Economic Polling

Lots of numbers from BGC in today's Excélsior: 55 percent of those surveyed say that the economy is bad or very bad, an increase of four points since last December. Oddly, 56 percent said they supported the measures taken by Calderón, while, in response to another question, 63 percent said that the president hasn't done as much as they expected to confront the crisis, compared to 34 who said that he had. And yet another question along those hit the mid-point between those two figures: 47 percent said that his policies were adequate, with 45 percent saying the opposite. Seventy-three percent said that the economy was worse off today than a year ago, one of the highest such results of Calderón's presidency. However, during the worst of the '95 crisis, the corresponding figure was 93 percent.

One last answer that encourages us to have a healthy skepticism for the analytical skills of those polled: only 2 percent said that the cause of the Mexican crisis was the worldwide crisis, with another 3 percent blaming the US. At the same time, 52 percent chalked it up to the federal government, Calderón, or bad politicians.