I'm sure this will insite an earful of flaming.
One also has to consider the effects of a collapsing economy on the motives of the people who have formerly enjoyed some pretty hefty economic prosperity resulting from the U.S. Housing and Construction boom. WIth the collapse of the demand for new homes this revenue stream has for the most part completely dried up leaving a large population of migrant workers now unemployed in a country with already weak economic resources. I'd expect that the danger to travelers will increase over the next years as their savings become depleted and many of the smaller businesses collapse with the falling demand for goods and services. This will make travelers vulnerable to increased robbery, extortion, and possibly worse in the coming years. It should be noted that in the outgoing CIA directors brief he cited Mexico as one of the two largest threats to our National Security. The increased cartel activity is an indicator of the social unrest that accompanies a failing economy that could potentially spin out of control if not checked. Which is not to say this is going to happen but that it does pose a plausible threat enough so that it has been testified before the Senate Security Council and illicited an unprecedented allocation of Federal and Military resources to addressing this scenario. You may not have noticed the increase in Federal and National Guard presence in the border towns or that the government spent over 40 billion dollars last year on NSA, CIA, and "other" government infrastructure in Texas last year alone. Just food for thought...... List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:26:15 -0500 From: her...@cavechat.org To: texascavers@texascavers.com Subject: Re: Re: [Texascavers] Traval Advisory for Mexico I'll offer input in my current line of work the violence has a direct effect at work and what I have been told repeatedly by those who were both from and travelling through Mexico into the United States wont even travel through Ciudad Juarez (the border town with El Paso). Ciudad Juarez is by far the worst though the violence is multi-fronted and is omnipresent throughout Mexico though particularly in the northern states due to there proximity to the United States hence the drug and human smuggling activities which are the root of all of this violence. Of particular concern for those travelling into Mexico is the ZETA gang as they are quite fond of kidnapping and extorting people and afterwards still killing the person after they and there family have paid all the ransom they could. please see the following links below for additional information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War The death toll during 2008 alone was 5,630 killed. making a total of about 7,882 drug cartel related deaths since December 2006. The extreme violence is jeopardizing foreign investment in Mexico, and the Finance Minister, Agustin Carstens, said that the deteriorating security is reducing gross domestic product annually by 1% in Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy. Feel free to respond off list and I will assist further if I can though I only get limited reports from those I apprehend crossing into the U.S. illegally _________________________________________________________________ Express your personality in color! Preview and select themes for Hotmail®. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/LearnMore/personalize.aspx?ocid=TXT_MSGTX_WL_HM_express_032009#colortheme
