I have been following Latin American developments for more decades than I care to remember. My sense of Latin America at the beginning was ambiguous—I found the region culturally fascinating, but economically and socially deficient.

Mexico and the United States have an antinarcotics arrangement. Each side contributes funds to this effort, the United States close to $500 million a year under the Mérida Initiative (the institution that defines the arrangement) and Mexico around $4.3 billion a year.

I am working on a project dealing with U.S.-Mexico narcotics traffic and this has given me new cause to think more about the subject. The report that I am preparing deals primarily with four drugs that are now illegal to produce, sell, and use in the United States—cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana.

Audio from this newsletter: Issues in International Political Economy - Unequal Partners: The United States and Mexico - April 2010 - Number 124

Audio from this newsletter. Issues in International Political Economy - Mexico-U.S. Non-Discussion of Migration - March 2010 - Number 123.

Many Mexicans and Americans display vague misgivings about the North American Free Trade Agreement; their comments indicate that this is largely because the agreement did not turn out to be a development panacea.The core of Mexico´s growth problem, in my view, is political—namely, the inability to deal with structural problems affecting taxes, energy, education, labor markets, monop

Tolerance of the extent of income inequality varies among countries. Acceptance of income inequality is higher in the United States than in any other developed country. Many U.S.

Audio from this newsletter. Issues in International Political Economy - Situation in Latin America--Year-end 2009 - December 2009 -Number 120.

This is the audio podcast for newsletter Issues in International Political Economy - November 2009 - Number 119 - The Cost of Questionable Policies.

Most of the U.S. population got an education during the past two years about what exists in the real world. Before then the dominant dogma exemplified a narrow ideology that leaves no room for the preventive and corrective roles of government when making economic policy.

President Felipe Calderón just delivered his third annual Informe and it calls for a thoroughgoing change in policy direction. President Barack Obama, for this part, is trying to rescue as much of his health-care proposal as he can from a confrontational Congress.

The best spokesman for change is President Obama because of his great rhetorical ability and the fact that his public popularity is higher than that of either his supporters or opponents; the time for compromise should be after Obama makes his own case for his proposals.

The best posture for the U.S. government in dealing with Latin America is to demonstrate, by stimulating the U.S. economy and avoiding protectionism, that the United States is sincere in wanting to help countries of the region.

The United States often describes itself as the leader of the free world. We certainly are right now—leading the world economy down. Because it is hard to grasp the enormity of the global damage, I will focus on Mexico, a country important to the United States. Mexico is fortunate that it entered 2008 in good financial shape because the fallout from what happened in the U.S.

Capitalism will endure as long as the winners from this economic system compensate the losers. We have long known about the tunnel vision, the importance of ideology in decision making, and the potential consequences of income inequality, but their intensity has become clearer in recent months.

The world is now experiencing a searing example of the speed at which a U.S. financial breakdown spreads globally.

Some 5,300 people were killed in Mexico in 2008 stemming from the drug trade. The violence that accompanies the shipment and sales of narcotics from and through Mexico to the United States stems primarily from U.S. antinarcotics policies. It would be useful if President Obama states early in his administration that U.S. anti-narcotics activities are not working as intended.

Trust in decisionmaking in the United States has almost completely evaporated. This is true with respect to government, Congress, private companies, and the regulatory arena, where public and private intersect.The main issue I wish to raise in this commentary is whether the current anger will result in durable changes.