***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 19:21:37 -0600
   [From]: Juan JosŽ D’az Infante  <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: structure in discussion


ami

I was referring to your text in which you are setting an example of executives that do not know how to write as if it was a proper parallel of 50 million people that do not know English. I know very rich people that do not know how to read and write, but they get by because there is a basic capital that enables them to navigate through the system. A poor man without social standing or capital can do very little in a system based on creating and preserving poverty.

Latin American economies devalue their currency constantly in order to keep their products competitive. The only thing that becomes cheaper is manual labor. In the last 30 years the loss of value of the Peso has been over 63,000% of its value. The systematic use of the creation of poverty exists in order to create the living standards of the first world: to create cheap conviniences for the consummer market.

I am working now in writing a film  that deals with the Bucareli Treaties (signed by a traitor: Obregon in the 30's) between the US and Mexico. In which the United States forbade Mexico to do any type of factories, production or inventions, in order to force Mexico to buy everything from the States for 30 years. There are several treaties signed in favor of the US like that. Some of the of such ridiculous nature that they have not been acted upon (one of them is the connscesion on the Itsmo).

First of all I do not think that Toffler is speculating that lightly on the becoming of the future society of Latin America. I do think that he lacks the correct premises to actually see the forces that act upon Mexico US relations and he lacks the anthropological research to see how the black economies (underground) are the sustaining force of the people. White economy is laughable (the maquiladora is the mirage of the world bank). Let us not talk of black money in societies like India...

I think that if you really want to be able to foretell what is to happen, you need two types of knowledge besides badly applied simple theoretical logic. In one side you need to understand the angle of a first world in ist very clean and neat system (to mantein standards of the North sacrificing the South) and on the other hand you need to understand the street wisdom of reality. The hidden capitals, the "nuvo" (classless) rich, the underground economies, the drug money, the laundering needs of the new capitals, cash transactions, information as capital and so on.

In many cases the misunderstanding of the problem it only causes wrong solutions for the wrong problems...

Juan