SoRo anthropology

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I'm optimistic, we are watching the halting efforts to get this new technology under control so human interaction will remain healthy rather than skimpy and scarce. -Lon

Mexico is a country enriched with tons of history and culture that it becomes interesting knowing that the country once had a chance to be very prosperous. Mexico was a huge dependent on oil. The country still struggles with poverty and a balanced system. I believe the biggest asset to the poverty is the informal economy that Mexico runs on. The citizens of the country sell for themselves, not having to pay nothing to the government. These Mexicans are very proud of there entreprenurial culture. 

Towards a recent travel to my mother's country, Guatemala, after reading this article, Guatemala is a country with similar features. A lot of people are on the streets with there own businesses to run. The huge problem in this case is that the citizens do not trust the government. Guatemala has struggled with its government due to years and years of corruption. This gives Mexican's a reason to not believe in the system. 

Mexico is nation with many economic advantages. The problem is the nation has yet to formalize its economic system. An economy based around peddling and privateers can not compete with the economy's of the industrialized world. In order to bridge the gap between modernity and poverty, Mexico must impalement  regulations and laws that are designed to formalize the nations economy. Though in its current state, the Mexican government does not have the trust of the people. Governments often exist on trust. People institute a government for the safety of their property and themselves. What good is a government that can not provide basic protection to its citizens? The government must establish a sense of trust and safety within Mexico.

Many of the "lessons" highlighted in this article apply to all countries. As i was reading this i was thinking about the many  inequalities in America. We like to pride ourselves as the "Greates Country in the World", after all we are the richest country. Just like Mexico though, we too have two faces. I think we may just be better at hiding the one that is uglier.

"The number of people living in high-poverty areas—defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have income levels below the federal poverty threshold—nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million, according to a new analysis of census data by Paul Jargowsky, a public-policy professor at Rutgers University-Camden and a fellow at The Century Foundation. That’s the highest number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded."http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/more-americans-are-living-in-slums/400832/

We too have slums and they are growing. We may be called to "welfare state" but people don't understand the stipulations of our current welfare programs. The cash assistance program only allows people to utilize it for a maximum of two years over a life time. Also, the amount they receive keeps them a poverty levels.We love to focus on our booming economies, our white picket fences, and the neighbor hoods whove been reformed by gentrification, but we have millions suffering in poor living conditions with high crime rates.The author of this article wirtes "Mexico has failed to bridge the gap between a globalized minority and a majority that lives in what the prsident admits is backwardness and poverty" We have too.

The third lesson is to bring the informal economy into light, well i think we could benefit from doing that too. America's has a huge informal sex trafficking, drug selling, illegal immigrant hiring economy. http://monthlyreview.org/2006/07/01/harder-times-undocumented-workers-and-the-u-s-informal-economy/

and in regards to how "Violent drug related crime" Here in America we do rate number one in one thing... gun massacres..Go US!! http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/health/u-s-most-mass-shootings/

I don't have the solutions to any of these issues but what i can say is that Mexico is not alone!

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changes are coming quicker than one predicted

Discrimination exists in every industrialized society in every part of the globe, the result of poverty, ignorance, and hatred. The US is guilty of it just as much as any other nation, evident by the continued existence of income gaps between whites and blacks in the US, as well as the policy of the US in its handling of our native populations. Chinese discrimination against ethnic Tibetans has long been documented and observed within the West, meeting the condemnation of much of the Western world, and such cultural discrimination has continued in other provinces within China. As the coast has exploded in wealth per capita, and the culture there becomes increasingly westernized, these other cultures and peoples are in danger of inevitably being wiped out. This is the result of Chinese policy, which has actively worked to suppress and kill of these resistant cultures, for the sake of national identity and unity. Is America in a position to judge others for how they treat their ethnic minorities? Not at all- just look at the demographics of our prison system and our families who fall below the poverty line. Such racism has long been a facet of human civilization, and it is up to us to make it a thing of our past and not of our future. For these cultures in China, I fear the worst will inevitably pass, and the world will sit passively by as they are lost forever. It saddens me, and I hope that I am proven wrong.