Mexicans Contribution To Our Economy

[Texsox]

Growth slows in March -- However, Dallas Fed cites McAllen’s strong retail sector

May 05,2006

Kyle Arnold

Monitor Staff Writer

 

McAllen’s economy slowed slightly in March, but Federal Reserve economists and a local business official say the area economy is still strong and should continue to grow.

 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which released the figures recently, said the McAllen economy grew at an annual rate of 4.4 percent in March, meaning if that month’s growth was sustained during an entire year, the area economy would grow about 4.4 percent. But that’s down slightly from an annual 7 percent growth rate in February.

 

However, the Dallas Fed said the area economy was still the fastest-growing along the Texas border, thanks primarily to strong retail sales to Mexican shoppers, increased salaries and more jobs at maquiladoras in Reynosa.

 

With March’s figures, the McAllen area has now had economic growth for 41 consecutive months, dating back to November of 2002, and the unemployment rate has also been decreasing steadily since that time, when it was at 10.7 percent. It now registers at 7.1 percent, one-tenth of a percentage point lower than February.

 

March’s slower economic growth was just a “slight hiccup” for the area, said McAllen Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Steve Ahlenius.

 

“I don’t see anything on the horizon in the next 24 months that will slow things down,” Ahlenius said.

 

He said it’s a trend that’s been occurring during the last several years and has carried through the first quarter of 2006.

 

Overall, retail sales in March increased 5.5 percent from a year ago, mostly from Mexican shoppers, said economists at the Dallas Fed.

 

That’s been particularly evident to Cindy Disque, buyer and manager at Silvia’s women’s clothing store. She says the influx of shoppers from Mexico — as well as the new spring fashions — have helped sales at her store on North 10th Street explode this spring.

 

“I think we had a, like, a 20 percent sales increase (in April), which is huge,” she said. “Usually a 5 percent increase is pretty good. I guess people were in the mood.”

Disque, who said this spring has been especially good for business, also said she is aware that an increased number of customers from Mexico are boosting her sales.

 

“We’ve definitely had an increase in traffic from Mexico, which is nice,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of shoppers.”

 

Ahlenius said some of the increases can be attributed to McAllen’s growing reputation as a higher-end shopping destination. He said that in recent years, more national chains and local boutiques have developed, helping to draw in the large numbers of tourists and shoppers that drove March’s growth.

 

“We’re starting to see some of the higher-end things; a lot of health spas and other stores that I would call luxury-type items that people wouldn’t spend their money on in harder times.”

 

According to the Federal Reserve statistics, more money is also flowing into the pockets of Valley residents as employers increased their wages paid by about 2.5 percent during March, aiding the retail-sector growth.

 

Along with Rio Grande Valley wages, the maquiladora industry along the Mexico-Texas border is continuing to grow, gaining 3,000 new jobs in January.

 

Strong sales, salaries and the expanding maquiladora industry helped the Upper Valley outpace the state of Texas, which grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent, as well as the state’s largest economies in Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin and Dallas. Overall, the state added about 17,400 jobs during March.

[YASNY]

What's your point? No one has said Mexicans should not be here.

[samclemens]

is this another argument that implies that illegal immigration is ok?

[Balta1701]

is this another argument that implies that illegal immigration is ok?

Only if you consider the "They're hurting our economy" point to be a valid argument against illegal immigration.

[Texsox]

Wow, who mentioned illegals? :headshake always looking for an argument?

[mr_genius]

Only if you consider the "They're hurting our economy" point to be a valid argument against illegal immigration.

 

 

look into the financial standing of LA and how they're basically going bankrupt due to illegal immigrants health care and eduacation costs

 

last i heard they were threatening to sue the federal government for allowing the illegals to enter the country.

 

they cost more than they are putting in. there is a reason EVERY SINGLE first world country has immigration laws (yes, even the "perfect" liberal European countries). unregulated, mass immagration, is too much for our infrastructure to handle.

Edited May 8, 2006 by mr_genius

[Texsox]

look into the financial standing of LA and how they're basically going bankrupt due to illegal immigrants health care and eduacation costs

 

last i heard they were threatening to sue the federal government for allowing the illegals to enter the country.

 

they cost more than they are putting in.  there is a reason EVERY SINGLE first world country has immigration laws (yes, even the "perfect" liberal European countries). unregulated, mass immagration, is too much for our infrastructure to handle.

 

All we have to do is raise everyone's salary to $50,000 and no more problems with social costs.

[mr_genius]

All we have to do is raise everyone's salary to $50,000 and no more problems with social costs.

 

 

you know that should be in green

[Balta1701]

you know that should be in green

The top 10% of American wage earners currently earn 41% of all the wages paid out in this country. Rob the top 20% or so, to the point that we move income back to a gaussian distribution, and I bet you could pull it off.

 

[mr_genius]

The top 10% of American wage earners currently earn 41% of all the wages paid out in this country.  Rob the top 20% or so, to the point that we move income back to a gaussian distribution, and I bet you could pull it off.

 

 

 

sweet, lets set up a communists ecenomic system.. those always work.

 

i assume you will be the first to sacrifice 85% of your pay to the federal government in the name of progress.

 

also, i'm sure plenty of people will be willing to study engineering, medicine or anything else to recieve a minimum wage paycheck.

Edited May 9, 2006 by mr_genius

[Balta1701]

sweet, lets set up a communists ecenomic system.. those always work.

 

i assume you will be the first to sacrifice 85% of your pay to the federal government in the name of progress.

Actually, I'm well under the median income, so I would be on the other side.

[mr_genius]

Actually, I'm well under the median income, so I would be on the other side.

 

are you white and male? if so it's your own fault because you have been given every advantage ever (atleast thats what the rationale will be).

 

85% tax rate, deal with it.

[Balta1701]

are you white and male? if so it's your own fault because you have been given every advantage ever (atleast thats what the rationale will be).

 

85% tax rate, deal with it.

You do realize I wasn't being serious with that tax proposal correct? The math would work correctly, but yeah, it wouldn't be all that smart.

 

And yes, I'm a white male who makes under the median income. Why? I'm a grad student. I'm just trying to get y'all to give me $50k. Tricky, ain't I. And yes, this is a prime example of why Communism doesn't work in practice.

 

"Despite working long hours in grueling conditions, most slaves receive absolutely no college credit for their unpaid labor" - America the Book

[FlaSoxxJim]

are you white and male? if so it's your own fault because you have been given every advantage ever (atleast thats what the rationale will be).

 

85% tax rate, deal with it.

 

Balta is a slacker!!!

 

You have to understand, Balta, Mr. Genius comes from a world where grad students regularly earn a 6-figure stipend.

[Balta1701]

Balta is a slacker!!! 

 

You have to understand, Balta, Mr. Genius comes from a world where grad students regularly earn a 6-figure stipend. 

I'll put in an NSF proposal for a mission to this world tomorrow.

[mr_genius]

You do realize I wasn't being serious with that tax proposal correct? 

 

 

yes, i do.

 

oh, and you're still a white male oppressor (you should know this by now from your studies).

[mr_genius]

Balta is a slacker!!! 

 

You have to understand, Balta, Mr. Genius comes from a world where grad students regularly earn a 6-figure stipend. 

 

 

6 figure? that would be impossible to live on

 

7 figure, minimum.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

6 figure? that would be impossible to live on

 

7 figure, minimum.

 

 

Is that with or without the 2 decimal places reserved for cents?

 

[Balta1701]

Is that with or without the 2 decimal places reserved for cents?

 

Do people still use half-penny's?

[YASNY]

They also contribute in other ways.

 

In Our Backyard

If only McCain and Kennedy lived on ranches in southern Arizona.

 

By Leo W. Banks

 

I know how to kill the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and the illusions that inspire it. We need every citizen to spend a day at John and Pat King's Anvil Ranch in southern Arizona. The experience would create an overnight revolution in America's view of this domestic crisis.

 

 

The Kings live every day with barking dogs, vandalism, guns at their bedside, trash on their land, and most tragically, human remains. The bodies of seven illegals were found on the 50,000-acre Anvil last year.

 

“Can you imagine dying of heat prostration out there?” says Pat King, a 62-year-old former nurse. “It has got to be the most awful thing. I wish the two countries would get together and stop this. In this whole 50-mile area, there is no law. It's a frontier.”

 

I visited the Anvil a week ago Sunday. The night before, the Minutemen had wrapped up a month-long watch at the ranch, and the nationwide demonstrations to demand rights for illegal immigrants would begin the next morning.

 

I've visited many Arizona ranches, and it always surprises me how quickly I can travel from Tucson to a combat zone. It takes 50 minutes to reach Anvil's headquarters in heavily-crossed Altar Valley, located to the southwest of the city. Even with that proximity, most people in Tucson—to say nothing of Maine or Washington, D.C.—live in blissful ignorance of the worsening situation here.

 

When Pat discusses the problem with friends, they say, “Don't you think you're exaggerating?” No one would ask that if they saw the 40 bicycles stacked against one of the Anvil's out-buildings. They're the favored means of transportation for drug smugglers, who pack their cargo onto saddlebags and pedal across our border, then abandon the bikes.

 

As for vandalism, Pat describes what they experience today as “wanton,”—water troughs filled with garbage, pipes cut, valves hammered to pieces. She jokes that they're thinking of putting a tetherball by the troughs to occupy the illegals so they aren't so destructive.

 

“You have to understand, we're under siege here,” she says. “Every day my son and husband check water and fences and redo the damage they've done. Not to get on with our work, but to undo the damage. Every. Day.”

 

Micaela McGibbon, Pat's daughter, took me on a ranch tour, and in one mile we crossed 30 smuggling trails. In a wash, we inspected sophisticated brush huts in which illegals rest during trips north.

 

But this nightmare comes right to the Kings' doorstep. Imagine living under permanent stakeout. The Kings do. They removed mesquite trees from around their house because illegals would hide underneath them and wait for the house to empty.

 

For nine years, the family has been unable to leave home unless someone stays to guard against burglars. They celebrate Christmas in shifts. On Christmas Eve, Pat's son and daughter-in-law go to Tucson to visit family, and when they return John and Pat go on Christmas morning.

 

Micaela can no longer do chores unless accompanied by her father or a brother, and taking her 4-year-old daughter out on horseback is forbidden. “We can't go anywhere without an escort,” Micaela says.

 

The Kings have complained to politicians and law enforcement for years. “They talk this rule of law stuff, but it doesn't mean a thing,” Pat says. “When you realize nothing's going to happen, you have to do self-protection.”

 

During their April watch, Minutemen spotted 1,501 illegals on the Anvil, and of these the Border Patrol arrested 500. But it turned into a circus. ACLU volunteers showed up every day to monitor and harass the Minutemen, at times sounding car horns and flashing lights to alert the illegals that the Border Patrol was coming.

 

This is the border crisis in microcosm—confused Americans rush to defend lawbreakers while ignoring, even demonizing, law-abiding citizens who suffer daily affronts to basic liberties on land their family has tended for 115 years.

 

The Anvil's location, 38 miles north of the border, means that by the time illegals arrive there, they've been walking for days and are sometimes in desperate shape.

 

Between May and August last year, cowboy Jason Cathcart found four sets of human remains. He came to dread spotting what looked like little white balls in the distance. Those “balls” turned out to be human skulls.

 

In March, a man arrived at the Anvil's front gate so distraught that he ran into the yard and tried to impale himself on a pitchfork. Later he took up a bale hook and used the pointed end to slash his throat.

 

“This is what life is like in the Altar Valley,” says Pat.

 

Certainly the McCain-Kennedy bill will do nothing to change life here. Pat likens the bill, with its plan for amnesty, a guest-worker program, and negligible enforcement, to swatting flies in your house with the doors and windows wide open.

 

Ask yourself: Would the Altar Valley be a war zone if McCain lived here? If Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound were magically transplanted to southern Arizona, how long do you think it'd be before he rewrote his bill? The first time Kennedy saw 30 illegals dashing across his property, he'd trip over his Guatemalan lawn guy rushing to the Senate floor to demand enforcement.

 

That's one of the American tragedies at play here, the abandonment of ordinary citizens by our country's elites, and most strikingly, the abandonment of the very laws they themselves have written.

 

The resulting invasion has driven legal Arizona residents from their land, including John King's aunt. She lived south of the Anvil for more than 40 years, but sold out rather than keep fighting a battle the federal government has no intention of winning.

 

Pat thinks the street demonstrators—she calls them cowards—need to show their bravery by returning to Mexico and changing that country, not ours.

 

“We did that with the Boston Tea Party,” she says. “We were taxed without representation and we rose up and changed it. I think the students in the streets and these young ACLU individuals here are being used. When you talk to them you realize it's all emotion. There's no logic. They don't have a clue.”

 

When it comes to what's really happening on our southern border, neither does the rest of the country. But that would change if every American spent a day at the Anvil.

[Texsox]

People dying just to find work. How desperate does someone have to be to endure that kind of a journey? It is also why I laugh when someone talks about terrorists sneaking in this way, far too risky when they can get a tourist visa.

 

We have to speed up the process, allow more guest workers, and take away this avenue.

[WilliamTell]

Do people still use half-penny's?

 

We could use the Canadian penny if we need half pennies. They're closer to a half than a full.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

People dying just to find work. How desperate does someone have to be to endure that kind of a journey? It is also why I laugh when someone talks about terrorists sneaking in this way, far too risky when they can get a tourist visa.

 

We have to speed up the process, allow more guest workers, and take away this avenue.

 

 

Agree on the guest workers........then put up a nice high wall to keep those who still want to break the law out.

[Texsox]

Agree on the guest workers........then put up a nice high wall to keep those who still want to break the law out.

 

Do you want to do the entire 2,000 miles?

[YASNY]

Do you want to do the entire 2,000 miles?

 

Whatever it takes to secure our border.