Had the opportunity (mostly work related - really!) to travel to Jalisco and Nayarit states in Mexico recently.

A few things struck me while I was there, that I thought worthy of sharing:

-CNN International makes CNN in the States look like Fox News.  The shear anti-American slant to everything on the channel reminded me of the BBC.  The most memorable part was a “correspondent” (with a British accent) in Iraq pointing to a whiteboard, with a tally of dead in the area.  His comment was that “these weren’t numbers, they were people” was belied by the smirk on his face:  You could feel his smugness, and the underlying theme of his piece that thing were just going to get worse while America was in Iraq.

-There is little or no animosity towards Americans in that area, as Americans per se.  I saw no real evidence of anti-gringoism, for anti-gringoisms sake.  But they are fiercely patriotic about their State, Mexico, and their history.  There is a grudge held against the Conquistadors, and their imposition of both the Catholic faith (not that they let that stop them from being solidly Catholic), and the feudal system that Mexico was subjected to.

-These two states seem to be models of what is going RIGHT in Mexico.  I saw quite a lot of constuction, and a huge amount of large scale agriculture.  One of my guides had lived in Conneticut for three years, on a tourist visa. He made the comment at one point, that he could not understand why so many Mexicans wanted to enter the US to work, when Mexico had far more potential for growth and advancement, from his perspective.  

-Just from an agricultural perspective, they get a minimum of THREE crops per year from the land, and sometimes FOUR.  They land and weather are so good many folks outide of town grow food in their gardens, including Mangoes, Jack Fruit, Plantain Bananas, Tamarind, varieties of Cocoanuts, and much more.  The small farms are increadibly self sufficient.

-The number of Satellite TV dishes was SHOCKING.  Even cinder block hovels in the middle of nowhere had SKY or Dishnet antennas (and sometimes both).

-Jalisco is the home of the Tequila industry, and Silver mining.  With the Agricultural potential, and inflow of money from Tourism, this area should be - and gives every indication of being - in a boom.  My ultimate barometer of economic groiwth in a region is the Airport.  The Airport in Puerto Vallarta (2nd biggest city in Jalisco, biggest in the Coastal area in the region) is currently expanding to more than DOUBLE it’s capacity.

Seriously looking at moving some investments into Mexico oriented Mutual Funds or ETFs…