Anybody Missing $30 Billion ???
 

Friday, November 28, 2003

Study: Hispanics send billions home
Immigrant workforce helps families survive
Knight-Ridder News Service

The ever-increasing U.S. immigrant population from Latin America will send a record $30 billion back to the homeland this year, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Inter-American Development Bank.
The biggest stream of dollars comes from Mexican workers. This year, it may reach $14.5 billion, the study said.

That financial infusion underscores a decade in which the United States has rapidly been transformed by an immigration flow that, in raw numbers, surpasses any other in U.S. history.

And the dollars from that influx now surpass any revenue source in Mexico, including direct foreign investment, oil and tourism.

Immigrants are the ''quintessential players in the era of globalization,'' rebelling against geography, much like multinational corporations, said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a 2-year-old Washington research house.

''You have families that are making decisions in the way the most globalized companies do,'' Suro said. ''Dallas is a good place to get salaried wages, and Monterrey is a good place to raise children.''

In the end, he said, migration often becomes the top choice as families face poverty, currency devaluations and, at times, civil strife.

First broad study

''Over 40 percent of Mexicans have a relative living in the United States. That is an amazing number, and in El Salvador, it is 50 percent.''

The study is the first of its kind to look so broadly at the phenomenon of remittances, or immigrants sending money abroad. It included a public opinion survey of more than 3,000 people each in Mexico, Central America and Ecuador.

In 2001, the Inter-American Development Bank estimated the flow of money to Latin America and the Caribbean from immigrants was $23 billion.

Globalization via migration will continue, according to the companion survey by Bendixen & Associates of Coral Gables, Fla. In Mexico, a country of 100 million, 26 percent of adult remittance-receivers said they were thinking about immigrating to the United States. That compares with 19 percent of the population as a whole.

at least the peso is one currency the USD hasn't stopped gaining against :)

actually the US has lost 64 billion from is money supply in the last 13 weeks, which is a bit of a mystery.. What's happening? is the fed tightening by stealth?

http://www.minimumeffort.com/m2.jpg

quite an unusual occurence.