Is Texas Screwed Up Because It Is Full of Mexicans?

In response to my post about the Medieval state of Texas, some have suggested that the extremely poor figures on the minimum wage, poverty and the uninsured were due to lots of Mexicans living in Texas. Texas has one of the worst poverty rates in the US, has one of the nation’s highest rates of uninsured people who lack medical insurance and has one of the nation’s highest rates of people working at the minimum wage.

There is a problem with this analysis. Look at California. White nationalists like to trash California by saying it has gone downhill ever since it has become heavily Hispanic. However, California’s economy, last time I checked, was the 8th largest economy in the world. It’s quite a stretch to say that 8th largest economy on Earth is an economic basket case. I for one don’t buy it.

We have budget problems now, mostly because the Republicans refuse to raise taxes. The budget crisis is similar all over the country, and Republicans at the federal level have made it worse by constantly slashing federal money to the states for unknown reasons. What are they trying to do? Crash state governments?

The cause of the economic crisis in California was the housing crash, caused by neoliberal economics and lack of regulation. It was particularly bad in California since our housing prices had run up so high.

The thing is that I do not believe that California has horrible rates of poverty, people working at the minimum wage and persons without medical insurance. These are problems all over America these days, but I don’t believe that California has these problems to any profound degree. At least I have not heard that it does. We have a very liberal Legislature, and if these problems got very bad, they would probably try to do something about it.

Further, Cuba is an Hispanic country. Everyone has health coverage, everyone has a job at a reasonable, non-poverty level wage, and the poverty rate is very low. I think it is

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0 thoughts on “Is Texas Screwed Up Because It Is Full of Mexicans?”

  1. There is a storng arguement for a pro-white liberal race realsim. It seems the best places are white and liberal such as Denmark, Vermont, Marin County ect. While places that are right wing but full of blacks and browns like Texas really suck. Same with a lot of California’s Central Valley. No offense.

  2. “Further, Cuba is an Hispanic country. Everyone has health coverage, everyone has a job at a reasonable, non-poverty level wage, and the poverty rate is very low. I think it is 1%.”

    Uh…what?

    Cubans make less than a dollar a day and you call that a non-poverty level wage???
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7449776.stm

    1. It is a non-poverty wage because their rent is just about free, their medical care is free, a lot of their food is free, transportation is free, etc. Plus most stuff for sale is free. Most Cubans live in very decent and respectable housing, there is almost no malnutrition, everyone has a job, everyone has decent clothes, everyone has decent clothes. Judging by all of that, correct, there is very little poverty in Cuba. But I agree that they do not have a very high standard of living. Cuba has a poverty rate of 1.1%. Most sane people and sane organizations, including the CIA, agree with that poverty rate.

      If you see the way the poor live in Latin America, and then compare that to Cuba, you will see what I mean when I say there are no poor in Cuba.

      1. If that’s the case than that would mean Cuba has a lower poverty rate than the US, but nobody in their right mind would say we are worse off than them. There is a lot of poverty there. I have a friend with a degree in Latin American studies, she went down there for research. It is definitely poor and there is a huge underground economy there of people bartering, selling and buying off the books because the government isn’t providing enough. This is a great book I read about 6 years ago:

        http://www.amazon.com/This-Cuba-Outlaw-Culture-Survives/dp/0813338263

        It doesn’t come from a left or right wing agenda, pro or anti Cuba or America, he’s actually critical of both. It’s just the perspective of one guy living there observing what he sees around him. People are struggling in Cuba. Buildings in Havana routinely collapse. The author of the book briefly touches on that when he spoke with a Havana family expressing the dread that comes with storms that their building may collapse. Just google “cuba collapsing buildings” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s crazy.

        I’m not saying any of this from a pro/anti stance against Cuba and it’s economic system. Just saying things are pretty screwed up there however you cut it. In many ways the Castro government has simply become out of touch with the normal lives of Cubans. They are an oligarchy of their own. White Cubans receive extra money because of the white Cubans that send money from Florida. Blacks are discriminated against as cab drivers and in the relatively well paying hotel jobs. The streets are bustling with “jineteros”, young hustlers doing whatever hustle they have to do to make some black market cash. Some have said Cuba is damn near ripe for another revolution.

  3. @Tulio You are right. I used to live in a communist country and I know the questionable “beauty” of living on less than a dollar per day.
    Some people in USA have no fricken idea what poverty really means.

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