Editing History of Mexico (section)

===Economy===
[[File:Mexican_Central_Railway_train.jpg|thumb|right|Mexican Central Railway train at station, Mexico]]

Fiscal stability was achieved by [[José Yves Limantour]], Secretary of Finance of Mexico from 1893 until 1910. He was the leader of the well-educated technocrats known as [[Científico]]s, who were committed to modernity and sound finance. Limantour expanded foreign investment, supported free trade, balanced the budget for the first time, and generated a budget surplus by 1894. However, he could not halt the rising cost of food, which alienated the poor.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Passananti | first1 = Thomas P. | year = 2008 | title = Dynamizing the Economy in a façon irréguliére: A New Look at Financial Politics in Porfirian Mexico | journal = Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos | volume = 24 | issue = 1| pages = 1–29 | doi = 10.1525/msem.2008.24.1.1 }}</ref>

The American [[Panic of 1907]] was an economic downturn that caused a sudden drop in demand for Mexican copper, silver, gold, zinc, and other metals. Mexico cut its imports of horses and mules, mining machinery, and railroad supplies. The result was an economic depression in Mexico in 1908–1909 that soured optimism and raised discontent with the Díaz regime.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Cahill | first1 = Kevin J. | year = 1998 | title = The U.S. bank panic of 1907 and the Mexican depression of 1908–1909 | journal = Historian | volume = 60 | issue = 4| pages = 795–811 | doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1998.tb01416.x}}</ref> Mexico was vulnerable to external shocks because of its weak banking system.{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Mexico had few factories by 1880, but industrialization took hold in the Northeast, especially in [[Monterrey]]. Factories produced machinery, textiles, and beer, while smelters processed ores. Convenient rail links with the nearby US gave local entrepreneurs from seven wealthy merchant families a competitive advantage over more distant cities. New federal laws in 1884 and 1887 allowed corporations to be more flexible. By the 1920s, American Smelting and Refining Company ([[ASARCO]]), an American firm controlled by the Guggenheim family, had invested over 20 million pesos and employed nearly 2,000 workers smelting copper and making wire to meet the demand for electrical wiring in the US and Mexico.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Beato | first1 = Guillermo | last2 = Sindico | first2 = Domenico | year = 1983 | title = The Beginning of Industrialization in Northeast Mexico | journal = The Americas | volume = 39 | issue = 4| pages = 499–518 | doi = 10.1017/S0003161500050197 | jstor=981250| s2cid = 146818822 }}</ref>