> Doug wrote:
>
> > Wolf himself says:
> >
> > >Ireland has prospered by offering investors a stable, profitable,
> > >English-speaking base for production aimed at the EU market.
> >
> > How many of those are there?
> >
> >
> The IMF would say that any developing country could be another
>Ireland if it only got its policies in order. (Unless you're referring to
>the "English-speaking" part, which I don't think was necessarily Wolf's main
>point.) So, Doug, why can't Mexico get rich like Ireland can?
I wouldn't underestimate the importance of "English-speaking." It makes managing easier, and corporate types feel more comfortable with white people with accents coded as "charming." The Irish are well-educated and healthy, too.
Ireland is a small country - just 4 million people, compared to Mexico's 95 million. It's also growing very slowly - population growth is just 0.5% a year, compared to Mexico's 1.9%. So Mexican GDP has to grow almost 2% a year just to stay in place. A small country can rely on exports much more than a big one can - Ireland's exports are 75% of GDP, more than three times Mexico's 22%. It's hard to imagine how the world could accommodate a tripling of Mexican exports.
> You can point to Ireland's uniqueness as a participant in a big,
>powerful currency area; but then the policy implication would be to
>"dollarize" Latin America, like the right-wingers say.
But there are advantages to being inside the EU tariff wall - it's not just the currency. You can export tariff-free to Germany without currency risk at a fraction of the German wage.
Doug