Do You Explore ?

I can’t help but be curious about how much my readers explore when I send them to various links. A case in point: In yesterday’s blog, I sent you to the Marketplace site. I wonder how many people clinked on their link to this story?

How Juarez became murder city

”BOWDEN: Well, there's something there besides the drug trade, there are still these American-owned factories. Juarez for decades was a kind of poster child for free trade, and for border factories. It pioneered the concept starting in the late '60s. The city's growth has been based off that. What it's produced are American-owned factories that pay people less than they can work on. What's it's produced -- because it's a natural pathway for commerce connecting with U.S. transportation systems -- is one of the largest drug import industries in the world. What it's also produced is the largest human migration on earth, and it is directly triggered by the North American Free Trade Agreement passed in 1994. Now that treaty was passed to stop the migration -- that we would create wealth in Mexico. Instead we've created poverty. “

That is a very provocative statement. If true, was the treaty (NAFTA) a success or failure ? How do we measure these societal costs ? Are they measured ? Just food for thought.

Don Brown
March 28, 2010