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Mexican Peso Crisis Essay

Decent Essays

The IMF and World Bank providing loans to impoverished and financially unstable countries is not only irresponsible, it's unethical. I intend to use the example of the loans provided to Mexico during the Mexican peso crisis, also called the Tequila crisis or December mistake crisis to illustrate this, and then provide what I believe would be a better solution

On January 1st, 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement became effective. This, along with the Mexican peso having an exchange rate pinned to the US dollar and low interest rates in the United States provided the Mexican government and Mexican businesses with access to foreign investors who we eager to invest. Joseph A. Whitt, Jr. details the events as “the Mexican government devalued the peso. The financial crisis that followed cut the peso's value in half, sent inflation soaring and set off a severe recession in Mexico” (Whitt, 1996, p. 1). Two days later, “On the morning of December 22nd, the government announced that it was abandoning the exchange rate target band and allowing the peso to float” (Whitt, 1996, p. 14).

During the previous year, the Mexican government was …show more content…

I do agree with pushing for economic reform, especially with policies that would help to control inflation and reduce the deficit. However, I don't agree that aid should be in the form of loans. IMF and the World Bank should provide grants in exchange for economic policies, and only after the policies have been in place for a period of time. Dave Ramsey (n.d.) says that “you can't borrow your way out of debt”, and while this was in reference to personal finance, I believe that it also rings true on a larger scale as well. If the Mexican government was not spending so much of its' income on paying off debt, it would have had more money available for infrastructure or social projects, and may not have needed to dip into its'

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