Maquilladoras, Mexico

"Most worked eight to twelve hour days, doing difficult or dangerous manual labor, and still find it a great hardship to afford the tuition, uniforms, and supplies their children needed to go to school.  The women estimated that only twenty percent of the children in their settlement finish high school, most choosing instead to go to work.  Many deal every day with chemicals or dangerous machinery, and are provided little to no protective gear."

" The Maquiladoras in Mexico are taking part in what has become a common practice among transnational corporations around the world: the global assembly line.  This is the concept that regardless of where a company is rooted, it will move its production to the country with the cheapest labor and the most relaxed environmental laws.  If the wages are raised or the environmental standards begin to rise to expensive levels, they will just pick up and leave.  This makes the raising of wages very difficult.  These companies give a little bit of work to a desperate country, but the jobs they give do not lead to promotions as jobs in the U.S. do.  They are not stepping stones.  The poor are staying poor no matter how hard they work, which means that they have no money to put into the economy, and no way to build a middle class.  If the Maquiladora workers fight for wage increases are successful, it may mean the retreating of these companies from Mexico.  But if they do not demand a living wage now, where will their children find themselves?"

source:
Amanda Flore
April, 2010
amandafiore.com/articles

maquilladoras

The presentation at University of Toronto talks about the rise and fall of Maquilladoras on the Mexican side of the U.S. - Mexico border twin cities. The Maquilladoras are a result of NAFTA agreement. US and European companies essentially exploit the cheap labor in Mexico similarly to FDI (foreign direct investment) strategies. The only value added on the price of the products assembled in Mexico is the labor cost. In early 2000s the Maquilladoras could not compete with even cheaper labor in Asia and companies relocated their assemblies there. These days the presentation says we are seeing a reversal of the trend with higher shipping prices.
Hallelujah.
zero oil will save us one day.
 


source:
Juan Robles
http://infranetlab.org/blog/border-economies-maquiladora-export-landscape

"The 1982 peso devaluation crippled the Valley economy. By contrast, the 1994 devaluation barely slowed economic growth. The reason was a more diversified economy. Tourism, manufacturing, supply manufacturing and health care now complement agriculture. Retail sales in Texas cities bounced back strongly from the peso collapse, rising by $300m in 1996 to $5.5 billion. "Everyone's got a theme park. We ain't got a theme park," explained one Valley politician; "Mexico's our theme park.""

"Since the coming of NAFTA, foreign companies including BMW, Sony and Matsushita have set up maquiladoras in Reynosa and Matamoros. In turn, smaller supply companies have grown up in McAllen and Harlingen, where land is cheaper."

"McAllen (slogan: "It's Naftastic!") is the third-fastest-growing city in the United States and one of the cheapest in which to do business. Despite a 7% job-growth rate, unemployment runs at 16%. The city has concentrated on education and infrastructure to improve its prospects. The South Texas Community College has grown from 600 to 6,000 students in three years, and the city offers to train employees for companies coming in. The Texas State Technical College in Harlingen serves a similar purpose. The University of Texas Pan-Am in Edinburg ("Taco-Tech"), has seen enrolment grow by 400% since 1987. The region's cities on the American side are fiercely competitive for federal dollars; there are, for example, five international airports in a 50-mile radius. But they are trying to work together. Recently, they have combined to try to attract major-league baseball clubs for spring training. Officials are co-operating to bring I-69, the proposed Montreal-Mexico City freeway, through the Valley, a case strengthened by the fact that the region remains the largest urban area in the United States without an interstate highway. There is talk of consolidating cities on both sides into a single metropolitan sprawl known as "Borderplex"."

source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/articles/txmx.htm
1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved

Maquilladoras

"Over 11,500 Maquiladoras, Spanish for U.S.-owned and -operated assembly factories in Mexico, are located along the 2,100 mile border with the United States. Tijuana, at the western end of the U.S.-Mexican border, alone has 4,000Maquiladoras, employing nearly 1 million workers and producing goods whose value-added was over $7 billion a year in 1998. The importance of these products  -- almost half consisted of textiles and consumer electronics -- were only second to oil in the Mexican economy."

"Many factories (over 300 in just two years, 2002-2003) that located in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s for low wages are in 2003 relocating to Asia. An entry-level machine operator in Juarez makes $8 a day while the same job in a Chinese factory fetches only $2. And in China there are no unions, whereas there are in Mexico. The World Trade Organization regulates global trade but only as it affects the interests of investors and manufactures, not of workers and the environment."


source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/border/maquil.htm

Housing and the Democratic Ideal: The Life and Thought of Charles Abrams

A. Scott Henderson

Housing and the Democratic Ideal is the only comprehensive work on Charles Abrams to date. Though structured as a narrative biography, this book also uses Abrams's experiences as a lens through which we can better understand the development of American social policy and state expansion during the twentieth century. In his left-leaning critique of centrist liberalism, Abrams took aim at the use of fiscal and monetary policies to achieve social objectives—a practice that allowed business interests to maximize private profits at the expense of public benefits. His growing concern over racial discrimination prefigured its emergence as a highly contested aspect of the American state.

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11950-4/

Freakonomics podcast

http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/03/how-to-think-about-money-choose-your-hometown-and-buy-an-electric-toothbrush-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers

http://www.valorebooks.com/textbooks/business-model-generation-a-handbook-for-visionaries-game-changers-and-challengers/9780470876411#default=buy&utm_source=Froogle&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Froogle&date=10/24/13

Ivan Illich

similar opinion to E.F. Schumacher 
- conviviality
 (intermediate technologies etc. )
http://conviviality.ouvaton.org/article.php3?id_article=7

Founded a language school/free university for intellectuals in Cuernavaca, Mexico. 

Books: 

• Celebration of Awareness (1971)
• Deschooling Society (1971)
• Tools for Conviviality (1973)
• Energy and Equity (1974)
• Medical Nemesis (1976)
• The Right To Useful Unemployment And Its Professional Enemies (1978)
• Toward a History of Needs (1978)
• Shadow Work (1981)

E.F. Schumacher

One man: E.F. Schumacher is behind/inspired so many great initiatives - which I suspect many encounter separately, as I did.
- Schumacher College in Totnes, Devon
- Resurgence Magazine (now Resurgence & Ecologist)
- Green Books publishing company
- Practical Action - NGO
- New Economics Foundation
- New Economics Institute
- Soil Association
- Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)
- Jeevika Trust
- Schumacher Institute in Bristol

article in the Observer, weekend review (29th August, 1965):
How to help them help themselves
slogan:
"find out what the people are doing and help them to do it better. "


books/ essays:

Buddhist Economics

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Is-Beautiful-Economics-Mattered/dp/0060916303?tag=ecosia-20

A Guide for the Perplexed




Wikipedia:

The Schumacher Circle is a family of organisations which were founded in E.F. Schumacher's memory or were inspired by his work, and which cooperate to support each other. The circle includes^[11] the Schumacher College in Totnes, Devon, Resurgence Magazine (now Resurgence & Ecologist), publishing company Green Books, international non-governmental organisation Practical Action, the New Economics Foundation in the UK, the New Economics Institute (formerly called the E. F. Schumacher Society) founded in New England,^[12] the Soil Association, the educational centre Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) North Wales, the Jeevika Trust, and the research organisation Schumacher Institute in Bristol.

Big Ideas Competition - call

Big ideas competition

Purpose - provide funds for student led social venture, non-profit start-ups

Eligibility - at least 1 tamu/Berkeley/St. Mary student in a team, student led,

faculty/professionals can participate, but not lead.

Interdisciplinary teams, individuals

Average award: $ 5,000

Max award: $ 10,000

Includes mentoring and partnering up with other students

http://bigideas.berkeley.edu/contest/

Lets set up a start up in Las Lomas. It is imperative to collaborate with a locally based organization to be able to provide follow up, offer trust, longevity etc. 
+ 
Colonias Unidas are looking to generate income. 

=

IDEAL. 

David Harvey: The Right to the City

Argument: Ever growing economic surplus is absorbed by ever

growing urbanization + consumption (in capitalism)

Harvey shows on examples from history that for capitalism to work, surplus capital must be absorbed. He argues the biggest absorbent is the built environment - growing urbanization. (grows in scale, spreads from developed to developing > globe, spreads from rich to poor - credit instruments)

On examples from history Harvey shows that a 'destructive' event i.e. Haussmann's new plan for Paris stimulates economy, creates jobs and consumption and ultimately growth. This growth has its limits - geographical, financial, demand, natural etc. when the limit is reached for the particular 'type' of growth, we experience a crisis. Growth stops, prices explode, jobs stop, all slows down. Then a new absorbent must be invented in order to 'stimulate' the economy, create jobs and wealth to be spent on more wealth creation. That is followed by another - bigger - crisis, followed by bigger 'destruction'. (war or) Consider NY & Moses; 2008 credit crunch - the collapse of suburb? 

Can we start slowing down, or better, can we not create absorbents with creating new colonias? 

Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution.

Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution Verso. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.lib-ezproxy.tamu.edu:2048/docview/1095629252?accountid=7082

Thomas Friedman: The world is flat, The lexus and the olive tree

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/