Word: pesos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is a new desperation among the fleeing Mexicans. An economic austerity program imposed last year sent the value of the peso plummeting further, making the 36% unemployment rate (including the underemployed) seem all the more severe. Some of the once docile immigrants are carrying weapons and leading patrolmen on high-speed chases. "Mexicans are upset because they don't feel they can sustain themselves in their own country," says Mike Sheehy of the Nogales, Ariz., Border Patrol...
...Madrid began the belt tightening by devaluing the peso immediately after taking office. At the same time, he adopted very strict measures to bring down inflation. The goal is an annual rate of 55% by year's end. Consumer interest rates were increased from 40% to 70% per year, gasoline prices were doubled, and a 15% value-added tax was slapped on all but the most essential goods...
Many of the businesses still open are deeply in debt. Sales of Rodacarga Co., a maker of materials-handling equipment, shrank from $20 million to less than $5 million as the peso became worth less and less and the austerity program began taking hold. A loan the company has from Philadelphia's Girard Bank now exceeds its entire peso capital. The firm's order backlog, usually nine months, has dropped to four. Company President Carlos Lopez has been forced to close down two of his company's three plants and lay off 362 of his 509 workers...
...when one profoundly confused male official approached the Queen and, instead of bowing, curtsied. The Prince, to help the man out of his embarrassment, good-humoredly curtsied back.) Queen and consort played expertly to easy audiences in the Caribbean, and faced a Mexican public eager for distraction from its peso troubles. At week's end the royal couple could look forward to their accustomed favorable reviews from royalty-dazzled democrats...
...prices has done nothing to soothe their nerves. For the past month the lenders have been putting the final touches on a rescheduling agreement designed to halt the financial skid that Mexico has been in since late summer, when the country nationalized its banks after devaluing the peso for the second time in less than a year. U.S. private lenders alone have some $25 billion at risk in Mexico, a sum that puts that nation, along with Brazil, at the top of the list of foreign borrowers from American banks. Brazil, however, does not rely on oil for its income...