Word: pesos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...support of the power blocs within the P.R.I., including labor, peasants and the bureaucracy. One important figure to watch is Fidel Velásquez, 82, head of the 3.5 million-member Confederation of Mexican Workers, the country's most powerful union organization. After the February devaluation of the peso, Velásquez won wage increases of 10% to 30% for Mexican workers. As a result, the devaluation did not significantly help the competitiveness of Mexican exports, and inflation moved toward the three-digit range. On the eve of De la Madrid's inauguration, Velásquez had threatened...
...problems that De la Madrid confronts at home are even more nightmarish than those that worry bankers abroad. Inflation, which stood at 60% as recently as August, has reached nearly 100% and is expected to climb further next year. The peso has lost more than three-quarters of its value against the U.S. dollar in the past ten months. In a country that reveled in growth rates of 8% or higher for four years, the economy has come to a virtual standstill. Next year will be even worse: gross domestic product is expected to decline 2% or more. The unemployment...
...expanding interdependence of the two countries is strikingly visible in such U.S. border towns as Calexico, Calif., Nogales, Ariz., and El Paso. During Mexico's boom, local economies flourished as Mexicans crossed the border in droves to buy American-made cars, clothing and food. But the peso's declining value, together with strict controls on the amount of U.S. currency Mexicans can obtain, has virtually halted the flow of Mexican customers, and merchants complain of near Depression business conditions...
...result, Mexicans began to lose confidence in their currency, rushing to buy dollars and thus undermining the peso. But López Portillo would not devalue the peso-a humiliating gesture, in his eyes-until it was too late. By February, when he finally allowed the Mexican currency to decline in value from 25 a dollar to 50, huge amounts of private money had been taken out of the country. In a final attempt to salvage the situation, not to mention his reputation, López Portillo nationalized Mexico's 57 private banks last September, blaming them...
...minute inaugural speech, De la Madrid outlined a ten-point austerity program for "reordering the economy." It included deep cuts in government spending and higher prices for public sector goods. (The next day gasoline prices were doubled.) He promised to peg the peso at a more "realistic" rate of exchange and announced plans to restructure the federal bureaucracy and eliminate waste...