Calif. Jobless Above Twice Mexico’s

There’s a lot wrong in Mexico. The recent murder spree is one, although that’s largely because the Mexican government is following U.S. government orders to intensify the “war” on drugs. The Mexicans should tell the Yanqui to get lost.

Another part of the murder problem is that honest Mexicans can’t defend themselves against the narcotraficantes because the country has draconian gun control. There’s no Second Amendment right “to keep and bear arms.” Criminals get guns easily — some allowed in by the U.S. government in the scandalous “Fast and Furious” gun export program. But common people are left disarmed.

On the other hand, Mexico’s economy is booming. The latest numbers show Mexico’s unemployment rate at 4.9 percent. By contrast, for June the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.2 percent and California’s was 11.7 percent.

So California’s jobless rate is 2.6 times that of Mexico.

The reason is simple: Despite its problems, for two decades Mexico has been moving away from a socialist economy toward a more capitalist one.

By contrast, the U.S. economy has lurched toward socialism for 10 years, beginning under President Bush and continuing under President Obama. I showed a couple of days ago how the U.S. economy actually went into recession, not in 2007 as commonly reported, but in 2001. This has been a “Lost Decade” for America’s economy, and we’re entering another one.

California also has suffered under socialist governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. Arnold took his campaign vows to advance free markets as seriously as he did his wedding vows. As I have pointed out before, despite his capitalist rhetoric and his praise of America over Austria, his main goal in office was to recreate here the socialist Austria of his youth.

And Jerry Brown, as my colleague Steven Greenhut just reported, remains a hard-core Leftist ideologue committed to destroying “late industrial capitalism.” Brown actually said in 1995: “James Hillman talked about how the root of injustice is taking more out of an exchange than you put into it. If you take enough out of it, you really create evil. Well, isn’t that the system? Isn’t that late industrial capitalism? You want to take out more than you put in.”

That is, Brown believes profit is evil.

Certainly, Mexico’s oil and agricultural sectors have been helped by rising oil and other commodity prices. But oil and agriculture also are large parts of California’s economy. And California has two highly profitable industries unique to the world: Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Yet almost every other industry groans under the heavy weight of the state’s high tax and regulatory climate.

Up until now, the immigration problem has been poor Mexicans hiking North for jobs. Soon, the problem will be perpetually unemployed Gringos heading the other way.

Maybe it’s time to dust off the Español tapes and head South to open a CalWatchDog.com bureau in the other California — Baja.

August 1, 2011