#Mexico has world's 11th-highest GDP based on PPP. As Europe weakens, it will be in the top 10 @johnfmauldin

Mexico as a Major Power

By George Friedman

March 14, 2016

This from Mauldin Economics



Mexico has the 11^th-highest GDP in the world based
on purchasing power parity, according to the International Monetary
Fund. As Europe weakens, it will be in the top 10 in the not-too-distant
future. Yet, this country is regarded by many Americans as a Third
World nation, dominated by drug cartels and impoverished people
desperate to get into the United States.

While it is true that organized crime exists in Mexico and
that many Mexicans want to immigrate to the US, a roughly equal number
are leaving the US and returning to Mexico… drawn by economic
opportunities in their home country. The largest auto plant in the
Western Hemisphere is in Mexico, and Bombardier builds major components
for aircraft there. Mexico has many problems, of course, but so does the
U.K. (the 10^th-largest economy) and Italy (12^th).

No one would be surprised by the U.K. or Italy rankings, but many
people would be stunned to find that Mexico is ranked right up with
them. Obviously, Mexico is not as developed as Britain is. Like most
nations transitioning from underdevelopment to greater development,
Mexico suffers from substantial class and regional inequality, and the
emergence of a dominant middle class is still unfolding.

At the same time, Italy also has substantial regional inequality.
Mexico can't aspire to British standards, but Italy is a reasonable
model. Inequality diminishes the significance of being 11th in some
ways, but it doesn't change the basic reality of Mexico’s relative
strength.

Mexico is commonly perceived, far too simplistically, as a Third
World country with a general breakdown of law and a population seeking
to flee north. That perception is also common among many Mexicans, who
seem to have internalized the contempt in which they are held.

Mexicans know that their country’s economy grew 2.5 percent last year
and is forecast to grow between 2 percent and 3 percent in 2016—roughly
equal to the growth projection for the US economy.  But, oddly, they
tend to discount the significance of Mexico’s competitive growth numbers
in a sluggish global economy.

Here, therefore, we have an interesting phenomenon. Mexico is, in
fact, one of the leading economies of the world, yet most people don’t
recognize it as such and tend to dismiss its importance.



Read the rest of the article here: Mexico as a Major Power

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