration, but when it comes to economics, there isn’t much of a
debate at all. Nearly all economists , of all political persuasions, agree that immigrants — those here
legally or not — benefit the overall economy . “That is not controversial,” Heidi Shierholz, an
economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. Shierholz also said that “there is a consensus that,
on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive
amount, because of immigration.”
The benefit multiplies over the long haul. As the baby boomers retire, the post-boom generation’s
burden to finance their retirement is greatly alleviated by undocumented immigrants. Stephen Goss,
chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, told me that undocumented workers contribute
about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes. They only take out $1 billion (very few
undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have
contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.
Illegal immigration is key to the economy – fills low-skill jobs
Hanson, 7 – Ph.D. in economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holder of the Pacific
Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego, where he is director
of the Center on Emerging and Pacific Economies and has faculty positions in the School of International
Relations and Pacific Studies and the Department of Economics (Gordon, “The Economic Logic of Illegal
Immigration,” Council on Foreign Relations, April 2007, pg. 14-18) // MS
For a given labor inflow, the productivity gains from immigration will be larger the scarcer the skills of
the incoming immigrants. A given type of worker may be scarce either because the U.S. supply of his
skill type is low relative to the rest of the world, as with workers who have little schooling, or because
the U.S. demand for his skill type is high relative to the rest of the world, as with computer scientists
and engineers.
Due to steady increases in high school completion rates, native-born U.S. workers with low schooling
levels are increasingly hard to find. Yet these workers are an important part of the U.S. economy —
they build homes, prepare food, clean offices, harvest crops, and take unfilled factory jobs. Between
1960 and 2000, the share of working-age native-born U.S. residents with less than twelve years of
schooling fell from 50 percent to 12 percent. Abroad, low-skilled workers are more abundant. In
Mexico, as of 2000, 74 percent of working-age residents had less than twelve years of education.
Migration from Mexico to the United States moves individuals from a country where their relative
abundance leaves them with low productivity and low wages to a country where their relative scarcity
allows them to command much higher earnings. For a twenty-five-year-old Mexican male with nine
years of education (slightly above the national average), migrating to the United States would increase
his wage from $2.30 to $8.50 an hour, adjusted for cost of living differences in the two countries.27
While the net economic impact of immigration on the U.S. economy may be small (as discussed below),
the gains to immigrant households from moving to the United States are enormous.
For low-skilled workers in much of the world, U.S. admission policies make illegal immigration the most
viable means of entering the country. In 2005, 56 percent of illegal immigrants were Mexican nationals.
Given low average schooling, few Mexican citizens qualify for employment-based green cards or most
types of temporary work visas (Figure 3).28 Family-based immigration visas have queues that are too
long and admission criteria that are too arbitrary to serve most prospective migrants who would like to
work in the United States in the immediate future. As a consequence, most Mexican immigrants enter
the United States illegally. Although many ultimately obtain green cards, they remain unauthorized for a
considerable period of time. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in 2005 80 to 85 percent of
Mexican immigrants who had been in the United States less than ten years were unauthorized.29 Illegal
immigration thus accomplishes what legal immigration does not: It moves large numbers of low- skilled
workers from a low-productivity to a high-productivity environment.
Illegal immigration also brings low-skilled workers to the United States when the productivity gains of
doing so appear to be highest. During the past twenty years, Mexico has experienced several severe
economic contractions, with emigration from the country spiking in the aftermath of each downturn.
In terms of the economic benefits, this is exactly when one would want workers to move—when their
labor productivity in the United States is highest relative to their labor productivity at home. Long
queues for U.S. green cards mean there is little way for legal permanent immigration to respond to such
changes in international economic conditions.
For high-skilled labor, legal immigration is the primary means of entering the United States. Compared
to the rest of the world, the United States has an abundant supply of highly educated labor. One might
expect that, if anything, skilled labor would want to leave the country rather than try to move here.
However, over the past two decades the U.S. economy has enjoyed rapid advances in new technology,
which have increased the demand for highly skilled labor.30 The spread of information technology,
among other developments, has created demand for software programmers, electrical engineers, and
other skilled technicians. Even with the abundant U.S. supply of educated labor, technology-induced
increases in labor demand have made the country an attractive destination for educated workers from
abroad. Employment-based green cards and temporary work visas make such skilled immigration
possible.
By the scarcity criterion, skills-based permanent immigration and temporary immigration admit the right
type of labor. Yet, the timing of these inflows and the subsequent occupational immobility of many of
these workers leave much to be desired. Employment-based permanent immigration moves erratically
over time, showing no discernible correlation with the U.S. employment rate (Figure 4).31 The volatility
of employment-based admissions is due not to economic considerations but to lengthy delays by U.S.
immigration authorities in processing applications for admission and naturalization. An unexpected
surge in applications for citizenship in the 1990s bogged down the process of granting immigration visas,
including employment-based green cards, leading to a fall in the number of highly skilled immigrants
receiving legal permanent residence visas.32 Ironically, the reduction in employment-based admissions
occurred during the height of the 1990s technology boom. Temporary immigration of skilled workers
tracks the U.S. economy somewhat more closely. The number of H-1B visas fell behind U.S. employment
growth in the early 1990s, surged ahead during the late stages of the 1990s boom, and then lost
strength in the early 2000s after the economy slowed briefly and then resumed growth. Far from leading
U.S. expansions, temporary work visas have lagged employment growth by two to three years.
Illegal immigration, employment-based permanent immigration, and temporary immigration each
tend to provide the U.S. economy with workers who are in scarce supply. Family-based immigration,
which is the largest component of permanent admissions, is set without regard to U.S. labor market
conditions. Legal immigration of skilled workers is hindered by queues for visas and lags in adjusting visa
levels, which reduce the economic value of such immigration. Flows of illegal immigrants, in contrast,
are closely tied to U.S. and Mexican business cycles.
The internal link is massive
Johnston, 9 – Bloomberg reporter (Nicholas, “Greenspan Says Illegal Immigration Aids U.S. Economy,”
Bloomberg, 4/30/2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=aeQKG53ULolk&pid=newsarchive)
// MS
* citing Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve
April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that illegal immigration
makes a “significant” contribution to U.S. economic growth by providing a flexible workforce.
Greenspan, appearing before a Senate subcommittee today, said illegal immigrants provide a “safety
valve” as demand for workers rises and falls.
“There is little doubt that unauthorized, that is, illegal, immigration has made a significant contribution
to the growth of our economy,” Greenspan said. An overhaul of U.S. immigration laws is “badly
needed” to create legal avenues for skilled and unskilled workers to enter the country legally, he said.
Even opponents of immigration concede it’s a net benefit for the economy
Isidore, 6 – CNN Money economist (Chris, “Illegal workers: good for U.S. economy,” CNN Money,
5/1/2006, http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/news/economy/immigration_economy) // MS
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - In the heated debate over the impact of illegal immigration on the U.S.
economy, Andrew Sum is one of those focusing on the negative.
The economist - the director of labor market studies at Northeastern University in Boston - argues that
the large supply of immigrants has displaced low-skilled U.S.-born workers, particularly the young and
the poor, from jobs.
"About 85.5 of every 100 new workers are new immigrants in this decade," he said. "At no time in the
last 60 years have we come close to this. They're really displacing young workers at a very high rate."
But even Sum would concede that the U.S. economy is larger, and growing faster, due to the supply
of illegal immigrants , and that most Americans with higher job skills are better off for their presence.
"Without the immigrants, we would have a decline in labor force of 3 to 4 percent," he said. "We
couldn't have grown nearly as much as we did in the '90s if we didn't have immigrants. And in the last
few years our growth would have been slower. The only thing I've argued is that we've ignored that
illegal immigration has put a lot of young adults into economic jeopardy."
Sum's views point out the dichotomy that many economists see when looking at the impact of
immigration on the economy.
Few economists will argue with the concept that the economy is stronger for the presence of the lowcost labor force.
Econ – UQ
Economy high and improving – statistics and top economists
Bonorchis, 7/1 – economic reporter for Bloomberg (Renee, “Mobius Sees U.S. Economy Improving
After Stock Market Recovery,” Bloomberg, 7/1/2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0701/mobius-sees-u-s-economy-improving-after-stock-market-recovery.html) // MS
Mark Mobius, who oversees $53 billion in emerging markets, said the rebound in U.S. stocks signals
the world’s largest economy will improve by the end of this year.
“There is a recovery in the U.S. now and it’s pretty substantial already,” Mobius, executive chairman of
Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said in a phone interview from Moscow. “That tells you you’re
going to see a much better economy. By the end of this year, you’ll see signs of a pick-up.”
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) rose to a record in May and has gained 13 percent this year,
outstripping emerging market indexes with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declining 8 percent and the MSCI
Emerging Market Index dropping 11 percent over the same period. U.S. employers added 165,000
workers last month after hiring 175,000 in May, according to a Bloomberg News survey before the
Labor Department data on July 5.
“Unemployment at 7 percent is remarkable,” Mobius said on June 28. “Markets are built on a wall of
worry but volatility is high and you can have a very rapid change in environment.”
Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said at a conference in Aspen, Colorado last week that while the U.S.
economy probably won’t grow as fast as in the 1990s, he’s confident gross domestic product growth
can accelerate. A U.S. recovery may spur global growth, Mobius said.
It’s improving now – multiple warrants
Rugaber and Crutsinger, 6/25 – AP reporters reporting on recent economic statistics (Christopher
and Martin, “REPORTS REFLECT FED'S MESSAGE OF STRONGER ECONOMY,” Associate Press, 6/25/2013,
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/reports-reflect-feds-message-stronger-economy) // MS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. housing recovery is strengthening. Factories are fielding more orders.
And Americans’ confidence in the economy has reached its highest point in 5½ years.
That brightening picture, captured in four reports Tuesday, suggests that the economy could accelerate
in the second half of the year. It underscores the message last week from the Federal Reserve, which
plans to slow its bond-buying program this year and end it next year if the economy continues to
strengthen. The Fed’s bond purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates low.
Warming
Immigrants solve climate change – they have less children in the US
McKibben 13 - environmentalist, author, and journalist - Schumann Distinguished Scholar and
Professor at Middlebury College (Bill, “Immigration reform -- for the climate,” Los Angeles Times,
3/14/13, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/14/opinion/la-oe-mckibben-immigration-environment20130314)//AC
For environmentalists, population has long been a problem. Many of the things we do wouldn't cause so
much trouble if there weren't so many of us. It's why I wrote a book some years ago called "Maybe One:
An Argument for Smaller Families." Heck, it's why I had only one child. And many of us, I think, long
viewed immigration through the lens of population; it was another part of the math problem. I've
always thought we could afford historical levels of immigration, but I understood why some other
environmentalists wanted tougher restrictions. More Americans would mean more people making use
of the same piece of land, a piece that was already pretty hard-used.¶ In recent years, though, the math
problem has come to look very different to me. It's one reason I feel it's urgent that we get real
immigration reform, allowing millions to step out of the shadows and on to a broad path toward
citizenship. It will help, not hurt, our environmental efforts, and potentially in deep and powerful ways.¶
One thing that's changed is the nature of the ecological problem. Now that global warming is arguably
the greatest danger we face, it matters a lot less where people live. Carbon dioxide mixes easily in the
atmosphere. It makes no difference whether it comes from Puerto Vallarta or Portland.¶ It's true that the
typical person from a developing nation would produce more carbon once she adopted an American
lifestyle, but she also probably would have fewer children. A December report from the Pew Research
Center report showed that birthrates in the U.S. were dropping faster among Mexican American women
and women who immigrated from Mexico than among any other group.¶ This is a trend reflected among
all Latinas in the U.S. As an immigrant mother of two from the Dominican Republic told the New York
Times: "Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more, [but] living in the United States, I
don't have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is,
keep what you have right now." Her two grandmothers had had a total of 27 children. The carbon
math, in other words, may well be a wash.¶
UQ
Illegal immigration is ending – only our ev is predictive
Cave, 13 – foreign correspondent for The New York Times (Damien, “In Mexican Villages, Few Are Left
to Dream of U.S.,” NYT, 4/2/2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/world/americas/new-wave-ofmexican-immigrants-seems-unlikely.html?pagewanted=all) // MS
EL CARGADERO, Mexico — The pretty houses in the hills here, with their bright paint and new additions,
clearly display the material benefits of having millions of workers move to the United States over the
past few decades. But these simple homes also reveal why another huge exodus would be unlikely: the
bulk of them are empty.
All across Mexico’s ruddy central plains, most of the people who could go north already have. In a
region long regarded as a bellwether of illegal immigration — where the flow of migrants has often
seemed never-ending — the streets are wind-whipped and silent. Homes await returning families,
while dozens of schools have closed because of a lack of students. Here in El Cargadero, a once-thriving
farm community of 3,000, only a few hundred people remain, at most.
“It’s not like it used to be,” said Fermin Saldivar Ureño, 45, an avocado farmer whose 13 brothers and
sisters are all in California. “I have three kids, my parents had 14. There just aren’t as many people to
go.”
As Congress considers a sweeping overhaul of immigration, many lawmakers say they are deeply
concerned that providing a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally
in the United States would mean only more illegal immigration.
They blame the amnesty that President Ronald Reagan approved in 1986 for the human wave that
followed, and they fear a repeat if Congress rewards lawbreakers and creates an incentive for more
immigrants to sneak across the border.
“The big problem with immigration is convincing people in the country that it won’t turn into a 1986
endgame,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is in the bipartisan group of
senators working on a bill.
But past experience and current trends in both Mexico and the United States suggest that legalization
would not lead to a sudden flood of illegal immigration on the scale of what occurred after 1986. Longrunning surveys of migrants from Mexico found that work, not the potential to gain legal status, was the
main cause of increased border crossings in the 1990s and 2000s. And as Mr. Saldivar points out, times
have changed.
The American economy is no longer flush with jobs. The border is more secure than ever. And in
Mexico the birthrate has fallen precipitously, while the people who left years ago have already sent
their immediate relatives across, or started American families of their own.
“It’s a new Mexico, it’s a new United States, and the interaction between them is new,” said Katherine
Donato, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University who specializes in immigration. As for Congressional action
spurring a surge of illegal crossings, she added: “You’re just not going to see this massive interest. You
don’t have the supply of people. You have a dangerous trip that costs a lot more money, and there has
been strong growth all over Latin America. So if people in Central America are disenfranchised and don’t
have jobs, as was the case in Mexico three or four decades ago, they might decide to go south.”
Overpopulation Defense
Population growth is slowing drastically and consumption is a huge alt cause to the
environment
Pearce, 10 – UK environment journalist of the year and science writer specializing in global
environmental issues, popular science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years
(Fred, “The overpopulation myth,” Prospect Magazine, 3/8/2010,
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-overpopulation-myth/#.UdMjPBaATF8) // MS
Many of today’s most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that
our efforts to fight climate change and other environmental perils will all fail unless we “do
something” about population growth. In the Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking declares that, “in the last
200 years, population growth has become exponential… The world population doubles every forty
years.”
But this is nonsense . For a start, there is no exponential growth. In fact, population growth is
slowing . For more than three decades now, the average number of babies being born to women in
most of the world has been in decline. Globally, women today have half as many babies as their
mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and,
if it helps the planet too, then so much the better.
Here are the numbers. Forty years ago, the average woman had between five and six kids. Now she
has 2.6. This is getting close to the replacement level which, allowing for girls who don’t make it to
adulthood, is around 2.3. As I show in my new book, Peoplequake, half the world already has a fertility
rate below the long-term replacement level. That includes all of Europe, much of the Caribbean and the
far east from Japan to Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan,
and Tunisia.
It also includes China, where the state decides how many children couples can have. This is brutal and
repulsive. But the odd thing is that it may not make much difference any more: Chinese communities
around the world have gone the same way without any compulsion—Taiwan, Singapore, and even Hong
Kong. When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, it had the lowest fertility rate in the
world: below one child per woman.
So why is this happening? Demographers used to say that women only started having fewer children
when they got educated and the economy got rich, as in Europe. But tell that to the women of
Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest nations, where girls are among the least educated in the world,
and mostly marry in their mid-teens. They have just three children now, less than half the number their
mothers had. India is even lower, at 2.8. Tell that also to the women of Brazil. In this hotbed of
Catholicism, women have two children on average—and this is falling. Nothing the priests say can stop
it.
Women are doing this because, for the first time in history, they can. Better healthcare and sanitation
mean that most babies now live to grow up. It is no longer necessary to have five or six children to
ensure the next generation—so they don’t.
There are holdouts, of course. In parts of rural Africa, women still have five or more children. But even
here they are being rational. Women mostly run the farms, and they need the kids to mind the animals
and work in the fields.
Then there is the middle east, where traditional patriarchy still rules. In remote villages in Yemen, girls
as young as 11 are forced into marriage. They still have six babies on average. But even the middle east
is changing. Take Iran. In the past 20 years, Iranian women have gone from having eight children to less
than two—1.7 in fact—whatever the mullahs say.
The big story here is that rich or poor, socialist or capitalist, Muslim or Catholic, secular or devout,
with or without tough government birth control policies in place, most countries tell the same tale of
a reproductive revolution.
That doesn’t mean population growth has ceased. The world’s population is still rising by 70m a year.
This is because there is a time lag: the huge numbers of young women born during the earlier baby
boom may only have had two children each. That is still a lot of children. But within a generation, the
world’s population will almost certainly be stable, and is very likely to be falling by mid-century. In the
US they are calling my new book “The Coming Population Crash.”
Is this good news for the environment and for the planet’s resources? Clearly, other things being equal,
fewer people will do less damage to the planet. But it won’t on its own do a lot to solve the world’s
environmental problems, because the second myth about population growth is that it is the driving
force behind our wrecking of the planet.
In fact, rising consumption today far outstrips the rising headcount as a threat to the planet. And
most of the extra consumption has been in rich countries that have long since given up adding
substantial numbers to their population, while most of the remaining population growth is in
countries with a very small impact on the planet. By almost any measure you choose, a small
proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority
of its pollution.
Let’s look at carbon dioxide emissions: the biggest current concern because of climate change. The
world’s richest half billion people—that’s about 7 per cent of the global population—are responsible
for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent of the
population are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions. Virtually all of the extra 2bn or so people
expected on this planet in the coming 30 or 40 years will be in this poor half of the world. Stopping
that, even if it were possible, would have only a minimal effect on global emissions , or other global
threats.
No overpopulation
Berezow 13 (Alex B. Berezow is the editor of RealClearScience and co-author of Science Left Behind.,
3/5/2013, "Humanity is not a plague on earth: Column",
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/05/humanity-is-not-a-plague-on-earth-column/1965485/)
The world population is not exploding out of control. In fact, it is slowing down. In January, David
Attenborough, an internationally renowned host of nature documentaries, revealed how disconnected he is from
nature. Mankind, he recently warned, is a "plague on the earth." He said, "Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do
it for us." Nobody told him that world population growth is already slowing in nearly every part of the world. In
many countries, demographers worry more about a shrinking population than an exploding one.
Americans haven't gotten the memo, either. A Center for Biological Diversity poll released last week reports that a
majority of Americans worry about population growth sparking global warming, killing off endangered
species or causing other environmental mayhem. And, they say, we have a "moral responsibility" to do something about it.
Nevertheless, the
notion that humanity is a blight upon the planet is a long discredited idea, long
nurtured by a vocal cadre of fearful prophets. Fearful history Thomas Malthus predicted more than 200
years ago that world population growth would outpace food production, triggering mass starvations and disease.
In 1977, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, along with Obama administration "science czar" John Holdren, authored a textbook that discussed population
control, including the unsavory possibility of compulsory abortions. As recently as 2011, Anne Ehrlich compared humans to cancer cells. Yet ,
science says otherwise . Indeed, what Attenborough, the Ehrlichs and Holdren all have in common is an
ignorance of demographic trends. Anyone who believes that humans will overrun the earth like ants at
a picnic
is ignoring the data.
Wealth plays role According to the World Bank, the world's fertility rate is 2.45, slightly above the
replacement rate of 2.1. Some demographers believe that by
2020, global fertility will drop below the replacement
rate for the first time in history. Why? Because the world is getting richer. As people become wealthier, they
have fewer kids. When times are good, instead of reproducing exponentially (like rabbits), people
prefer to spend resources
nurturing fewer children, for instance by investing in education and saving money for the future. This
trend toward smaller families has been observed throughout the developed world, from the United States to
Europe to Asia. The poorest parts of the world, most notably sub-Saharan Africa, still have sky-high fertility rates, but
they are declining. The solution is just what it has been elsewhere: more education, easier access to contraception and economic
growth. Catastrophe avoided. Consequently, no serious demographer believes that human population growth resembles cancer or the plague.
On the contrary, the United Nations projects a global population of 9.3 billion by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. In other words, it will take
about 40 years to add 2 billion people, but 50 years to add 1 billion after that. After world population peaks, it is quite
possible that it will stop growing altogether and might even decline. Despite all indications to the
contrary, global population cataclysm isn't at hand and never will be unless the well-established and
widely researched trends reverse themselves. That's not likely.
Deterrence Defense
No deterrence
Kober, research fellow, foreign policy studies – Cato, 6/13/’10
(Stanley, “The deterrence illusion,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jun/10/deterrence-war-peace)
The world at the beginning of the 21st century bears an eerie – and disquieting – resemblance to Europe
at the beginning of the last century. That was also an era of globalisation. New technologies for
transportation and communication were transforming the world. Europeans had lived so long in peace
that war seemed irrational. And they were right, up to a point. The first world war was the product of a
mode of rational thinking that went badly off course. The peace of Europe was based on security
assurances. Germany was the protector of Austria-Hungary, and Russia was the protector of Serbia. The
prospect of escalation was supposed to prevent war, and it did– until, finally, it didn't. The Russians,
who should have been deterred – they had suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Japan just a few
years before – decided they had to come to the support of their fellow Slavs. As countries honoured
their commitments, a system that was designed to prevent war instead widened it. We have also been living
in an age of globalisation, especially since the end of the cold war, but it too is increasingly being
challenged. And just like the situation at the beginning of the last century, deterrence is not working.
Much is made, for example, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) invoking Article V – the
famous "three musketeers" pledge that an attack on one member is to be considered as an attack on all
– following the terrorist attacks of September 11. But the United States is the most powerful member of
Nato by far. Indeed, in 2001, it was widely considered to be a hegemon, a hyperpower. Other countries
wanted to be in Nato because they felt an American guarantee would provide security. And yet it was
the US that was attacked. This failure of deterrence has not received the attention it deserves. It is,
after all, not unique. The North Vietnamese were not deterred by the American guarantee to South
Vietnam. Similarly, Hezbollah was not deterred in Lebanon in the 1980s, and American forces were
assaulted in Somalia. What has been going wrong? The successful deterrence of the superpowers
during the cold war led to the belief that if such powerful countries could be deterred, then lesser
powers should fall into line when confronted with an overwhelmingly powerful adversary. It is plausible,
but it may be too rational. For all their ideological differences, the US and the Soviet Union observed
red lines during the cold war. There were crises – Berlin, Cuba, to name a couple – but these did not
touch on emotional issues or vital interests, so that compromise and retreat were possible. Indeed,
what we may have missed in the west is the importance of retreat in Soviet ideology. "Victory is
impossible unless [the revolutionary parties] have learned both how to attack and how to retreat
properly," Lenin wrote in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder. When the Soviets retreated,
the US took the credit. Deterrence worked. But what if retreat was part of the plan all along? What if,
in other words, the Soviet Union was the exception rather than the rule? That question is more urgent
because, in the post-cold war world, the US has expanded its security guarantees, even as its enemies
show they are not impressed. The Iraqi insurgents were not intimidated by President Bush's challenge
to "bring 'em on". The Taliban have made an extraordinary comeback from oblivion and show no
respect for American power. North Korea is demonstrating increasing belligerence. And yet the US
keeps emphasising security through alliances. "We believe that there are certain commitments, as we
saw in a bipartisan basis to Nato, that need to be embedded in the DNA of American foreign policy,"
secretary of state Hillary Clinton affirmed in introducing the new National Security Strategy. But that
was the reason the US was in Vietnam. It had a bipartisan commitment to South Vietnam under the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, reaffirmed through the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed
Congress with only two dissenting votes. It didn't work, and found its commitments were not embedded
in its DNA. Americans turned against the war, Secretary Clinton among them. The great powers could
not guarantee peace in Europe a century ago, and the US could not guarantee it in Asia a half-century
ago.
ICBMs solve
Turner ‘3 (Stansfield, Retired US Navy Admiral and former Dir. CIA and Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s
Southern Flank, Naval War College Review, “Is the U.S. Navy being marginalized?” 56:3, Proquest)
Strategic Deterrence. At the peak we had forty-one strategic ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). We are
now approaching eighteen and probably going to ten. In part that is true because of the demise of the
Soviet Union. It is also in part because we are beginning to recognize that the prime virtue of the SSBN,
its invulnerability, has never been as important as many of us who have written on this subject have
contended. This change of mind results from a realization that the threat of even only a few retaliatory
nuclear detonations is sufficient to deter anyone. That is because any would-be nuclear aggressor must
assume the worst, which is that we would retaliate by attacking his cities. Would the Russians or even
the Chinese, let alone ourselves, be willing to lose ten, or five, or even two major cities in the name of
initiating and "winning" a nuclear war? Thus, even if we had only the more vulnerable intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and no SSBNs at all in our nuclear arsenal, we would still have an adequate
strategic deterrent. That would be the case even were some other nuclear power to acquire many more
nuclear weapons than we. No such power could assume that any preemptive first strike it undertook
would be 100 percent successful-that is, that there would be no nuclear retaliation. There would
always be errors of targeting, missiles that failed entirely, missiles that were inaccurate, and human
errors in execution. It all adds up to what Clausewitz described as "friction" in war. So a U.S. strategic
nuclear deterrent with only ICBMs should suffice. Thus, the Navy's role in this area is going to be
looked at more critically, and this mission of the Navy will be seen as less critical to the country than it
once was.
Deterrence resilient – strong presence
The Epoch Times 12 – [International Media Organization “US Military Bases Growing Worldwide”
7/23/12 http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/us-military-bases-growing-worldwide-269170.html
//NGopaul]
A few online outposts have started to comment on America’s enormous collection of international
military bases. The United States maintains the largest collection of foreign military bases in world
history. Officially, at the beginning of 2011, there were 1,429,367 American troops stationed in 150
countries worldwide. This number does not include contractors who outnumber troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan or the operations of the CIA or other secretive units. Anthropologist David Vine spent three
years researching the changing structure of America’s military bases worldwide. His research found a
network of more than 1000 American bases, located on every continent except Antarctica. “While the
collection of Cold War–era giant bases such as those in Germany are shrinking, the global
infrastructure of bases overseas has exploded in size and scope” David Vine posted online at
TomDispatch.com. He describes “a new generation of bases the military calls “lily pads” (as in a frog
jumping across a pond toward its prey). These are small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited
numbers of troops, spartan amenities, and pre-positioned weaponry and supplies… Around the world,
from Djibouti to the jungles of Honduras, the deserts of Mauritania to Australia’s tiny Cocos Islands,
the Pentagon has been pursuing as many lily pads as it can, in as many countries as it can, as fast as it
can. Although statistics are hard to assemble, given the often-secretive nature of such bases, the
Pentagon has probably built upwards of 50 lily pads and other small bases since around 2000, while
exploring the construction of dozens more… not to mention 11 aircraft carrier task forces — essentially
floating bases — and a significant, and growing, military presence in space. The United States currently
spends an estimated $250 billion (A$241 billion) annually maintaining bases and troops overseas.” David
Vine posted. Mark Gillem agrees, and he explains in his book, America Town: Building the Outposts of
Empire, “avoidance” of local populations, publicity, and potential opposition is the new aim. “To project
its power, (the United States wants) secluded and self-contained outposts strategically located
(around the world)” he says. The strategy is demonstrated in Yemeni counter-terrorism efforts where
“teams of CIA officers and US contractors have operated in Yemen for some time, hunting Al Qaeda
militants and developing intelligence for drone strikes” as sited in the Los Angeles times. An article in
The Guardian stated that America has increased their military aid package to Yemen from less than
US$11 million in 2006 to more than $70 million in 2009, as well as providing up to $121 million for
development over the next three years. In Australia, despite some local unrest and objections from
China, America negotiated for 2500 US Marines to ‘share’ a base in Darwin. In a Sydney Morning Herald
article, Australian Defense minister Stephen Smith said the US marine presence was ”qualitatively
different” from a base although US marines have been given access to Australia’s air and naval bases.
The Pentagon is also pursuing plans for a drone and surveillance base in Australia’s Cocos Islands. Nick
Turse is another researcher of US military strategy from TomDispatch.com, “Forget full-scale invasions
and large-footprint occupations on the Eurasian mainland. Instead, think: special operations forces…
proxy armies… the militarisation of spying and intelligence… drone aircraft… cyber-attacks, and joint
Pentagon operations with increasingly militarised ‘civilian’ government agencies,” he wrote. The ‘lily
pad’ overseas bases have begun to generate some scrutiny from Republicans, Democrats and New York
Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. While congress is looking for ways to trim the deficit, closing such
overseas bases might make more dollars and sense than ever.
Nuclear deterrence is a paper tiger
Li 6 – Director of the Arms Control Program and Professor of the Institute of International Studies (2006, Bin, China Security “Paper Tiger with Whitened Teeth,”
http://www.chinasecurity.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=213, Sawyer)
The power pattern in the world has significantly changed since the end of the cold war. The United States is indeed in a new period of power expansion. However,
nuclear
weapons of the United States provide little contribution to its fast growing power. Lieber and Press are therefore wrong to predict that the United
States would gain new coercive power. First, the United States cannot develop a fully disarming nuclear strike capability against Russia and
China given its intelligence deficiency; second, a disarming capability of surprise attack in peacetime cannot
generate coercive power in crisis given the difficulty of signaling; third, the United States cannot gain new nuclear coercive power as its
new methods of using nuclear weapons are constrained by the nuclear taboo. In this new era, nuclear
weapons essentially remain a paper tiger. U.S. nuclear modernization toward greater strike capability
is just a whitening of the paper tiger’s teeth. If more people in the world today understood that this fundamental nature of nuclear weapons will remain
unchanged, even with the rise of American nuclear strike capabilities, we might still avoid the re-emergence of the Cold War’s worst nightmare scenarios.
And, our allies can deter
Bandow 11 – senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, he is the author of
Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon) [1-31-2011, Doug Bandow, “Solving the Debt Crisis: A Military Budget
for a Republic”, January 31st, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12746]
More than two decades after the Cold War dramatically ended, the U.S. maintains a Cold War military.
America has a couple score allies, dozens of security commitments, hundreds of overseas bases, and
hundreds of thousands of troops overseas. Yet international hegemonic communism has disappeared,
the Soviet Union has collapsed, Maoist China has been transformed, and pro-communist Third World
dictatorships have been discarded in history's dustbin. The European Union has a larger economy and
population than America does. Japan spent decades with the world's second largest economy. South
Korea has 40 times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea. As Colin Powell exclaimed in 1991,
"I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of enemies. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il-sung." Yet
America accounts for roughly half of the globe's military outlays. In real terms the U.S. government
spends more on the military today than at any time during the Cold War, Korean War, or Vietnam War.
It is difficult for even a paranoid to concoct a traditional threat to the American homeland. Terrorism is
no replacement for the threat of nuclear holocaust. Commentator Philip Klein worries about "gutting"
the military and argued that military cuts at the end of the Cold War "came back to haunt us when Sept.
11 happened." Yet the reductions, which still left America by far the world's most dominant power,
neither allowed the attacks nor prevented Washington from responding with two wars. And responding
with two wars turned out to be a catastrophic mistake. Evil terrorism is a threat, but existential threat it
is not. Moreover, the best response is not invasions and occupations — as the U.S. has learned at high
cost in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Rather, the most effective tools are improved intelligence, Special
Forces, international cooperation, and restrained intervention. Attempts at nation-building are perhaps
even more misguided than subsidizing wealthy industrialized states. America's record isn't pretty. The
U.S. wasn't able to anoint its preferred Somali warlord as leader of that fractured nation. Washington's
allies in the still unofficial and unstable nation of Kosovo committed grievous crimes against Serb, Roma,
and other minorities. Haiti remains a failed state after constant U.S. intervention. The invasion of Iraq
unleashed mass violence, destroyed the indigenous Christian community, and empowered Iran; despite
elections, a liberal society remains unlikely. After nine years most Afghans dislike and distrust the
corrupt government created by the U.S. and sustained only by allied arms. The last resort of those who
want America to do everything everywhere is to claim that the world will collapse into various circles of
fiery hell without a ubiquitous and vast U.S. military presence. Yet there is no reason to believe that
scores of wars are waiting to break out. And America's prosperous and populous allies are capable of
promoting peace and stability in their own regions.
Disease ! Defense
No extinction
Malcolm Gladwell, writer for The New Yorker and best-selling author The New Republic, July 17 and 24,
1995, excerpted in Epidemics: Opposing Viewpoints, 1999, p. 31-32
Every infectious agent that has ever plagued humanity has had to adapt a specific strategy but every
strategy carries a corresponding cost and this makes human counterattack possible. Malaria is vicious
and deadly but it relies on mosquitoes to spread from one human to the next, which means that
draining swamps and putting up mosquito netting can all hut halt endemic malaria. Smallpox is
extraordinarily durable remaining infectious in the environment for years, but its very durability its
essential rigidity is what makes it one of the easiest microbes to create a vaccine against. AIDS is
almost invariably lethal because it attacks the body at its point of great vulnerability, that is, the immune
system, but the fact that it targets blood cells is what makes it so relatively uninfectious. Viruses are not
superhuman. I could go on, but the point is obvious. Any microbe capable of wiping us all out would
have to be everything at once: as contagious as flue, as durable as the cold, as lethal as Ebola, as
stealthy as HIV and so doggedly resistant to mutation that it would stay deadly over the course of a long
epidemic. But viruses are not, well, superhuman. They cannot do everything at once. It is one of the
ironies of the analysis of alarmists such as Preston that they are all too willing to point out the
limitations of human beings, but they neglect to point out the limitations of microscopic life forms.
Econ ! Defense
No impact to the economy
Thomas P.M. Barnett (senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC and a contributing
editor/online columnist for Esquire magazine) August 2009 “The New Rules: Security Remains Stable
Amid Financial Crisis” http://www.aprodex.com/the-new-rules--security-remains-stable-amid-financialcrisis-398-bl.aspx
When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere was ablaze with all sorts of
scary predictions of, and commentary regarding, ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great
Depression leading to world war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery -surprisingly led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's interesting to look back over
the past year and realize how globalization's first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact
whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more than three-dozen ongoing
conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be clearly attributed to the global recession. Indeed, the last
new entry (civil conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine) predates the economic crisis by a
year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity
conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006). Certainly,
the Russia-Georgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most accounts the opening
ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external trigger (followed by the U.S.
presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia
and its two breakaway regions. Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar picture:
the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and liberation-themed terrorist movements. Besides the
recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v.
Iran) are both tied to one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly unrelated to
global economic trends. And with the United States effectively tied down by its two ongoing major
interventions (Iraq and Afghanistan-bleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement elsewhere around the
planet has been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the economic crisis: e.g.,
the usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the usual military exercises with allies across Asia,
mixing it up with pirates off Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much
let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do something. Our new Africa
Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything beyond advising and training local forces. So, to sum
up: * No significant uptick in mass violence or unrest (remember the smattering of urban riots last year
in places like Greece, Moldova and Latvia?); * The usual frequency maintained in civil conflicts (in all the
usual places); * Not a single state-on-state war directly caused (and no great-power-on-great-power
crises even triggered); * No great improvement or disruption in great-power cooperation regarding the
emergence of new nuclear powers (despite all that diplomacy); * A modest scaling back of international
policing efforts by the system's acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain); and * No
serious efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan or supplant its role. (The worst
things we can cite are Moscow's occasional deployments of strategic assets to the Western hemisphere
and its weak efforts to outbid the United States on basing rights in Kyrgyzstan; but the best include
China and India stepping up their aid and investments in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Sure, we've finally seen
global defense spending surpass the previous world record set in the late 1980s, but even that's likely to
wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this unprecedented "stimulus" spending. If
anything, the friendly cooperation on such stimulus packaging was the most notable great-power
dynamic caused by the crisis. Can we say that the world has suffered a distinct shift to political
radicalism as a result of the economic crisis? Indeed, no. The world's major economies remain governed
by center-left or center-right political factions that remain decidedly friendly to both markets and trade.
In the short run, there were attempts across the board to insulate economies from immediate damage
(in effect, as much protectionism as allowed under current trade rules), but there was no great slide into
"trade wars." Instead, the World Trade Organization is functioning as it was designed to function, and
regional efforts toward free-trade agreements have not slowed. Can we say Islamic radicalism was
inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift was clearly overwhelmed by the Islamic world's
growing disenchantment with the brutality displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And
looking forward, austere economic times are just as likely to breed connecting evangelicalism as
disconnecting fundamentalism. At the end of the day, the economic crisis did not prove to be sufficiently
frightening to provoke major economies into establishing global regulatory schemes, even as it has
sparked a spirited -- and much needed, as I argued last week -- discussion of the continuing viability of
the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency. Naturally, plenty of experts and pundits have
attached great significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of "economic warfare" and the like
between "fading" America and "rising" China. And yet, in a world of globally integrated production
chains and interconnected financial markets, such "diverging interests" hardly constitute signposts for
wars up ahead. Frankly, I don't welcome a world in which America's fiscal profligacy goes undisciplined,
so bring it on -- please! Add it all up and it's fair to say that this global financial crisis has proven the
great resilience of America's post-World War II international liberal trade order. Do I expect to read any
analyses along those lines in the blogosphere any time soon? Absolutely not. I expect the fantastic fearmongering to proceed apace. That's what the Internet is for.
Every economy impact is overwhelmingly empirically denied
Moisés Naím 10, editor in chief of Foreign Policy, January/February 2010, “It Didn’t Happen,”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/it_didnt_happen?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&p
age=full
Just a few months ago, the consensus among influential thinkers was that the economic crisis would unleash a
wave of geopolitical plagues. Xenophobic outbursts, civil wars, collapsing currencies, protectionism, international
conflicts , and street riots were only some of the dire consequences expected by the experts.
It didn't happen . Although the crash did cause severe economic damage and widespread human suffering, and though the world did
change in important ways for the worse -- the International Monetary Fund, for example, estimates that the global economy's new and
permanent trajectory is a 10 percent lower rate of GDP growth than before the crisis -- the scary
predictions for the most part failed
to materialize.
Sadly, the same experts who failed to foresee the economic crisis were also blindsided by the speed of the
recovery. More than a year into the crisis, we now know just how off they were. From telling us about the imminent collapse of the
international financial system to prophecies of a 10-year recession, here are six of the most common predictions about the crisis that have been
proven wrong:
The international financial system will collapse. It didn't . As Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac crashed, as Citigroup and many other pillars of the financial system teetered on the brink, and as stock markets everywhere entered into
free fall, the wise men predicted a total system meltdown. The economy has "fallen off a cliff," warned investment guru Warren Buffett. Fellow
financial wizard George Soros agreed, noting the world economy was on "life support," calling the turbulence more severe than during the
Great Depression, and comparing the situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
The natural corollary of such doomsday scenarios was the possibility that depositors would lose access to the funds in their bank accounts.
From there to visions of martial law imposed to control street protests and the looting of bank offices was just an easy step for thousands of
Internet-fueled conspiracy theorists. Even today, the
financial system is still frail, banks are still failing, credit is scarce,
and risks abound. But the financial system is working , and the perception that it is too unsafe to use or that it
can suddenly crash out of existence has largely dissipated.
The economic crisis will last for at least two years and maybe even a decade. It didn't. By fall of 2009, the economies of the United States,
Europe, and Japan had begun to grow again, and many of the largest developing economies, such as China, India, and Brazil, were growing at an
even faster pace. This was surely a far cry from the doom-laden -- and widely echoed -- prophecies of economist Nouriel Roubini. In late 2008
he warned that radical governmental actions at best would prevent "what will now be an ugly and nasty two-year recession and financial crisis
from turning into a systemic meltdown and a decade-long economic depression." Roubini was far from the only pessimist. "The danger,"
warned Harvard University's Kenneth Rogoff, another distinguished economist, in the fall of 2008, "is that instead of having a few bad years,
we'll have another lost decade." It turned out that radical policy reactions were far more effective than anyone had expected in shortening the
life of the recession.
The U.S. dollar will crash. It didn't. Instead, the American currency's value increased 20 percent between July 2008 and March 2009, at the
height of the crisis. At first, investors from around the world sought refuge in the U.S. dollar. Then, as the U.S. government bailed out troubled
companies and stimulated the economy with aggressive public spending, the U.S. fiscal deficit skyrocketed and anxieties about a dollar
devaluation mounted. By the second half of 2009, the U.S. currency had lost value. But devaluation has not turned out to be the catastrophic
crash predicted by the pessimists. Rather, as Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf noted, "The dollar's correction is not just natural; it is
helpful. It will lower the risk of deflation in the U.S. and facilitate the correction of the global 'imbalances' that helped cause the crisis."
Protectionism will surge. It didn't . Trade flows did drop dramatically in late 2008 and early 2009, but they
started to grow again in the second half of 2009 as economies recovered. Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade
Organization, had warned that the global financial crisis was bound to lead to surges in protectionism as governments sought to blame
foreigners for their problems. "That is exactly what happened in the 1930s when [protectionism] was the virus that spread the crisis all over the
place," he said in October 2008, echoing a widely held sentiment among trade experts. And it is true that many
governments
dabbled in protectionism, including not only the U.S. Congress's much-derided "Buy American" provision, but also measures such as
increased tariffs or import restrictions imposed in 17 of the G-20 countries. Yet one year later, a report from the European Union concluded
that "a widespread and systemic escalation of protectionism has been prevented." The protectionist temptation
is always there, and a meaningful increase in trade barriers cannot be ruled out. But it has not happened yet.
The crisis in rich countries will drag down developing ones. It didn't. As the economies of America and Europe screeched to a halt during the
nightmarish first quarter of 2009, China's economy accelerated, part of a broader trend in which emerging markets fared better through the
crisis than the world's most advanced economies. As the rich countries entered a deep recession and the woes of the U.S. financial market
affected banking systems everywhere, the idea that emerging economies could "decouple" from the advanced ones was widely mocked.
But decouple they did. Some emerging economies relied on their domestic markets, others on exports to other growing countries (China, for
example, displaced the United States last year as Brazil's top export market). Still others had ample foreign reserves, low exposure to toxic
financial assets, or, like Chile, had taken measures in anticipation of an eventual global slowdown. Not all developing countries managed to
escape the worst of the crisis -- and many, such as Mexico and Iran, were deeply hurt -- but many others managed to avoid the fate of the
advanced economies.
Violent political
turmoil will become more common. It didn't . Electorates did punish governments for the
economic hard times. But this was mostly in Europe and mostly peaceful and democratic . "There will be blood,"
prophesied Harvard historian Niall Ferguson last spring. "A crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political
[conflict] ... It is bound to destabilize some countries. It will cause civil wars to break out that have been dormant. It will topple
governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme. These things are pretty predictable."
No, it turns out: They aren't.
93 empirical instances prove
Miller, 2k (Morris, Economist, Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Administration – University of
Ottawa, Former Executive Director and Senior Economist – World Bank, “Poverty as a Cause of Wars?”,
Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Winter, p. 273)
The question may be reformulated. Do wars spring from a popular reaction to a sudden economic crisis
that exacerbates poverty and growing disparities in wealth and incomes? Perhaps one could argue, as
some scholars do, that it is some dramatic event or sequence of such events leading to the exacerbation
of poverty that, in turn, leads to this deplorable denouement. This exogenous factor might act as a
catalyst for a violent reaction on the part of the people or on the part of the political leadership who
would then possibly be tempted to seek a diversion by finding or, if need be, fabricating an enemy and
setting in train the process leading to war. According to a study undertaken by Minxin Pei and Ariel
Adesnik of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there would not appear to be any merit in
this hypothesis. After studying ninety-three episodes of economic crisis in twenty-two countries in Latin
America and Asia in the years since the Second World War they concluded that:19 Much of the
conventional wisdom about the political impact of economic crises may be wrong ... The severity of
economic crisis – as measured in terms of inflation and negative growth - bore no relationship to the
collapse of regimes ... (or, in democratic states, rarely) to an outbreak of violence ... In the cases of
dictatorships and semidemocracies, the ruling elites responded to crises by increasing repression
(thereby using one form of violence to abort another).
Global economy resilient
Zakaria 9
PhD in pol sci from Harvard. Editor of Newsweek, BA from Yale, PhD in pol sci, Harvard. He serves
on the board of Yale University, The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and
Shakespeare and Company. Named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" (Fareed,
The Secrets of Stability, 12 December 2009, http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/articles.html)
One year ago, the world seemed as if it might be coming apart. The global financial system, which had
fueled a great expansion of capitalism and trade across the world, was crumbling. All the certainties of
the age of globalization—about the virtues of free markets, trade, and technology—were being called
into question. Faith in the American model had collapsed. The financial industry had crumbled. Onceroaring emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil were sinking. Worldwide trade was shrinking to
a degree not seen since the 1930s.¶ Pundits whose bearishness had been vindicated predicted we
were doomed to a long, painful bust, with cascading failures in sector after sector, country after
country. In a widely cited essay that appeared in The Atlantic this May, Simon Johnson, former chief
economist of the International Monetary Fund, wrote: "The conventional wisdom among the elite is still
that the current slump 'cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.' This view is wrong. What we face
now could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression."¶ Others predicted that these economic
shocks would lead to political instability and violence in the worst-hit countries. At his confirmation
hearing in February, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, cautioned the
Senate that "the financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises
in emerging-market nations over the next year." Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim view. And she was
hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious unrest in several emerging markets.¶
Of one thing everyone was sure: nothing would ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not
capitalism, not globalization.¶ One year later, how much has the world really changed? Well, Wall
Street is home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch). Some regional banks
have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely unrelated to the financial crisis) in
Iran. Severe problems remain, like high unemployment in the West, and we face new problems
caused by responses to the crisis—soaring debt and fears of inflation. But overall, things look nothing
like they did in the 1930s. The predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized at
all.¶ A key measure of fear and fragility is the ability of poor and unstable countries to borrow money
on the debt markets. So consider this: the sovereign bonds of tottering Pakistan have returned 168
percent so far this year. All this doesn't add up to a recovery yet, but it does reflect a return to some
level of normalcy. And that rebound has been so rapid that even the shrewdest observers remain
puzzled. "The question I have at the back of my head is 'Is that it?' " says Charles Kaye, the co-head
of Warburg Pincus. "We had this huge crisis, and now we're back to business as usual?"¶ This revival
did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves on their own. Rather, governments,
having learned the lessons of the Great Depression, were determined not to repeat the same mistakes
once this crisis hit. By massively expanding state support for the economy—through central banks and
national treasuries—they buffered the worst of the damage. (Whether they made new mistakes in the
process remains to be seen.) The extensive social safety nets that have been established across the
industrialized world also cushioned the pain felt by many. Times are still tough, but things are nowhere
near as bad as in the 1930s, when governments played a tiny role in national economies.¶ It's true
that the massive state interventions of the past year may be fueling some new bubbles: the cheap
cash and government guarantees provided to banks, companies, and consumers have fueled some
irrational exuberance in stock and bond markets. Yet these rallies also demonstrate the return of
confidence, and confidence is a very powerful economic force. When John Maynard Keynes described
his own prescriptions for economic growth, he believed government action could provide only a
temporary fix until the real motor of the economy started cranking again—the animal spirits of
investors, consumers, and companies seeking risk and profit.¶ Beyond all this, though, I believe
there's a fundamental reason why we have not faced global collapse in the last year. It is the same
reason that we weathered the stock-market crash of 1987, the recession of 1992, the Asian crisis of
1997, the Russian default of 1998, and the tech-bubble collapse of 2000. The current global economic
system is inherently more resilient than we think. The world today is characterized by three major
forces for stability, each reinforcing the other and each historical in nature.
Economic leadership’s resilient and inevitable
Eric S. Edelman 10, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, was Principal Deputy Assistant to
the Vice President for National Security Affairs, 2010, “Understanding America’s Contested Primacy,”
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
Morgenthau talks about national morale and character as key elements of national power ; characteristics
that don’t normally weigh heavily in declinist literature which favors the easily quantifiable measures such as national shares of global
economic product. As Robert Lieber has recently argued, US
resilience, which results from the openness of American
society and its resulting flexibility and adaptability, will benefit the United States as it responds to the Great
Recession and the prospect of national decline. In that regard the often-criticized American “capitalisme sauvage,” which many foreign
critics blame for producing the economic crisis, may assist the United States in recovering more quickly than others. As a recent Economist
survey of business in America noted, the Schumpeterian process of “creative destruction” means that “America’s
non-financial
businesses are suffering. But they will emerge from the recession leaner and stronger than ever .” Niall
Ferguson predicts that “when the crisis ends, America will still be the best place in the world to do business.”
That is fully consistent with the findings of the recently released third annual Legatum Institute Prosperity Index which rated
the United States number one in the world for innovation and entrepreneurship and found that “the ability of a
nation’s people to innovate is more strongly related to the soundness of its economy than any other factor.”129
Openness to innovation may also play an important role in extending the United States’ leading role in the
international economy . Some scholars believe that innovation is the key to countries emerging as system leaders in sectors that
power long waves of economic activity and growth. Failure to maintain system leadership in these sectors is a key cause of decline. Twenty
years ago William R. Thompson observed “a key, if not the key to the relative economic decline of the United States will be what happens in the
next upturn of the leading sector long wave. This assumes that there will be an upturn and that the long wave dynamic will continue into the
twenty-first century when biotechnology, computers, robotics, lasers, and new sources of energy may well lay the leading sector foundation for
the upswing.” US
leadership and facility with information technology has been one of the drivers of US
increased productivity in the past twenty years. A study by the London School of Economics has demonstrated that, as its
title declares, “ Americans do I.T. better .” US-owned UK subsidiaries, for example, use information technology better than non-US
owned UK firms because they are organized to use IT more efficiently. This offers yet another strategic advantage vis-à-vis
China , which seems to have great difficulty with both innovation and managing the social and
collaborative uses of information technology.130
Environment I/L Defense
Immigration has no environmental impact and slows global population growth – also
they justify neo-Nazism
Whitford, 8 – freelance journalist for the Guardian, Newsweek and Slate (Ben, “Does immigration hurt
the environment?”, The Guardian, 8/1/2008,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/01/immigrationpolicy.usa) // MS
A new advertising campaign has got American progressives spluttering into their soy lattes. Plastered
across the pages of the liberal American canon - newspapers and magazines like the New York Times,
the New Republic, the American Prospect, the Nation and Harper's - are a series of full-page ads calling
for progressives to join forces with anti-immigration activists in the name of saving the environment.
The ads, which show bulldozers ripping up pristine forests while endless traffic jams snake off toward
the horizon, blame overpopulation - driven, of course, by unchecked immigration - for suburban
sprawl, greenhouse-gas emissions, depleted water resources and traffic congestion. "300 million
people today, 600 million tomorrow," the ads warn darkly. "Think about it."
This isn't the first time that anti-immigration groups have tried to co-opt the American environmental
movement. A few years back, the Sierra Club - itself founded by a Scottish immigrant - had to fend off a
hostile takeover bid from right-wing activists who tried to win seats on the group's board of directors. In
fact, anti-immigration campaigners' attempts to win over environmentalists date back to at least the
1970s, when Herbert Gruhl, a founder of Germany's Green party, made the ecological case for antiimmigration policies. When German Greens didn't bite, Gruhl went off in a huff and founded his own
far-right ecological party. Since then, his ideas have been championed by German neo-Nazi groups
and eagerly embraced by the British National party.
America's anti-immigration activists are doing their best to live up to that pedigree. Three of the five
groups behind the current campaign are listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Centre's
Intelligence Project for their ties to white supremacists and their promotion of racist conspiracy
theories. It's hardly surprising, then, that many of the ads' claims are best taken with a hefty pinch of
salt. Suburban sprawl, notes the Sierra Club's energy programme director, Dave Hamilton, is "due to
economic development without land use controls, not necessarily immigration". As for those pictures
of endless traffic jams, studies show that, as a group, immigrants contribute least to congestion
because they're more likely to carpool or use public transport.
In fact, it's debatable whether immigration has any significant environmental impact. US government
scientists say there's insufficient evidence (pdf) to draw a conclusion one way or the other, while
cornucopian economists like Julian Simon - a free-marketeer who's loathed by most environmentalists have argued that immigration-fuelled population increases will make little or no long-term difference
to the US environment. It's even been suggested that on a global scale, immigration helps to slow
population growth. Immigrants from the developing world tend to reproduce more slowly than they
would have done if they'd stayed home, while their remittances promote economic development and
slow population growth in their home countries.
No internal link to the environment
NYCLU, no date – New York Civil Liberties Union (“Debunking the Immigration vs. Environment
Myth,” n.d., http://www.nyclu.org/content/debunking-immigration-vs-environment-myth) // MS
Attempts by opponents of immigrants’ rights to weaken support for comprehensive immigration
reform have long tried to shove an array of wedge issues into the movement in attempts to split it.
One that’s getting some particular play this year is the “immigration is bad for the environment”
myth.
Following on the heels of a report released in March by the ironic anti-immigrant front group,
Progressives for Immigration Reform, former presidential candidate and conservative American Values
chairman Gary Bauer (everybody remember this?) had an op-ed in Politico yesterday once again laying
out the tired canard about immigration being the cause of U.S. environmental degradation (for the real
answer, see: BP). Bauer writes:
According to liberal wisdom, population growth is the primary cause of heavier traffic, urban sprawl,
further depletion of natural resources and increased CO2 emissions. And immigration is the principal
cause of U.S. population growth today.
Using the environment as a screen for nativist policy recommendations may be creative, but it’s not
grounded in real facts on the ground.
The argument rests on the idea that immigrants in their home countries consume fewer natural
resources than they do when they move to the United States. So increased immigration to the U.S.
causes increased use of resources and therefore causes the U.S. to lead the world in energy
consumption.
Unfortunately, proponents of this argument aren’t looking at the truth:
The main problem with U.S. environmental damage is not the number of people here; it’s how we
live. According to the World Resources Institute, the U.S. is home to 23 percent fewer people than the
European nations in the E.U.-15, but we still produce 70 percent more greenhouse gases. We’re four
and a half percent of the world’s population but emit 20 percent of global emissions! See: cars, power
plants, agribusiness…not immigrants.
Recent immigrants to the U.S. are more likely to engage in “green” lifestyle choices like using public
transportation than U.S.-born citizens are!
Conservation and energy efficiency are national, if not global, imperatives. Blaming immigrants to the
U.S. for our environmental problems is what we could call an honesty FAIL.
Environment ! Defense
No impact to the environment
Sagoff 97 Mark, Senior Research Scholar – Institute for Philosophy and Public policy in School of Public
Affairs – U. Maryland, William and Mary Law Review, “INSTITUTE OF BILL OF RIGHTS LAW SYMPOSIUM
DEFINING TAKINGS: PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION: MUDDLE OR
MUDDLE THROUGH? TAKINGS JURISPRUDENCE MEETS THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT”, 38 Wm and
Mary L. Rev. 825, March, L/N
Note – Colin Tudge - Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy at the London School of Economics.
Frmr Zoological Society of London: Scientific Fellow and tons of other positions. PhD. Read zoology at
Cambridge.
Simon Levin = Moffet Professor of Biology, Princeton. 2007 American Institute of Biological Sciences
Distinguished Scientist Award 2008 Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti 2009 Honorary Doctorate
of Science, Michigan State University 2010 Eminent Ecologist Award, Ecological Society of America 2010
Margalef Prize in Ecology, etc… PhD
Although one may agree with ecologists such as Ehrlich and Raven that the earth stands on the brink of an
episode of massive
extinction, it may not follow from this grim fact that human beings will suffer as a
biologists to explain why we
need more than a tenth of the 10 to 100 million species that grace the earth . Noting that
result. On the contrary, skeptics such as science writer Colin Tudge have challenged
"cultivated systems often out-produce wild systems by 100-fold or more," Tudge declared that
"the argument that humans need the variety of other species is, when you think about it, a theological
one." n343 Tudge observed that "the elimination of all but a tiny minority of our fellow creatures does
not affect the material well-being of humans one iota." n344 This skeptic challenged ecologists to list more
than 10,000 species (other than unthreatened microbes) that are essential to ecosystem productivity or functioning. n345 " The
human species could survive just as well if 99.9% of our fellow creatures went extinct, provided
only that we retained the appropriate 0.1% that we need." n346
[*906] The monumental Global
Biodiversity Assessment ("the Assessment") identified two positions with respect to redundancy of species. "At one extreme is
the idea that each species is unique and important, such that its removal or loss will have demonstrable consequences to the
functioning of the community or ecosystem." n347 The authors of the Assessment, a panel of eminent ecologists, endorsed this
position, saying it is "unlikely that there is much, if any, ecological redundancy in communities over time scales of decades to
centuries, the time period over which environmental policy should operate." n348 These eminent ecologists rejected the
opposing view, "the notion that species overlap in function to a sufficient degree that removal or loss of a species will be
compensated by others, with negligible overall consequences to the community or ecosystem." n349 Other biologists
believe, however, that species are so fabulously redundant in the ecological functions they perform
that the life-support systems and processes of the planet and ecological processes in general will function
perfectly well with fewer of them, certainly fewer than the millions and millions we can expect to
remain even if every threatened organism becomes extinct. n350 Even the kind of sparse and
miserable world depicted in the movie Blade Runner could provide a "sustainable" context for the human economy as long as
people forgot their aesthetic and moral commitment to the glory and beauty of the natural world. n351 The Assessment makes
this point. "Although any ecosystem contains hundreds to thousands of species interacting among themselves and their physical
environment, the emerging consensus is that the system is driven by a small number of . . . biotic variables on whose
interactions the balance of species are, in a sense, carried along." n352 [*907] To make up your mind on the question of the
functional redundancy of species, consider an endangered species of bird, plant, or insect and ask how the ecosystem would
fare in its absence. The fact that the creature is endangered suggests an answer: it is already in limbo as far as ecosystem
processes are concerned. What
crucial ecological services does the black-capped vireo, for example,
serve? Are any of the species threatened with extinction necessary to the provision of any
ecosystem service on which humans depend? If so, which ones are they? Ecosystems and the species
that compose them have changed, dramatically, continually, and totally in virtually every part of the United States. There is
little ecological similarity, for example, between New England today and the land where the
Pilgrims died. n353 In view of the constant reconfiguration of the biota, one may wonder why
Americans have not suffered more as a result of ecological catastrophes . The cast of species in nearly
every environment changes constantly-local extinction is commonplace in nature-but the crops still grow. Somehow, it seems,
property values keep going up on Martha's Vineyard in spite of the tragic disappearance of the heath hen. One might argue that
the sheer number and variety of creatures available to any ecosystem buffers that system against
stress. Accordingly, we should be concerned if the "library" of creatures ready, willing, and able to colonize ecosystems gets
too small. (Advances in genetic engineering may well permit us to write a large number of additions to that "library.") In the
United States as in many other parts of the world, however, the number of species has been
increasing dramatically , not decreasing, as a result of human activity. This is because the hordes of
exotic species coming into ecosystems in the United States far exceed the number of species that
are becoming extinct. Indeed, introductions may outnumber extinctions by more than ten to one, so that the United States
is becoming more and more species-rich all the time largely as a result of human action. n354 [*908] Peter Vitousek and
colleagues estimate that over 1000 non-native plants grow in California alone; in Hawaii there are 861; in Florida, 1210. n355 In
Florida more than 1000 non-native insects, 23 species of mammals, and about 11 exotic birds have established themselves.
n356 Anyone who waters a lawn or hoes a garden knows how many weeds desire to grow there, how many birds and bugs visit
the yard, and how many fungi, creepy-crawlies, and other odd life forms show forth when it rains. All belong to nature, from
wherever they might hail, but not many homeowners would claim that there are too few of them. Now, not all exotic species
provide ecosystem services; indeed, some may be disruptive or have no instrumental value. n357 This also may be true, of
course, of native species as well, especially because all exotics are native somewhere. Certain exotic species, however, such
as Kentucky blue grass, establish an area's sense of identity and place; others, such as the green crabs showing up around
Martha's Vineyard, are nuisances. n358 Consider an analogy [*909] with human migration. Everyone knows that after a
generation or two, immigrants to this country are hard to distinguish from everyone else. The vast majority of Americans did not
evolve here, as it were, from hominids; most of us "came over" at one time or another. This is true of many of our fellow species
as well, and they may fit in here just as well as we do. It is possible to distinguish exotic species from native ones for a period of
time, just as we can distinguish immigrants from native-born Americans, but as the centuries roll by, species, like people, fit into
the landscape or the society, changing and often enriching it. Shall we have a rule that a species had to come over on the
Mayflower, as so many did, to count as "truly" American? Plainly not. When, then, is the cutoff date? Insofar as we are
concerned with the absolute numbers of "rivets" holding ecosystems together, extinction seems not to pose a general problem
because a far greater number of kinds of mammals, insects, fish, plants, and other creatures thrive on land and in water in
America today than in prelapsarian times. n359 The
Ecological Society of America has urged managers to
maintain biological diversity as a critical component in strengthening ecosystems against
disturbance. n360 Yet as Simon Levin observed, "much of the detail about species composition will
be irrelevant in terms of influences on ecosystem properties." n361 [*910] He added: "For net primary
productivity, as is likely to be the case for any system property, biodiversity matters only up to a point ; above a
certain level, increasing biodiversity is likely to make little difference." n362 What about the use of
plants and animals in agriculture? There is no scarcity foreseeable. "Of an estimated 80,000
types of plants [we] know to be edible," a U.S. Department of the Interior document says, "only about 150 are
extensively cultivated." n363 About twenty species, not one of which is endangered, provide ninety percent of the food
the world takes from plants. n364 Any new food has to take "shelf space" or "market share" from one that is now produced.
Corporations also find it difficult to create demand for a new product; for example, people are not inclined to eat paw-paws, even
though they are delicious. It is hard enough to get people to eat their broccoli and lima beans. It is harder still to develop
consumer demand for new foods. This may be the reason the Kraft Corporation does not prospect in remote places for rare and
unusual plants and animals to add to the world's diet. Of the roughly 235,000 flowering plants and 325,000 nonflowering plants
(including mosses, lichens, and seaweeds) available, farmers ignore virtually all of them in favor of a very few that are profitable.
n365 To be sure, any of the more than 600,000 species of plants could have an application in agriculture, but would they be
preferable to the species that are now dominant? Has
anyone found any consumer demand for any of these
half-million or more plants to replace rice or wheat in the human diet? There are reasons that farmers
cultivate rice, wheat, and corn rather than, say, Furbish's lousewort. There are many kinds of louseworts, so named because
these weeds were thought to cause lice in sheep. How many does agriculture really require? [*911] The
species on which
agriculture relies are domesticated, not naturally occurring; they are developed by artificial not
natural selection; they might not be able to survive in the wild. n366 This argument is not intended to deny
the religious, aesthetic, cultural, and moral reasons that command us to respect and protect the natural world. These spiritual
and ethical values should evoke action, of course, but we should also recognize that they are spiritual and ethical values. We
should recognize that ecosystems and all that dwell therein compel our moral respect, our aesthetic appreciation, and our
spiritual veneration; we should clearly seek to achieve the goals of the ESA. There is no reason to assume, however, that these
goals have anything to do with human well-being or welfare as economists understand that term. These are ethical goals, in
other words, not economic ones. Protecting the marsh may be the right thing to do for moral, cultural, and spiritual reasons. We
should do it-but someone will have to pay the costs. In the narrow sense of promoting human welfare, protecting
nature
often represents a net "cost," not a net "benefit." It is largely for moral, not economic, reasonsethical, not prudential, reasons- that we care about all our fellow creatures. They are valuable as
objects of love not as objects of use. What is good for [*912] the marsh may be good in itself even if it is not, in the economic
sense, good for mankind. The most valuable things are quite useless .
No extinction - tech has decoupled humanity for the environment
Science Daily 10
Science Daily, reprinted from materials provided by American Institute of Biological Sciences, September
1, 2010, "Human Well-Being Is Improving Even as Ecosystem Services Decline: Why?",
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100901072908.htm
Global degradation of ecosystems is widely believed to threaten human welfare, yet accepted measures
of well-being show that it is on average improving globally, both in poor countries and rich ones. A
team of authors writing in the September issue of BioScience dissects explanations for this
"environmentalist's paradox." Noting that understanding the paradox is "critical to guiding future
management of ecosystem services," Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne and her colleagues confirm that
improvements in aggregate well-being are real, despite convincing evidence of ecosystem decline.
Three likely reasons they identify -- past increases in food production, technological innovations that
decouple people from ecosystems, and time lags before well-being is affected -- provide few grounds for
complacency, however. Raudsepp-Hearne and her coauthors accept the findings of the influential
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that the capacity of ecosystems to produce many services for
humans is now low. Yet they uncover no fault with the composite Human Development Index, a widely
used metric that incorporates measures of literacy, life expectancy, and income, and has improved
markedly since the mid-1970s. Although some measures of personal security buck the upward trend,
the overall improvement in well-being seems robust. The researchers resolve the paradox partly by
pointing to evidence that food production (which has increased globally over past decades) is more
important for human well-being than are other ecosystem services. They also establish support for two
other explanations: that technology and innovation have decoupled human well-being from
ecosystem degradation , and that there is a time lag after ecosystem service degradation before human
well-being will be affected.
Their authors have a personal incentive to exaggerate the impact
Spencer 08
Roy Spencer, climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville,
Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981, former Senior Scientist for Climate
Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s
Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites,
Climate Confusion, 2008
The media can always find an expert who is willing to provide some juicy quotes regarding our
imminent environmental doom. Usually there is a grain of truth to the story which helps sell the idea.
Like a science fiction novel, a somewhat plausible weather disaster tale captures our imagination, and
we consider the possibility of global catastrophe. And some of the catastrophic events that are
predicted are indeed possible, or at least not impossible. Catastrophic global warming—say by 10°
Fahrenheit or more over the next century—cannot be ruled out with 100 percent certainty. Of course,
neither can the next extraterrestrial invasion of Earth. But theoretical possibilities reported by the media
are far from competent scientific predictions of the future. The bias contained in all of these gloom-anddoom news stories has a huge influence on how we perceive the health of the Earth and our effect on it.
We scientists routinely encounter reporters who ignore the uncertainties we voice about global
warming when they write their articles and news reports. Sometimes an article will be fairly balanced,
but that is the exception. Few reporters are willing to push a story on their editor that says that future
global warming could be fairly benign. They are much more interested in gloom and doom. A scientist
can spend twenty minutes describing new and important research, but if it can’t be expressed in
simple, alarmist language, you can usually forget about a reporter using it. It has reached the point
where the minimum amount of necessary alarm amounts to something like, “we have only ten years left
to avert catastrophic global warming.” A reporter will probably run with that. After all, which story will
most likely find its way into a news-paper: “Warming to Wipe out Half of Humanity,” or “Scientists
Predict Little Warming”? It goes without saying that, in science, if you want to keep getting funded,
you should find something Earth-shaking. And if you want to get your name in the newspaper, give a
reporter some material that gives him hope of breaking the big story.
No extinction
Easterbrook 3 (Gregg, senior fellow at the New Republic, “We're All Gonna Die!”,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/doomsday.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=)
If we're talking about doomsday - the end of human civilization - many scenarios simply don't
measure up. A single nuclear bomb ignited by terrorists, for example, would be awful beyond words, but life would go on. People and
machines might converge in ways that you and I would find ghastly, but from the standpoint of the future, they would probably represent an
adaptation. Environmental
collapse might make parts of the globe unpleasant, but considering that
the biosphere has survived ice ages, it wouldn't be the final curtain. Depression, which has become 10 times
more prevalent in Western nations in the postwar era, might grow so widespread that vast numbers of people would refuse to get out of bed, a
possibility that Petranek suggested in a doomsday talk at the Technology Entertainment Design conference in 2002. But Marcel Proust, as
miserable as he was, wrote Remembrance of Things Past while lying in bed.
Apocalyptic environmental predictions are empirically wrong
Ronald Bailey, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, May 2k,http://reason.com/0005/fe.rb.earth.shtml
Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. “We have about five more years at the
outside to do something,” ecologist Kenneth Watt declared to a Swarthmore College audience on April
19, 1970. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years
unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” “We are in an environmental crisis
which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,”
wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal
Environment. The day after Earth Day, even the staid New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must
stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from
intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” Very Apocalypse Now. Three decades later, of course,
the world hasn’t come to an end; if anything, the planet’s ecological future has never looked so
promising. With half a billion people suiting up around the globe for Earth Day 2000, now is a good time
to look back on the predictions made at the first Earth Day and see how they’ve held up and what we
can learn from them. The short answer: The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but
spectacularly wrong. More important, many contemporary environmental alarmists are similarly
mistaken when they continue to insist that the Earth’s future remains an eco-tragedy that has already
entered its final act. Such doomsters not only fail to appreciate the huge environmental gains made
over the past 30 years, they ignore the simple fact that increased wealth, population, and
technological innovation don’t degrade and destroy the environment. Rather, such developments
preserve and enrich the environment. If it is impossible to predict fully the future, it is nonetheless
possible to learn from the past. And the best lesson we can learn from revisiting the discourse
surrounding the very first Earth Day is that passionate concern, however sincere, is no substitute for
rational analysis.
-- A2 Moral Obligation
No moral obligation to the environment
Arnold and Harris, 12
Denis Gordon Arnold and Jared D. Harris, distinguished scholars in Kantian ethics; “Kantian Business
Ethics: Critical Perspectives,” 1/1/2012, pg. 97-98 //MS
Bowie’s position in MMMC is this: *Business does not have an obligation to protect the environment over and above
what is required by law; however, it does have a moral obligation to avoid intervening in the political arena in order to defeat or weaken
environmental legislation’ (`p.89). Business, then, has no
special obligation to remedy wasteful or excessive use of
natural resources, and no special obligation to address externalities in production. This claim is weaker, Bowie
allows, if business has some special knowledge or expertise, though he does not explain why knowledge or expertise creates obligation, or why
the knowledge business may have about using resources efficiently and avoiding environmental damage creates ‘a special duty to educate the
public and to promote environmentally responsible behavior’ {p.96). While this is a minor point in MMMC. it is one we will come back to
several times below. Bowie argues by analogy. In the US, approximately 50,000 persons will be killed in automobile accidents every year, and
another 250,000 will be injured. These deaths and injuries are avoidable, hut society - meaning consumers - accepts them, chooses them,
because the automobile is, overall, a ‘good- producing instrument' (p.91). Cars could be made safer at more expense, or eliminated entirely to
protect persons, but society - again, meaning consumers - chooses a set of trade-offs: The decision
to build products that are
cheaper in cost but an: not maximally safe is a social decision that has widespread support. The arguments
occur over the line between safety and cost. What we have is a classical trade-off situation. What is desired is some appropriate mix between
engineering safety and consumer demand. [`p.92} More precisely, the trade-off is between engineering safety and cost, and the automobile
companies respect consumers’ choices, though some minimal standard is also provided by legal regulation. Therefore “an automobile company
does not violate its obligation to avoid harm and hence is not in violation of the moral minimum if the trade-off between potential harm and
the utility of the products rests on social consensus and competitive realities` lp. 92). The line of thought is grounded in William Frenkena’s
distinction between avoiding harm, preventing harm and doing good.' The requirement to avoid harm is the most stringent, and Bowie suggests
that business is constrained by a moral requirement to do so. but because consumers accept (choose) affordable cars with the knowledge that
50 000 persons will die each year, the avoid-harm criterion doesn’t require doing everything possible to avoid all harm. And consumers
determine what harms are acceptable. The same line of argument applies to business practices with respect
to the environment: As long as business obeys the environmental laws and honors other standard moral
obligations, most harm done to the environment by business has been accepted by society. Through
their decisions in the marketplace, we can see that most consumers are unwilling to pay extra for products
that are more environmentally friendly than less friendly competitive products. (p|1.92-3, our emphasis)
Mexican Econ
Global economy turns Mexican economy but not the other way around
The Economist, 13 – (“Reality bites,” 5/25/2013,
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21578440-lacklustre-growth-shows-need-reform-realitybites) // MS
Reading too much into a few months’ numbers would be risky, though. The optimism about Mexico was
never based on this year’s economic growth. Even before the disappointing first-quarter GDP report, the
OECD, a Paris-based think-tank for industrialised countries, had issued a study on the Mexican economy
predicting a weak 2013 because of feeble demand abroad. Part of the motivation for the reforms that
Mr Peña has kick-started is that the country is too dependent on the vagaries of the global economy,
and needs to generate more of its own dynamism by freeing business at home.
Nuclear Terror Defense
No risk of nuclear terror – assumes every warrant
Mueller 10 (John, professor of political science at Ohio State, Calming Our Nuclear Jitters, Issues in
Science and Technology, Winter, http://www.issues.org/26.2/mueller.html)
Politicians of all stripes preach to an anxious, appreciative, and very numerous choir when they,
like President Obama, proclaim atomic terrorism to be “the most immediate and extreme threat to
global security.” It is the problem that, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, currently keeps
every senior leader awake at night. This is hardly a new anxiety. In 1946, atomic bomb maker J.
Robert Oppenheimer ominously warned that if three or four men could smuggle in units for an atomic
bomb, they could blow up New York. This was an early expression of a pattern of dramatic risk
inflation that has persisted throughout the nuclear age. In fact, although expanding fires and fallout
might increase the effective destructive radius, the blast of a Hiroshima-size device would “blow up”
about 1% of the city’s area—a tragedy, of course, but not the same as one 100 times greater. In the
early 1970s, nuclear physicist Theodore Taylor proclaimed the atomic terrorist problem to be
“immediate,” explaining at length “how comparatively easy it would be to steal nuclear material and
step by step make it into a bomb.” At the time he thought it was already too late to “prevent the making
of a few bombs, here and there, now and then,” or “in another ten or fifteen years, it will be too late.”
Three decades after Taylor, we continue to wait for terrorists to carry out their “easy” task. In
contrast to these predictions, terrorist groups seem to have exhibited only limited desire and even
less progress in going atomic. This may be because, after brief exploration of the possible routes,
they, unlike generations of alarmists, have discovered that the tremendous effort required is scarcely
likely to be successful. The most plausible route for terrorists, according to most experts, would be to
manufacture an atomic device themselves from purloined fissile material (plutonium or, more likely,
highly enriched uranium). This task, however, remains a daunting one, requiring that a considerable
series of difficult hurdles be conquered and in sequence. Outright armed theft of fissile material is
exceedingly unlikely not only because of the resistance of guards, but because chase would be
immediate. A more promising approach would be to corrupt insiders to smuggle out the required
substances. However, this requires the terrorists to pay off a host of greedy confederates, including
brokers and money-transmitters, any one of whom could turn on them or, either out of guile or
incompetence, furnish them with stuff that is useless. Insiders might also consider the possibility that
once the heist was accomplished, the terrorists would, as analyst Brian Jenkins none too delicately puts
it, “have every incentive to cover their trail, beginning with eliminating their confederates.” If terrorists
were somehow successful at obtaining a sufficient mass of relevant material, they would then
probably have to transport it a long distance over unfamiliar terrain and probably while being
pursued by security forces. Crossing international borders would be facilitated by following
established smuggling routes, but these are not as chaotic as they appear and are often under the
watch of suspicious and careful criminal regulators. If border personnel became suspicious of the
commodity being smuggled, some of them might find it in their interest to disrupt passage, perhaps to
collect the bounteous reward money that would probably be offered by alarmed governments once the
uranium theft had been discovered. Once outside the country with their precious booty, terrorists
would need to set up a large and well-equipped machine shop to manufacture a bomb and then
to populate it with a very select team of highly skilled scientists, technicians, machinists, and
administrators. The group would have to be assembled and retained for the monumental task
while no consequential suspicions were generated among friends, family, and police about their
curious and sudden absence from normal pursuits back home. Members of the bomb-building team
would also have to be utterly devoted to the cause, of course, and they would have to be willing to put
their lives and certainly their careers at high risk, because after their bomb was discovered or exploded
they would probably become the targets of an intense worldwide dragnet operation. Some observers
have insisted that it would be easy for terrorists to assemble a crude bomb if they could get enough
fissile material. But Christoph Wirz and Emmanuel Egger, two senior physicists in charge of nuclear
issues at Switzerland‘s Spiez Laboratory, bluntly conclude that the task “could hardly be
accomplished by a subnational group.” They point out that precise blueprints are required, not
just sketches and general ideas, and that even with a good blueprint the terrorist group would most
certainly be forced to redesign. They also stress that the work is difficult, dangerous, and extremely
exacting, and that the technical requirements in several fields verge on the unfeasible. Stephen
Younger, former director of nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos Laboratories, has made a similar
argument, pointing out that uranium is “exceptionally difficult to machine” whereas “plutonium is
one of the most complex metals ever discovered, a material whose basic properties are sensitive to
exactly how it is processed.“ Stressing the “daunting problems associated with material purity,
machining, and a host of other issues,” Younger concludes, “to think that a terrorist group, working in
isolation with an unreliable supply of electricity and little access to tools and supplies” could
fabricate a bomb “is farfetched at best.” Under the best circumstances, the process of making a
bomb could take months or even a year or more, which would, of course, have to be carried out in
utter secrecy. In addition, people in the area, including criminals, may observe with increasing curiosity
and puzzlement the constant coming and going of technicians unlikely to be locals. If the effort to build
a bomb was successful, the finished product, weighing a ton or more, would then have to be
transported to and smuggled into the relevant target country where it would have to be received
by collaborators who are at once totally dedicated and technically proficient at handling,
maintaining, detonating, and perhaps assembling the weapon after it arrives. The financial costs of
this extensive and extended operation could easily become monumental. There would be expensive
equipment to buy, smuggle, and set up and people to pay or pay off. Some operatives might work
for free out of utter dedication to the cause, but the vast conspiracy also requires the subversion of a
considerable array of criminals and opportunists, each of whom has every incentive to push the
price for cooperation as high as possible. Any criminals competent and capable enough to be
effective allies are also likely to be both smart enough to see boundless opportunities for extortion and
psychologically equipped by their profession to be willing to exploit them. Those who warn about the
likelihood of a terrorist bomb contend that a terrorist group could, if with great difficulty, overcome
each obstacle and that doing so in each case is “not impossible.” But although it may not be
impossible to surmount each individual step, the likelihood that a group could surmount a series
of them quickly becomes vanishingly small. Table 1 attempts to catalogue the barriers that must be
overcome under the scenario considered most likely to be successful. In contemplating the task before
them, would-be atomic terrorists would effectively be required to go though an exercise that looks
much like this. If and when they do, they will undoubtedly conclude that their prospects are daunting
and accordingly uninspiring or even terminally dispiriting. It is possible to calculate the chances for
success. Adopting probability estimates that purposely and heavily bias the case in the terrorists’
favor—for example, assuming the terrorists have a 50% chance of overcoming each of the 20
obstacles—the chances that a concerted effort would be successful comes out to be less than one in a
million. If one assumes, somewhat more realistically, that their chances at each barrier are one in three,
the cumulative odds that they will be able to pull off the deed drop to one in well over three
billion. Other routes would-be terrorists might take to acquire a bomb are even more problematic.
They are unlikely to be given or sold a bomb by a generous like-minded nuclear state for delivery
abroad because the risk would be high, even for a country led by extremists, that the bomb (and its
source) would be discovered even before delivery or that it would be exploded in a manner and on a
target the donor would not approve, including on the donor itself. Another concern would be that the
terrorist group might be infiltrated by foreign intelligence. The terrorist group might also seek to
steal or illicitly purchase a “loose nuke“ somewhere. However, it seems probable that none exist. All
governments have an intense interest in controlling any weapons on their territory because of
fears that they might become the primary target. Moreover, as technology has developed, finished
bombs have been out-fitted with devices that trigger a non-nuclear explosion that destroys the
bomb if it is tampered with. And there are other security techniques: Bombs can be kept
disassembled with the component parts stored in separate high-security vaults, and a process can be set
up in which two people and multiple codes are required not only to use the bomb but to store,
maintain, and deploy it. As Younger points out, “only a few people in the world have the knowledge to
cause an unauthorized detonation of a nuclear weapon.” There could be dangers in the chaos that
would emerge if a nuclear state were to utterly collapse; Pakistan is frequently cited in this context
and sometimes North Korea as well. However, even under such conditions, nuclear weapons would
probably remain under heavy guard by people who know that a purloined bomb might be used in
their own territory. They would still have locks and, in the case of Pakistan, the weapons would be
disassembled. The al Qaeda factor The degree to which al Qaeda, the only terrorist group that
seems to want to target the United States, has pursued or even has much interest in a nuclear
weapon may have been exaggerated. The 9/11 Commission stated that “al Qaeda has tried to
acquire or make nuclear weapons for at least ten years,” but the only substantial evidence it supplies
comes from an episode that is supposed to have taken place about 1993 in Sudan, when al Qaeda
members may have sought to purchase some uranium that turned out to be bogus. Information about
this supposed venture apparently comes entirely from Jamal al Fadl, who defected from al Qaeda in
1996 after being caught stealing $110,000 from the organization. Others, including the man who
allegedly purchased the uranium, assert that although there were various other scams taking place at
the time that may have served as grist for Fadl, the uranium episode never happened. As a key
indication of al Qaeda’s desire to obtain atomic weapons, many have focused on a set of conversations
in Afghanistan in August 2001 that two Pakistani nuclear scientists reportedly had with Osama bin Laden
and three other al Qaeda officials. Pakistani intelligence officers characterize the discussions as
“academic” in nature. It seems that the discussion was wide-ranging and rudimentary and that the
scientists provided no material or specific plans. Moreover, the scientists probably were incapable of
providing truly helpful information because their expertise was not in bomb design but in the
processing of fissile material, which is almost certainly beyond the capacities of a nonstate group.
Kalid Sheikh Mohammed, the apparent planner of the 9/11 attacks, reportedly says that al Qaeda’s
bomb efforts never went beyond searching the Internet. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001,
technical experts from the CIA and the Department of Energy examined documents and other
information that were uncovered by intelligence agencies and the media in Afghanistan. They
uncovered no credible information that al Qaeda had obtained fissile material or acquired a nuclear
weapon. Moreover, they found no evidence of any radioactive material suitable for weapons. They did
uncover, however, a “nuclear-related” document discussing “openly available concepts about the
nuclear fuel cycle and some weapons-related issues.” Just a day or two before al Qaeda was to flee from
Afghanistan in 2001, bin Laden supposedly told a Pakistani journalist, “If the United States uses chemical
or nuclear weapons against us, we might respond with chemical and nuclear weapons. We possess
these weapons as a deterrent.” Given the military pressure that they were then under and taking into
account the evidence of the primitive or more probably nonexistent nature of al Qaeda’s nuclear
program, the reported assertions, although unsettling, appear at best to be a desperate bluff. Bin
Laden has made statements about nuclear weapons a few other times. Some of these pronouncements
can be seen to be threatening, but they are rather coy and indirect, indicating perhaps something of an
interest, but not acknowledging a capability. And as terrorism specialist Louise Richardson observes,
“Statements claiming a right to possess nuclear weapons have been misinterpreted as
expressing a determination to use them. This in turn has fed the exaggeration of the threat we
face.” Norwegian researcher Anne Stenersen concluded after an exhaustive study of available materials
that, although “it is likely that al Qaeda central has considered the option of using non-conventional
weapons,” there is “little evidence that such ideas ever developed into actual plans, or that they
were given any kind of priority at the expense of more traditional types of terrorist attacks.” She also
notes that information on an al Qaeda computer left behind in Afghanistan in 2001 indicates that only
$2,000 to $4,000 was earmarked for weapons of mass destruction research and that the money
was mainly for very crude work on chemical weapons. Today, the key portions of al Qaeda central
may well total only a few hundred people, apparently assisting the Taliban’s distinctly separate, far
larger, and very troublesome insurgency in Afghanistan. Beyond this tiny band, there are thousands of
sympathizers and would-be jihadists spread around the globe. They mainly connect in Internet chat
rooms, engage in radicalizing conversations, and variously dare each other to actually do something.
Any “threat,” particularly to the West, appears, then, principally to derive from self-selected
people, often isolated from each other, who fantasize about performing dire deeds. From time to
time some of these people, or ones closer to al Qaeda central, actually manage to do some harm. And
occasionally, they may even be able to pull off something large, such as 9/11. But in most cases, their
capacities and schemes, or alleged schemes, seem to be far less dangerous than initial press
reports vividly, even hysterically, suggest. Most important for present purposes, however, is that
any notion that al Qaeda has the capacity to acquire nuclear weapons, even if it wanted to,
looks farfetched in the extreme. It is also noteworthy that, although there have been plenty of
terrorist attacks in the world since 2001, all have relied on conventional destructive methods. For the
most part, terrorists seem to be heeding the advice found in a memo on an al Qaeda laptop seized in
Pakistan in 2004: “Make use of that which is available … rather than waste valuable time becoming
despondent over that which is not within your reach.” In fact, history consistently demonstrates that
terrorists prefer weapons that they know and understand, not new, exotic ones. Glenn Carle, a 23year CIA veteran and once its deputy intelligence officer for transnational threats, warns, “We must not
take fright at the specter our leaders have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the
small, lethal, disjointed, and miserable opponents that they are.” al Qaeda, he says, has only a
handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing, and leading a terrorist organization, and although
the group has threatened attacks with nuclear weapons, “its capabilities are far inferior to its
desires.” Policy alternatives The purpose here has not been to argue that policies designed to
inconvenience the atomic terrorist are necessarily unneeded or unwise. Rather, in contrast with the
many who insist that atomic terrorism under current conditions is rather likely— indeed, exceedingly
likely—to come about, I have contended that it is hugely unlikely. However, it is important to consider
not only the likelihood that an event will take place, but also its consequences. Therefore, one must be
concerned about catastrophic events even if their probability is small, and efforts to reduce that
likelihood even further may well be justified. At some point, however, probabilities become so low
that, even for catastrophic events, it may make sense to ignore them or at least put them on the back
burner; in short, the risk becomes acceptable. For example, the British could at any time attack the
United States with their submarine-launched missiles and kill millions of Americans, far more than even
the most monumentally gifted and lucky terrorist group. Yet the risk that this potential calamity might
take place evokes little concern; essentially it is an acceptable risk. Meanwhile, Russia, with whom the
United States has a rather strained relationship, could at any time do vastly more damage with its
nuclear weapons, a fully imaginable calamity that is substantially ignored. In constructing what he calls
“a case for fear,” Cass Sunstein, a scholar and current Obama administration official, has pointed out
that if there is a yearly probability of 1 in 100,000 that terrorists could launch a nuclear or massive
biological attack, the risk would cumulate to 1 in 10,000 over 10 years and to 1 in 5,000 over 20. These
odds, he suggests, are “not the most comforting.” Comfort, of course, lies in the viscera of those to be
comforted, and, as he suggests, many would probably have difficulty settling down with odds like that.
But there must be some point at which the concerns even of these people would ease. Just perhaps
it is at one of the levels suggested above: one in a million or one in three billion per attempt.
Terrorists aren’t pursuing nukes
Wolfe 12 – Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He is also a Senior Fellow
with the World Policy Institute at the New School University in New York. A contributing editor of The
New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, Commonwealth Magazine, and In Character, Professor Wolfe
writes often for those publications as well as for Commonweal, The New York Times, Harper's, The
Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, and other magazines and newspapers. March 27, 2012, "Fixated
by “Nuclear Terror” or Just Paranoia?" http://www.hlswatch.com/2012/03/27/fixated-by-“nuclearterror”-or-just-paranoia-2/
If one were to read the
most recent unclassified report to Congress on the acquisition of technology
relating to weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional munitions, it does have a
section on CBRN terrorism (note, not WMD terrorism). The intelligence community has a very
toned down statement that says “several terrorist groups … probably remain interested in [CBRN]
capabilities, but not necessarily in all four of those capabilities. … mostly focusing on low-level chemicals and toxins.”
They’re talking about terrorists getting industrial chemicals and making ricin toxin, not nuclear weapons. And yes, Ms.
Squassoni, it is primarily al Qaeda that the U.S. government worries about, no one else. The trend of worldwide
terrorism continues to remain in the realm of conventional attacks. In 2010, there were more
than 11,500 terrorist attacks, affecting about 50,000 victims including almost 13,200 deaths. None of them were
caused by CBRN hazards. Of the 11,000 terrorist attacks in 2009, none were caused by CBRN hazards. Of the 11,800
terrorist attacks in 2008, none were caused by CBRN hazards.
No threat – weak leadership and no recent attacks
Zenko and Cohen 12, *Fellow in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations,
*Fellow at the Century Foundation, (Micah and Michael, "Clear and Present Safety," March/April,
Foreign Affairs, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137279/micah-zenko-and-michael-a-cohen/clear-andpresent-safety
NONE OF this is meant to suggest that the United States faces no major challenges today. Rather, the
point is that the problems
confronting the country are manageable and pose minimal risks to the lives of the overwhelming
majority of Americans. None of them -- separately or in combination -- justifies the alarmist rhetoric of policymakers and
politicians or should lead to the conclusion that Americans live in a dangerous world. Take terrorism.
Since 9/11, no security threat has been hyped more. Considering the horrors of that day, that is not surprising. But
the result has been a level of fear that is completely out of proportion to both the capabilities of
terrorist organizations and the United States' vulnerability. On 9/11, al Qaeda got tragically
lucky. Since then, the United States has been preparing for the one percent chance (and likely
even less) that it might get lucky again. But al Qaeda lost its safe haven after the U.S.-led invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001, and further military, diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement efforts have
decimated the organization, which has essentially lost whatever ability it once had to seriously
threaten the United States. According to U.S. officials, al Qaeda's leadership has been reduced to two top
lieutenants: Ayman al-Zawahiri and his second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi. Panetta has even said that the defeat
of al Qaeda is "within reach." The near collapse of the original al Qaeda organization is one
reason why, in the decade since 9/11, the U.S. homeland has not suffered any large-scale
terrorist assaults. All subsequent attempts have failed or been thwarted, owing in part to the
incompetence of their perpetrators. Although there are undoubtedly still some terrorists who wish to kill Americans, their
dreams will
likely continue to be frustrated by their own limitations and by the intelligence and law
enforcement agencies of the United States and its allies.
STEM Defense
Alt cause – teaching methods
Qayoumi, 13 – Ph.D., President of San Jose State University (Mohammad, “Removing Obstacles to
STEM Education is Critical to U.S. Vitality,” Huffington Post, 3/18/13,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohammad-humayon-qayoumi/removing-obstacles-toste_b_2903025.html)
A major barrier to graduating more STEM majors is the way we teach these disciplines. My own personal
experience is a good example. Until sixth grade, I was not good in math. This was partly due to the poor pedagogy and some teachers who
were not able to contextualize the material to make learning fun and enjoyable.
Many decades later when I think of my math teacher in fourth and fifth grades, he embodied the angel of death. Going to class was unpleasant,
and taking exams was a horrible experience. Consequently, my grades were mediocre at best.
When I began sixth grade, we had a new teacher who made math really fun. He was successful in changing my attitude toward math. Not only
did I develop a deep interest and appreciation for the subject matter, but my grades dramatically improved. Most important, that enjoyment of
a STEM subject has continued throughout my life. That is why I have an incandescent passion for this issue. It was only that chance of having a
different teacher that changed the course of my academic career and, more than likely, the trajectory of many professional opportunities.
Making STEM Topics Relevant
It is unfortunate that in the current zeitgeist we
have implicitly accepted child obesity, diabetes, and poor math
performance as "a new normal." We need to increase the number of students we graduate in STEM by focusing
on participation of underrepresented populations, like women and minorities, and by teaching STEM in new ways that
engage students.
The prerequisite
for accomplishing this mandate requires
a significant improvement in the math competency
of all students, but especially for women and students from underserved communities. We have to make the learning social, contextual, and
relevant for these students. New instructional methodologies and innovative use of technologies can be a major tool in accomplishing this
mandate.
Flipped classes and blended learning, where students watch online videos offered through companies like EdX and then participate in
classroom discussion, are one way to use technology in higher education. Such a blended model helps students learn at their own pace before
coming to the class and creates more peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
Fixing a Broken Funding Model
Another factor is contributing to the lack of STEM graduates: the poor funding model for higher education.
Affordable higher education is becoming available to fewer people. Research from the National Center for Education
Statistics and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education shows an alarming trend of dramatically diminished state support for
public higher education. Our public universities and colleges have increased tuition and fees and reduced administrative costs, but these efforts
are not enough.
Politics
1nc link
Investment and immigration extremely divisive
Human Development Report, 4 (“Globalization and cultural choice”, 2004,
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr04_chapter_5.pdf)//KG
The fears come to a head over investment, trade and migration policies . Indian activists protest the patenting of
the neem tree by foreign pharmaceutical companies. Anti-globalization movements protest treating cultural goods the same as any other
commodity in global trade and investment agreements. Groups
in Western Europe oppose the entry of foreign
workers and their families. What these protesters have in common is the fear of losing their cultural identity, and each contentious
issue has sparked widespread political mobilization. How should governments respond? This chapter argues that policies that regulate the
advance of economic globalization—the movements of people, capital, goods and ideas—must promote, rather than quash, cultural freedoms.
It looks at three policy challenges that are among the most divisive in today’s public debates: • Indigenous people, extractive industries and
traditional knowledge. Controversy rages over the importance of extractive industries for national economic growth and the socio-economic
and cultural exclusion and dislocation of indigenous people that often accompany mining activities. Indigenous people’s traditional knowledge
is recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity but not by the global intellectual property rights regime as embodied in the World
Intellectual Property Organization and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement. • Trade in cultural goods.
International trade and investment negotiations have been divided over the question of a “cultural exception” for films and audiovisual goods,
which would permit them to be treated differently from other goods. • Immigration. Managing
the inflow and integration of
foreign migrants requires responding to anti-immigrant groups, who argue that the national culture is
threatened, and to migrant groups, who demand respect for their ways of life. The extreme positions
in these debates often provoke regressive responses that are nationalistic, xenophobic and conservative: close the country
off from all outside influences and preserve tradition. That defence of national culture comes at great costs to development and to human
choice. This report argues that these extreme positions are not the way to protect local cultures and identities. There need not be a choice
between protecting local identities and adopting open policies to global flows of migrants, foreign films and knowledge and capital. The
challenge for countries around the world is to design countryspecific policies that widen choices rather than narrow them by supporting and
protecting national identities while also keeping borders open.
2nc link wall
Plan is contentious from connection to immigration
Schwalbe, 10 - Honors B.A., International Relations from the University of Delaware (Kaleigh,
“Mexican Immigration to the United States”, University of Delaware, Spring 2010,
http://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/5521/Schwalbe,%20Kaleigh.pdf?sequence=1)//KG
Few issues in modern United States politics have generated the same amount of spark or received as
much attention as the Mexican immigration movement to the United States. Fading in and out of the news
media, immigration has always been a contentious issue . Even now, with the recent uproar over the Arizona Immigration
Law signed in April 2010, thousands voice their opinions in protests across the nation. Even more than demonstrating the passion immigration
issues create, the recent reaction to the Arizona Immigration Law shows that there is a weakness in the United States immigration policy, one
that has yet to be fully solved and addressed. Hopefully the signing of this law will again reopen the immigration
debate in
Congress, and furthermore that the result of this debate will be a new
immigration policy, one which will advance both the United States
and Mexico towards future progress and prosperity. Mexican immigration to the United States is one of the longest running labor migration
movements in the world, yet why is it now such a contentious issue (Sotelo 52)? Recent changes
in the movement have given
it much more attention in today‟s news media. When Mexicans first immigrated to the United States, it was primarily to
the American southwest, and their work was limited to certain industries like agriculture, mining, and railroad construction. Today we are now
witnessing new destinations of this old immigration movement (Sotelo 55). Mexicans immigrants have now found jobs in many diverse sectors
of the economy, and have settled and found homes in many new corners of the United States. This is largely in part to the 2 expansion of social
networks, which immigration relies upon. This is also in part to an expansion of the US economy, and with it an increase in labor demands from
employers. When developing countries are close to countries with booming economies, migration is the inevitable result (LeMay 107).
Foreign investment is always partisan – models prove
Pinto and Pinto, 7 - Department of Economics, West Virginia University AND Department of Political
Science, Columbia University (Santiago M. and Pablo M, “The Politics of Investment: Partisan
Governments, Wages and Employment”, March 2007,
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/seminars/Pinto_Paper2.pdf)//KG
The assumption that governments have partisan (and electoral) incentives in regulating economic
activity is ubiquitous in the literature on politics and macro-economic performance. Hibbs (1977, 1992), Tufte (1978),
Esping-Andersen (1990), Goldthorpe (1984), among others, are precursors in this tradition.11 We adopt the same approach and assume that
parties of the left will try to advance the political agenda of owners of labor, while parties of the right
are identified with the interests of domestic business owners. Moreover, we argue that this argument follows
because foreign investment is likely to affect differently the return to domestic factors of production,
potentially creating a distributive cleavage in the regulation of FDI. This argument is consistent with that in literature on
the link between investment and trade politics.12 In their analysis of quid-pro-quo FDI, Bhagwati et al. argue that among
those actors supporting the position of multinationals we usually find business groups brought into joint-ventures with foreign investors, labor
unions that experience employment gains, and local communities that benefit from location of the MNC facility.13 Grossman & Helpman
(1996) refer to this distributive rationale in their analysis of trade policy in the presence of multinationals: “When policy toward DFI is
endogenous, the politics may generate a con- flict between domestic firms wanting investment restrictions and domestic workers with
industry-specific skills wanting free entry by multinationals.” (Grossman and Helpman, 1996, pp. 220.) We
explicitly model the
distributive consequences of foreign investment, as driving the preferences of domestic actors on the
demand side of politics. We also map those preferences onto the partisan disposition of governments. We predict that leftleaning governments -those governments that cater to labor- are more likely to provide better
investment conditions to lure foreign investment into those sectors where labor is a complement of FDI.
Furthermore, we argue that governments that defend the interests of the right-leaning party -the party identified with
domestic business owners- will offer a more favorable investment environment to foreign investors
that are likely to raise the return to domestic capital. At the same time, they will limit the inflow of foreign capital to those
sectors where foreign investment is more likely to increase the demand for labor, compete down the rents that would have otherwise accrued
to domestic business owners, thus reducing the return they receive from their economic activity.14 In a strategic environment foreign investors
anticipate and react to government’s policy by investing in a country and sector when the host government is of the “right” type.
US investment in Mexico controversial
McAllister, 13 – journalist for Reuters (Edward, “For Obama and Pena Nieto, a delicate 'first dance'
around energy”, Reuters, 5-2-13, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/02/us-energy-usa-mexicoidUSBRE9410GN20130502)//KG
(Reuters) - When the conversation between President Barack Obama and his newly elected Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto
turns to the controversial topic of energy during their meeting this week, both are apt to step carefully. The two
countries have abruptly changed positions over the past decade: Mexico, once the growing energy power, is struggling to maintain production; the United States,
once a guaranteed importer, is enjoying a lucrative energy boom. However, the thorny issues of foreign
investment in Mexico's oil production
sector or swapping different types of crude oil between the two nations will likely only be brought up in private, if at all. Although
Mexico's aging refineries could operate more efficiently using some of the light crude emerging from U.S. oilfields, state oil and gas monopoly Pemex has long
avoided incremental imports in order to maintain its reliance on the heavier crude produced domestically. Meanwhile, U.S. pipeline exports of natural gas to
Mexico have surged, and could double within a few years as new projects link Latin America's second-largest economy with major U.S. producing regions, despite
concerns in the United States that exports could push prices higher at home. Less divisive topics, such as climate change and how to improve cross-border energy
efficiency, are expected to be discussed, Sergio Alcocer, Mexico's deputy foreign minister responsible for the United States, told Reuters. "This is more like the first
dance of the season," said Bill O'Grady, chief markets strategist at Confluence Investment Management. "You get to see each other, get to know each other. But
Mexico is still trying to figure out how to reform its own state oil company." SOME KIND OF A SWAP? Mexican oil and gas output remains flat while national
demand increases, creating a dilemma for Pena Nieto, whose opponents vigorously oppose foreign investment in the country's energy sector. Although Mexican
crude is a staple for Gulf Coast refineries, crude oil imports from Mexico have dropped a third over the past decade, sinking below 1 million barrels per day last year
for the first time since 1994, according to government data. Mexico has duly shifted its focus. A month ago Pemex touted a new two-year deal to boost crude
exports to China by 30,000 bpd. Talk of some kind of oil "swap" has also circulated, based on the idea that U.S. producers could get a better price for their lightsweet crude in Mexico while Texas and Louisiana refineries built to run on heavy-sour grades could get more of that type of oil from Mexico, albeit at lesser rates
than in the past. There is little indication yet that Pemex is angling for U.S. shale oil, or that U.S. companies are pressing to sell it. GAS BONANZA As
lawmakers engage in an increasingly fierce debate in Washington over whether natural gas exports would drive up fuel
prices at home, foreign companies are racing to export more to Mexico, where demand is growing fast. U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico rose by 24 percent in
2012 to all-time highs, according to U.S. government data. The capacity to export will double by the end of 2014 as Mexican power plants hook up to pipelines
running from the giant Eagle Ford play in Texas and further afield. Companies like Sempra Energy, Japan's Mitsui and Kinder Morgan are all planning to build new
pipelines in Mexico, potentially reducing its dependence on imported LNG from overseas. Alejandro Martinez, the top natural gas executive at Pemex, said exports
of U.S. gas to Mexico and Mexican oil to the United States present "a natural exchange" for the two countries. "I think we have to have a much greater integration,"
Whether Obama and Nieto will discuss the more
delicate matter of Mexico's allowing foreign investment in its struggling oil sector is unclear. Development of the country's
he said in an interview with Reuters this week. INVESTMENT ESSENTIAL
large shale formations is still on hold as it considers its options. Mexico has the fourth-largest shale gas resources in the world after the United States, China and
Argentina, according to a U.S. government report on global shale deposits in 2011, though it remains to be seen how they will be developed. Pena Nieto has
pledged to open up Mexican oil production and exploration to more outside investment in order to ramp up growth. "When push comes to shove, it's U.S.
companies that have the technology and experience to help Mexico develop its deepwater and onshore unconventional resources," said Ed Morse, managing
Traditionalists who view Pemex as a symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency
strongly oppose the prospect. Jorge Buendia, political analyst and director of polling firm Buendia & Laredo, said Mexico was
therefore likely to avoid open talk of oil and gas with the United States for now, though "back-room" discussions would no doubt take place.
Raising the subject frankly would lay the new president open to accusations that he was selling
Mexico out to those looking "to steal" its oil, and imply that the industry was falling behind, Buendia added. "The current situation doesn't
lend itself at all to bringing this subject up in public."
director of commodity research at Citi Group.
2nc nafta link magnifier
Large controversy over economic agreements like NAFTA
Public Citizen, 12 - nonprofit organization that advocates for the people of the US (“Polling Shows
NAFTA-style Trade Deals Becoming Even More Unpopular”, Economy in Crisis, 12-16-12,
http://economyincrisis.org/content/18019)//KG
The 2012 U.S. elections featured a bipartisan race to align campaign positions with the U.S. public’s opposition to status-quo trade policies. Recent
polling
indicates that U.S. public opinion has intensified from broad opposition to overwhelming opposition
to NAFTA-style trade deals. The presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney deployed more than three times as many trade-themed
ads as were used in the 2008 presidential race, creating a trade-reform-is-urgently needed narrative that reinforced the majority view of the U.S. public. A Kantar
Media study found that presidential
campaigns spent an unprecedented $68 million—about $34 million each—in ads
attacking more-of-the-same trade policies. Trade-themed presidential ads aired an estimated 83,000 times in 2012, more than twice the
number of trade-related airings in 2008. Of the 16 most-targeted media markets for these ads, nine were not located in the free-trade-wary Rust Belt, but in parts
of the country that, despite prior support for “free trade,” received a heavy dose of campaigning for trade reform. Following the presidential trend, 57 percent of
candidates in competitive congressional races also campaigned on trade policy via ads or campaign websites. Out
of more than 125 paid ads used
one indicated support for any trade deals modeled on the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). (It was from GOP candidate Linda Lingle, who lost her bid for Hawaii’s Senate seat.) Meanwhile, Senate candidates who
employed ads against status quo trade won seats in Connecticut, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and
Wisconsin, increasing the net number of fair-trade members of the Senate by at least six. Such widespread campaigning against
more-of-the-same on trade both reflected and reinforced the U.S. public’s broad rejection of the
by congressional candidates across 30 U.S. states, only
trade status quo enshrined in NAFTA-style “free trade” agreements (FTAs). A May 2012 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll
found that U.S. respondents who believe that the United States should “renegotiate” or “leave” NAFTA
outnumbered by nearly 4-to-1 those that say the country should “continue to be a member” (53 vs.15
percent). Support for the “leave” or “renegotiate” positions dominated among Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike . Just 1 in 3 U.S.
respondents thought that NAFTA benefitted the overall U.S. economy, and only 1 in 4 saw the pact as
having benefitted U.S. workers. Given such results, it is not surprising that the NAFTA-style “free trade” agreements
(FTAs) passed by Congress in 2011 with Korea, Panama, and Colombia bring political liability . Immediately after passage, a plurality of
U.S. voters expressed opposition to the FTAs in an October 2011 National Journal survey, with Republicans and Democrats showing equivalent levels of opposition.
Republicans without a college education opposed the FTAs by a nearly 2-to-1 margin and women
expressed especially high opposition. In 2010, while testing Democratic messages for voter response, Democratic polling firm Greenberg
Quinlan Rosner Research found that 45 percent of voters were much more likely or somewhat more likely to
support a Democratic candidate if he or she were to highlight an opponent’s support of the Colombia, Panama
and South Korea FTAs. Of four possible messages, the anti-FTA message was just as powerful in swaying voters as
a statement in support of tax cuts for the middle class rather than the rich. The anti-FTA message was more powerful
than a message on opposing tax breaks for companies outsourcing U.S. jobs and statements linking the opposing candidate to former President Bush’s policies.
Counterplans
1nc financial cp
Text: The United States Federal Government should cooperate with Mexico on global
financial issues and redesign the global financial architecture
Cooperation on global financial issues solves relations
Castro et al. 12 - (Rafael Fernández de is the Chair, Department of International Studies, Instituto
Tecnológico Autónomo de México, former Foreign Policy Advisor to President Calderón, “A Stronger
Future Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations”, Wilson Center, July 11, 12,
http://sunnylands.org/files/posts/159/stronger_f.pdf)//sawyer
Strengthen Mexico-U.S. cooperation on global financial issues, including the redesign of the global
financial architecture. Mexico has quite successfully protected itself from domestically driven financial
crises since 1995, achieving a remarkable degree of macroeconomic stability. Nonetheless, both
Mexico and the United States are quite vulnerable to external shocks and, due to the extent of trade
and the integration of industry in the region, business cycles of each country are closely linked. This
makes the United States and Mexico natural partners in addressing international economic issues,
and both countries could do even more to coordinate their efforts in international forums such as the
G-20 and the International Monetary Fund, where significant cooperation already takes place.
1nc relations cp
Text: The United States Federal Government should target operations and assets of
the most violent organized crime group on both sides of the border
The campaign would send a message improving relations
Castro et al. 12 - (Rafael Fernández de is the Chair, Department of International Studies, Instituto
Tecnológico Autónomo de México, former Foreign Policy Advisor to President Calderón, “A Stronger
Future Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations”, Wilson Center, July 11, 12,
http://sunnylands.org/files/posts/159/stronger_f.pdf)//sawyer
Add strength and focus to bi-national security cooperation by targeting the operations and assets of
the most violent organized crime group on both sides of the border. A concentrated campaign in two
countries against one crime group would send a clear message to the others. Moreover, the U.S. and
Mexico can do much more to target violent transnational organized crime groups together. Given that
law enforcement has a limited capacity, a more focused strategy with clear priorities could improve
public safety while degrading criminal groups. One option would be to select the most violent groups
and simultaneously dismantle their operations on both sides of the border, sending a signal that high
levels of violence will lead to increased law enforcement pressure. A more focused strategy could also
concentrate law enforcement capacity on punishing, and therefore preventing, the most violent and
high-social-impact crimes, like mass killings or attacks on police. These do not require any new
legislation, but do entail getting federal and state agencies to coordinate their support of Mexico’s
designated priorities. Much more could be done to expand intelligence cooperation between the two
countries, and both governments should be as open as possible about the nature of their collaboration,
which public opinion in Mexico strongly supports. The importance of sound anti-money laundering
policy coordination is a fundamental component in the fight against Transnational Criminal
Organizations (TCOs). Both countries have made significant strides in sharing financial intelligence, but
there is much more room for collaboration. Weapons trafficking also remains a major challenge for
both nations. The increase in violence in Mexico has been exacerbated by the large volume of weapons
criminal groups smuggle into Mexico from the United States. Clearly a bilateral issue, fighting
weapons trafficking requires coordinated efforts. Mexico and the U.S. have reached unprecedented
levels of cooperation and exchange of information on the subject, but more needs to be done. Within
a context of respect for the different legal frameworks regarding weapons possession in each country,
both the United States and Mexico could strengthen domestic and cooperative efforts to target arms
trafficking. At the same time, the United States faces a major challenge in ensuring the safety of its
citizens against terrorist attacks, and it depends significantly on intelligence sharing and law
enforcement cooperation from its two neighbors, Mexico and Canada. Indeed, this cooperation has
been one of the untold stories of engagement between U.S. and Mexican federal agencies over the
past decade, with the result that the U.S.-Mexico border has not yet been used for terrorist activities.
However, continued vigilance and more sophisticated forms of cooperation will be needed to avoid the
evolving threats from terrorist organizations.
Security comes first in relations
Castro et al. 12 - (Rafael Fernández de is the Chair, Department of International Studies, Instituto
Tecnológico Autónomo de México, former Foreign Policy Advisor to President Calderón, “A Stronger
Future Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations”, Wilson Center, July 11, 12,
http://sunnylands.org/files/posts/159/stronger_f.pdf)//sawyer
The security challenges faced by each country are real and unavoidable. They should be prioritized,
yet balanced with an agenda based on economic opportunity and shared prosperity. The definition and
implementation of new, more focused security strategies designed to reduce violence and strengthen
the rule of law, within a framework of shared responsibility, may bring new energy and popular
support to a difficult ongoing issue.
1nc overpopulation cp
Text: The United States Federal Government should invest in birth control and invest
in making birth control accessible worldwide
Birth control will solve overpopulation– empirics
Katz 11 – Joelle Katz is a staff writer for the Daily Sundial, (“The problem of overpopulation and how we
can work to solve it”, November 20th, 2011, http://sundial.csun.edu/2011/11/the-problem-ofoverpopulation-and-how-we-can-work-to-solve-it/)//sawyer
While PRB’s President Wendy Baldwin has said that population growth has declined to 1.2 percent per
year, it still isn’t slow enough. This number means the human population is still growing rather than
staying the same. Rather than sending money over to these third-world countries for only food (which of
course is important), they should also invest in birth control. Not only would birth control help to slow
the population growth rate, but it can also help to prevent the high rate for infant deaths in those
countries. Less than 5 percent of people in most countries in Africa use contraceptives according to the
U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. If this number was higher and
more people were aware of the benefits of birth control, and it was accessible to them, it would help
everyone and the planet overall. According to the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF),
“Promoting birth control in Africa faces a host of obstacles – patriarchal customs, religious taboos, illequipped public-health systems – but experts also cite a powerful, more distant force: the U.S.
government.” Under President George W. Bush, billions of dollars were given to Africa to help their
struggle with AIDS, however, he prohibited its use toward family planning services, according to IPPF. An
example of how well family planning and contraceptives can work for the problem with population
appears in our very own home. In 1972, the Supreme Court legalized birth control for all United States
citizens. Since then, the population growth rate in the U.S. has gone down significantly. If we can find
a way to bring our knowledge and access to birth control to everyone on the planet, we can help slow
the rates of population growth over time.
1nc warming cp
Text: The United States Government should force implementation of holistic grazing
throughout the United States
Holistic grazing solves warming
Howley 13 – Andrew Howley is a member of the National Geographic Mission Programs team, working
to share the stories of NG explorers, he cites Allan Savory a Zimbabwean biologist, farmer, soldier, exile,
environmentalist, and winner of the 2003 Banksia International Award and the 2010 Buckminster Fuller
Challenge, (Andrew, “How Cows Could Repair the World: Allan Savory at TED”, National Geograzphic,
March 6, 2013, http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/06/how-cows-could-repair-theworld-allan-savory-at-ted/)//sawyer
For decades people have pointed to overgrazing by cattle as the main cause of once-fertile grasslands
turning to rapidly eroding, nearly lifeless deserts. These desertified landscapes are then incapable of
supporting the livestock themselves, agriculture, or large wild animals who once lived in great
numbers on the same land. This is leads to famine and conflict in different areas around the world.
Growing up in Kenya, Allan Savory was terribly moved by this. “I grew up loving wildlife and hating livestock,” he said at the TED Conference in
Long Beach, California last week (watch his full TED talk in the video above). Two-thirds of the ear The Pachyderm Paradox As a young man he
thought the blame also lay with an overpopulation of elephants, and so, despite a deep love for these animals, he recommended and
supported the culling of large herds. Over the years this practice has resulted in the intentional killing of more than 40,000 elephants, but no
real improvement in the health of grasslands. Realizing what an error he and others had made, Savory confessed, “this was the saddest and
gravest mistake of my life.” “Clearly
threatens us globally.”
we have never understood desertification,” he added, “which now
A New Vision Speaking with Allan Savory after his presentation I got some insight into the shift in thinking that
occurred next. Our society in general has tended to try to solve problems by breaking them into pieces, isolating elements, and attempting to
control complex situations through simple, forced measures. This
is all wrong, the way Savory sees it. True, sustainable
solutions are found by looking at whole systems, holistically, unconcerned with time, and focused on the
restoration of natural balances. For example, when I asked him (in insistent, fast-paced reporter speech) what I could do if I lived in
the southern U.S. and had a field overtaken by invasive kudzu, he said very slowly and calmly, “Well… first… I would say ‘Andrew, what do you
want out of this land? For yourself… for your children… for your children’s children…’ ” It was at this point I felt my own high energy settle
down, and I understood how much of a shift in attitude Allan’s approach to problem solving in conservation really is. People tell him he should
put rhinos on the land he has restored. But with poor quality land all around, and a lack of value on conservation, people would just come and
poach the rhinos for their horns, he said. When the land is restored, and people’s basic needs are met, and an appreciation of wildlife is the
norm, then he’s willing to bring rhinos in. Not before. Allan Savory may be in his seventies, but he’s in no rush to force changes. A holistic view
of the problem.
A natural source for the solution. Patience. These are the tools Allan Savory works with now.
Cows to the Rescue So the failure of earlier attempts combined with his estimation that two-thirds of
Earth is now desertifying inspired Savory to search for a new approach to protecting and restoring
grasslands. And he found it by thinking naturally and looking backward, not forward. It makes no sense that land that once supported
untold millions of grazing animals on massive migrations should be destroyed by the overgrazing of fewer or comparable numbers of livestock
in more recent years. And
there were areas of the U.S. where cattle had been removed for decades, but the
grasslands were still desertifying. Allan Savory says the key to restoring grasslands is to manage
livestock to mimic the role once played by vast migrating herds. (Photo by James Duncan Davidson) “Clearly we have
never understood desertification,” he said. “What we had failed to understand was that these areas developed with huge numbers of grazing
animals [pursued by lots of huge carnivores]. Movement kept them from overgrazing.” This way of the past could also hold the key to the
“The only option left,” according to Savory, is “to use livestock on the move to mimic the
ancient herds.” Keeping cattle more densely packed on smaller plots of land and moving them
future.
frequently keeps them from exhausting the supply of living plants, turns scattered droppings into a full
blanket of high-quality fertilizer, and keeps the repeated trod of untold tons from packing down the dirt.
He’s done it for decades, and the results (seen in the video above) are impressive. “Holistic grazing”
keeps more plants alive, adds nutrients to the soil, and creates soil conditions that hold and use water
instead of letting it evaporate or run off. It is now practiced by thousands on five continents, and is the focus of the work of the
Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe, as well as the Savory Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The Bigger Picture In closing his TED
talk, Allan Savory pointed out a critical part of this story beyond preserving complex grassland ecosystems to sustain livestock, agriculture, and
wildlife. The
amount of plant life lost through desertification over decades has severely compromised
Earth’s ability to take carbon dioxide out of the air. Just as we have increased the amount we’re
putting into the atmosphere, we’re reducing the amount we take out. There is a remarkable upside to
this however. With all of the difficulties of maintaining a productive economy while reducing our
carbon output, and mitigating the effects of a warming climate, if we can implement holistic grazing
on half of the Earth’s grasslands, according to Allan, “we can take us back to pre-industrial [CO2]
levels… and feed people.” It would be wrong to think of changing the way we herd cattle as a silver
buller that will solve all of Earth and humanity’s challenges, but as a key step in promoting the kind of
long-term, holistic view that Allan Savory has taken, it could go a long way towards repairing the land
and our relationship to it.
1nc customs union cp
Text: The United States Federal Government should pursue a customs unions with
North America
Custom unions solves integration
Barbee, 12 – Inveer Barbee graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, in
Burnaby BC, Canada, in 2008. Barbee completed her M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy at American University’s
School of International Service. (Inveer, “The Path to Customs Union: The European Experience and
North American Integration”, Faculty of the School of International Service” 6-14-12,
http://www.american.edu/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=3209906)//sawyer
Overall, a customs union would be the logical next step to deeper integration in North America, but it
is up to its leaders and its people to decide what path they wish to take. As this discussion has shown,
Canada and Mexico are key trading partners of the U.S., but the U.S. attitude towards its two neighbors
has been more characterized by disinterest than true friendship. The sheer volume of trade that
crosses the southern and northern borders is simply astonishing. In 2011, U.S. exports to Canada totaled
$281 billion, and to Mexico, $198 billion; U.S. imports from Canada amounted to $317 billion, and from
Mexico, $263 billion.14 The trade relationship is significant, but since the U.S. remains committed to a
multilateral agenda, and is consistently distracted by security concerns, it has not given the region the
attention it deserves. But Canada and Mexico have an important role to play too. Canada must start
treating Mexico as an equal partner, and Mexico must reach out to Canada as it did during the NAFTA
negotiations, to build consensus on priorities for the continent. Thinking trilaterally will be a major
challenge to policy makers that have continually tackled the agenda in the traditional bilateral way. But
this is not impossible. What this paper hoped to achieve was to inspire a different way of thinking
about the relationship between Canada, Mexico and the United States, and engage the reader in an
intellectual exercise to question whether as a country, as a region and as a people, we have truly
examined each and every option on the table before brushing it aside as impossible. When Europe
began its integration project fifty-five years ago, many questioned its merits. Even today, facing
economic crisis, criticism is strong. Yet the European Union has undergone numerous crises throughout
its history, and survived all of them. Its reaction to crisis has also always been the same—more, not
less integration, as evidenced by the recent signing of the fiscal pact. The region has adapted and
remained influential in the world; its soft power, despite crisis, has also not declined, as states still seek
to join the union. On March 9th 2012, all 136 members of the Croatian parliament voted in favor of
accession to the EU; Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey remain candidate countries.
Regional integration offers a possible solution to North America’s economic, social and political
problems, and a customs union is a viable next step in this process. Maintaining the status quo limits
the region’s growth and prevents the realization of the economic reality of our continent. Jean Monnet
once wrote “people only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize
necessity when crisis is upon them.”15 North America has just faced a crisis, and is still dealing with the
recovery; but its policy makers remain prisoner to a way of thinking that limit the potential of a diverse,
innovative and inspiring people, who should demand more of their leaders.
2nc solves trade
The plan creates net growth in trade – empirics prove
Barbee, 12 – Inveer Barbee graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, in
Burnaby BC, Canada, in 2008. Barbee completed her M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy at American University’s
School of International Service. (Inveer, “The Path to Customs Union: The European Experience and
North American Integration”, Faculty of the School of International Service” 6-14-12,
http://www.american.edu/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=3209906)//sawyer
This paper argues that a customs union is the next viable step for North American integration.
Though some critics argue that a customs union creates more barriers to trade, the previous section on
the EEC customs union shows that it actually creates more trade than it diverts. In fact, an FTA like
NAFTA is more likely to divert trade “because the FTA grants preferences to goods originating inside its
boundaries without providing to imports from third countries the corresponding customs union benefit
of free circulation once within a common tariff wall.”176 What this is referring to are the restrictive
rules of origin (ROO) requirements of NAFTA, which are possibly the most restrictive of any FTA. In fact,
ROO costs are estimated to amount to 2-3% of the NAFTA GDP.177 The reason ROO have such a
negative effect is because they “dilute the expansionary effects of integration through their
distortionary effects on factor prices, sectoral production and trade flows.”178 Simply put, ROO divert
trade, but also have the effect of raising prices on consumers due to the added administrative costs
placed on exporters.
2nc solvency customs union
Solvency is empirical – the European model is transplantable
Barbee, 12 – Inveer Barbee graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, in
Burnaby BC, Canada, in 2008. Barbee completed her M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy at American University’s
School of International Service. (Inveer, “The Path to Customs Union: The European Experience and
North American Integration”, Faculty of the School of International Service” 6-14-12,
http://www.american.edu/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=3209906)//sawyer
Given the analysis of the EEC’s creation, formation and performance, the following observations are
noted as the key lessons from the European experience: • Economic integration is a very technical
process that often takes place at very high levels of government, but also involves various actors from the private
sector, such as industry, business, and civil society; • Integration is a dynamic and evolutionary process, and must
adapt as circumstances change; • Clear and achievable benchmarks must be set to motivate member states to meet their longterm goals; • Strong leadership and effective institutions to oversee the process are necessary to
overcome obstacles that arise; • The impact on national legislation must be considered early on; • Member countries
have to be willing to compromise and maintain a sense of common purpose that can foster the political
will necessary for such a project.4 By identifying the key themes and lessons that the Six learned on their
path to customs union, one can begin to understand the complexity of the process, while shedding
light on those mechanisms that lead to success. In fashioning a model that could apply to North
America, these items must be kept in mind and serve as guiding principles, and in some cases,
warnings, of what can be expected.
1nc drug war cp
CP: The United States Federal Government should remove the U.S. drug prohibition
and regulate use
Legalization and Regulation solves
Freedom 12 – Melissa Freeman graduated the University of California with a Bachelor’s degree, (“U.S.
Should Legalize Marijuana to Curtail Mexican Drug War and Curb Illegal Immigration”, 2012,
http://www.policymic.com/articles/3502/u-s-should-legalize-marijuana-to-curtail-mexican-drug-warand-curb-illegal-immigration)//sawyer
A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy last year, including former UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, recommended that governments consider new policies for legalizing and regulating drugs as a
way to deny profits to drug cartels. They urged the Obama administration to end “the criminalization,
marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but do no harm to others.” But the U.S. and
Mexico refused to consider the recommendation. The U.S. government unwillingness to even look into a
change in its policies is a mistake. The expansion of Mexican drug cartels in the U.S. is clear evidence
that the tactics we have been using in recent years aren’t working. While the U.S. has opened new law
enforcement and intelligence outposts across Mexico over the last several years, they have made little
more than a dent in dismantling the cartels –– killing or capturing only about two dozen high-ranking
and midlevel drug traffickers. As Daniel Robelo, a research associate for the Drug Policy Alliance argues
in the Los Angeles Times, the root cause that needs to be addressed by the U.S. is drug prohibition. He
writes, “These murders are not drug-related, they are prohibition-related –– committed by cartels that
were spawned by drug prohibition, that derive their power from the inflated profits of prohibited but
highly demanded commodities, and that operate in an underground economy in which violence is
routinely employed to resolve disputes or remove business opponents.” Legalizing marijuana, which
50% of Americans already support according to a Gallup poll, would sharply cut into cartels’ profits and
the amount the U.S. spends in tracking down, prosecuting, and jailing dealers who handle the drug.
Regulation would be easier to manage and revenue could be used in education campaigns to prevent
hard drug use and in the rehabilitation of addicts. Instead, current U.S. policies towards drug use
encourage the perpetuation of underground drug cartels and indirectly contribute to the unacceptable
numbers of people dying just across the border. Ignoring a possible solution to drug wars in favor of
ineffective policies that support the status quo should not be an option. Mexican drug wars are, at least
in part, our problem, and we will need to make changes if we are going to solve them.
1nc Immigration cp
Text: The United States Federal Government should adopt the five point plan outlined
in the Gibson evidence below
5 point plan solves
Gibson 9 - Dave Gibson has worked in the security industry for many years and brings a law-and-order
perspective to current events. His work has appeared in many publications including The Washington
Times, and he is a frequent contributor on the Talk Back with Chuck Wilder Show heard on CRN Digital
talk radio, (“Solutions to the Illegal Immigration Crisis”, July 2, 2009, The Examiner,
http://www.examiner.com/article/solutions-to-the-illegal-immigration-crisis)//sawyer
There are a few, painfully simple measures we could take to stop the current invasion and expel those
who have no respect for our borders, nor for our citizens. Truthfully, if any combination or even one of
the following actions were taken by our federal government, most illegal aliens in this country would
leave, effectively deporting themselves. 1) Place the military on the border. Rather than sending a few
hundred National Guardsmen to the 2,000 mile-long border under orders to never stop anyone entering
this country illegally, the way President George Bush did, if say 20,000 troops along with their tanks,
helicopters, and U.S. Air Force over flights were utilized along the border (the same way we do for other
countries), illegal entries would come to a screeching halt. We could simply take the troops from
Germany, where 30,000 U.S. troops are stationed or any number of other locations around the world
and use our military to protect our border! The Mexican border could and should be made a permanent
duty station. This would allow the Border Patrol to full staff the official entry checkpoints which would
greatly reduce the amount of drugs and criminals coming into this country. 2) Prison sentences for
CEO’s who hire illegal aliens. Whether it is a landscaping company run-out of someone’s den in Cicero,
IL; a 30-unit independent hotel in Virginia Beach, VA; or a corporate giant such as Tyson Foods Inc., once
caught with illegal aliens in their employ, the head of that company should spend the next ten years of
their life in prison. Additionally, a percentage of that company’s profits commensurate to the
percentage of their employees who are illegal aliens should be seized. 3) Cut off all federal funds to
cities which continue or adopt ‘sanctuary policies’ for illegal aliens. If a city such as Chicago, IL which
has such a policy in place, refuses to cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement by not
allowing police officers to inquire into, nor report the immigration status of arrestees, shielding criminal
aliens from notification and eventual deportation, their funds will be immediately suspended. No more
federal money for roads, schools, no special grants, no construction projects funded with federal
money…Nothing. Only once all municipal agencies in that city are found to be in compliance, will federal
funds be restored. 4) Require anyone registering a child in a public school to provide proof of U.S.
citizenship. Illegal aliens have been getting a free education for their children on the backs of American
taxpayers for far too long. The practice has led to overcrowded classrooms, and ‘English as a second
language’ courses in all of the border states. The amount of money spent per child in public school
annually varies from state to state, as well as district to district. However, it averages several thousands
of dollars per child. Why should American taxpayers be subsidizing the families of illegal aliens? If
parents were required to provide proof of citizenship to register the child, many illegal aliens would
simply leave the country. You take away the things that draw them here and most will deport
themselves. The state of California is now bankrupt largely due to years of allowing Mexicans to illegally
move their families to the state. Overwhelmed with Spanish-only speaking children, they can no longer
provide a decent education for American children. 5) Begin mass deportations. Again, if you take away
the goodies (jobs, free education, in-state college tuition, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.), most will return
to Mexico on their own. However, there will remain a number of Mexican nationals who will refuse to
leave, a great many of them will be hardcore criminals (gang bangers, drug dealers, etc.). These human
predators will only return home, if forcibly removed. We have heard so many times that it is “impossible
to deport 12 million people.” First, the number of illegal aliens in this country is closer to 40 million,
second, nothing is impossible. As I said, most will leave after they are denied the services which they
now steal with ease. The rest would be deported upon arrest for other crimes. This is the same nation
which defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This is the same nation which invented the
airplane and the telephone. And, this is the same nation that can do anything which we choose to do.
We have the infrastructure, resources, and the right to deport as many illegal aliens from this nation as
we want. The only thing we are lacking is a federal government with the courage to do it. We must
change that and take back this great country. If we do not, future generations of Americans will reside in
a Third World nation, and it will be a mirror image of Mexico.
1nc mexico relations
Text: The United States Federal Government should develop border ports of entry and
employ risk-management techniques and latest technology
Border Ports of entry solves relations
Castro et al. 12 - (Rafael Fernández de is the Chair, Department of International Studies, Instituto
Tecnológico Autónomo de México, former Foreign Policy Advisor to President Calderón, “A Stronger
Future Policy Recommendations for U.S.-Mexico Relations”, Wilson Center, July 11, 12,
http://sunnylands.org/files/posts/159/stronger_f.pdf)//sawyer
Develop border ports of entry that ensure safety and strengthen trade by employing riskmanagement techniques and the latest technology. Indeed, one of the greatest opportunities for
binational cooperation on security, which would help address both Mexican concerns about
transnational organized crime and U.S. concerns about terrorism, would be to develop more
sophisticated approaches to managing ports of entry at the border. By using risk management
techniques and the latest technology, the two countries could develop more effective ways of
detecting potential threats, ranging from drugs to firearms to bombs, and simultaneously facilitate
commerce and the exchange of people across the border. While much attention has been focused on
beefing up security between ports of entry, the reality is that most of the real threats to the two
countries are at the ports of entry rather than between them. A new focus on these could be a winwin for both countries and for both security and trade.
1nc mexican economy
Text: The United States Federal Government should pursue a customs unions with
North America
The counterplan bolsters Mexico’s economy
Barbee, 12 – Inveer Barbee graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, in
Burnaby BC, Canada, in 2008. Barbee completed her M.A. in U.S. Foreign Policy at American University’s
School of International Service. (Inveer, “The Path to Customs Union: The European Experience and
North American Integration”, Faculty of the School of International Service” 6-14-12,
http://www.american.edu/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=3209906)//sawyer
Mexico has the potential to reap great benefits from a customs union because its MFN tariffs are
quite high. If done right, it could experience the tremendous increase in trade felt by Italy and France as barriers to trade were reduced.
However, the important element that cannot be ignored is the development gap between Mexico and
its two neighbors. Increased trade for Mexico will not be enough, and it will need to continue to
modernize and expand its economy. If Mexico is to be an equal partner in this customs union, Canada
and the U.S. must be committed to closing the income inequality gap. This requires a commitment to
ideas like the North American Investment Fund, and trilateral solutions for Mexico’s key challenges. Given the
complexity of the integration process, and the less than impressive performance of the NAFTA
committee structure, it is difficult to imagine how this process can be completed without creating
new institutions or by improving the old ones. To foster continuity in the policy process and to ensure that issues brought to
attention are not forgotten, the three countries would be better served by a revamped Free Trade Commission that includes deputy cabinetlevel officials as well as expert bureaucrats from the trade and commerce departments of each country to assist in monitoring progress and
setting the agenda for future FTC meetings, which need to occur on a far more regular basis. Furthermore, it is imperative that in any
integration scheme all sectors of civil society are included in the process. The European trade unions secured the European Economic and
Social Committee (EESC) in their lobbying efforts, which allow civil society actors to have permanent representation and access to the
Community structure. North America would benefit from a similar structure that offered various groups of society the opportunity to put
forth ideas, comment on legislation, and provide real insights on what is actually happening on the ground, without getting lost in
disconnected political debates. Such a forum could also provide guidance as to where to begin the integration process, and where to be more
careful in the application of new projects.
Kritik
Neolib
Link
The aff’s development assistance to Mexico propagates the neoliberal regime
Walker et al., 7 – Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky (Margath, Susan M. Roberts,
John Paul Jones III, and Oliver Frohling, “Neoliberal development through technical assistance:
Constructing communities of entrepreneurial subjects in Oaxaca, Mexico,” 9/20/2007,
http://academia.edu/1769621/Neoliberal_development_through_technical_assistance_Constructing_c
ommunities_of_entrepreneurial_subjects_in_Oaxaca_Mexico) // MS
How neoliberalism and development work to condition lives and how daily practices constitute
neoliberalism and development are questions that preoccupy many scholars these days. Through this
investigation of one program operated by one NGO in rural southern Mexico, we have attempted to
show how technical assistance works to enact, albeit partially, a form of neoliberal development
(Bondi and Laurie, 2005; Power, 2005; Ferguson, 2006: p. viii). It is a major vehicle for cleansing ‘‘civil
society’’ of its oppositional political possibilities, rescripting it as the social realm in which
communities are improved through human capital acquisition. In other words, in this case, civil society
is fitted into a neoliberal mold through technical assistance.
The political economy of the TA program we studied is signaled by the fact that the TA experts, brought
in to conduct workshops in villages, functioned like consultants. From the monies managed by the FCO
for TA, they were paid travel and other expenses each time they came to a village in Oaxaca and ran a
workshop. The financial flows of the TA program thus hovered above the village level, tantalizingly out
of reach for the poor designated beneficiaries of TA, but sustaining a middle class, professionalized life
style on the part of most of the visiting experts (see also Lofredo, 2000 and Fig. 1, above). The funds
circulated only within the domain of donors, the community foundation including the field workers, and
contracted development experts. The rural poor received workshops and advice rather than any direct
transfer of money or some other form of capital. As we point out, this was a continual source of
frustration to those enrolled in the TA program, and one often expressed to the field workers who were
expected to act as brokers between the recipients of TA and the FCO but had very limited capacity to
change the way the program’s funds circulated (Field Notes, 2004; see also Mosse, 2005; Walker et al.,
2007).
Initiatives such as the demiregio’n program are instances of a neoliberal governmental regime that
also works by enacting a ‘‘program of conduct’’ (Foucault, 1991a: p. 75), the codes of which are taught
in the village taller. Such a program sits uneasily alongside the complexities of people’s lives in rural
Oaxaca. The language of transformation, of microregions filled with successful community businesses
populated and run by eager learners, intersects with ‘‘the complexity of particular social struggles’’
big and small, old and new, that condition people’s everyday lives (Cooper and Packard, 1997: p. 3).
Aff
The aff can be utilized as a vehicle of resistance to neoliberalism – perm do both
Walker et al., 1NC author, in 7 – Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky (Margath,
Susan M. Roberts, John Paul Jones III, and Oliver Frohling, “Neoliberal development through technical
assistance: Constructing communities of entrepreneurial subjects in Oaxaca, Mexico,” 9/20/2007,
http://academia.edu/1769621/Neoliberal_development_through_technical_assistance_Constructing_c
ommunities_of_entrepreneurial_subjects_in_Oaxaca_Mexico) // MS
And yet the nature of these intersections is multifarious, and no particular result can be guaranteed.
As Mosse (2005: p. 7) referencing Li (1999) notes, critiques of development programs risk missing ‘‘the
political contests, the feigned compliance, the compromises and contingencies involved’’. So, while
programs such as the one reported on here may be yet another chapter in the history of the ‘instrument
effects’ of development in its neoliberal guise, they are also potential scenes of much negotiation and
even of struggle. Indeed, as another part of our research in Oaxaca has shown, a group of Indigenous
Zoque men living in the Chimalapas forest parlayed the knowledge gained through their previous
experience with TA into one element of a highly effective campaign to maintain control of their lands
(see Walker et al., 2007). In that case, aspects of various technical assistance projects became one
vector of empowerment that, when combined with gender privilege, political power based in
indigeneity, and access to arms, enabled the Zoques to resist state and NGO efforts to implement an
unwanted forest management plan (see Walker et al., 2007). Of course, when they were first
implemented back in the 1990s, these TA programs might have been read by us as purely governmental
techniques aimed at creating neoliberal development subjects (in this case, ‘forest managers’). Thus we
are reminded that resistance to the codifications and prescriptions of neoliberal development can take
root and resurface in unanticipated ways, following complicated pathways toward reappropriation,
recombination, redeployment, or even subversion.
AFF Supplement
Immigration Increasing
Immigration reform and past policies increase illegal immigration
Winterbottom 6/28/13 – Professor of Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford (Tom, “Border
control leaves undocumented migrants displaced, says Stanford historian,” Stanford News, 6/28/13,
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/june/immigration-border-control-062813.html)//AC
The pending 2013 immigration reform bill aims to establish a pathway to citizenship for more than 11
million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The bill also calls for the completion of
700 miles of border fencing between the United States and Mexico and doubles the number of Border
Patrol agents. Critics of the bill say that heightened border control measures, along with the bill's
proposal to reduce the number of available work visas for agriculture, will only lead to an increase in
undocumented migration to the United States from Mexico. Through an exhaustive study of a time
when the border was more porous, Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian illustrates how "unilateral
policies that have attempted to limit population flows across the U.S.-Mexico border through
militarization have failed in the past" and are "bound to fail in the future."Minian's research is the first
in-depth history of transnational Mexican migration from 1965 to 1986, an era of transition that saw
booming circular migration between the United States and Mexico as well as expanding bi-national
efforts to regulate the border.
Immigration is increasing – they’ve just been going through a different route
FNL 6/10/13 – Fox News Latino (“Number of Central Americans crossing Arizona border rises, 6/10/13,
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/06/10/number-central-americans-crossing-arizonaborder-rises/#ixzz2W5INYhxc)//AC
Undocumented Central American immigrants, especially Guatemalans, crossing the Arizona border
during fiscal year 2013 increased considerably, according to Border Patrol records. From Oct. 1 to May
1, the arrests of 14,198 undocumented Central American immigrants were reported, 2,873 more than
during the same period of fiscal year 2012, data of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector show."We're
seeing more and more immigration traffic," Maria Jimena Diaz Gonzalez, consul general for Guatemala
in Arizona, told Efe, adding that these migrants increasingly use routes in the most remote, inhospitable
areas of the desert."I think we have to wait a little longer to see if this is a trend or just a momentary
phenomenon," Diaz said.Undocumented Central American immigrants have traditionally tried to cross
into Texas rather than Arizona.Diaz Gonzalez attributes the route change to the massacres of migrants in
the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, bordering Texas.After the discovery two years ago in San Fernando,
Tamaulipas, of secret graves holding at least 193 people, mostly Central Americans, migrants began
looking for other paths."The strengthening of border security is another factor that makes migrants look
for more hidden places to cross," the consul general said.The diplomat said the consulate offers various
aid programs for its compatriots, including the search for migrants who go missing."Some have even
called us on their own cell phones, telling us they have been left stranded in the desert by people
traffickers, so with that information we can help rescue groups go find them," she said. EFE
2ac conditioning good
FDI QPQ
Blonigen and Feenstra 97 –Bruce Blonigen is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Science in the
Department of Economics at the University of Oregon, Robert Feenstra is a Professor at the Department
of Economics, University of California, Davis, and holder of the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in
International Economics, (“Protectionist Threats and
Foreign Direct Investment “, January 1997, http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0309.pdf)//sawyer
Finally, we address whether induced FDI is due to anticipatory tariff jumping or quid pro quo
considerations. Whereas Azrak and Wynne model FDI as a function of the threat of protection, quid pro quo
theory maintains that the threat of protection is a function of lagged FDI as well. Thus, we model and test this
second connection between FDI and the threat of protection. To further identify when quid pro quo FDI occurs, we note
that political motivations be- hind FDI behavior can be gleaned by the type of FDI a foreign firm engages
in and the type of protection foreign firms may be able to defuse with FDI. The type of FDI matters
because acquisition FDI may be more likely to create ill will than to defuse protectionist pressure in the
host country industry. The type of protection matters because political factors have been shown to influence EC investigations more
than AD investigations. Thus, quid pro quo influences should be especially strong in nonacquisition FDI flows
with respect to EC investigations. Our empirical analysis confirms at the four-digit SIC level that the threat of protection strongly
influences Japanese FDI into the United States. In fact, our estimates find that the threat of protection effect on
Japanese FDI flows rivals the effect of actual protection on these flows. In addition, our results suggest that quid
pro quo intentions play a major role in this response of FDI to the threat of protection. . Again, this suggests
that threat-responding FDI is po- litically motivated since EC investigations are more likely to be responsive to political appeasement. Finally,
our estimates are able to determine when FDI is successful in defusing the threat of protection in future periods. Not surpris- ingly, the
strongest evidence for successful quid pro quo FDI is when firms use nonacquisition FDI to defuse the
threat of EC protection The quid pro quo FDI hypothesis rests on the assumption that foreign firms
and/or governments believe that they can use FDI to defuse the threat of protec- tion in future periods
by appeasing special interest groups in the potentially protectionist country. Bhagwati, Dinopoulos, and Wong
(1992) indicate a num- ber of different ways in which FDI may reduce the probability of protection. On the one hand, it may be directed at
gaining the goodwill of the host coun- try’s government, which represents the “supply of protection.” Presumably, the products
manufactured by foreign firms will be more palatable to the host government if they are produced using
host country labor. On the other hand, quid pro quo FDI may be intended to placate the groups who
are potential “demanders” of protection. These potential demanders include firms, labor unions, and
townskommunities in the host country that may be affected by increased import penetration and
organized enough to lobby the government for protection. In this respect, Wong (1989) presents a model that specifically
models labor union behavior and its lobbying efforts for protection, where em- ployment levels of its members are endogenously determined
by import pro- tection and FDI
Conditioning the aff are key
Weintraub 4 - Sidney Weintraub is the emeritus William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at CSIS, (“A
Mexico Initiative for the Renewed Bush Administration”, November 2004,
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/issues200411.pdf)//sawyer
Other quid pro quo measures could tackle some of the structural changes most Mexican economists are
convinced are necessary for Mexico to prosper in the years ahead. My own priorities would deal with
education and the rule of law, but the other areas noted above would also be helpful. Assistance conditioned
in this manner is not novel. It is the basis for the Millennium Challenge Account set up under President Bush
for choosing which poor nations will receive U.S. aid. Financial aid to poorer regions was part of the original structure of
the European Union in recognition of the benefits to all countries of the Union in minimizing regional and country differences.