Thursday, December 4, 2008

Chabat on Priorities

Jorge Chabat, pointing out that Calderón probably has wanted to shift his agenda away from security alone but hasn't been able to do so, wonders if the economic crisis will displace it as the top concern of the government.

I don't really know what the answer to that question is (and nor does Chabat hazard a guess), but there is a lot of concern that a breakdown in the economy will result in a surge in crime, which is a bit scary, given where we are today. One piece of logic, while it won't be applicable everywhere, that someone in Torreón explained to me does seem to have something to it: in the beach cities and in the factory towns, the drop in American consumption is going to hit particularly hard. The people most immediately affected are going to be the most expendable, i.e. the most economically vulnerable, i.e. the waiters, line operators, et cetera. If you toss several thousand poor or lower-middle-income people, many of whom probably have little savings to fall back on, out on the street all at once, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see some of them turn to crime. A more organic rise in crime would be even more unsettling than the recent explosions of cartel crime, because they affect a broader swath of the population.

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