If you focus on what is important, you run the risk of neglecting what is urgent: macraf
In economic terms, there are two necessary conditions for a growth process to exist, the first is the attraction of investment and the second, the existence of a rule of law, the latter being the application and enforcement of the law without distinction, The lack of any of these two conditions generates a significant imbalance in the process of economic growth that, in simple words, implies the deterioration in the possibility of producing goods and services to satisfy the needs of the population.
One of the main goods that every person seeks to satisfy is security, therefore, the existence of the Rule of Law becomes essential because, in addition, it potentiates the capture of investment that will finally become employment and consumption, since, it must be Pay the person who does the work.
Given the above, there must be a strategy that ensures the physical, psychological and material integrity of citizens, however, in our country it does not seem to exist and for proof it is enough to remember the acts of violence and crime throughout the national territory, the famous strategy of “hugs not bullets” has been a failure. According to the Mexico 2022 Peace Index, published by the Institute for Economy and Peace (IEP) in 2021, the economic impact of violence in Mexico had a cost equivalent to 20.8% of the national GDP, in pesos and cents. , we are talking about about 243,000 million dollars, although it is true according to this study there is a decrease compared to 2020, the magnitude of the figures, forces us to analyze the issue, the impact is equivalent to 7 times the investment made by the government in medical care and 6 times greater than what was spent on education, the loss significantly exceeds the spending on public security and on the judicial system, which barely reaches 0.63% of GDP.
However, it is important to note that the highest cost of the lack of a security strategy is the level of intentional homicides, which after four years of this government, reaches an average of 3,000 per month, enough to request a change in the direction of the security policy, because we are talking about the lives of fathers, mothers, sisters, children, friends, grandparents, in short, people who were not to blame for what was happening around them, and have had to pay a very high cost. Data could continue to be given such as, for example, that the economic impact of the level of violence in the country is equivalent to 5 times the average monthly salary, that is, 38,196 pesos, or that a 1% decrease in the economic impact of violence is equivalent to federal government spending on science, technology and innovation in 2021, but what really matters is what is being done to solve the problem.
The solution to the security problem would make it possible to fix many other issues in economic terms, laying the necessary foundations to be more attractive to investment. Unfortunately, the discussion is centered on the dependence on the National Guard and the number of troops that make it up. when in reality, that is not the issue that matters, it does not matter if it is a civilian institution or dependent on the army, if it has 10 members, 1,000 or a million, the important issue is the lack of a real strategy that prevents high economic and social cost whose ravages are reflected not only in the pockets of citizens, but also in the high cost of human lives.
* The author is an academic from the School of Government and Economics of the Pan American University, a lecturer, an expert consultant on economic, financial and government issues, founding director of the site The Comment of the Day and regular host of the Voces Universitarias program..
Contact: https://flow.page/eduardolopezchavez
