Posted on 08/27/2007 12:26:12 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Growing up in Mexico City, I always knew Mexico was an unjust country - a place where small coteries of the privileged control all power and wealth while half the population lives in poverty. But it never occurred to me that Mexico would have billionaires.
It does. According to Forbes magazine, last year there were 10 Mexicans among the world's 946 billionaires.
That might not seem out of line in a country with 100 million-plus people, which accounts for about 1.6 percent of the global economy. But here's what takes the cake, especially if you're Mexican like me. Earlier this month, Fortune reported that Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican, had just surpassed Bill Gates to become the world's richest man, with a fortune worth $59 billion.
To put it in perspective, Slim's treasure is equivalent to slightly less than 7 percent of Mexico's total production of goods and services - one out of every 14 dollars' worth of stuff made by all the people in the country.
The income distribution in the United States may be fast approaching Mexican levels of inequality, but in relative terms, Gates isn't even in Slim's league. His $58 billion fortune is less than 0.5 percent of the nation's GDP.
Indeed, by this measure, Slim is richer even than the robber barons of the gilded age. John D. Rockefeller was worth the equivalent of about 1.5 percent of the nation's GDP.
It takes about nine of the captains of industry and finance of the 19th and early 20th centuries - Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John J. Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Stewart, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Jay Gould and Marshall Field - to replicate the footprint that Slim has left on Mexico.
But the momentous scale is not the most galling aspect of Slim's riches. There's the....
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I wish Mexico had more billionaires. I just wish they came from ground level entrepreneurship.
I once made a pilgrimage to Mexico City (October, 1995) to the Basilica of Guadalupe -- which is a national treasure.
I gave away my coin money to the poor, and they were always grateful!
They thing that struck me, though was the happiness that a number of the people displayed. There is a lot of unhappiness in the US, even with our great wealth.
At first I was followed by a Government man from Mexico. One reason was that I did not tell anyone my intentions for the trip -- work, family -- only God.
I think the Mexican Government guy realized I was only interested in finding God in Mexico City.
I did.
These Robber Barons can sell their souls to the devil. They only have their time on earth to enjoy...
I was getting a Super Gulper at the Circle K in Oxnard California, which is across the street from a bunch of farms, etc. There is this armored booth where a company sends wire transfers to South American, and sells phone cards.
I got to looking at the rates they charge all these illegals calling home. The rates to Mexico from CA were 50 cents a minute. I almost fell over. While I realize our business has a three year plan with AT&T, our rates to the UK are 5 cents a minute, 7 cents to Germany, Canada is the same rate at US calls, 3 cents a minute.
Only does Russia cost as much as dialing Mexico, and I think it tops out at 25 cents a minute.
So you can see how much the oligarchs are raping their former citizens for.
It's getting hard to find government officials in Washington without deep ties to corporate interests.
When has the government of any country not had deep ties to the rich and/or powerful of that country?
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Certainly there are many poor people in Mexico, since perhaps half the country lives in poverty. However, the nation as a whole is quite rich — see the documented facts listed below — and could well finance the sort of improvements in education and infrastructure that would better the living standards of all Mexicans.
But the Mexican ultra-rich, like telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, don't like to tax themselves for investment the country badly needs for infrastructure and education, and it helps them greatly that the American taxpayer has been forced to support Mexicans living in the United States.
Interestingly, the Forbes list of billionaires published in 2006 showed Carlos Slim moving up to the number three spot among the world's richest men (NOTE Slim displaced Bill Gates as the richest in 2007).
Every dollar spent in U.S. taxes for social services for illegal aliens frees up additional cash to be sent south as part of the annual remittances which provided $20 billion in 2005.
According to the CNN news show Lou Dobbs Tonight (3/21/05), "Remittances, as they're called, are expected to become Mexico's primary source of income this year, surpassing the amount of money that Mexico makes on oil exports for the first time ever."
So when (then) El Presidente Vicente Fox complains that the "dignity" of Mexicans living illegally in America requires that they receive free healthcare on the U.S. taxpayer's dime, he is really talking about increased remittances to keep their whole corrupt system afloat.
Consider these relevent facts:
• Mexico has the second-highest highest Gross Domestic Product in Latin America, after being #1 for several years over second-place Brazil.
• When measured in GDP per capita, Mexico ranks #1 as of 2005, ahead of Chile and Venezuela.
• According to Forbes magazine, a substantial proportion of Latin American billionaires, 10 out of 26, were Mexican as of 2005.
• Mexico raises less revenue through taxation than nearly any other Latin American country, just 12 percent which is one reason why the nation's wealth is not better utilized.
By comparison, the United States takes in 25-28 percent of its gross domestic profit in taxes. Even Brazil taxes itself at twice the Mexican rate.
• Economist Gary Hufbauer of the Institute for International Economics has remarked, "It's up to Mexico to solve its problem, and basically the wealthy classes do not want to tax themselves, period. While I'm not usually an advocate for larger government, Mexico is a country where public investment, done wisely, could pay huge dividends."
• Mexico expert Prof. George Grayson of William and Mary College calls Mexico an "immensely wealthy nation."
• Mexico's economy is the world's tenth largest.
• When the ruling party needed a hefty sum for the 1994 election, Presidente Salinas leaned on a group of rich businessmen to write $25 million checks each at an infamous dinner party, where contributions totaled a staggering $750 million by evening's end. Compare that with the measly $150 million campaign chest in spring 2004 that President Bush had accumulated after three years in office.
• Freedom House notes the cost of corruption: "According a recent study by the Mexico chapter of Transparency International, some $2.3 billion-approximately 1 percent-of the country's economic production goes to officials in bribes, with the poorest families paying nearly 14 percent of their income in bribes."
• Ricas y Famosas — Rich and Famous is a book of photos that takes a peek at the hidden world of the Mexican ultra-rich. Photographer Daniela Rossell used her membership in the exclusive club to reveal the decadent lifestyles of blonde women in gold lamé. It is a shocking view of the most extreme ostentatious wealth among great poverty.
• Sure Things in Mexico: Death, Taxes and Evasion According the recent rankings released from the IMD International, the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development placed Mexico at 56 out of 60 economies examined, largely because of a dearth of investment in everything from infrastructure to education.
Due to its pathetic tax collection, Mexico cannot even buy schoolbooks or pay its police enough to live on, much less invest in its future.
• Lou Dobbs Tonight Transcript (12/16/04) The CNN news show shines a light on Mexican wealth. Particularly noteworthy is Prof. Grayson's remark: "There is a small economic elite who live like maharajas, and there's a political elite that protects them. Our border provides an escape valve which really lets the Mexican political and economic elite off the hook in terms of providing opportunities for their own people."
• While US Focuses on Iraq, Mexico is Collapsing June, 2005, and the symptoms of Mexico's failure as a state are accumulating. The recent takeover of border city Nuevo Laredo by the Mexican army because of the breakdown in law and order was so obvious.
Interestingly, (then) Defense chief Donald Rumsfeld is guided by a secret Pentagon report which identifies Mexico as a potential failed state in the making.
For more, read "Mexico's Rich Don't Like To Pay Taxes — They Think You Should." -30-
Here’s a crazy idea.
Instead of lamenting in the IHT (and Eduardo is also on the NYT editorial board) that a businessperson took advantage of an opportunity created by your corrupt government, how about you get together with your illegal alien countrymen, head back to your home country and reform your government (and not with the failed system that is socialism, either).
Mexico has tremendous wealth and resources. The fact that the author and his countryment prefer either to whine or leave has more to do with their fate than the business activities of Mr. Helu.
Our office uses Vonage. There's no additional charge for calls to Canada, or France, the UK, and many other places in Europe. (I don't know about Mexico, though, since we don't have customers there now.)
When competitors were eventually allowed in, Telmex kept them at bay with some rather creative gambits, like getting a judge to issue an arrest warrant for the top lawyer of a competitor. Today, it still has a 90 percent share of Mexico's landline phone service and controls almost three-quarters of the cellphone market.
The easiest way to acquire and keep a monopoly is to use the coercive power of government.
The liberal writer gives himself away for what he is.
you got that right!
my long distance is my cell phone. i’ve got more roll over minutes than i’ll ever use.
i wanted to call tj, but couldn’t because my cell is only domestic.
so, i called on my verizon dedicated line that i use for dsl.
2 one minute calls or less cost ~ $40.00.
never again.
I really don’t think the Mexicans sneaking in don’t want to turn California into Azatlan (or whatever the lefties call it.)
In Mexico there is confluence of interests between Mr. Slim , and the few other vastly wealthy Mexican “capitalists”, and the leadership of the political class that favors Marxist and statist policy positions for the Mexican national government.
Both the crony-capitalists like Slim and the politicos in Mexico favor a high level of government regulation and intervention that, in the end, also favors some of the monopoly and near-monopoly business positions of people like Slim.
As a result, while there a few people like Slim in Mexico, Mexico is considered one of the least favorable places for entrepreneurs. Some of the illegal immigration from Mexico is from people with skills and the willingness to take risks in the formation of small companies, when the opportunities for those ventures are difficult in Mexico due to regulatory and monopoly-protecting hurdles in Mexico. Don’t flame me for this fact.
I do not offer it as moral support for the illegal immigration it helps spawn. If anything, it demonstrates why that form of illegal immigration should not be supported, because it helps remove some of the political impetus for needed changes in Mexico, by providing an escape valve for those who would otherwise have to stay and become advocates for those changes.
Many here in the U.S. (Bush, Kennedy, McPain, WSJ et al), in their misguided “compassion” for the illegal Mexican immigrant simply become enablers of those in Mexico who do not want to make reforms that would improve the economic conditions in Mexico needed to help minimize its illegal migrants.
The Mexican business and political class has become addicted to exporting their economic failure (last year they were talking to Spain about exporting Mexican labor to Spain).
The misguided compassion of U.S. politicians only help perpetuate the political conditions that maintain the Mexican domestic economic problems that their compassion is responding to.
With respect to U.S. Mexican relations, U.S. politicians need to take some AA courses and learn the moral necessity of tough love. If they don’t they will continue to be no more than passive enablers of Mexico’s export of its own people, while the economic causes of that export never get corrected.
The U.S. is the only nation that is in a position to help force the needed changes in Mexico; and ending illegal immigration, and NOT increasing legal immigration from Mexico - to the U.S. - are the only forces that will provide enough demographic political weight to do it. The current political leadership in Mexico will complain, and loudly, but their grandchildren will thank us for it.
We need a lot of Mexican legal and illegal immigrants in the U.S. to return home and start a “throw the bums out” movement, instead of trying to colonize the U.S. They can make their life in Mexico become what they strive for their life to be here, but not when Mexico can so easily dump them into the U.S. At present, their weight on the demands for change is simply exported.
I suggested it before: The US Gov needs to send a monthly bill to the Mexican Government for all the Mexican illegals - say about $2000 a month per person. If this were implemented - you could hear a great big sucking sound from the border.
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot
respond to every message.
Thank you again for taking the time to write.
Did you mean to use the double negative don’t, don’t??
It’s Aztlan.
With respect to U.S. Mexican relations, U.S. politicians need to take some AA courses and learn the moral necessity of tough love. If they don’t they will continue to be no more than passive enablers of Mexico’s export of its own people, while the economic causes of that export never get corrected.
Agreed. Besides politicians there are also many just plain, (bleeding heart?) US citizens, apparently not the majority, who do not understand this.
Illegal Immigration from Mexico is by far the most serious issue facing the United States, for many reasons. Iraq actually pales in comparison, but it is good diversion for the Media. The CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) are the real scum.
This is what Washington DC has become.
The filthy corrupt country of mexico.
b.
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