Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Saturday, September 5, 2009

Mexico's cash flow question

By Dave Anderson:


The LA Times reports on the shrinking Mexico economy:



The U.S. recession has hit Mexico hard by drying up a market for automobiles and other manufactured goods. Economists project that the Mexican economy will shrink by 7% or so this year, a major drop.


The U.S. downturn has also cut cash transfers sent home by migrants north of the border, one of Mexico's biggest sources of foreign income.


Remittances have been shrinking (as well as undocumented immigration) as the low skill jobs in the US economy (general labor for construction, restaurants, land-scaping etc) are either drying up in their entirity or are seeing significant native-born competition as people shift down the economic ladder.  Light and medium manufacturing for export is drying up because the American consumer is tapped out and is actually retiring net debt for the first extended period in my life.  Mexico's government is facing a cash flow problem.


Now throw in the fact that the smart hedge that PEMEX and the Mexican government took last year which guaranteed a minimal price of $70 per barrel of oil sold is set to expire in the next few months, there could be problems.  Right now oil is at $67 per barrel without any discounts for quality or transit, and the end of the summer driving season is near, so we should expect a drop in oil prices soon.  Mexico's government receives about a third of its revenue from oil, so with the hedge expiring in November, it could see another significant revenue hit. 



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  1. Dave SchulerSeptember 5, 2009 at 1:42 AM

    An additional factor that you might consider in categorizing Mexico's economic problems is the role of China. China's essentially zero labor rate leaves. That leaves little space for Mexico's export goods to the United States but, even more importantly, it squeezes out Mexico's domestic consumption as well.
    That's an even bigger problem for the Mexicos than it is for the United States.

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