ustxtxb_obs_1990_09_16_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

ALAN POGUE could affect employment, income, and creation of infrastructure in other parts of the country. A constant theme of yours, throughout your campaign and even going back to back to the Democratic Current days, was the 60percent decrease in real earning power of the Mexican worker [since 1982] . That’s an official figure, by the way. To increase investment and benefits, does that represent a threat to foreign investment? It could represent a certain threat, or at least a factor that would stop some investment and loans to Mexico. But we cannot accept continued decreases, not only in wages but in living standards in a more general way and I think, the highest unemployment rate in Mexico in recent history, and maybe one of the highest rates of unemployment among many other countries. I have no figures on that but I think we have one of the highest rates of unemployment almost a third of the labor force is unemployed at the present. Obviously someone has won in Mexico, in terms of the private sector acquisition of state industries. Should these people who have benefited be taxed to provide spending for social needs? I mean, who should pay? One effect of these policies and the austerity is that much more wealth has been concentrated in very few people. Around 1980 the division of the gross product of the country, according to our statistics, was these are not exact figures but they are correct more or less was maybe 60 percent for what is labeled as enterprise and 40 percent for labor. Now labor receives around 26 percent. So this is the difference in this eight or 10 years. Labor receives much less and enterprise receives the difference as an advantage. This is a result, in part, of political decisions and of the neo-liberal measures that have provided all of the advantages, not for productive investment but for investment in speculation. Through brokerage houses, which now function as a parallel banking system, investors, with the direct support of the government, have been involved in huge speculative ventures. I think that the resources to reactivate the economy, the resources to make true fiscal reform a success, must be provided by those who have benefited the most from speculation during these years. How much of that wealth has been lost to capital flight? I have a recent figure. In these last years about $20 billion left Mexico. But if yoU consider since maybe ’75 or ’76, about $100 billion has left Mexico. So half of the capital of Latin America that has been deposited outside Latin America is Mexican. What is the figure on the national debt today in Mexico? A few months ago it was $95 billion. How much of that is private and how much is public? I don’t have the figure but it is mostly government. And you feel that it represents a significant amount of the gross national product Because the private debt was negotiated, since 1982, with very strong intervention of the government … they assumed a large part of the private debt. But that represents a significant amount of the gross national product each _year. Enough to make a difference in the economy? Yes. I don’t remember at the moment. But I think it is around 15 percent [of the GNP]. A Mexico City bureau chieffor an international wire service frequently describes you as the man who won the election in 1988. And Continued on page 16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7