By Andrés Martinez
June 9, 2009
Your neighbor needs your help. Do you have it within you to lend a hand? Will you book yourself a week on the beach in Cabo or Puerto Vallarta, or explore Mexico City or one of the colonial cities in the heart of Mexico? You know, for the common good.
This has been a banner decade for empathy tourism -- many Americans flocking to New York after 9/11 and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did so with a sense of public service. Mexico now needs a similar surge.
Our neighbor to the south is having an annus horribilis, as a British monarch might say. These were never going to be good times down there, with Mexico's economy so intertwined with ours, but growing concern about war-on-drugs violence, the decline in oil prices and the advent of swine flu has further dented "brand Mexico." Adding insult to injury, Washington earlier barred Mexican trucks from coming into the United States, a flagrant violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and, as of last week, Americans crossing over to Mexico were required to have a passport to reenter the country, a change expected to deepen the slump in border towns frequented by Americans.
The tourism sector is the largest employer in Mexico and the third-largest source of foreign currency for the trillion-dollar economy, after oil exports and remittances sent home by Mexicans working in the U.S. It is estimated that the swine flu alone will cost the country about $5 billion in tourist revenue (and bear in mind that travel to Mexico was already down significantly as a result of the U.S. recession). Hotel occupancy rates in Cancun in May didn't even reach the 30% mark. The all-clear has been sounded on the virus, but no one knows for sure how long-lasting the impact on tourism will be. Mexico's gross domestic product, meanwhile, is expected to contract about 12% in the second quarter of this year.
Why should Americans care? Well, for starters, there is the national security imperative. Say what you will about Mexico, and there is plenty negative to be said, our southern neighbor has been a fairly reliable, stable and friendly partner for more than half a century, and it is in our interest to keep it that way. Our nation's political discourse may not always reflect our good geographic fortune, which we take for granted, but the United States is blessed to have Canada and Mexico as neighbors. Is there another developing nation of more than 100 million people we'd rather have on our southern flank? Put differently, how many other global powers in history have had the luxury of a long land border that doesn't need to be protected by a large standing army?
Suddenly this year, the Pentagon and many pundits on the right have been raising the specter of a potential "failed state" on our border, the result of the lawlessness bred by powerful drug cartels. The rhetoric is a bit overheated, the comparisons to Pakistan misplaced, but the concern about what is happening in Mexico, our third-largest trading partner, is laudable. We have a strong national interest in seeing Mexico remain a peaceful, ever-prospering democracy.
The importance of Mexico to the United States is a truth not often voiced, but occasionally acknowledged by deed. Mexico traditionally ranks somewhere between Jordan and Argentina on the foreign policy establishment's list of priorities. The amount of resources devoted to cross-border development or mutual security is pitiful (even in the aftermath of the anti-drug initiative known as the Merida plan), compared with development or military aid distributed elsewhere, not to mention compared with regional development transfers within the European single market.
But a far more robust commitment to Mexico does assert itself when required, as we saw during the 1990s, when the Clinton White House, bypassing Congress, made about $20 billion in Treasury reserve funds available to Mexico during that country's last financial crisis. And this year too, Mexico is proving itself to be, not unlike AIG or Citigroup, too large to fail from Washington's perspective, as the Federal Reserve has made available to Mexico a $30-billion currency swap facility, which gives that nation's central bank privileged access to credit from the Fed in order to stabilize the value of the peso.
It would improve the overall health of the relationship, and our ability to think strategically about Mexico's (and hence regional) development if presidents were more transparent about the country's true stake in Mexico (sorry, Jordan), rather than make such commitments on the sly.
The fact that the United States bears some responsibility for Mexico's current woes is another reason to invest in our neighbor's stability and prosperity.
Unlike previous financial crises that have roiled Mexico, this one can't be pinned on its macroeconomic sins. If in the mid-1990s it was fashionable to talk about the "tequila effect" to describe the global financial contagion spreading from emerging markets, this crisis is more like a "Budweiser effect," in that it was Uncle Sam's reckless insistence on living beyond his means that caused the mess. Washington, irresponsibly over-leveraged to support an unsustainable standard of living, failed to practice what it preached over the last decade, to abide by the so-called, um, Washington consensus on economic policy.
Mexico, for its part, has enacted prudent fiscal policies, shored up its foreign reserves and remained a faithful adherent to the free-trade gospel, continuing to open its economy to foreign goods and investment. The nation has also become a great deal more democratic in the last decade. Still, despite doing all the "right" things according to the Washington consensus, Mexico's economy (and currency) has been harder hit by the Wall Street-triggered crisis than the United States'. No one said life was fair.
Americans also share some of the responsibility for the mayhem unleashed by the showdown between the Mexican state and its rapacious drug cartels, as both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama were right to point out in recent months. Drug users in this country are underwriting the war in Mexico -- and that war is being waged largely with guns brought in from this country.
The United States is not about to criminalize guns and legalize drugs to help out Mexico. But you can do your part to help out a good neighbor -- book a trip south. Pronto.
Andrés Martinez is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
www.bajainvestment.com
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Baja Is Safe For Visitors, Says Ranking U.S. Diplomat
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---Baja is safe for visitors and he hopes its vital tourism sector quickly rebounds, a leading U.S. diplomat told El Mexicano newspaper in a front-page story published Monday.
Ronald Kramer, head of the U.S Consulate in Tijuana, said that some coverage of Mexico’s war against drug cartels had falsely created the impression in the U.S. that the area is unsafe for visitors.
While the bi-national effort against drug cartels is a serious one, visitors are not targeted, Kramer said. He also praised the Mexican army and authorities for their successes in the effort.
Kramer expects efforts by Mexican leaders, including Rosarito Beach Hugo Torres, to be successful in rebuilding Mexico’s image, but said the country’s economy and many of its people currently are suffering because of the significant loss of tourism dollars.
Kramer also said concerns in past weeks about the H1N1 virus (also known as the swine flu) had hurt the area’s economy.
He cited as an example some cruise lines canceling voyages to Ensenada and diverting them to San Diego, which actually had more confirmed cases of the flu.
MEDIA CONTACT:Ron Raposa
www.bajainvestment.com
Ronald Kramer, head of the U.S Consulate in Tijuana, said that some coverage of Mexico’s war against drug cartels had falsely created the impression in the U.S. that the area is unsafe for visitors.
While the bi-national effort against drug cartels is a serious one, visitors are not targeted, Kramer said. He also praised the Mexican army and authorities for their successes in the effort.
Kramer expects efforts by Mexican leaders, including Rosarito Beach Hugo Torres, to be successful in rebuilding Mexico’s image, but said the country’s economy and many of its people currently are suffering because of the significant loss of tourism dollars.
Kramer also said concerns in past weeks about the H1N1 virus (also known as the swine flu) had hurt the area’s economy.
He cited as an example some cruise lines canceling voyages to Ensenada and diverting them to San Diego, which actually had more confirmed cases of the flu.
MEDIA CONTACT:Ron Raposa
www.bajainvestment.com
Monday, June 8, 2009
Imagineering a solution for the Middle East
David Lansing
davidlansing.com
Friday, June 5, 2009
You know how it is when you’ve got a couple of hours to kill at the airport. You read Vanity Fair, get your shoes shined, wander around the Duty Free shop pricing the Kahlua. And if you still have time on your hands, like I do, you use the back of your receipt from California Pizza Kitchen to noodle out thoughts on how to solve the problems in the Middle East.
So here’s what I’ve come up with: First, Emanuel Rahm quietly goes out and hires Disney’s Imagineers, the folks that brought us a faux-Matterhorn and “It’s a Small World,” to build clever recreations of sections of Jerusalem, including the Wailing Wall and the Damascus Gate, which are then buried under a sandy stretch of desert in northern Baja. Shortly thereafter Hillary announces the construction of a new FasTrak toll road between San Diego and San Felipe, sans border checkpoint, at a joint press conference with Mexican president Felipe Calderon who then proclaims that the Sea of Cortez, named after the despised Spanish conqueror, will henceforth be referred to by its original pre-conquest name, Mar Muerto. The new toll road will be called Carretera de la Muerte (also known as the Sea-to-Sea Highway in the States).
Now, while the toll road is being built, anthropologists are brought in to insure that no important archaeological sites are destroyed during construction and lo and behold, in several sea lion caves along the coast, they not only come across a number of used rubbers and old Corona bottles but some ancient scrolls written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Spanglish on the sort of wax paper used to wrap fish tacos back in the day.
While the Mar Muerto Scrolls (as Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush soon dubs them) are being deciphered, an earth mover pushing over cardon cacti uncovers what appears to be the ruins of a buried city near the town of Rosarito Beach that includes a long stone wall made of concrete and plaster of Paris that, in sections, appears to be at least 60 feet high and, oddly enough, has chinks in it where little pieces of paper have been inserted. The notes say things like “Pray for a shot of storm surf” and “Doc Ball owns the green room!”
The timing of the discovery is fortuitous as the archaeologists, as well as the judges from American Idol, who happen to be vacationing at the nearby Festival Plaza Hotel (except Paula Abdul, who wasn’t invited), pronounce that these are ancient text, some at least 30 years old (or longer than anyone can remember), and they clearly indicate that Baja is the Promised Land. As for those other scrolls found in and around Qumran 60 years ago? Scholars had been reading them upside down. Bummer.
Barack Obama quickly convenes a summit meeting at Camp David with President Calderon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after which it is announced that the United States and Israel have jointly agreed to purchase the entire 1,100-mile-long Baja peninsula for an undisclosed amount of cash plus a fleet of new (but unsold) ‘08 Hummers stuffed with credit default swaps bundled by Lehman Brothers and a 50 percent stake in the recently restructured GM. “In addition,” says an obviously pleased Obama, “we are throwing in the state of Texas as a measure of goodwill.”
The entire population of Israel will be relocated to Baja just as soon as Pequeña Jerusalén (as Rosarito Beach is quickly renamed) is unearthed, announces Netanyahu during a joint press conference in which all three leaders wear identical white guyabara wedding shirts and black skull caps. No current Mexican residents in Baja will be forced to move. In fact, says the Prime Minister, “Since Baja is three times the size of Israel but has only a third of the population, we hope our Mexican amigos stay. Afterall, we have lots of hotels and golf courses to build. And, personally, I love nachos.”
Israel will be given to the Palestinians. Nuevo Israel (formerly Baja) announces it will pay for its portion of the transaction (the cash) by eliminating its military which is now unnecessary as Netanyahu, or El Jefe as he asks to be called, points out since the country will be surrounded on three sides by water and share a common border with its BFF, the United States. Plans are also announced to expand the border-free toll road from Los Angeles to Jaifa (formerly Cabo).
Treaties are signed, photos taken, twitters sent.
www.bajainvestment.com
davidlansing.com
Friday, June 5, 2009
You know how it is when you’ve got a couple of hours to kill at the airport. You read Vanity Fair, get your shoes shined, wander around the Duty Free shop pricing the Kahlua. And if you still have time on your hands, like I do, you use the back of your receipt from California Pizza Kitchen to noodle out thoughts on how to solve the problems in the Middle East.
So here’s what I’ve come up with: First, Emanuel Rahm quietly goes out and hires Disney’s Imagineers, the folks that brought us a faux-Matterhorn and “It’s a Small World,” to build clever recreations of sections of Jerusalem, including the Wailing Wall and the Damascus Gate, which are then buried under a sandy stretch of desert in northern Baja. Shortly thereafter Hillary announces the construction of a new FasTrak toll road between San Diego and San Felipe, sans border checkpoint, at a joint press conference with Mexican president Felipe Calderon who then proclaims that the Sea of Cortez, named after the despised Spanish conqueror, will henceforth be referred to by its original pre-conquest name, Mar Muerto. The new toll road will be called Carretera de la Muerte (also known as the Sea-to-Sea Highway in the States).
Now, while the toll road is being built, anthropologists are brought in to insure that no important archaeological sites are destroyed during construction and lo and behold, in several sea lion caves along the coast, they not only come across a number of used rubbers and old Corona bottles but some ancient scrolls written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Spanglish on the sort of wax paper used to wrap fish tacos back in the day.
While the Mar Muerto Scrolls (as Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush soon dubs them) are being deciphered, an earth mover pushing over cardon cacti uncovers what appears to be the ruins of a buried city near the town of Rosarito Beach that includes a long stone wall made of concrete and plaster of Paris that, in sections, appears to be at least 60 feet high and, oddly enough, has chinks in it where little pieces of paper have been inserted. The notes say things like “Pray for a shot of storm surf” and “Doc Ball owns the green room!”
The timing of the discovery is fortuitous as the archaeologists, as well as the judges from American Idol, who happen to be vacationing at the nearby Festival Plaza Hotel (except Paula Abdul, who wasn’t invited), pronounce that these are ancient text, some at least 30 years old (or longer than anyone can remember), and they clearly indicate that Baja is the Promised Land. As for those other scrolls found in and around Qumran 60 years ago? Scholars had been reading them upside down. Bummer.
Barack Obama quickly convenes a summit meeting at Camp David with President Calderon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after which it is announced that the United States and Israel have jointly agreed to purchase the entire 1,100-mile-long Baja peninsula for an undisclosed amount of cash plus a fleet of new (but unsold) ‘08 Hummers stuffed with credit default swaps bundled by Lehman Brothers and a 50 percent stake in the recently restructured GM. “In addition,” says an obviously pleased Obama, “we are throwing in the state of Texas as a measure of goodwill.”
The entire population of Israel will be relocated to Baja just as soon as Pequeña Jerusalén (as Rosarito Beach is quickly renamed) is unearthed, announces Netanyahu during a joint press conference in which all three leaders wear identical white guyabara wedding shirts and black skull caps. No current Mexican residents in Baja will be forced to move. In fact, says the Prime Minister, “Since Baja is three times the size of Israel but has only a third of the population, we hope our Mexican amigos stay. Afterall, we have lots of hotels and golf courses to build. And, personally, I love nachos.”
Israel will be given to the Palestinians. Nuevo Israel (formerly Baja) announces it will pay for its portion of the transaction (the cash) by eliminating its military which is now unnecessary as Netanyahu, or El Jefe as he asks to be called, points out since the country will be surrounded on three sides by water and share a common border with its BFF, the United States. Plans are also announced to expand the border-free toll road from Los Angeles to Jaifa (formerly Cabo).
Treaties are signed, photos taken, twitters sent.
www.bajainvestment.com
No place like Baja for Boulevard's Roeseler
By Bill Center, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. June 4, 2009
Larry Roeseler has raced in Baja California for 37 years.
He holds the record for overall wins in both the Baja 1000 and Baja 500. He has triumphed on two wheels as well as four.
Few racers know the Baja better than the 52-year-old Roeseler.
And he can't think of off-road racing without Baja California.
“It would be a sad day if there were no Baja 500 or Baja 1000,” Roeseler said this week while preparing for Saturday's 41st running of the SCORE Tecate 500.
“There is no experience quite like Baja races. It can been 110 degrees in the desert and five hours later you're racing in a fog bank along the Pacific Ocean. You've got pine forests and rocks, ruts and silt.
“There are great races and courses in Nevada, but nothing throws as much at you as Baja California.”
Roeseler will be looking for his 25th overall win in the Baja 500/1000 tandem Saturday while teaming with Roger Norman in a TrophyTruck. Truck owner Norman, who is the stepson of Unlimited Hydroplane legend Bill Muncey, and Roeseler won the overall four-wheel title in the Baja 1000 last November.
Nineteen of Roeseler's overall wins came on motorcycles with five coming in buggies and TrophyTrucks.
“Naturally, I have a love for the place,” Roeseler said of Baja California. “I have always enjoyed going to Baja California. I don't feel threatened at all coming down here.
“Yes, there are places you don't want to go. But there are places you don't want to go wherever you are. There are a lot of good people in Mexico. I think that fact gets lost in a lot of the news we've seen recently.”
Roeseler, who lives in Boulevard and runs Norman's race shop in El Cajon, acknowledged that Baja California has undergone considerable change since he first raced there in 1972 on a Harley Davidson motorcycle powered by a two-stroke Italian engine.
“It is still changing,” he said. “When I started racing, Baja California was wide open. You could go for almost a hundred miles and not see a soul. There are now many more people along our course.
“But there is still a lot of nowhere out there. And it's always a good time, whether it be the racing or the pre-running before the race.”
Like Malcolm Vinje once said of racing in Baja California: “Don't let the race get in the way of pre-running.”
The Norman-Roeseler team is off to a slow start this season, but Roeseler believes the Baja 500 will bring “redemption.”
“I think we're getting back to where we were before the Baja 1000,” said Roeseler, who also holds the record with 16 class wins in the Baja 500.
The Baja 500 will start and finish in Ensenada with the 432.51-mile loop course nearly duplicating last year's track.
“We might be following the same path, but it's never the same terrain conditions from one day to the next, much less one year to the next,” said Roeseler.
SCORE officials are expecting more than 275 starters in the four-wheel, motorcycle and ATV divisions. The first motorcycles start at 6 a.m. with the fastest four-wheel vehicles starting two hours later.
www.bajainvestment.com
2:00 a.m. June 4, 2009
Larry Roeseler has raced in Baja California for 37 years.
He holds the record for overall wins in both the Baja 1000 and Baja 500. He has triumphed on two wheels as well as four.
Few racers know the Baja better than the 52-year-old Roeseler.
And he can't think of off-road racing without Baja California.
“It would be a sad day if there were no Baja 500 or Baja 1000,” Roeseler said this week while preparing for Saturday's 41st running of the SCORE Tecate 500.
“There is no experience quite like Baja races. It can been 110 degrees in the desert and five hours later you're racing in a fog bank along the Pacific Ocean. You've got pine forests and rocks, ruts and silt.
“There are great races and courses in Nevada, but nothing throws as much at you as Baja California.”
Roeseler will be looking for his 25th overall win in the Baja 500/1000 tandem Saturday while teaming with Roger Norman in a TrophyTruck. Truck owner Norman, who is the stepson of Unlimited Hydroplane legend Bill Muncey, and Roeseler won the overall four-wheel title in the Baja 1000 last November.
Nineteen of Roeseler's overall wins came on motorcycles with five coming in buggies and TrophyTrucks.
“Naturally, I have a love for the place,” Roeseler said of Baja California. “I have always enjoyed going to Baja California. I don't feel threatened at all coming down here.
“Yes, there are places you don't want to go. But there are places you don't want to go wherever you are. There are a lot of good people in Mexico. I think that fact gets lost in a lot of the news we've seen recently.”
Roeseler, who lives in Boulevard and runs Norman's race shop in El Cajon, acknowledged that Baja California has undergone considerable change since he first raced there in 1972 on a Harley Davidson motorcycle powered by a two-stroke Italian engine.
“It is still changing,” he said. “When I started racing, Baja California was wide open. You could go for almost a hundred miles and not see a soul. There are now many more people along our course.
“But there is still a lot of nowhere out there. And it's always a good time, whether it be the racing or the pre-running before the race.”
Like Malcolm Vinje once said of racing in Baja California: “Don't let the race get in the way of pre-running.”
The Norman-Roeseler team is off to a slow start this season, but Roeseler believes the Baja 500 will bring “redemption.”
“I think we're getting back to where we were before the Baja 1000,” said Roeseler, who also holds the record with 16 class wins in the Baja 500.
The Baja 500 will start and finish in Ensenada with the 432.51-mile loop course nearly duplicating last year's track.
“We might be following the same path, but it's never the same terrain conditions from one day to the next, much less one year to the next,” said Roeseler.
SCORE officials are expecting more than 275 starters in the four-wheel, motorcycle and ATV divisions. The first motorcycles start at 6 a.m. with the fastest four-wheel vehicles starting two hours later.
www.bajainvestment.com
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