Mexicans Burdened by a Litany of Woes

MEXICO CITY -- U.S. President Bill Clinton is portrayed as a lifeguard in a recent editorial cartoon in the independent newspaper Reforma. As he saves a drowning Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz, Clinton advises, "Don't worry, be happy."


The joke is bitter for most Mexicans. Despite last week's pledge of a huge U.S. bailout package, there is little to cheer and much to worry about.


While the promised U.S. loan guarantees of up to $40 billion appear to have staunched the hemorrhaging of capital out of Mexico and stabilized the battered peso, three weeks of economic crisis have left this country weakened and facing a long recuperation. The outlook is for a litany of woes.


And while U.S. leaders were forced to defend the aid package, the fact that the United States was able to calm the markets -- when Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo's Emergency Economic Program could not -- created embarrassment for Mexican authorities too, and was a sobering reminder of how dependent Mexico has become on its neighbor and major trading partner.


"This confirms to the skeptics, the incredulous and the naive that Mexico is no longer a free and sovereign nation," said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, an outspoken member of the leftist opposition Revolutionary Democratic Party. Mexico, he added, "has become a protectorate of the United States."


Indeed, like many critics in the U.S. Congress, Mexicans are questioning why the United States should bail them out.


"In exchange for what?" asked Marcos Chavez, a columnist in the business newspaper El Financiero. "In exchange for pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the incompetent domestic ruling groups, in the short run saving them and their failed model that does not benefit the majority of the population ... and for auctioning off the riches of the nation -- including oil? -- and its independence, sovereignty and dignity."


Such complaints seem sure to continue as Mexico begins the day-to-day work of living with the lower expectations that are part and parcel of the peso devaluation. While politicians debated the price of the rescue, investors, industrialists and consumers worried about the cost of the crisis that precipitated it.


Although the stock market seems to have stabilized, investors say it probably will not truly revive for two years, reflecting the troubled conditions of listed companies, many with dollar debts.


Restoring investor confidence may take just as long and could require further economic reforms, from more timely reporting of financial information to radical changes in the role of the Central Bank, according to economists.


With less foreign investment, far less credit will be available to modernize factories and to import the raw materials and components needed to make products competitive. And the Central Bank has firmly signaled that industrialists should not expect an increase in domestic loans to make up the difference.


A tight money supply is the key to Bank of Mexico's plans for combating the inflation that routinely follows steep devaluations like that which the peso has suffered during the past three weeks. Already, automakers have announced steep price increases and more manufacturers are expected to follow. Double-digit inflation --outstripping the wage increases permitted under Zedillo's recovery plan -- means that the domestic market will not expand as quickly as expected, and that Mexican workers will remain poor.