Mexico is a mixed economy: its GDP ranks among the 20 largest countries in the world, some industrial branches have a global presence, and its workforce is internationally competitive; however, its performance in recent decades has been negligible to the point that, after the fall of 2020, it was one of the Latin American countries with the slowest economic recovery. What is the reality facing the Mexican economy?
México es una economía mixta: su PIB se ubica entre los 20 países más grandes del mundo, algunas ramas industriales tienen presencia global y su fuerza de trabajo es competitiva a nivel internacional; sin embargo, su desempeño en las últimas décadas ha sido ínfimo al grado de que, después de la caída de 2020, fue uno de los países latinoamericanos con la recuperación económica más lenta. ¿Cuál es la realidad que enfrenta la economía mexicana?
After being postponed for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Economic Forum in Davos finally took place. The central agenda of world leaders and business leaders revolved around four points, climate change, rising inflation, Russia's special military operation and how it aggravated the energy and food crisis.
Después de haberse postergado dos años por la pandemia de COVID-19, finalmente el Foro Económico Mundial que tiene lugar en Davos se celebró. La agenda central de líderes mundiales y empresarios giró en torno a cuatro puntos, cambio climático, la creciente inflación, la operación especial militar de Rusia y como ésta agravó la crisis energética y alimentaria.
La primera reunión del Foro Económico Mundial en más de dos años fue marcadamente diferente de las muchas conferencias previas de Davos a las que asistí desde 1995. No se trató simplemente de que la nieve brillante y los cielos despejados de enero fueran remplazados por pistas de esquí vacías y una llovizna de mayo lúgubre.
Fue, más bien, que un foro tradicionalmente comprometido con la defensa de la globalización estaba preocupado principalmente por los fracasos de la globalización: cadenas de suministro alteradas, inflación de los precios de los alimentos y de la energía y un régimen de propiedad intelectual (PI) que dejó a miles de millones de personas sin vacunas contra el covid-19 simplemente para que unas pocas compañías farmacéuticas pudieran ganar miles de millones de dólares en ganancias adicionales.
Economic sanctions deliver bigger global shocks than ever before and are easier to evade
Not since the 1930s has an economy the size of Russia’s been placed under such a wide array of commercial restrictions as those imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine. But in contrast to Italy and Japan in the 1930s, Russia today is a major exporter of oil, grain, and other key commodities, and the global economy is far more integrated. As a result, today’s sanctions have global economic effects far greater than anything seen before. Their magnitude should prompt reconsideration of sanctions as a powerful policy instrument with major global economic implications.
Sanctions are not the only source of turmoil in the global economy. Energy prices have been rising since last year as the economic recovery from the pandemic encountered overburdened supply chains. Global food prices rose 28 percent in 2020 and 23 percent in 2021, and they surged 17 percent this year between February and March alone. The war has also harmed Ukraine directly as fighting has closed the country’s Black Sea ports, blocking its exports of wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and other goods.
The importance of water care is a recurring theme and water saving campaigns tend to focus on people's everyday activities. However, industries account for approximately 92% of total consumption. More water goes into things than into human consumption. It shows the responsibility for water care rests mainly on the shoulders of the large corporations that run the industries mentioned above and others, not just on individuals' daily decisions. The offshoring of production means that these industries are engaged in plundering developing countries' water. The rich consume, and the poor go without clean water or any water at all.
La importancia del cuidado del agua es un tema recurrente y las campañas de ahorro suelen centrarse en las actividades cotidianas de las personas. Sin embargo, las industrias representan aproximadamente el 92% del consumo total del líquido vital. Se destina más agua a las cosas que al consumo humano. Esto demuestra que la responsabilidad del cuidado hídrico recae principalmente en los hombros de las grandes empresas que dirigen las industrias mencionadas y otras, y no sólo en las decisiones cotidianas de los individuos. La deslocalización de la producción hace que estas industrias se dediquen a expoliar el agua de los países en desarrollo. Los ricos consumen y los pobres se quedan sin agua limpia o sin agua.
President Biden has enlisted a dozen Asia-Pacific nations to join a new loosely defined economic bloc meant to counter China’s dominance and reassert American influence in the region five years after his predecessor withdrew the United States from a sweeping trade accord that it had negotiated itself.
The alliance will bring the United States together with such regional powerhouses as Japan, South Korea and India to establish new rules of commerce in the fastest-growing part of the world and offer an alternative to Beijing’s leadership. But wary of liberal opposition at home, Mr. Biden’s new partnership will avoid the market access provisions of traditional trade deals, raising questions about how meaningful it will be.
“We’re writing the new rules for the 21st-century economy,” Mr. Biden said on Monday in Tokyo during the launch for what he has termed the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. “We’re going to help all of our country’s economies grow faster and fairer.”
For decades, the mainstream of both the Democratic and Republican parties favored expanding trade between the U.S. and other countries. Greater globalization, these politicians promised, would increase economic growth — and with the bounty from that growth, the country could compensate any workers who suffered from increased trade. But it didn’t work out that way.
Instead, trade has contributed to the stagnation of living standards for millions of working-class Americans, by shrinking the number of good-paying, blue-collar jobs here. The incomes of workers without a bachelor’s degree have grown only slowly over the past few decades. Many measures of well-being — even life expectancy — have declined in recent years.
All along, many politicians and experts continued to insist that trade was expanding the economic pie. And they were often right. But struggling workers understandably viewed those claims as either false or irrelevant, and they refused to support further expansions of trade.
