Nearly Half of Mexico Lives Under the Poverty Line

The firm decides that the only way "Goni," as he is called, can succeed is to convince the voters that if his opponent wins, the country will suffer a devastating economic meltdown. "Our brand," explains an operative of the firm, "is crisis" -- hence the title of the film.

This has become the default strategy for incumbent political parties in Latin America, as one government after another faces opponents from the left. Next up is Mexico, where the ruling National Action Party (PAN) faces a strong challenge from former Mexico City major Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) on July 2. Lopez Obrador is a popular -- some would say populist -- left-of-center leader whose main campaign slogan is "for the good of everyone, the poor first."

It's pretty clear that Mexico needs to reconsider its economic policies.

Over the 25 years since 1980, income per person in Mexico has grown by just 17 percent. To see how bad this is, one need only look at the 20 years from 1960-1980, when the country's per capita income grew by 99 percent. If the Mexican economy had simply continued to grow at its pre-1980 rate, average income in Mexico would be at the level of Spain today. There would be far fewer Mexicans looking to emigrate illegally to the United States.

Mexico's pre-1980 growth was good but nothing spectacular for a developing country -- South Korea grew more than twice as fast and Taiwan at nearly three times Mexico's rate over the same period. So the country's past growth performance is a reasonable benchmark by which to compare the unprecedented growth failure of the last quarter-century. Many have hailed Mexico's post NAFTA growth as a success, but even this was only about a third of its pre-1980 performance.

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