Damning Indictment of Calderón: Even before 2008, poverty way up

It's been known that the 2008 economic crisis hit Mexico far worse than other countries in the Western hemisphere. Now, however, the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) / Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL)'s recent publication, "Social panorama of Latin America," published this November, reveals that poverty went up from 31.7 percent of the population in 2006, to 34.8 percent in 2008 - and extreme poverty, from 8.7 to 11.2 - this, all before the crisis hit Mexico.


(La Jornada has in this regard an interview with the Mexican Alicia Bárcena, who is the Chile-based executive secretary of ECLAC/CEPAL, where she expands on recent social developments in Mexico).


I can think of no other way to read these figures than as a highly negative judgment of Calderón's socio-economic policies.