What Have You Done for Me Lately?

I am quit the fan of the saying, "What have you done for me lately?" This saying can be used in many ways, but I'm most familiar with it in sports sense. Let's say a Quarterback in the NFL is struggling (cough RG3 cough) and the coach is contemplating benching him, the coach voices his concerns to the QB and the QB is in disbelief and may ask, "Why?" The coach could simply respond, "Well, what have you done for me lately?" We're all a team here and NAFTA is our quarterback. If you haven't noticed our QB is struggling. So, NAFTA, what have you done for US lately?

NAFTA's goal was, "the spark of wealth would, it was argued, jump across the border, bringing freedom, enterprise and the Good Life from a country of high potential to one a little less charged". (Patel 56) However, the opposite has flourished. NAFTA has done nothing but hurt the entire economy of Mexico. The main crop in Mexico has for many years been corn. Corn is their backbone, it is what they use to make tortillas. If we know anything about Mexican food its that tortillas are highly important. Unfortunately, NAFTA has completely knocked Mexico out of the corn game. "The cost of producing corn in Mexico was far higher than the subsidized US level." (Patel 57) The US level to produce corn was $2.66 in 2002, and we can only imagine what the rate in Mexico was. This is simple economics, Mexico could not afford to produce their staple food anymore because the cost of production is severely higher than the price of consumption. This caused the Mexican peso to take a huge crash soon after NAFTA started.

So, what has Mexico turned to? The previous blogger, Pat Heckman, touched on this, but I think it is important to bring up again. With NAFTA driving out what Mexico has leaned on for many years, they had to find alternate work. Let's face it, these drug cartels did not magically appear. NAFTA forced the people of Mexico to turn to illegal drug trade. Mexican drug cartels have become a national phenomenon recently. Mexico is deemed one of the most danger countries solely based on these cartels. This is an example of Marx's Social Alienation Theory. In this theory, we as a society create something. That something keeps growing and growing and eventually comes back to control us and we cannot escape it. We created NAFTA, NAFTA created these drug cartels, and now these drug cartels are controlling us. (not literally) However, we as Americans are spending money on a huge increase in border patrol and customs. We are obsessed with fighting these drug cartels from Mexico to keep it out of our beloved country, when in reality we might have just asked for this.

So we ask our Quarterback, NAFTA, what have you done for us lately? His response would probably be something like this: "Well, I destroyed the staple crop of Mexico, corn, because they can't afford to produce it anymore. Oh yeah, I destroyed the value of the peso because of this. I also may have created a huge trend in Mexican drug cartel activity because so many people are jobless in the country. Oh, and in America I have caused their government to spend more money on border patrol and customs to keep the drug cartels out." If I'm the coach of this quarterback I'd say it's time to put NAFTA on the bench. Nope, not just bench, let's release him .