Well, I have read your arguments and if you think that Mexico is collapsing you're wrong. Mexico was collapsing in 2008, now is a little bit better however that's difficult to understand.
I spent ~10 years in Mexico and know the place fairly well, I know people that were kidnapped, killed, everything in between. So, no, it's not a safe place, however, under any metric, Mexico is better right now than 20 years ago:
11th largest GDP in the world by PPP, per capita is worse, 65th. Economically the problem with Mexico is inequality and distribution. The dominant class is the same as 200 years ago: European descendants, the more amerindian you get, the more poor, the correlation is almost 1
Continuing with the economy, Mexico decided in the 90s to become a manufacturer to the US and the world, by opening its economy Mexico lost its agriculture but won several direct investments in the manufacturing sector, that's why Mexico is right now the most diversified economy in Latin America, people praise Brazil which is a complete commodity exporter but ignore Mexico...really?
I think that El Padrone referred to Mexico as an specialized manufacturer because it is the sixth largest electronics exporter in the world after the US, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan; and the fourth largest exporter of cars.
Snapshot of Mexico exports:
The problem with Mexico is that it is a pure assembler and not a creator of technology.
So in conclusion, Mexico economy is a tale of two worlds: world class companies that compete at a big level (America Movil, Bimbo, among others) with microenterprises that are some of the least productive in the world. McKinsey wrote something around that story:
http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/am...wo-mexicos
Just FYI, people in Mexico do not dream anymore to move to the US, that's a blatant lie, at all levels. I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of students that come to the US and just 5/80 wanted to make a career here, all of them wanted to come back, they knew that hard work/cost of living in Mexico for a foreign educated person was a better deal than staying here.
For the poor people who used to emigrate illegally, that trend is also reversing:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexican-imm...1447954334
I had the opportunity to collaborate with an NGO that tackled this topic and most migrants say that they have family over here (US) but do not want to leave as they children are now getting educated, have friends and access to internet, shit like that. Most illegal migrants to the US are now from Central America.
Now let's move to the violence side. Mexico is a violent country, yes. Most of the violence comes from narcos and petty crime, yes. But Mexico is a huge country, narcos do not have a big battle in the center of Mexico City, however, there are some parts of Mexico that are under complete narco control (Tamaulipas, Guerrero) but there are less states under narco control than a few years ago (Coahuila is an example of a recovered state). Mexico has a homicide rate of low 20s, comparable to that of Brazil, and I never see articles saying that Brazil is a failed state...
The problem as you guys say is that Narcos control lots of politicians and the economy, yep, that's true, what happened with Mexico is that it was under total presidential control before 2000 -- this huge aparatus worked just fine: the president controlled the states, the narcos, the "municipios" (counties), the press, it was an oiled machine that worked under a single party (a little like the Chinese?) But, democracy, that bitch...so there was a new party at the presidential level and in some states but the older party (PRI, 71 years in power) dominated most of the states and almost all the counties so chaos ensured, narcos got out of control, the press too and that's where violence ensured.
I will not get into the debate of supply and demand as its a philosophical discussion. Gringos consume more drugs than anyone and Mexico supplies it, yeah, that's true. Becoming a narco in a country with low opportunities is a high risk/high return, yep, true as well. There are few opportunities in Mexico, true as well.
But saying that the country is a complete chaos, a failed state and that every kid dreams to move to the US and learn English is a misconceived view of the neighbor down south.
My conclusion is that institutions are fragile, there's corruption everywhere and everyone looks just for themselves, however that's changing little by little. The average Mexican is not a bad person, is not educated, not the most intelligent, but it is hardworker at a certain level. The average Mexican does not dream with a Porsche, he just wants to provide for his family and be happy, not overly ambitious, but, is that bad?
The wall will not do anything to curtail drug and money flow, but every country is free of doing whatever it wants.
If you guys want to discuss Mexico's problems in a civil discussion I'm happy to do it.