Opinion Archive

Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of What the President Should Do Now

May 13, 2009

There are now more H1N1 influenza infections in the US than there are in Mexico. Mexico City's notorious traffic is back (who would have ever thought that we would cheer the Great Bottleneck?). International institutions have praised Mexico's response and now the worry has shifted from the spread of this new strain of flu to the possibility that it might pick up some genes from the H5N1 "avian" variety (which has a 60% kill rate). If it does, then we would be looking at a pandemic with Hollywood-style ramifications, but chances are that the viral mix-and-match would start in Asia (home of H5N1). President Calderón is, for the moment, safe from being responsible for the new Plague.

So, what should he do now? Tourism revenues are set to fall by 40% this year (that's about $5 billion dollars to this Top 10 destination). South American opportunists and Chinese hotheads have tried to quarantine Mexico. Economic activity in the world's 8th most important city economy, Mexico City, was stifled. Experts predict that this episode will cost the country about 0.69% of its GDP, but common sense fears much more.

First, it's time to crank up the stimulus. Mexico has a lot of pent-up supply and demand that is waiting for a reason to start up again. Second, President Calderón needs to promote the hospitality sector, with much higher deductions for business travel and restaurant expenses (national tourism is actually more important than international arrivals, so benefits for Mexican businesses would be very helpful). Restaurants have suffered too much; from smoking bans to capricious local authorities and draconian tax laws. It's time for the government to bud out and for Mexico to fulfill its mission as the place for "food, folks and fun" (to borrow McDonald's' old slogan).

Third, let's get the word out. Thankfully, the Obama administration was even-handed in its handling of the influenza crisis, listening to scientists, not populists. Nevertheless, Mexico's image problem remains, not just from H1N1, but from the violence and poverty that get incessant coverage in the media.

As has been mentioned in this column, Mexico needs a multi-disciplinary approach in communicating to Americans. Academics and scholars should be made available to all media outlets when they talk about Mexico; cultural events should be coordinated and a mega advertising and media campaign should start today. The campaign should differentiate among Mexico's diverse destinations.

As we all know, Mexico is much more than its caricature. In fact, for tens of millions of Mexicans and Americans, Mexico is the world's best kept "secret". Given the issues that confront many communities, it would be naïve to think that the State Department could retract all of its travel advisories ("warnings") in the short term. Nevertheless, there are many opportunities to advertise specific destination that are perfectly safe. In that sense, Mexico could promote a tacit (or, better yet, explicit) "seal of approval" from the US State Department, insofar as there is no advisory, or as the US Embassy considers the place OK. Many of these colonial towns, beaches and cities would have the added benefit of not having suffered from H1N1.

At the same time, business groups could promote the NAFTA zone as the economic region that it is, with tens of millions of border-state Americans benefiting from their links with Mexico. The truth that a dollar spent on Mexican goods benefits the US much more than one spent elsewhere needs to be far better understood than it is today.

The Statue of Libertad

This week's reopening of the crown of the Statue of Liberty (officially "Liberty Enlightening the World") in New York reminds us of the excellent job that other countries have done to honor the American immigrant tradition. In 1886 the French celebrated their friendship with the US by giving it a statue that stands 93 meters tall (with pedestal), welcoming "huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

Mexico, being the most significant source of US immigrant manpower in history, should have a similar gesture. Ours could stand on Catalina Island, at the entrance of the LA/Long Beach port complex, thereby manifesting an East and West Coast symmetry vis-à-vis Lady Liberty in New York. The original is a tribute to European immigration, while LA's would pay tribute to the New Americans, who are overwhelmingly Mexican descendants, including the current mayor of Los Angeles.

The point is that President Calderón needs to think outside the box. His high approval levels notwithstanding, Mexico is in a funk. There are plenty of people who are willing and able to help, but they need a coherent vision and some seed capital. That's where the federal government can step in.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Two Cities in Crisis

May 6, 2009

In the space of a year, your correspondent has been caught in two cities that have been faced with major challenges. The first was Houston, during hurricane Ike, and the second is Mexico City, during the current flu epidemic. Of course, the nature of the threat was very different in each case. But certain comparisons are apt. Most similar were people's attitudes. In both Houston and Mexico City, people showed stoic solidarity. Yes, there were some "panic" purchases (of medicines and groceries in Mexico and gasoline in Houston), but the communities were mostly rational and effectively self-organizing. A common humanity surfaced during the two crises that is reassuring.

In both Houston and Mexico City people obeyed the authorities with relatively few complaints. This despite the fact that, in both cases, there were circumstances that made reacting to the threat more difficult. Houston had seen the past four hurricanes turn away from the city at the last minute, making people a little more dismissive of the warnings than they should have been. Here, Chilangos have been frustrated by the open-ended nature of the threat. Even though contagion now seems to have levelled off, no one really knows when life will return 100% to normal.

One major difference is how the authorities participated in the emergency. In Texas, the police and the National Guard were agents of order and enforcement. In Mexico, the emphasis has been on "social" duties, such as handing out face masks. Houston immediately imposed a curfew on its citizens, while Mexico City relied mostly on self-imposed limits within general guidelines (such as the closing of food and entertainment venues). This highlights a major difference with respect to what people expect from their government. Americans want law and order; Mexicans want to be taken care of.

In the end, both natural disasters have left their mark. The picturesque port of Galveston has been disfigured, while Mexico will probably take years to recover the lost revenue from economic activity, in general, and tourism, in particular. But both Texans and Mexicans can be proud of the way they handled their respective crises. Tolstoy once noted that happy families are happy in the same way, but unhappy families are miserable in their own particular fashion. The same thing can be said of societies responding to a crisis which, in this case, means that both societies happily reacted in a similarly mature way.

Kudos and shame

Kudos to the mainstream media in the US; they did a great job with their measured reporting. They voiced people's concerns and analyzed the facts, but they refrained from taking cheap shots at Mexico and its government. Despite the fact that they asked about the possibility of closing the border, they accepted the even-handed facts-based analysis of their authorities with respect to the futility of trying to "quarantine" Mexico.

Not so the French. Shame on the Health Minister for boasting that France would have been much quicker than Mexico in responding to the epidemic. Apparently, the country that suffered over 15,000 deaths during a 2003 heat wave because health workers were on vacation thinks it can lecture the world on effective medical response times. Adding hysteria to insult, she badgered her EU counterparts to block flights to and from Mexico, despite the fact that the virus had already been identified in several European countries. Fortunately, reason prevailed over French posturing.

Shame also on the Cubans and the Argentines who, against the recommendations of the World Health Organization, blocked travel to Mexico. Compare that with the measured response of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, rejecting pressure from right wing Republicans to close the border (including former presidential candidate John McCain who, being from Arizona, should know better). This certainly highlights the emptiness of the "sister republic" rhetoric. Kudos to Americans, in general, and the Obama administration, in particular.

Lastly, Asia. What can one say about the region that has given us our last two pandemics? The Japanese imposed temporary visa restrictions (Mexicans do not normally require a visa to go to Japan), which is, perhaps, understandable. Nevertheless, it is the Chinese who take the shame cake. They quarantined an entire Aeromexico 777 in Shanghai and kept 71 Mexicans (who were asymptomatic) locked up, telling them they could return to Mexico on the 5th of May. In Hong Kong, they quarantined an entire hotel tower because there was one sniveling Mexican inside. Although most will see this as an isolated incident, in a larger sense it serves to remind the world that, no matter how much economic development there has been in China, it remains an unaccountable dictatorship with eratic emergency response mechanisms. Worryingly, they don't seem to have learned much since the SARS fiasco.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Bad Luck

April 29, 2008

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. As was pointed out in an article in The Ottawa Citizen, most public safety protocols regarding flu pandemics in North America were designed around the belief that new strains would arise in Asia, not here. This is based on history and the law of averages. With billions of people living in close proximity to animals and having access to dozens of enormous cities, it is not surprising that the last pandemic flu, in 1968, had Hong Kong as ground zero. As was seen during the SARS epidemic (which nearly reached pandemic proportions), the Chinese port is ideally suited for the propagation of infectious diseases: it is a major trading center with direct flights to everywhere and people live, literally, one on top of another. The Mexico City metropolitan area may have 30% more people, but Hong Kong's population density is nearly twice Mexico City's (5,179 people per square kilometer versus 2,784).

There are still questions regarding the "Eurasian" genetic makeup of the swine from which this strain seems to come. But the fact is that, despite cases reported in several countries around the world, Mexico City became the unlikely ground zero for this epidemic. This caught everyone off guard. The Mexican authorities are fairly well prepared for natural disasters: the country is hit by more hurricanes than anywhere else in the world and the "DN III" military-based contingencies are very good at keeping people safe. But the government, confident in the experts' opinion regarding an Asian origin to influenza mutations, did not move as quickly as many would have hoped in this case. In a big country where 8.2-level earthquakes and category 5 hurricanes are both very possible, why worry about flus that will probably come ashore in North America through "Hongcouver" or Asia-focused California? By the time these get to Mexico, the Canadians and Americans will have probably already come up with a vaccine.

The upshot is that Mexico's authorities took about one or two weeks longer than they might have to respond. White House denials to the contrary, it is very possible that President Obama was tangentially exposed to influenza during his visit. Locally, several deaths could probably have been avoided. But part of the problem is that it took so long to identify the new strain, such that health officials might reasonably have assumed that it was an odd continuation of the seasonal variety.

Once they did react, schools were cancelled on a massive scale (for the first time since the 1985 Mexico City quake) and millions of face masks were efficiently distributed. The capital's intense nightlife was put on hold and massive amounts of anti-virals were made available. You could tell that health officials were understandably confused, as the DF's government first said that everyone was to be vaccinated and then retracted its statement hours later as information came in regarding the fact that the vaccine was not 100% effective.

What is sure is that it's terrible luck. To begin with, you could feel the collective desperation of the country's massive tourism industry. They had been battling Mexico's awful (and often unfair) news coverage as a place with ubiquitous violence. Now they had to deal with this issue, a news pandemic about a weird flu outbreak. It was clear by the weekend that despite the fact that nearly half the Mexican states, including Cancún's Quintana Roo, had not been affected, people were cancelling their trips regardless. Oh, and to add insult to injury, a 5.8 Richter scale earthquake hit during the press conference of the Health Minister on Monday.

You can bet that, no matter what the outcome, and despite enormous effort, Mexico's government will be found lacking. This is mainly because both inside the country, and outside of it, there is nothing that the government can do right. Despite the fact that both the leftist city government and the right-leaning federal government were democratically elected, they still lack credibility.

This is especially curious because, whether during the influenza scare, or during a hurricane, people follow the government's instructions. We are left with the strange situation that people are obedient and responsible in their actions, but dismissive and inflammatory with their words.

Until now, the aggressively negative nature of Mexico's media coverage has, perhaps, cost the country a few billion dollars in tourist revenue. Despite the scaremongering, it has probably not cost the country too much in terms of international cooperation; Mexico seems to have the trust of the US government and international organizations. Nevertheless, the perennial inability of the country to handle its serious public image problem (once again, both within and without) is a general drag on its economy and its people. And, with this recent spate of terrible luck, this majority-Christian nation is being reminded that God only helps those who help themselves.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Low Expectations

April 22, 2009

For those of us who champion an integrated North America, it was nice to see American flags welcoming President Obama along Paseo de la Reforma. With over 300 people in his committee, and coming on the heels of Secretary Clinton's working visit, it is obvious that the US president is making Mexico a priority and going well beyond photo opportunities and diplomatic niceties.

But one thing is to make Mexico a partner in fighting drug-related violence and another is to implement a vision based on mutual prosperity and continental friendship. Sadly, almost no one has great expectations regarding US-Mexico relations, anymore. Hence, both presidents are missing the opportunity to mold the most intense (and possibly even the most fruitful) relationship between any two countries in the world into a true partnership.

Nine years ago, the election of President Fox bolstered Mexico's democratic bona fides. Today, most have forgotten that during the 20th century analysts blamed Mexico's undemocratic PRI for our countries' limited relations. For a couple of days in early September of 2001, during Fox's visit to George Bush's Washington, it seemed that things could improve substantially. Then September 11th put paid to that illusion.

Suddenly, Mexico's democratic transition became a footnote. Americans demanded security, which our weak institutions could not offer. Worse, Mexicans, very much a socially laissez-faire people, weren't even conceptually ready to fully take control over their territory. Americans see security as a law and order issue; something that can be enforced immediately. Mexicans see security in a social context; something that can be fixed only by dealing with other "social injustices", as well. Exasperated by Mexico's inability to "get it", Americans started walling off the border.

Ironically, 9-11 made Mexico much more important to the US. Mexico's draconian visa rules for Middle Easterners and the myriad other ways that the Mexican government adapts its policies to its neighbor could very well have stopped one or more attacks on the US mainland. But, ignorant of their own profound relevance, Mexican authorities were unable to translate these concrete actions into respect. At the same time, the rise of drug-related violence, especially in border cities, showed an inept and corrupt police, which destroyed the Mexican government's credibility. In one of history's cruel ironies, the reviled PRI, in its heyday, could have offered the US the security it wanted, but a celebrated democratic Mexico could not.

The upshot is that, despite the fact that the US and Mexico are already profoundly integrated, neither country has been able to channel the momentous forces that lie behind integration. Misunderstanding the nature of the relationship, Mexico City and Washington often try to fight against the tide of history. The US Congress has even implemented its own version of continental containment.

Meanwhile, a beleaguered US bureaucracy does "the best it can" and Mexico's officials do their own best to humor the Americans, all the while fighting a war of attrition against the ill treatment of its undocumented citizens. Deep down, the Americans don't believe that Mexico could ever be a trustworthy neighbor, strong enough to be a true ally to the US. Similarly, the Mexicans don't believe that Americans could ever be anything but bully opportunists who hypocritically use the people they then discard.

Due to their low expectations with respect to the other, no one is even asking the right questions. Instead of seeing Ciudad Juárez' violence as an inevitable consequence of the "drug war", Mexicans should be asking what it is that makes its Mexican-American sister city of El Paso one of the safest in North America. Instead of seeing undocumented Mexican immigration as permanent, Americans should be asking what we can all do to help Mexico become a developed economy. Instead of chastising Americans for their horrible border fence, Mexicans should be asking what we need to do to make it unnecessary. Instead of seeing our common border as a source of problems, we should be asking how we can harness its energy for our mutual benefit.

After centuries of letting history beat them to a pulp, Europeans set forth a grand vision for a common future based on peace and prosperity. North America is not Europe and adopting the European Union model is neither politically feasible, nor necessarily desireable. But it is inexcusable for two integrated Western democracies to lack any sort of plan for the future beyond fighting narcotraffickers. Well into the 21st century, it is incredible that our governments are still constantly overwhelmed by history, unable to show even a modicum of long term leadership. Our 415 million people, out of which fully 137 million are either Mexican, or Mexican-American, need to start believing in themselves and in each other.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Fixing Elections

April 15, 2009

Election season is upon us. On Sunday, July 5th, Mexicans will decide the makeup of the Chamber of Deputies: 500 people, 300 chosen by direct vote plus 200 chosen by "proportional representation", according to party lists. Local elections will also take place in the DF, Mexico State, Campeche, Nuevo León, Sonora, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Colima. There, people will choose their local legislators and their "Municipal Presidents", or mayors. Candidates are not allowed to do any proselytizing until May (the actual date depends on the state and the elected position). In many cases, being caught campaigning in the "quiet period" can mean being disqualified.

Despite the impressive organization of the Mexican electoral system, perhaps the most sophisticated in the world, there is a large gap between how it is supposed to work and how it actually does work. The past couple of weeks have seen revelations of an alleged PRD narcocandidate and a publicized attempt on behalf of the National Lottery (officially, a government-run charity) to fund a PAN candidate for the governorship of Campeche. Two reminders that, despite over-zealous laws and regulations (perhaps even because of them), Mexico's electoral system is flawed. Worse, by accusing one another of shamefaced corruption and then being caught doing the same things (as invariably happens to every political party everywhere), democracy loses credibility, hurting everyone.

Most of the problem lies with the roles political parties and electoral institutions play (or fail to). As was mentioned in last week's article, Mexico has given political parties the run of the house thanks to the fact that no reelection means that politicians are beholden to their party bosses. Elected officials are forced to look to them for a job when their appointment is over in either 3 years (deputies and mayors) or 6 years (senators and governors). Thus, when the PRI and the PRD were beside themselves with anger at having lost the election in 2006 to a plain vanilla PAN candidate who successfully painted them as crooks and Anarchists (PRI and PRD, respectively), they simply outlawed negative ads. They then put all sorts of restrictions on a slew of other things... but they left weak internal party structures, and electoral enforcement on behalf of voting institutions, alone.

Your correspondent was a candidate in 2003. Having lived his own personal "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore" moment, he has spared the electorate any further personal petitions for their precious votes. But, while it is OK for some people to avoid politics due to personal disillusionment, when too many public-spirited people who might prove to be worthwhile avoid having their names on ballots the system is hijacked by politicians who have nothing to lose. Given Mexico's rampant impunity, it doesn't cost anything for a disgraced politician (who is usually otherwise unemployable) to live up to his or her reviled corrupt image. Worse, despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, parties leave their candidates, who are novices by law, to fend for themselves. Party money should be used to vet, train and monitor candidates, as well as to fund 100% of their campaigns and establish quality control mechanisms for those in power. Imagine if electing a candidate from Party X guaranteed a minimum standard of government? Today, you can't.

All politicians are vulnerable to slander by a media that is often as corrupt as the people they denounce. Much of the problem lies in the way that candidates promote themselves during elections. If the electoral institutes and tribunals (there are a total of 66 between the states and the federation) are going to be asked to police elections, they should be given the task of defining the spaces where candidate advertising campaigns can take place. That is, there should be a predetermined set of places where candidates can broadcast their name, image and platform. Letters and brochures mailed to the electorate, advertisements and interviews in the media; all should be predetermined. Even lampposts on major thoroughfares could have steel frames where campaign propaganda could be displayed in an orderly fashion. The allotment of these spaces would be difficult to negotiate, but candidates could then compete openly on the quality of their proposals and how they market them.

Today, "enforcing" the rules means haphazardly chasing candidates who are constantly told what not to do. No one handles the very real public need for candidates to get their message across. Worse, by leaving it up to novice candidates the system has opened up huge grey areas that leave both the public, and the candidates themselves, vulnerable. With their power and multi-billion dollar budgets, the parties, the Institutes, and the Tribunals can fix Mexico's elections, stopping them from being "fixed" by someone else.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Spoiled Parties

April 8, 2009

Democracies channel participation in politics and government through political parties. Parties are good because they can bring order to an inherently chaotic system of government. Parties are evil because they are easily hijacked by charismatic sociopaths and because they thrive on highlighting differences, thereby creating conflict (hence the word "partisan").

Parties can seek either ideological "purity" (a sort of fundamentalism), or they can open their doors to ideas and create what is known as a "big tent". In Mexico, political parties tend to avoid both of these extremes, being driven more by opportunism than by ideology. No matter what their views, candidates are often accepted based on their popularity (how many votes they bring), or on money (how much of it they have, or how much they can get from others). Candidates become "projects", where wealthy sponsors or organized interest groups coincide to achieve representation, power and/or a go at the public purse.

Until the 1990's Mexico was virtually a one-party system under the PRI. The genius of what Mario Vargas Llosa called "the perfect dictatorship" was that it balanced the interests of different actors in such a way that basic political stability was maintained. Unlike the rest of Latin America, Mexico has had peaceful transfers of presidential power every six years for nearly eight decades.

After its long democratic transition, Mexico created a party-dominated democracy. The fact that there is no reelection means that the best and worse politicians suffer the same fate at the end of their time in office: they are out of a job. Being human, legislators and mayors grow accustomed to the relatively high income and perks of holding office, so they worry incessantly about their future. Knowing that their next job depends on their party, they are more beholden to it than to their electors.

Ideally, parties should represent the legitimate interests of a majority of society. This is often the case. But parties in Mexico are too often dominated by families, strongmen, or others who come to "own" the franchise. Instead of "leveling the playing field", which is an important aim of Mexico's system of public financing, taxpayer money finds its way into the pockets of the ruling clique. The upshot is that private money is still an integral part of the political system, but unlike in the US, sources are not transparent.

There is actually a significant amount of money given to these organizations for "building" the party. Often, this money is spent on "institutes" that belong to allies, who then invoice for training ("sprinkling" to party leaders, as the saying goes). Hence, there is an astonishing variety of governing styles, even among politicians of the same party. Instead of training their members and enforcing quality control over their governments, parties are on to the next election as soon as the previous one is over. Further, given that administrators and legislators are, by law, novices, most end up spending most of their time learning before they have to start closing up shop and jockeying for their next job.

Meanwhile, the voters and the media are not much help. By insisting on seeing all politicians as corrupt, citizens demoralize all participants, making them cynical. In search of this "angle", the media destroys anyone who dares run for public office. Given the internal contradictions of both the written, and unwritten, rules of the political game, they easily find mistakes that they then blow out of proportion in order to benefit themselves, or the rival political group they represent. Compared to the hypocrisy of the media (print, radio, television and the Internet), cynical politicians are mere kindergarteners.

The upshot is that a lot of worthy, public-spirited people are repelled by politics. Worse, the only people who are left are those who have nothing to lose. They put up with character assassination because they don't have the skills to make anywhere near the amount of money that they can make as politicians. The fact that they are going to be singled out as corrupt is just par for the course.

No democracy is perfect (it is the worst of all systems, except for all the rest, according to Churchill), but they can be made more fair and more effective at bringing better people to power. For Mexico's democracy to improve, a president or a group of politicians will have to betray those that gave them their strength. They will have to play by the current rules in order to forge new ones. They will be seen as treacherous by their backers and as "more of the same" by the electorate. But, stakeholders in the status quo can relax. For the moment, there looks to be no party pooper in sight.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico and Latin America

April 1, 2009

According to legend, the term "Latin America" was popularized when Napoleon III wanted to promote a French connection to the region in order to legitimize the rule of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. Today, it is useful to identify more than 20 countries that use a Romance language and are predominantly Roman Catholic.

Mexico is the only Latin American country that is a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement. This, and the surprising scope of its relations with the United States, causes some confusion among internationalists. Often, a false debate arises about whether Mexico is a "North" or a "Latin" American country. It is, of course, both. As a reference to a shared Iberoamerican cultural heritage, the term "Latin America" is very useful. As a label used to lump our international relations with other Romance-language speaking countries in the region, it is pretty much useless, especially vis-à-vis the United States.

Last week this column criticized a Miami Herald columnist who insists on saying that Mexico and Brazil compete to represent Latin American interests in Washington. Your correspondent argues that it is silly to think that Brazil could be relevant to US-Mexico relations, just like it would be foolish to think that Mexico could represent a Mercosur country's interests in the US. The US and Mexico have perhaps the most intimate relationship of any two countries in the world, including the most crossed border anywhere and tens of millions of each other's citizens living in, or visiting, each other. At the same time, South America is an important region with specific interests that relate to the US. Nevertheless, Brazil, the region's largest country by far, had about $60 billion dollars in trade with the US last year. Mexico had over $367 billion. Mexico has 55 clogged lanes of traffic between the two countries, over a dozen railroad crossings, and hundreds of flights to and from every major city of both countries. Brazil, on the other hand, sends a few 747s between LA, Miami and New York and Sao Paolo and Rio. More to the point, in every single area of international relations: security, trade, international crime, migration, environment, etc., South American interests and Mexican interests do not coincide.

Even if Mexico were to achieve a leadership role in the region by some unusual act of acrobatic statesmanship, is it really feasible to imagine Mexico turning down preferential treatment for its citizens regarding immigration over those of other Latin American countries, for example? By the same token, if Brazil were to have its sugar export quotas to the US lifted, is it realistic to expect that it would hold out until Mexico's were lifted, as well? Of course not.

Further, despite linguistic and cultural affinities, Mexico and the rest of Latin America don't mix much. Yes, Central Americans use Mexico as a bridge to the US and hundreds of thousands of them have stayed. But there are more Americans living on Lake Chapala than there are Brazilians living in all of Mexico. Or, try being a Peruvian, or a Colombian, and getting a Mexican visa. It's not that Mexico has anything against the region; Mexico has simply decided that it must safeguard access to its northern border. As was mentioned last week, when Mexico removed travel restrictions on Brazilians, they became the largest source of undocumented migration to the US by what Homeland Security calls "OTMs" ("Other Than Mexicans").

Mexico is not willing to impinge on its relations with the US for the sake of Latin American solidarity. This important asymetry in terms of north versus south means that Mexico cannot be a "leader" in terms of representing the interests of other countries in this hemisphere. At the same time, the importance of Mexico across the entire spectrum of foreign and domestic issues, as well as the intensity of its relations with the US, mean that it would be silly to think that any country could represent Mexico.

During the 2006 elections Felipe Calderón was the only one of three major presidential candidates to be able to identify Belmopan as the capital of Belize (a country that shares a border with Mexico). Despite some notable exceptions (Ángel Gurría, who is the head of the OECD, or Bernardo Sepúlveda, a judge at the International Court of Justice, for example), Mexicans are inward-looking people. Educational deficiencies mean that they are generally profoundly ignorant of the rest of the world. Worse, like most Americans, they are indifferent. The upshot is that this North American Latin American country should aspire to lead by example, not by competing with Brazil for influence. Nothing would be better for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking America than to have its second-largest country be a peaceful, prosperous democracy under the Rule of Law.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Garish Limelight

March 25, 2009

The limelight has been on Mexico of late. Truckers versus trade agreements, travel advisories versus Spring Break in Cancún, border intelligence versus border militarization, all have been in the news. A recent Gallup poll shows Mexico's unfavorable rating among the general US population at its highest point since the anti-NAFTA populism of 1993. It is now less popular than Egypt and just above bully Russia and rival China.

It is in this context that President Obama announced his intention to come here in April. His visit will follow Secretary of State Clinton, who sources say plans to have an "intense" workload here, dealing with the issues (and there are many). This Obama administration one-two foreign trip underscores the fact that, for all of the hand-wringing on behalf of our punditocracy regarding Mexico's importance vis-a-vis the US, no administration can afford to ignore Mexico for long.

No suprise there. If our chattering classes spent a little time investigating the intensity of our day-to-day inter-governmental relations, they would not need to speculate on the momentary fancy of the US Commander-in-Chief. But there's nothing like high level State visits to stroke the national ego.

What is surprising is how the media light shining on Mexico today is so garish and superficial. Just when we need laser-like penetration to analyze difficult problems, we get facile stereotypes north of the border and Chicken Little-style apocalypticism (mixed with self-flagellation) here. That is how a stalwart democratic ally and integrated friend to the US has a worse image than an authoritarian North African country.

Even expert analysts often don't "get" Mexico. Recently, a widely-read Miami Herald columnist revived the old canard regarding Brazil's "taking" the leadership position from Mexico with respect to US-Latin America relations. "Goodbye, Mexico", he says, citing Brazilian President Lula da Silva's warm reception in Washington. Now that President Obama has announced his intention to visit does that make us "cooler" than the Brazilians?

Of course not. US-Mexico relations are in a completely different league, for better and for worse, from US-Brazil relations. Whether you're talking about trade, migration (in both directions), the size of diplomatic missions, cooperation, even cultural integration and shared history, there is no comparison. Brazil's attempts at leadership do not diminish Mexico's importance because Brazil is irrelevant with respect to US-Mexico relations. And Mexico is irrelevant with respect to US-South America relations. The only time we coincided was when Mexico had to impose visa restrictions on Brazilians because, when we tried open access, Brazil became the number one source of OTM undocumented migration to the US. "OTM", by the way, is how US immigration officials refer to the rest of the world's immigrants; it means "Other Than Mexicans".

But even the experts consistently fail to understand Mexico's significance and misrepresent our country. The communication problem starts with our not respecting ourselves. Like a spouse in an abusive relationship, we believe that we somehow deserve our humiliation. Even Mexico's most intelligent journalists too often take their criticism to the edge of the "failed state" extreme. If they don't like a change to electoral law, they declare the end of Mexican democracy. If they talk about poverty Mexico is depicted as a lost cause, ignoring the heroic and successful efforts that our society makes to keep hunger at bay for tens of millions of people every day. At the same time, the American public's passive-aggressive attitude towards Mexico (not actually lashing out, but always criticizing) plays off Mexicans' low national self-esteem and no one is well informed.

Mexico is a huge, diverse country that is stronger than even most Mexicans understand. Curiously, the apocalypticism preached by much of the media (and some major politicians) has meant that we are partially "inoculated" against some forms of social unrest. So many people have been so aggressive in their criticism; so many politicians have been so inflammatory in their demonstrations and rhetoric; and so many criminials have been so violent, that it is really quite difficult to fundamentally destabilize Mexico. Street demonstrations that overthrow governments from Thailand to Iceland and Argentina, elicit a weary shrug here.

This is neither to downplay the very serious problems this country faces, nor to be dismissive of intelligent criticism. But it is precisely because the problems are so serious that we need to be sober in our reflections, more measured in our tone, and generally better informed. Lastly, our presidential administration, which often acts like a see-no-evil national cheerleader, should start listening to valid criticism. While it is true that most of what is written is alarmist fluff, other suggestions, especially with respect to public security and governmental accountability, need to be listened to intently. Mexico deserves more from all of us: let the lights shine!

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Wealth

March 18, 2009

"I'm not talking about rich, I'm talking about wealth... I'm not talking about Shaq [multi-millionaire basketball player Shaquille O'Neal], I'm talking about the guy who signs his checks." Thus spoke comedian Chris Rock.

This recession has seen the wealthy take the hardest hit in several generations. The world is in a wealth destruction spiral. According to the Federal Reserve, the total net worth of American households in 2008 fell by almost 18%. That's over $11 trillion dollars, or approximately 1 full year of economic activity in the US (or the next three largest world economies combined). Most of this is related to the fall in real estate prices, as well as the stock market collapse (approximately 50% of Americans own shares). People felt rich, but it turns out they weren't wealthy.

In the dictionary, rich and wealthy are pretty much synonyms, but we all know the difference. "Rich" is what happens when life throws you a bone; when you are 7 feet tall and an athletic prodigy, or when you're simply in the right place at the right time and able to take advantage of an opportunity. "Wealthy" is when your wherewithal is backed by things like "assets". Lose a leg if you are a rich athlete and your hard-won money risks being siphoned off into friends-and-family get-rich-quick schemes. Being wealthy means asset diversification and the ability to live off your "rents" no matter how many limbs your body is missing. Rock: "Wealth is something that's passed down from generation to generation ... rich is something you can lose in a crazy summer with a drug habit."

As wealth guru Robert Kiyosaki (author of the ubiquitous "Rich Dad, Poor Dad") points out, there is a fundamental difference between living day-to-day off of your ability to do a job, and having assets that produce money for you. By this definition, even highly successful professionals are not "wealthy". A surgeon who spends all of her money on McMansions and BMWs does not transfer wealth to her children. A landscaper who sets up a business with partners and a steady clientele can look forward to leaving his progeny a source of wealth.

Perhaps Kiyosaki's most important insight is that people should look at their economic lives in terms of a balance sheet. Assets are those things that can generate income, while liabilities are those that generate expenses. There is a big difference between going into debt in order to buy a big house for yourself and putting that money into a duplex that you then rent for more than the cost of its mortgage. Kiyosaki is not against spending, but he is against spending more than what your assets (not you) produce. The challenge is to avoid creating an expensive lifestyle before you are really able to afford it.

Collectively, that is what happened before the wealth implosion put paid to people's expectations. It was a consumer-driven shock. In 1982, Mexico had a government-spending shock when President López Portillo overleveraged the country's major asset at the time, the oil industry. Different actors, same result.

Wealth creation requires a certain degree of risk tolerance. But, in the words of former Secretary Rumsfeld, this risk should be a "known unknown". If it's a rumsfeldian "uknown unknown", panic ensues. Economic stimulus means that the government becomes investor of last resort as it tries to "pick winners". But true wealth creation comes about through private sector innovation and increases in labor productivity.

Future sources of great wealth are gestating as we speak and they are probably not the same ones as before the recession. Much investment banking wealth on Wall Street, for example, will not return. But Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction" will catalyze the transfer of resources from sunset to sunrise industries, and the US economy will reinvent itself (something it does incredibly well).

As for Mexico, oil wealth will either be phased out (better), or it will run out. And another important source of income for Mexico, workers' remittances, is bound to fall further. The devaluation of the peso has at least revived opportunities in manufacturing, while tourism can still be a tremendous source of wealth creation if and when Mexico gets its security act together. But our long term problem has more to do with a lack of education, drive and imagination.

Wealth creation is a human construct that is based on creativity. It is a concept that requires adapting to change. Many Mexicans and xenophobic, protectionist Americans share a profound distrust of change, which is a little like fighting the rotation of the Earth. Change is inevitable and, with talent, it can actually be desireable. That makes fear the biggest obstacle to a wealth-creating recovery.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Apocalypticism

March 11, 2009

Apocalypticism is the belief that civilization, as we know it, is hurtling to its own demise. When mixed with religious faith, the implication is that the Apocalypse brings about a "cleansing", which paves the way for the coming of a Messiah. This means that there are a lot of people out there rooting for our collective End.

Rather than abating after the birth of the new millennium (a popular "end of the world" date), apocalypticism has remained strong, influencing how we react to actual events. Evangelical Christians, for example, believe that Jewish rule over the Holy Land is a prerequisite for the return of Christ. This makes their support for Israel absolute and puts the electoral heft of 17 million Americans behind policies that are more antagonistic towards Palestinians than would be the case without apocalypticism.

In Mexico, legend has it that apocalypticism was a key factor in Aztec passivity during the Spanish conquest. According to this analysis, Emperor Moctezuma sought to apease Cortés and his men, instead of defeating them, because their arrival at the end of one of their 52-year historical "cycles" meant that their civilization was supposed to die. The completion of the 13th cycle in the Maya calendar on the 21st of December, 2012, is the next apocalyptic date which is feeding speculation among New Age and Native American believers (and film makers).

The current global economic slowdown is feeding financial apocalypticism. It is this irrational fear that has assets trading at less than their book value. For some, the meltdown questions the very basis of the capitalist materialism that underlies the global economic order and presages doom.

So, is the world going to Hell in a handbasket? In the grand scheme of things, yes. This planet is rocketing through the Milky Way at 495,000 miles per hour and, as anyone who has ever felt an earthquake can attest, the ground is not as solid as we think. Further, there is always the possibility of a fool getting his finger on the nuclear button (remember that we were about to fight World War III over a backward Caribbean island in the 1960s). But, except for the weird calendar coincidence when the Spanish took Tenochtitlan, apocalypticism has always been wrong.

Nevertheless, at the risk of falling into the "Repent, for the end is nigh!" cliché, apocalypticism can give us an opportunity to examine our priorities. Independently of asteriods and plutonium, we are all guaranteed to die sometime relatively soon. It is said that internalizing this knowledge, instead of just intellectualizing it, can radically improve one's life. If this means that we are more humane towards all living things and more intelligent in our stewardship of the planet, then so much the better. So, even for those of us who view superstition with super-suspicion, a little apocalypticism (in the form of awareness of our assured demise) can be a good thing.

Unsung triumphs

One of the unfortunate side effects of the media's obsession with reporting only stories related to poverty (migration) and violence with respect to Mexico is that our achievements are overlooked. This is pernicious not only from the point of view of Mexico's image, but also as a source of potential solutions for problems in the rest of the world.

One recent case in point has been the impressive success that Mexico City has had with its air pollution problem. The number of days with "poor quality" air has declined by over 90% in the past 15 years. This is thanks to a combination of monitoring, a policy of relocating factories outside the city, the proliferation of catalytic converters in automobiles and other policies, such as the "day without a car" initiative. Many of these solutions were developed and implemented right here and could serve as an excellent test-case for cities like Beijing, which now tops the charts in terms of poor air quality.

Another example of effective problem solving seems to be the repairs that have been done to the "emisor central" ("central tunnel"). This incredible piece of engineering has been the main channel through which the city gets rid of its effluent and rain water. Because Mexico City is constantly sinking (over 30 feet from 1900-2000), the tunnels had been bent and broken. The city was in danger of massive catastrophic flooding. This week local officials announced that the danger is over and that the complete repair of this key piece of infrastructure will be done in time for the rainy season. The last time Mexico pulled off a significant hydraulics and levelling project, stabilizing the entire Metropolitan Cathedral, some of the technologies and learnings were applied to help Venice stay affloat.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Helping the War Effort

March 4, 2009

This column has long argued that what Mexico is facing is not so much a war against illegal drug traffic, but rather a low-intensity civil war. On one side is a small, but ruthless, part of society that is dedicated to criminal activities of all sorts. The ranks of the criminals are fueled by the Mexican baby boom of 1960-1990. Poor economic growth turned many who should have been part of a "population dividend" of working-age citizens into armies of miscreants.

Impunity fueled by corruption has meant that these many thousands of individuals have no incentive to mend their ways. Worse, there is now a subculture of music, legend, conspicuous consumption, and even religious icons, that provides a sense of belonging just as powerful as any rebel flag or national identity.

On the other side is a majority of Mexicans who are trying to make a living without hurting anyone (this includes much of the "informal" economy which is not legal, but is more of a nuisance than a danger). In this fight, the government and civil society (in this case encompassing the private and religious sectors) are awkward brothers in arms who still don't know how to work together.

Government thinks that its private citizens don't understand the pressures and difficulties they suffer. Civil society thinks that government must be in cahoots with the criminals because there is still so much corruption. Meanwhile, soldiers, police officers and ordinary citizens are falling victim to society's aggressors because no one knows who to trust, let alone what they can do together. Divided, they are falling.

Most talk of civil society participation in crime prevention is well intended, but completely ineffectual. Some of it is counterproductive, like marches and protests which highlight the weakness of our public-private alliance. And yet, there are many excellent organizations and minds that have yet to be tapped.

Start with the world class companies in our private sector. Your correspondent began his professional career at Procter & Gamble de México, recruited straight from college in Washington, DC. After spending time in both Cincinnati and Mexico City, it became apparent that the Mexican organization was leaner and more efficient. At the same time, what we produced here, from shampoos to diapers, was easily the equal of anything made in the US, Europe, or Japan. And it was Mexicans that made it all happen.

P&G Mexico is far from alone in its local excellence. All multinationals here, both Mexican and foreign, from CEMEX and Bimbo to Sony and Motorola, have world-beating staff. Over 95% of their top executives are Mexican, but their employers don't have serious internal corruption issues, or are in any way "worse" than their sister organizations in the most "honest" countries. Why aren't these knowledgeable, honest, professionals offering their expertise through a corporate public service program? Because they haven't been asked.

Real civil society participation means "recruiting" the best of the country to design and help implement logistics, which is nothing more than mechanisms for control. Security, like logistics, is all about control. It turns out that Bimbo, now the world's largest manufacturer of baked goods and breads, has one of the most impressive operations anywhere right here in Mexico. Market intelligence and police field work is very similar and Mexico has a plethora of companies that do this very well. This expertise is not being "recruited" for the war.

Civil society participation in crime prevention also means the involvement of the religious groups in fighting the perverse cult of death that has arisen around the drug trade with the Santa Muerte and Malvido icons. Further, just like it took thousands of pictures of concentration camp victims to finally bury the Nazi image of efficiency and "purity", the human tragedy of organized crime should be laid bare. The grieving families and the tremendous suffering need to be disseminated in churches and even in those schools where the young romanticize violence.

Civil society participation means that the multiple private sector associations and chambers, many with national reach, should offer to monitor the work of local law enforcement so that it is not the individual, but the entire business network that is the whistleblower. Of course, there has to be someone to blow the whistle to, which gets to the issue of trust in government.

The job of providing security should not be outsourced to the private sector. But the government needs to earn the trust of all civil society, to determine exactly who should play what role and to organize them into doing it. Mexicans are not used to getting together in order to help the government, but this is one war that neither group can win by itself.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Social Cannon Fodder

February 25, 2009

In World War I, soldiers who were considered to be expendable were known as "cannon fodder". The idea behind this denigrating military term is that there are people who can be ordered to do anything. This same phenomenon can be seen among civilians, as well, as interest groups "enlist" the ignorant and the poor to create social credibility behind their objectives. As the economic crisis worsens, the ranks of the disaffected rise, putting society in general at risk to the whims of organized interest groups and demagogues.

These past weeks have seen the use of social cannon fodder taken to a pathetic extreme along our US border. According to news reports, criminal organizations used poor women and children to "protest" alleged abuses by the military and the federal police. With the popularity of the troops' presence running above 70% among the general population, these gangs are trying to pressure the government to remove their antagonists by organizing these demonstrations using the marginalized.

There are about 40 million people in Mexico who are defined as living in abject poverty. Often, they don't care if they are in the pay of narcotraffickers, or multinational corporations; they are bodies for hire. In Reynosa, we saw women even stop safeguarding their babies, waving them in front of armed soldiers and tanks. How could a mother do that to her child? Because the potential danger of gunfire is much less real to them than imminent hunger. Having nothing to lose is a sure sign of one's vulnerability to being used as social cannon fodder.

Of course, poverty is not the only handmaiden of such manipulation. Ignorance and pent-up feelings of victimization often work just as well. The urban lower middle classes often succumb to siren songs of "social justice" from cunning demagogues. Wanting to believe that their hard lot in life is the fault of someone else, it doesn't matter what the rabble-rousers say as long as they define it in terms of "us" versus "them". Anger overcomes a minimum amount of civic prudence and pretty soon you're handing out blank checks for perpetual power to raving populists, like just happened in Venezuela. As The Economist pointed out recently, it was the middle classes who, frustrated by the economic downturn, turned to Hitler in 1930s Germany.

Lincoln once appealed to the "better angels of our nature". People who turn the poor and the desperate into social cannon fodder appeal to the worst in us: anger, jealousy, vindictiveness and just plain opportunism. As the world economic downturn continues, people will be ever more intent on finding someone to blame. Others, like the "protesters" in Reynosa, will simply be even more willing to do the bidding of anyone who will throw them some scraps. All in all, a truly sad state of affairs that we all need to be more vigilant of.

Mexico is cheap again

Ah, the magic of devaluations. The 40% fall in the peso during the last few months is bolstering the country's tourism and manufacturing industries.

During the last couple of weeks we have seen reports of foreign visits to the interior (non-border) areas of the country on the rise. This is remarkable for two reasons: first, because Mexico's image abroad has probably never been worse due to the incessant coverage of the country's problems with narco-violence. Second, because our primary market, the US, is having serious economic problems.

What seems to be happening is that individual resorts have been able to project their image as destinations in themselves, decoupling from the generally bad news. Further, the fact that the country is an inexpensive destination again (after about eight years) has meant that people who would normally travel further afield are staying in North America for personal financial reasons.

In manufacturing, two icons are succumbing to the lure of our cheap currency. Nissan is moving the manufacture of some small cars to this country from Japan and Hershey's is shifting production of confectionery to Monterrey. This includes the iconic York Peppermint Patty, whose traditional advertising highlights an arctic image not usually associated with Nuevo León.

One of the key ingredients to export-led growth is a "competitive" (read: undervalued) currency. Mexico never really implemented this. In the aftermath of the "Tequila Crisis" of 1994/1995, the peso was allowed to rise in-line with the large inflow of foreign currency from rising oil prices and flourishing remittances. Thanks to the fact that it did not "tap out" its export potential by interfering in currency markets (unlike Asia), Mexican manufacturing could now actually benefit from its new competitiveness in the slump. The tradeoff is that a cheaper peso also means that inflationary pressures will rise across the board.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Collective "Wisdom"

February 18, 2009

The definition of wisdom is: "The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting." A corollary is "the sum of learning through the ages". It is this second definition that applies to the myriad ways in which countries act on the international scene. But most of the time this "learning through the ages" manifests itself more in terms of their ancient rivalries and prejudices than what could be termed actual "wisdom".

American collective wisdom emphasizes problem-solving and often shows a certain arrogance in terms of their lack of faith in other country's ability to safeguard common interests. Hence, their do-it-yourself foreign policy. That is the reason why, instead of devising a far-reaching binational solution to the problems associated with our common border, they simply build a fence. And it's not just a "Mexico thing". As Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano pointed out recently, she considers that the northern frontier presents a greater terrorist threat than ours. The implication is that US-Mexico border "solutions" will be coming soon to a province near you.

Mexico's lesson vis-à-vis the US relates to its 19th century war and loss of territory. That's why Mexico's opposition to Iraq was especially earnest (Fox's ill-timed and opportunistic TV address notwithstanding). Mexico really does not believe in foreign intervention and really does believe in the right of nations to self-determination. Unlike other countries whose anti-Americanism was mere posturing, Mexico's collective wisdom held that the invasion was fundamentally wrong.

Mostly, however, the nature of politics is that it is easiest to appeal to a country's most vindictive instincts. Hugo Chávez has just proved how easy it is to manipulate even what is considered a middle income country with a large educated class. What is it that the Venezuelans have learned from history? That it is better to entrust your future to a corrupt despot than to a corrupt democracy.

Although there are certainly many signs of wisdom in several country's foreign policies, no one country can be said to be "wise". That is, always discerning, and thinking long term. American wisdom includes its foundational emphasis on the Rule of Law, fairness, and personal freedoms. Mexican wisdom highlights respect, tolerance and the right to self-determination (which often runs into the wisdom of intervention for humanitarian reasons).

European wisdom regarding the need to use integration as an antidote to warfare is due to their interpretation of the causes of the two World Wars that took place on their soil. The European Union, which benefited dramatically from early American prodding and financing, is perhaps the most visionary project in international relations. Nevertheless, this genuine collective wisdom does not always translate into an end to the petty power-playing that often characterizes individual European countries when pushing their self-interest on the international stage.

Despite the fact that international relations remains a Hobbesian domain of individual interests and often self-defeating realpolitik, it is still worth understanding the collective wisdom of a people. It is important to identify what lessons, no matter how twisted, they have learned from history.

Karma chameleon

Tibetan belief in cause and effect has meant that there has been no Intifada there, despite the attrocities committed during the Chinese occupation. This is, perhaps, the only reason why they were not completely wiped out, despite the fact that nearly 30% of the total population was killed. The flip side is true in the Middle East, where Arabs believe that Christians and Jews were able to invade their turf because they were weak and divided. For that reason, their cruelly quixotic campaign to show "strength" through Ultraviolence will probably only end with a dramatic paradigm shift. Jews, who having been victims of violence and persecution might have drawn other conclusions, have instead interpreted history as a Darwinian affair, making them obsessed with firepower and military chutzpah. The lack of true collective wisdom in the region represents one of humanity's saddest, and potentially most tragic, conflicts. Imagine the prosperity of a united Palestine-Israel using Jewish science and technology and Palestinian youth and energy? Not gonna happen.

North America is curious in how it reacts to the history that is happening to it. Americans build walls, but economic and social integration is very much a fait accompli. Canadians try to ignore Mexico when dealing with the US, but many of our issues are already inextricably linked. Mexico still spends too much of its time lamenting American influence when nearly a quarter of Mexicans people of Mexican descent live in the US and nearly everyone yearns for an American lifestyle. It seems that, despite centuries of living side-by-side, our collective wisdom is anything but. Granted, that's just par for the course on the international relations circuit.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Relative Strength in the World

February 11, 2009

To listen to the criticism published incessantly in both the foreign and domestic media, one would think that Mexico is one of the lowest-ranked countries in the world. To the chagrin of our professional Cassandras, it turns out that it is actually among the highest (at least in the developing world). Two recent publications bear this out: The Economist's "World in Figures 2008" and conservative think tank Brookings Institute's "Index of State Weakness in the Developing World".
First, the basics. Mexico is currently the 13th largest economy in the world, just above blustering, superpower-wanna-be, Russia (nuclear weapons, apparently, are Viagra for the nationalist ego). Measured in terms of purchasing power parity, we are bigger than Canada. Mexico is also the 9th largest economy in terms of services, which puts paid to the idea that this is mainly a sweatshop economy. It is also a powerhouse in manufacturing output at number 10.

Mexico City remains the second-largest urban agglomeration in the world, after Tokyo. In that same vein, according to an earlier study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mexico City is the 8th largest city economy, bigger than Boston, Dallas, Buenos Aires, Houston and Hong Kong, among many others.

Interestingly, Mexico has three of the fastest-growing cities above 750,000 inhabitants in the world: Tuxtla Gutiérrez (2), Tijuana (20) and Ciudad Juárez (25). This, despite the fact that Mexico's general population growth is relatively slow. Perhaps this is reflected in other cities: Puebla, with a projected population decline, is the 14th slowest-growing city in the world. Put altogether, in terms of absolute numbers, Mexico is the 11th largest country in terms of population, just below Japan.

Mexico comes highly ranked in deserts (Chihuaha's is the 7th largest) and biodiversity (5). The country is the most important recipient of remittances in the world, above India, which is more than 10 times bigger and has a larger diaspora. It is the second-most important silver producer (our former number one spot is now held by Peru). We are 5th in oil production, but, ominously for our exports, we are also a worrying 9th in oil consumption.

On the positive side, Mexico is the 8th most visited country on Earth. On the negative, we are 10th in diabetes. Perhaps that's because we are the 7th largest consumer of sugar and Monterrey is the city with the highest per capita consumption of Coca-Cola (a fact that is negligently missing in The Economist). Attesting to our patience and personal religiosity, we have the 9th lowest divorce rate. As an example of our penchant for entertainment, we are 8th in cinema attendance.

Wealth, and stability, are in the eye of the beholder

So, is Mexico a rich or poor country? Among the 183 countries surveyed, Mexico is 66th in terms of GDP per capita, but a respectable 51 in terms of human development (that puts us just below the top quintile). For all the criticism regarding income inequality, according to the CIA "World Fact Book", Mexico is more equal than Communist China, Socialist Venezuela and racially integrated Brazil.

Finally, regarding all the talk about Mexico's viability as a functioning state, one of the more interesting numbers is related to a study done by the Brookings Institute. Brookings is considered a Conservative think tank. It published an "Index of State Weakness in the Developing World", whose lack of publicity in Mexico is especially surprising given the current worries about the country's stability, and those in Washington who have foolishly brought up the spectre of a "failed state". Brookings analyzes 141 countries according to what they see as five key areas: economic, political, security, social welfare and gross national income per capita. The strongest developing country on their list is the Slovak Republic, while the weakest is Somalia. Nevertheless, Mexico comes in at a relatively strong 21st-strongest place, better than such countries as Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa. Much better even than "cool" BRIC-ish China (74) Russia (65).

Mexico's relatively strong standing in world league tables shows how important it is to put every analysis we do in context. Journalists, academics and coffee shop opinion-leaders tend to have tunnel vision. They are all prophets that play to a stagnant constituency that expects to hear the criticism that they become accustomed to.

None of these numbers are subjective evalutions of the countries they depict. But, for those who are unused to seeing the world as a whole, some of the comparisons are nothing less than shocking. In Mexico's case, specifically, it begs the question whether the country would be so incessantly criticized if it were anywhere else but next to the world's largest, most successful, economy. Of course, much of its strength probably comes from that, too.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Why No Mexican Vigilantes?

February 4, 2009

In the 1993 movie "Falling Down", Michael Douglas plays a middle class middle manager in Los Angeles on a very hot day. He starts to take offense at the myriad of small aggressions that we all suffer simply by living in big cities. His character is denied change at a Korean grocer, for example. He makes the mistake of sitting on top of a pile of graffitied rubble in a derelict part of LA, leading to an attempted hold-up. In both instances, he decides he's had enough, lashing out violently against his aggressors and getting the upper hand simply because his antagonists never expected this Dilbert-like salaryman to fight back.

Mexico City is full of opportunities for middle managers to take it to their aggressors. Every day in a myriad of different ways, criminals, demonstrators and others go out of their way to make life difficult for their fellow citizens. Unlike in the US, getting a shotgun to teach them a lesson requires crossing the line into the dark recesses of illegality. Nevertheless, it is astonishing how infrequently people fight back. When a group of demonstrators take to the streets in order to blackmail more money from the government, why doesn't the Honda CRV-driving tax-paying accountant gun the gas pedal of his SUV and run them down? Given the indignities he suffers on a daily basis, why isn't he "going postal"?

It's not that Mexicans don't engage in any sort of momentary public tantrums. We are perfectly willing to cut off our fellow drivers at an intersection, even when it means putting ourselves in danger; Mexican urbanites can be surprisingly aggressive when faced with others who dare snag the right of way. But confront them with an anarchist, or a marauding vandal in a Che Guevara T-shirt and he who was so willing to "echar lámina" ("throw steel") at a stoplight 50 feet back becomes a resigned pacifist.

In the US it is often the other way around. People who would never think of invading a crosswalk are one bandana-clad dirty look away from pulling out their '45 and blowing their antagonist sky-high. This is the sort of indignant desperation that fuels vigilantism. If neighborhoods in the US were to be menaced by gun-toting narcotraffickers, like they are in several Mexican cities, people would be creating militias. In Mexico, either they hire other thugs ("bodyguards"), if they have money, or they cower helplessly, or they move to the Woodlands, Texas. In fact, why do people in Tijuana move to San Diego, but people in menacing inner-city Detroit never move to safe Windsor, Ontario?

The traditional answer to why the US has Wyett Earps and mythical Dirty Harrys is that the it had a Wild West cowboy culture that set individual European settlers against marauding Indians. But most of the original cowboy culture was lifted from early Mexico (hence the Spanish names: "rodeo", "lasso", "burro", etc.). Saltillo was attacked by Indians into the first years of the 20th century. The very word "vigilante" comes from the Spanish. There has to be something else.

Vigilantism and "going postal" rage are middle class phenomena. Perhaps Mexicans are so tolerant of anti-social behavior when it pretends to have a "social" root because of middle class guilt. Where middle class Americans fume indignantly at most sorts of anti-social behavior, Mexicans must feel that there is some underlying legitimacy to the traffic-choking protests.

Hard-working, middle class Americans who get fed-up feel they are a majority that is being overrun by interlopers. Hard-working, middle class Mexicans (often whiter than their protesting counterparts) could feel that they are the minority. Perhaps it is this sense of being the outsider, of not fully belonging, that so often leads to so many of these professionals picking up and crossing the border in a final act of desperation. In the Woodlands they, their families (and their consumption patterns), are the norm.

Of course, vigilantism is not the answer. There are excellent reasons why the State should maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But there's an "I'm up to here" desperation that could be helpful in these times. Most of what passes for social activism in Mexico takes the form of silly signs with personal attacks on politicians, or damaging anti-social protests themselves. These just serve to further fray the already tattered fabric of our society and have yet to solve anything.

No, what Mexico needs is an intelligent indignation rooted in a profound sense of belonging. We need people who are willing to make an honest effort at making their towns into safe havens before deciding to give up on the country altogether. But, first, we need to believe that we deserve better.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of (My) Crisis Generation

January 28, 2009

One of your correspondent's earliest memories is of his father being given the news that the peso had gone from 12.50 to the dollar to 20.60 in 1976. Younger readers will be excused if they don't "get" the significance of this. You see, the peso had been at $12.50 for 22 years (comparable to a Mexican currency that held its own since 1987!). A few months ago, the peso was again at 12.50 to the dollar... but it would take one thousand 1970s pesos to buy a "new peso", in use since January 1993. The equivalent current exchange rate is about 13,750 pesos to the dollar, which says a lot about the economic collapses our generation has lived.

In other parts of the world, those who were born between between 1964 and 1979 are referred to as "Generation X". In Mexico, we are known as the "crisis generation". Our experience contrasts dramatically with those who came before us. They lived "the Mexican Miracle", a period of growth that averaged 7%+ per year, that created a middle class and that consolidated a nation from sea to four shining seas. It was marred by its lack of democracy, but the so-called "perfect dictatorship" delivered economic results from the late 30s to the mid-70s that we would never see again.

Devaluations were the name of the game throughout our formative years. The dollar rose 3,164% versus the peso during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, for example. As children, we were privy to Mexico starting a world economic crisis known as the "debt crisis" in 1982. President López Portillo, a man who had famously said that Mexico's problem was to "administer the abundance" of oil wealth, nationalized the entire banking system when oil prices fell.

Time and again we were told that the end of our world was nigh. Then came Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Despite the fact that his legitimacy was seriously questioned, he captured our imagination. Although not a member of our generation, he was only 39 when he took power and he told us that we would finally enter the ranks of the developed world. To prove it, he got us into the exclusive Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and negotiated a landmark trade agreement with the US.

By then, we were reaching working age, excited by the opportunities before us. But the bungling of the transition between the Salinas and Zedillo administrations meant that, again, we had front-row seats to another world crisis begun by our economic mismanagement. During the "Tequila" crisis of 1994/95 GDP fell 6.2%. Compare that the "mere" 1.9% projected fall in US GDP for 2009.

Our generation became cynical and many found refuge in the public, not private, sector, for all the wrong reasons. When one of ours took control of the fourth-largest political party it seemed that our generation had come into its own. But we were not up to the challenge. We turned out to be as corrupt as those whom we had criticized. Worse, our exposure to the crises of 1976, 1981/82, 1987 and 1994/95 had given us a nasty edge based on a deep-seated fear that we were one step away from destitution. So, in the words of Jim Morrison, we were going to get our kicks before the whole *bleep*-house went up in flames. This persistent sense of foreboding begat short-termism and a desire to "get ours" while we could.

That is, perhaps, the worst legacy of the multiple crises we have experienced. There is a lot of talent in our generation, but no one thinks that we will do away with corruption. We now have several governors and many top people in the Calderón team, but none are seen as moral leaders. Further, incessant rumor-mongering on behalf of the media means that everyone who participates in public life has their reputation destroyed eventually, no matter what their true actions. This, added to the fact that there is no reelection (the best and worst performers both get kicked out at the end of their terms), means that there is very little incentive to "do the right thing".

The word "crisis" is originally Greek ("krisis") and it literally means "decision". Bandied about with abandon these days, its dictionary definition is: "an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending, especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome".

We have drawn the wrong conclusions from the crises we have lived, so we consistently make the wrong decisions. This, our fifth major crisis, finds us at the cusp of middle age; certainly a time of opportunity to learn what lessons we missed from our crisis-filled youth.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of FCH and BHO in DC

January 21, 2009

Mexico is where US foreign policy meets Main Street. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans represent 9% of the US population and they are the fastest-growing demographic group (in terms of numbers). More than 3/4 are either legal immigrants, or citizens, representing more than 40% of the population of New Mexico, for example. All of these figures are for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, not for Latinos (or "Hispanics") as a whole.

In international terms, the US will never be safe if Mexico is not institutionally strong. North America as a whole cannot be competitive vis-a-vis Asia without North American trade. Your correspondent has been pointing out the dangers of Mexican instability for over a decade but it hasn't been until the past year that Washington has realized them. Now, the departing CIA director has just said that Mexican stability will be a bigger concern for the incoming president than Iraq. This comes after the Justice Department named our drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) the biggest criminal threat to the US, after the Pentagon compared Mexico to Pakistan and General McCaffrey highlighted the need to take Mexico's violence most seriously. During her confirmation hearings, Secretary of State-to-be Hillary Clinton nodded in that direction by pointing out the urgent need to engage much more profoundly with Mexico regarding our "shared" problems.

All of this comes at a time when the US media is stuck in an inane rut regarding Mexico, where the message is very simple: "violence everywhere!". The flavor of this past week was: "Mexico's narco-violences spreads to every major city in the US" (NBC Nightly News, January 13). Apparently, wily Mexicans have managed to sidestep both Homeland Security, the National Guard (at the border), the DEA, the FBI, as well as state and local law enforcement, infiltrating unsuspecting US communities everywhere. The disingenuos implication is that no Americans are, or have ever been, involved. Mexico's image in the US is probably at its lowest point in the last 50 years.

This was the backdrop to President Calderón's meeting with President-elect Obama. They had a private lunch at the Mexican Cultural Institute on 16th Street in Washington, a building that used to be the Mexican Embassy before the move to Pennsylvania Avenue at 19th Street, three blocks from the White House, in 1991. The visit was coordinated by Armenian-Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan. 15 years ago, he was the Chief of Staff to then-ambassador Jorge Montaño, so his contacts in DC run deep.

It would have been hard for both the incoming and the outgoing American presidents to have been nicer to Felipe Calderón. Obama said he "admired" him. President Bush said it had been a "pleasure" to work together. The President-elect avoided mentioning anything in public about renegotiating NAFTA. Silence will probably only get him so far, however, so a face-saving measure will be necessary. A joint declaration by both presidents promising to work together to improve labor and environmental security for Mexican workers would do nicely. This seems to be what Calderón is moving towards with his latest statements.

President Calderón reportedly left very satisfied. Rumor has it that he gave Sarukhan a hearty hug when boarding TP-01 (Mexico's 757 version of Air Force One) at Andrews Air Force Base. Barack Obama and his team successfully sidestepped the issue of which neighbor to visit first by giving the Mexican president the honor of being the only foreign leader to meet with the President-elect before inauguration, but visiting Ottawa first as President.

Official Washington has always been aware of the fact that the relationship between the two countries is, over the long haul, the most intense and intricate between two countries anywhere. As has been mentioned previously, the DF is the only place outside of DC where every single US government dependency is represented. President Obama, a pensive, intelligent and practical man looks to have his eye very much on the ball with respect to this country. Nevertheless, the current orgy of negative coverage on all things Mexican (violence, narcotics traffic, corruption and all of those nasty illegal immigrants) is desensitizing the American public. Mexico is portrayed as being so awful as to be alien and unsalvageable, an image that is both wrong and dangerous because it makes our relations with the all-important US Congress unwieldy.

Independent of the thousands of issues that need to be resolved by both countries, we ignore US public opinion at our peril. When both governments work together to "sell" an idea to Americans they can be very effective. That was the case in 1993 when they organized a successful public and private PR and lobbying effort to sell NAFTA. If we are to serve the interests of both nations effectively, something similar needs to happen today.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Civil War

January 14, 2009

The dictionary definition of civil war is a "war between factions within the same country". Over the last couple of decades, successive Mexican governments allowed organized crime to carve out niches and coopt parts of the country's public security apparatus. The upshot has been that an alarming number of young Mexican males have made crime a career, spawning a subculture that includes music (narcocorridos), and even a pseudo-religion (la "Santa Muerte"). This cult of violence represents an enemy faction that must be stopped. But, for that to happen, we have to do away with the quaint notion that this is a game between cops and robbers; that it's about stopping this or that cartel. We have to realize that this is, in fact, a low-intensity civil war which must be fought on every level, including ideology.

This war is, in part, a consequence of Mexico's transition to an open, democratic society over the last 20 years. Unlike Chile, Spain, Taiwan and South Korea, Mexico's (semi-) authoritarian regime did not strengthen the country's institutions before relinquishing power, except in regards to its electoral system. In fact, in many ways, the PRI (and Fox) simply decided to let go of the reigns, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled by organized crime.

It is also a result of demographics: an unprecedented number of young males have been coming of age as a result of the 70s and 80s population explosion. As bad luck would have it, they have reached their most dangerous years (18-35) during weak economic times, giving them further incentives to turn to crime. The fact that Mexico will fall below the "replacement" level of fecundity this year (2.08 children per woman, under the 2.1 replacement level) will mean that both migration and crime will probably subside in the coming decades.

But, for the moment, we're stuck with this sad state of affairs. In order to deal with it, we must finally take to heart a number of important lessons.

Lesson 1: Mexico is not a failed State, as Federico Reyes Heroles pointed out in a recent editorial. A failed state means that basic public services are not provided and that the State is unable to establish control over its territory. Your correspondent has lived a total of 21 years in Mexico and has never borne witness to a gun being fired in crime and, despite the nose-thumbing and the bravado, there is no territory that can credibly be thought of as being openly in "enemy hands". The country's decent majority can still be recruited to help in this conflict.

Lesson 2: It is time to take this war more seriously. While Mexico is not a "failed State", it is in a lot of trouble. Local police forces should be considered soldiers in this civil war. This means that they must be tried in courts-martial. Military and police forces need to be radically purged after extensive undercover investigative work. Justice for dirty cops should be swift and harsh and they should not be seen as corrupt public servants, but enemies of the State. In war, symbolism is everything. Trials should be public and criminals should be made an example of. Television should exalt the heroes and shame the miscreants, in-line with a comprehensive media and propaganda strategy.

Lesson 3: Criminals live among us and they must be identified. The time has come for a unified national database with tamper-proof identification cards. They should be carried at all times by every man, woman and child of Mexican nationality.

Lesson 4: Target cities should be chosen one by one; extensive, stealthy investigative work done and, when troops are ready to "take" a town, martial law should be imposed. Those previously identified should be arrested in large sweeps where targets have been vetted by both the Executive and special members of the judiciary. Video surveillance systems with face recognition technology should be installed with command centers manned by both the police and civilians (perhaps chosen by local business groups). Vehicle barriers (like those spikes that are flat when unused, but can be raised when needed) should be placed at all points of access to strategic commercial/residential areas. Crminals who act within specific areas should have no way to escape.

In previous editions, this column has identified numberous ways for the US to help. Intelligence is the main area, but Congress could pass a law making it a felony to sell firearms to foreign nationals, for example. Mexican-Americans could also be "recruited" to help, even doing police duties on both sides of the border.

It used to be that the drug "war" label was demagogic hyperbole. No longer. It's time for all of us to pick a side and fight wherever we can to make a difference.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico and Ayn Rand

January 7, 2009

One of the first sub-plots in Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" occurs in the fictitious "People's State of Mexico". Nationalizations there are harbingers of collectivization schemes that begin happening in Rand's dystopian USA. In the novel, this tendency to reward prebendalism (a type of crony-based corruption), while punishing creativity, eventually leads to the self-imposed exile of the captains of industry who make things happen. These people represent the proverbial Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders. When Atlas "shrugs", the Earth collapses. "Atlas Shrugged" is an intelligent and entertaining, if simplistic, chronicle of what happens when the "doers" don't.

This column is not an Objectivist (Rand's philosophy) manifesto, nor is the author an Ayn Rand apologist. If nothing else, the current economic downturn has put paid to the idea of "enlightened self-interest" requiring no fetters. For many during the go-go years of the beginning of the century, laissez-faire was a fancy French word for wealth-destroying greed. But, beyond the fact that "Atlas Shrugged" is an elegantly-written novel, Ms. Rand had an insight, or two, to share with her fellow humans. This insight does not make her "evil", as leftist Noam Chomsky branded her. Nor is it intellectually "stillborn", as Conservative William F. Buckley said in the obituary he wrote about her. It is profoundly simple: in all of human labor, people can either create, or destroy. What side are you on?

As we begin this new year, chastened by the financial destruction wrought by charlatans on Wall Street, Mexicans should spare a moment to think of those who destroy our well-being right here. There are the violent criminals, of course, but there are also many more who, just like in "Atlas Shrugged", wrap themselves in the discourse of "social justice" to make demands that are anything but "just".

Crucially, there is a fundamental difference between helping someone in need and allowing Mafia-style interest groups to get privileges that go against meritocracy. Most public-sector unions fit this bill. Knowing that they strike fear in politicians' hearts, they blackmail the government into giving bosses unsupervised public financing and allowing them to treat jobs in education and PEMEX (among others) as their private fiefdoms. Political parties, with their opacity and anti-democratic self-government, are probably starting to cross the line into anti-social territory, as well.

Everywhere you see people defending privileges that punish productivity and fight competition, be wary. There are many victims in this society, but very few of them are marching down Reforma (victims of crime excepted). Even when we help the disadvantaged, Mexicans have the nasty habit of perpetuating a debilitating sense of victimhood. This is a byproduct of centuries of overt paternalism on behalf of political strongmen and it is perhaps the biggest danger to the proper functioning of the country's democracy. Mexico needs to transit from this type of clientelism to a system based on empowering the individual to fend for him/herself after they have been helped. Nowhere does this change need to take place more quickly than in our indigenous communities, where fear, ignorance, and misguided "white man's burden" do-goodism have squashed opportunities for generations. Lifestyles based on ancestral cultures need to be chosen freely and intelligently; they should not be imposed by manipulative "chiefs" and romantic patronizing whites with utopian ideals of the "noble savage". Something to think about when you ponder the 70s retro "Zapatista" rebellion of 15 years ago.

Ayn Rand's principle mistake was, perhaps, a product of having watched the Bolsheviks in her native Russia destroy her family when she was 12. When you read one of the heroes in "Atlas Shrugged" proudly declare that "he would never live his life for the sake of another man", you know she's gone too far. In fact, some of the best and most productive people in the world live their lives solely for the sake of others. Further, her tendency to depict bureaucrats as caricatures of social parasites is also misguided: a good public servant can easily be the equal of a good captain of industry. The question is whether someone works to help empower others for the benefit of society, or whether their "help" is really a tool to build their own fame, fortune and power. Mexico's insidious ignorance means that too few people know how to tell the difference.

So, pick up "Atlas Shrugged" ("La rebelión de Atlas", in Spanish), read it, and give copies to your closest "radical chic" friends (those who are toasting the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution with champagne). Then ask yourself, are you Atlas, carrying the world on your hard-working shoulders? Or are you James Taggart, seeking to live off the work and ideas of others?

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico in 2009

December 31, 2008

Every year, this column tries to separate the wheat from the chaff in order to figure out where we stand. This year there is an even more formidable amount of flotsam (defined as voluntary refuse) and jetsam (involuntary) that has clogged up all media. The global financial crunch has spawned schadenfreude-mongers, I-told-you-so grandstanders, and the usual flock of busybodies to remind us that "the end is nigh". Their negativity dovetails with horrific reporting on Mexico. Journalistic Cassandras are, today, more toxic than sub-prime debt.

These pages have decried Wall Street thievery and the criminal negligence of the authorities that allowed it. But the notion that everyone got their economic comeuppance is nasty and wrong. This globalized economy has created the most amount of physical and human capital in history. And those who have been a part of the very real success story through hard, honest, work, do not deserve to be lumped together with the Bernie Madoffs of the world.

The good, the bad, and the stagnant

In this global recessionary environment, Mexico's economic performance is neither stellar, nor tragic. Its lack of star power, which tempered expectations, will most probably keep it from major social upheaval, something that is currently menacing perennially overperforming China. This does not mean that Mexico should be proud of itself as it follows the world into recession, but it does mean that many self-styled experts on Mexico who consistently (and incessantly) proclaim the Apocalypse, need to get a grip. They and their predecessors really need to be more sanguine after 27 years of prognosticating "The End of Mexico" (starting in September, 1981, our first debt crisis). It's time for intelligent analysis to supercede the fire-and-brimstone silliness of 90% of reporting (and conversing) on Mexico.

With respect to this past year, 367 days ago this column identified the pitfalls that would affect the Mexican economy. It highlighted that the sub-prime mortgage mess would reduce the amount of money available for beach-side second homes for Americans. It also said that Mexico's domestic property boom was not based on frothy economics, but on pent-up effective demand meeting economically-stable real supply, so collapse was not imminent. "Happy 2008… like 2007", it ended.

As it happens, Mexico's 2008 was made up of 7 months of more of the same and 5 months of riding the world's economic downturn. Violence, which was already at alarming rates in 2007, ended up getting worse. Politics remained equally corrupt, but generally democratic. The warning regarding the fall in the purchasing power of the American second-home buyer was prescient, but the scale of the downturn was bigger. In fact, with the collapse of the stock market, the hallowed Baby Boomer dollar has shrunk dramatically, which means that previous bets regarding record levels of spending are off.

But the basic premise held: real criminal, economic and political challenges, but no imminent collapse. As was noted in one of the first editions of this article in October 2007 (speaking of AMLO's failed challenge to the country's institutions and stability): "the center held". With respect to the American second-home buyer, there is now even a theory that we could see further immigration, as more people seek the comfort of cheaper quality of life and, now, a peso that is 30% cheaper.

Overall, we should not feel smug about the underperformance of this member of the "rich world" OECD. Growth that was not achieved during the boom of the last few years will be even more difficult to achieve in the current bust. Domestically, noxious interest groups are too powerful and the political establishment has yet to fathom the destructive power of the social blackmail we suffer every day.

The sky is not falling

But, for a country with a fresh memory of the 1994/95 debacle (the "tequila" crisis), the vicissitudes of the availability of international credit should not roil. Remittances will be down and unemployment will rise, but to channel Chicken Little every time we pick up a pen, a microphone, or a conversational megaphone, is ridiculous.

This is one of the largest countries in the world. It is a liberal and generally democratic haven; a culturally vibrant and tolerant navel on an often obscurantist planet. On the flip side, it lacks the will to make difficult decisions. In December 2007, this column read: "At the end of the day, for Mexico the difference between 3.5% growth and sustained 8%+ growth lies not in details, like the privatization of PEMEX, but in the big questions regarding the Rule of Law." No matter how painful the global downturn turns out to be, this remains the crux of the problem - nothing more, nothing less. So, happy 2009... like 2008.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Why Energy is the Key to Everything

December 24, 2008

This is a very strange recession. Just like in the 1970s, the price of oil spiked, but this "supply shock" didn't cause the economic meltdown. At the same time, the world became aware of the fact that its fossil fuel addiction is causing, and will cause, incalculable human suffering. But that wasn't what reduced demand for oil. The car companies finally focused on building fuel efficient and alternative-energy cars... just when prices at the pump collapsed.

Governments have yet to come to terms with these global economic and social crosswinds. The answer, both to the economic downturn and to a large part of the environmental Armageddon, lies in energy. Specifically, in how we transform matter (hard stuff) into power (ethereal, now-or-never stuff). But no one has proven him/herself up to the task, yet. Proper policy means wielding both the carrot and the stick with Jedi accumen.

First, show them the money. Markets work according to incentives; basic reward and punishment. Unfortunately, oil's $147 dollar price spike and subsequent collapse throws proper energy planning into a tailspin. Projects are being cancelled and opportunities lost because there is so much uncertainty with respect to the cost of the inputs of generating power. It's time to stop that. A carbon tax, which would kick in when oil prices drop below, say, $90 dollars a barrel, would go a long way towards weaning American dependence on the black, gooey, messy combustible. It would suddenly make iffy projects viable and would send all the right signals to a scared alternative energy industry. It's time to put a dollar value on the environmental and military cost of oil.

Second, bite the bullet. There is no such thing as "clean coal", no matter what West Virginia would like to think. But environmentalists must also maintain their (easily ruffled) composure, because nuclear power is an important part of any intelligent analysis of future energy policy. A proper energy policy should be criticized by every vested interest because it must ask concessions of everyone.

Curiously, in this respect, the Mexican government finally got something right and nobody is giving it credit. Mexico has a pseudo-carbon tax. It's called IEPS, according to its Spanish acronym, which is the unfortunately generic "special tax on products and services". It is a revenue-balancing mechanism and it kicks in when oil prices decline. It is applied to gasoline, which helps offset the shortfall in revenues from oil exports. Paradoxically, although it is good policy, this tax, in addition to the fall in the peso, are probably responsible for the fact that Mexico's inflation has been rising despite the fact that prices of goods have generally fallen. For different reasons, the US needs something similar.

President-elect Obama is wrong to avoid a carbon tax. There has to be some feedback mechanism from the market to push the economy to where you want it. Further, a carbon tax would generate revenue for the government at a time when it sorely needs it. As he pressures Detroit to build fuel efficient cars, the market is going to be going exactly the other way because of cheap gas, which is counter-productive. Without a carbon tax, the Big Three will be stuck between a government rock and a consumer hard place: mandated efficiency and demanded profligacy. This might even allow foreign companies to, (irony of ironies) fill their showrooms with desirable SUVs because they will have no government commitments to do otherwise.

Closer to home, energy is the key to the economic development of our despondent border area. The US has yet to recognize that its poorest counties lie along the border with Mexico and Mexico has yet to realize that its greatest immediate hope for development lies along its northern frontier. Part of the solution to both problems can be renewable energy. It turns out that our 3,169km demarcation line happens to receive some of the most copious amounts of solar radiation in the world. Instead of building dumb fences, we need to build intelligent solar-based electricity grids. A bi-national project of this sort could be a huge confidence-building measure just when our beleaguered continent needs it.

Energy is the key to prosperity in the short term, security in the medium term, and sustainability in the long term. It is not unreasonable to picture a day when virtually unlimited, virtually free, non-CO2-producing energy fuels economic prosperity. Further, change would allow tribal societies, such as those in the Middle East, to get on with the task of modernizing without the corrupting influence of oil. Mexicans, too, would be given the chance to finally get rid of their silly fetish with PEMEX. And low-lying coastal areas would stop disappearing, to boot.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Foolish Forbes

December 17, 2008

In its latest edition, Forbes Magazine published a cover story called "Mexican Meltdown: The Coming Disaster". The front page sports an especially dark and menacing Mexican looking over a Mexican-flag bandanna, guerrilla-style, into the camera. Forbes could have done a review of the problems of this huge, diverse, and vitally important country. The cover could have been "The Mexican Challenge". But Forbes decided to go the simple "everything's going to pot" route. Perhaps they believe this will sell more magazines. But what they did is irresponsible and wrong, as Ambassador Sarukhan himself points out in an interview included within.

The truth is that all the American public gets is bad news about Mexico. Even relatively responsible NBC News only talks about violence... over, and over, again. Its parent company, GE, has been lobbying the Mexican government to allow its Spanish-language Telemundo to operate here. Nevertheless, we never hear about the Mexico that represents an attractive market for GE. We only hear about drugs, violence and poverty, with an occasional shot of a Cancún beach during Spring Break.

This does not serve the interest of the American public, which has a larger stake than it knows in the success or failure of its neighboring North American country. And it certainly makes the job of those of us who are here working in favor of promoting the rule of law, economic growth, etc., more difficult.

The media has pidgeonholed Mexico as 1) a place of violence and poverty, or 2) a place with bucolic, or fun, beach destinations. If your story is in any way nuanced, or truly analytical, it has no place in the mainstream media. The upshot is that we get gems like the Forbes article: "drug-related violence pervades all segments of life in Mexico". No, it doesn't. The 107 million Mexicans and 1+ million Americans who live here are certainly worried about narco-violence. But it certainly does not "pervade" our lives here. To say it does is to misinform the public, at best, and to generate fear and loathing towards Mexico and Mexicans, at worst.

To pretend that Mexico (and perhaps even the 27 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the US), will just bid "adiós" and fall off the edge of the entire American Southwest is ridiculous. Nevertheless, that is the leitmotif behind many of the reactions to what people are seeing in the news. Airing our problems could provide a wakeup call to people in power, but expectations are often so low that dissing Mexico fuels despair, not action.

Explain yourself

In February, this column pleaded: "President Calderón needs to get interested parties with more local legitimacy to argue Mexico’s case". At the time, it asked for a coordinated, multi-disciplinary public education campaign in the US to confront the myths, explain the challenges, and invite the public to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. It said: "Non-governmental Mexican and American organizations should be disseminating information about Mexico and its cooperation with the US. In addition, North American companies with interests on both sides of the border could launch a campaign to educate people regarding NAFTA."

Unfortunately, Mexico keeps its PR budget tied to the Ministry of Tourism, which is obsessed with variations on the anachronistic "Amigo Country" campaign of the 1970s. The Forbes article is an example not only of lazy journalism, but of Mexico's failure to explain and sell itself to its most important audience.

Criminally scandalous

Instead of smearing Mexico with facile alarmism, Forbes, supposedly a magazine for investors, should have been paying more attention to what became the real "next disaster", just down the street from their offices.

Bernie Madoff allegedly created, under the auspices of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a Ponzi scheme to the tune of $50 billion dollars. He was regulated as a "broker dealer", certified by the authorities, operating with impunity for more than 30 years. The SEC has been extremely effective at making the lives of ordinary investors more difficult by limiting third-party wire transfers for the sake of combating "money laundering", for example. But when it came to actually doing their job, which is "to protect investors", they have been criminally negligent. Not even in the darkest depths of Mexico's multiple financial crises did we see this level of brazen swindling as a result of astonishing government ineptitude. To wit, when Alfonso Romo went personally bankrupt, his brokerage, Vector, was deftly isolated from the mess and investors never lost even a minute's sleep. Who would have ever thought that Mexican authorities could teach their American counterparts a thing, or two, about oversight.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of a Nation's Character

December 10, 2008

Commenting on last week's article on living in Mexico City, reader Nadine Karachi wrote: "As an expat of 12 years in the DF, one of my favourite reasons for sticking it out is the genuine freedom of religious and cultural practice. As a Muslim, I have rarely been made to feel ashamed for my beliefs. There is a genuine interest in people here. A sense of tolerance not found in many other places." Tolerance and curiosity would thus seem to be part of Mexico's "character". They are genuinely useful to recognize for a stranger that wishes to interact with a Mexican.

But, if such broad strokes are to be helpful, how are they different from useless stereotypes? For example, Mexicans are some of the most hard working people in the world. But the sombrero-clad napping Mexican is one of the country's stereotypes abroad. Beyond the implicit insult, the image is useless in helping someone understand Mexico. Similarly, after World War II, Germans have become some of the most culturally sensitive people in the world, rendering the jackbooted Nazi stereotype virtually meaningless. As for Americans, they can often be insular in their thinking and ignorant of other countries. But in the thousands of encounters in dozens of countries where this correspondent has seen them interact with locals, not one "ugly American" episode stands out. This does not mean that Americans aren't sometimes arrogant when abroad. Rather, it highlights the fact that if you interact with them expecting to find a boorish lout, you will almost always be mistaken.

So, a proper analysis relies on nuance. It is a moving target and it is best when it captures a moment; a national "mood", not a national stereotype. Today's Russia is a case in point. "Standoffish" and "wounded pride" are words that are useful for understanding why Vladimir Putin seems so angry. Only by hearing Russians express their frustration at not being treated with the "respect" (actually, fear) that the Soviet Union once commanded, can one fathom why President Medvedev would do something as childish as to coincide his state of the nation speech with the American election. Or Mr. Putin's over-the-top assertion that “the trust in America as the leader of the free world and free economy is blown for ever.”

All countries bear historical grudges, but they learn different lessons from their losses. When Russia lost the Cold War, it felt humiliated. The realpolitik post-Communist kleptocracy believes that all countries act with naked self-interest and that the world is a zero-sum place where might makes right. Americans, on the other hand, are often genuine in their belief that they can be a force for good in the world. At the same time, Europeans really do believe in the power of civilized negotiation through multilateral institutions. Keeping these contrasting beliefs in mind is key to any sort of meaningful discussions between these powers. Knowing about character can thus be very useful.

What Mexicans learned from constant American meddling in their country was that self-determination is a fundamental right for all nations and that peaceful international conflict resolution is paramount. That is why, unlike Iran, or North Korea, Mexico has foresworn nuclear weapons without a second thought. To stockpile weapons of mass destruction just to spite the US is simply not in their national character. Compare that with Russia's foolhardy insistence on having its nuclear-armed bombers fly missions close to Canada and Alaska. Remember that Russia and Mexico's economies are roughly of equal size, so it is not a question of money, but of each country's character.

Sometimes, national "moods" can change suddenly, directly affecting the national character almost immediately. Before 9/11, it was safe to say that Americans were as open as any country that is such a magnet to immigration could be. After 9/11, legal entry to the US has become onerous to the point of being annoying. Fear and mistrust trumped Americans' natural openness and generosity. Insofar as this is not permanent (let us hope), it speaks to the national "mood", not "character". But when dealing with Homeland Security, you ignore this new American attitude at your peril.

Mexico's national mood is currently a little more dejected than usual. Mexicans are generally happy people, but their fatalist streak means that they can easily despair when major problems arise. That is what is happening with the terrible wave of violence we are currently suffering. Americans are different: they are characteristically much more of a problem-solving people than (figurative) Cross-bearing Mexicans.

Of course, none of these distinctions holds true for the French. They really are aloof and effete, no matter what their mood. Just kidding - happy posadas!

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Living in Mexico City

December 3, 2008

Your correspondent has spent a total of 17 years living in 10 different cities located in 5 countries in Europe and North America. Despite having the opportunity to stay in what many consider "ideal" places (Madrid, Switzerland, California, etc.), I live in a city that the US State Department considers a "hardship" post. I'm not alone. Many thousands of foreigners from "developed" countries, as well as rich cosmopolitan Mexicans choose to live here, as well. Given that conventional wisdom says that we should hate it here, is there a "secret" to happy Mexico City living?

Actually, yes. There are several things that Chilangos can do to improve their lot. Perhaps foremost among them is to live as near as possible to where one works, socializes, and shops. The biggest mistake a new arrival can make is to condemn him or herself to being stuck in the Periférico. Further, the capital's 3000+ road-blocking demonstrations per year can turn an already difficult drive into a day-long ordeal. A secret to stress-free driving: check routes/traffic on the radio (AM790) or via one of many cellphone and GPS services.

Fortunately, a suburban lifestyle can be found in central Polanco/Lomas and San Angel/Pedregal. It is even possible to be a pedestrian in certain areas of the city. One can walk to homes, apartment buildings, offices, and hundreds of world-class restaurants and shops in and around both Mazarik in the west, Altavista in the south, as well as the Condesa. If you like the walled security of gated communities (and can locate your office in Interlomas), giant Bosque Real provides it, along with a whopping 27 hole golf course by Nicklaus.

Apartments can be much safer than houses and many have ample green commons and amenities. High-rise city living is also available in excellent new buildings along Reforma, with shops, restaurants and even movie theaters in-house. By simply locking the door you can take advantage of Mexico City's incredible array of direct flights to pretty much everywhere, without having to worry too much about your belongings.

Apart from traffic, the other tremendous liability to Mexico City living is, of course, crime. While there is no "secret" to avoiding it, you can reduce your exposure to it. First, adopt a relatively low key lifestyle, especially in terms of the two things that every Mexican criminal looks for: a late-model luxury car/SUV and an expensive watch. If your ideal is to drive around in a Lamborghini, waving a gold Rolex-clad wrist out the window, this is not the city for you. Fortunately, there are so many Mercedes and BMWs here that relative driving obscurity can be maintained in a well-equiped family sedan (British: "saloon"). An unpredictable schedule and extensive vetting of the household help are also very important, while "Express" kidnappings can be avoided by carrying only cash. Also, don't use ID with your real address and leave the family pictures at home.

City of God v City of Man

Of course, for every happy expat who chooses to be here, there is another who is looking to be transferred back home. For every willing Chilango there is an upper-middle class professional Mexican who lives here only because they have to. At the same time, a nasty run-in with the city's notorious criminals can quickly turn the most ardent DF-booster into one more crime exile, running to the relative safety of an American or European suburb. And, obviously, none of the aforementioned mitigation techniques apply to the majority of Mexico City's inhabitants, who endure hardships as chronicled by David Lida in his new book, "First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century".

But for those of us lucky enough to be able to choose where and how to live, Mexico City can be a blast. The weather is incredible, the food is both varied and tasty. Plus, it has easy access to everywhere else. The city has hundreds of museums, pyramids, cathedrals and world-class musical offerings. Crucially, the people can be great, both in terms of service and social life (Chilangos are often darkly hilarious). Air quality, a big problem in the past, has improved markedly, with over 160 days in the clear in 2008 (versus 9 in 1991). Lastly, as terrorism in London, Madrid, New York and now, unfortunately, Mumbai, have shown, no major city is immune to terrible acts of violence.

So, whether one is here by choice, or not, both visitors and residents should take some time to plan their stay. In a place with such dramatic contrasts and dangers, intelligent lifestyle choices can make the difference between loving it and hating it. That's the secret.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mafias in Mexico

November 26, 2008

There is a tendency in Mexico (and in many developing countries) for all types of organizations, public and private, to adopt Mafia-like characteristics. This "mafia-ization" occurs wherever you have strongmen (plus a few strong-women) and weak institutions. Mafias tend to distort the transmission of power away from open democratic processes, blocking meritocracy and generally stunting social and economic development.

The dictionary is not very helpful for understanding this pervasive phenomenon. It talks about the Cosa Nostra and about trafficking in contraband. More generally it says that a Mafia can be a "group of people of similar interests or backgrounds prominent in a particular field or enterprise". That is surely true, but it is not nearly descriptive enough. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's observation regarding pornography, "I know a Mafia when I see it".

Mafias are more than just cliques. In the media, "Mafia" implies the use of unethical (and often illegal) means on behalf of an organization's leadership in order to maintain power within the organization. It includes the perpetuation of a boss (a "Don"), his or her confidants and, often, their family. Most Mafias use clientelism to achieve these ends. Clientelism is characterized by powerful patrons controlling weak "clients", usually through some sort of implied debt or coercion.

In Mexico, complicity is often the mechanism through which patrons govern their clients. There is a dark saying here that, in politics, there are no friends, only accomplices. Patrons (the equivalent of Mafia "Dons") are allowed to be rapacious because their "clients" are given their own fiefdoms all the way down the pecking order. The entire Mexican public education establishment is a case in point, with even the humblest teacher being able to "inherit" his or her teaching job, to the detriment of quality education.

But even the Mexican private sector, because of its un-meritocratic reliance on the family firm model of organization, suffers from a type of "mafia-ization". Some of Mexico's most important corporations lose top-notch executives because they know, either explicitly or implicitly, that if they don't have the correct last name, they have no chance of making it to the top.

In politics, during the long reign of the PRI, it was not uncommon to hear about the "revolutionary family", a privileged class of bureaucrats who were practically assured jobs for life because of their connections (or complicities?). Today, despite the best efforts of both the Federal Electoral Institute and the Federal Electoral Tribunal, most parties suffer from a heavy dose of "mafia-ization", from the PRI's obvious clientelism, through strongman vice grips in the PRD and the "founding families" of the PAN, all the way to cacique tactics among small parties.

Then, of course there are the honest to bad-ness criminal Mafias. This column is primarily concerned with negative patterns of behavior that affect society in general, but there is no doubt that Mexico's criminal Mafias are, today, among the most dangerous in the world. College of William & Mary Professor George Greyson has just written a disturbing book on the topic, with a helpful history of the phenomenon.

But criminal Mafias can be analyzed with a simpler "good versus evil" lens. The tendency of Mexico's interest groups to develop Mafia-like characteristics contains a disorienting amount of grey area. It includes victimized campesinos who use extortionary tactics to advance their popular cause. And it extends into the political manipulation that often motivates these "social" conflicts.

What lies behind much of the benefit brought about by the Rule of Law is the simple concept of effective, efficient, and legitimate conflict resolution. It is the ability of society to put its disputes behind it in a way that is considered definitive and just.

Last week's column talked about the fact that Gobernación had lost its enforcement role during Mexico's transition to democracy. A successful transition would have replaced its strong-arm tactics with a toothy independent judiciary. Muscular trust-busting and Congressional oversight of unions would have been a part of this package, as would a massive and aggressive purge of the law enforcement establishment. This did not happen. Worse, in its weakness, government has allowed social blackmail to become very profitable. For as long as this is true, every interest group in Mexico will tend to act like a Mafia.

Naming suggestions

Albert Lin, a reader from San Francisco, offered the best English name for Gobernación which, as it was noted in last week's column, does not currently have an appropriate English translation. Says Lin: "it seems like the best definition of the Gobernación of yore might be: 'Special Executive Services'".

Thanks to all of our readers for their feedback.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Gobernación

November 19, 2008

There is really no accurate translation of Gobernación. English-language media often refer to it as the "Interior", or "Government" Secretariat, but these names do not communicate the subtle meaning of this very Mexican institution (often called SEGOB). "Interior" conjures up visions of managing national parks, while "Government" is much too general. Formally, SEGOB is currently responsible for coordinating negotiations between the Executive and Legislative branches of government, "political development" (whatever that means), human rights, immigration, religious affairs, media oversight, and emergency response coordination ("Protección Civil"). It does none of these jobs very well.

In the days of the PRI there was a saying: "Gobernación should be felt, not seen". The head of SEGOB played "bad cop" to the president's "good cop". Because it has always had the power of "intelligence" (today through the CISEN, the spying arm of the government), old stories abound regarding secretive late-night meetings. There, the Secretary would intimidate governors and other high level officials by showing them their secret files. They would thus be cowed into the submission of the "Imperial Presidency", which lasted until 1997. Then the ruling party finally lost control of Congress and, three years later, the presidency.

Mexico's transition to democracy was interpreted by both President Zedillo and President Fox not in terms of "doing" (actively strengthening democratic institutions), but in terms of "not doing" (letting go of the reigns of power). SEGOB's evolution (some would say "dissolution") was in keeping with this distaste for the exercise of hard power. Gone were the days of direct media censorship and political blackmail. In line with this spirit, SEGOB lost its security apparatus, which was handed over to the Public Security Secretariat.

Gobernación became a "coordinating" entity. Having been a symbol of PRI-era oppression, President Fox's first head, Santiago Creel, was apologetic of his institution, even appearing to dislike the fact that it existed at all. The upshot was the perpetuation of conflicts. During his tenure, Secretary Creel was criticized for having over 1,000 official dialogues going on at the same time, with a small percentage reaching any sort of accepted conclusion. Mexico's weak judiciary means that there is no effective conflict resolution mechanism, so when SEGOB abdicated its responsibility to arbitrate, clashes between interest groups were left to fester. Endless demonstrations, vandalism, and persistent social blackmail are, today, consequences of SEGOB's self-neutering.

The last successful strongman to head SEGOB was Manuel Bartlett (1982-1988), who was also the final Secretary to last the full 6 year term of the presidency. The next president, Salinas, had three of them. President Zedillo had four, while Fox had to fire his rising star, Creel, after he was singularly unable to deal with Congress and after ignominously losing the legal battle to unseat López Obrador as Mayor of Mexico City. We are now on our third Secretary in the first three years of this sexenio and, while Secretary Gómez Mont might turn out to be the exception, the unfortunate fates of his eleven predecessors do not bode well.

There is no shortage of ideas with respect to a full reorganization of this very important government dependency. Some of the most interesting involve the evolution of its Secretary into a sort of Chief of Staff. Surprisingly, given the public outcry that originally separated SEGOB from its direct public security responsibilities, some people are asking that the Secretariat of Public Security (created just 8 years ago) be disbanded. Others, including many self-serving kleptocrats, want to do away with the intelligence arm of SEGOB, CISEN, presumably to debilitate an already weak Executive.

But, ultimately, Mexico's ruling class has to get over its distate of the unpleasant responsibility of governing. Democracy is a system that grants legitimacy and lends transparency to government. Governments need this legitimacy because their role is to make decisions that affect millions of people. Mexico's democratically elected governments need to believe in their own legitimacy so that they can put a stop to the destructive free-for-all that Mexican democracy has become. The country needs a proper system of rewards and punishments based on the rock-hard Rule of Law and Gobernación should lead that fight.

There is a sad parellel between the tragedy that took Secretary Mouriño's life and the current state of the dependency he led. Like flying in a Lear Jet, being the head of SEGOB is a privilege that offers a lot of prestige. But like the ill-fated plane, it only takes the violent cross-winds of a 767 (in SEGOB's case, a damaging strike, a bloody social conflict, or an angry opposition Mayor) to throw it into a tailspin.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Obama and Mexico

November 12, 2008

Seven years ago, one month into his administration, President Bush made Mexico his first destination as President. He called US-Mexican relations the most important bilateral ties his country had. Having been brought up, in part, by a Mexican nanny, President Bush's relationship with our country was personal, as well as professional. Then, five months later, terrorists blew Mexico off the presidential agenda.

Mexico has not become any less important. As mentioned in this column last week, it is key to resolving some of the most pressing issues for the US: immigration, security, trade, the economy, the environment, etc. But there is a tired frustration that has crept into the relationship because of dashed hopes and seemingly never-ending violence on this side of the border. The day-to-day relationship remains as robust as ever, perhaps the most intimate between two sovereign countries anywhere. There are 55 clogged lanes of traffic between the two countries. 27 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans live in the US, making them a majority within the country's largest minority, while 1 million Americans live here. The US diplomatic presence in Mexico remains the largest (permanent) mission in the world, with Mexico City being the only place outside of Washington where every US government dependency is represented. At the same time, Mexico's consular presence in the US is by far the most extensive of any country anywhere.

But President-elect Obama's relationship with Mexico, a country he visited once when he was in college, will not be personal. That privilege belongs to Indonesia, where he grew up, and Kenya, where he still has much of his family. Anecdotally, according to a Washington Post profile, when he poses for pictures he gets a smile by calling for people to say "tequila". He also once said that his favorite song is "México Lindo y Querido". But perhaps the closest personal connection he has with Mexico is through his sister, Maya Soetoro, who visited Mexico City during the campaign. She loves Mexico, speaks fluent Mexican Spanish, and has spent a significant amount of time in this country.

But beyond the lack of personal ties, there are some good omens. The fact that President-elect Obama called President Calderón is a sign that the transition team is on the ball with respect to US-Mexico relations. During the call, not only did he recognize the significance of Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño's death, but he did not mince words when talking about winning the war agains narcotraffic, offering "decisive" help.

Unknown unknowns

During the campaign Obama attacked NAFTA, but said that prosperity in Latin America, and especially in Mexico, is important to the US national interest. During an interview with talk radio's Piolín, he promised to push for "comprehensive" immigration reform before the end of his first year in office. People believed him: an estimated 83% of Americans born in Mexico voted for Senator Obama. He was conscious enough of these votes to air a thank-you TV ad in which he spoke in Spanish. Despite the fact that he does not actually speak Spanish, his excellent pronounciation allowed him to pull it off nicely.

Accentuate the positive

Of more urgency, the day after the election the Government Accountability Office noted that the $5 billion dollars that have been spent on Plan Colombia (the precursor to the Mérida Initiative) have not shut down drug production. Nevertheless, the GAO report showed that it had improved security inside Colombia. Given that Mexico's internal security situation is currently of much more strategic concern than drug use within the US, it bolsters the case for the Mérida Initiative. Whether or not Mr. Mouriño's plane crash was a response to the capture of Eduardo Arellano Félix a week before, the threat to President Calderón in particular, and his administration in general, is both constant and very real. If the worst were to come to pass, a failed state attached to the American Southwest would dwarf even the biggest concerns in the Middle East.

Fortunately, Mr. Obama is a serious (and seriously intelligent) man. He exudes gravitas and, as The News columnist Amy Glover has pointed out, he is a quick learner. There are a whole host of things that the Mexican government needs to talk about with the new administration, but a priority should be to get him down here, even if it's during a visit to San Diego, or El Paso. In an article on his plans for US-Mexico relations that Senator Obama published in the Dallas Morning News, in February, he promised yearly presidential summits. He should not wait until he takes office in January 2009. For the sake of our shared future, it is time President-elect Obama personally felt the urgent intensity of the Mexican abrazo.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make 2008-2012

November 5, 2008

The number of challenges that will face the next president of the United States is truly humbling. Not only is the country involved in two wars, but it turns out that the world financial system is weaker than anyone expected. The punters on Intrade.com (a betting site) even say there's a 5% chance of a Depression. How sobering is that? Add to that the level of polarization that is pushing Americans apart, as well as hatred that motivates so many millions of people around the world to do horrible things and you start wondering why anyone would want the job of US president.

Don't forget Mexico

Even though it doesn't often figure in the list of immediate priorities, Mexico should not be forgotten by the new president. It lurks behind most of the major issues that face the US: the economy, American jobs, security and immigration. Inside its borders, Mexico is suffering a low-level civil war between gangs of criminals, groups of corrupt law enforcement officials, the army, and groups of honest police.

At the same time, Mexican society has picked up some very bad habits when it comes to social conflict resolution. People have learned that, if they cause enough damage (through demonstrations, vandalism, social blackmail), they can get pretty much anything they want. The loser is the Rule of Law, which ends up mining confidence in the country and destroying economic growth. Here, the new administration can lead by providing a better example of ethical, law-based, democracy than the outgoing administration has done.

In terms of the economy, instead of seeing Mexico as part of the "outsourcing jobs" lament, the next president should see how we can make all of North America more competitive. It is well known that Mexicans spend a much larger percentage of their disposable income on American imports than anyone in the world (except, perhaps, Canadians). This means that Mexican economic growth and North American economic integration translate directly into American prosperity.

In terms of immigration, even if it becomes politically viable, the regularization of millions of undocumented Mexicans is not enough. When the US starts growing again it will need what the experts call "circularity", or the ability of groups who wish to work, but not stay, north of the border, to do so for specific periods of time. It is the way that things used to be when the border was more-or-less open, before the 1990s. And the lack of circularity is the reason why so many Mexicans accumulated in the US over the last 20 years. Without the possibility of easy transit, instead of returning, workers paid coyotes to bring their families into the US.

In terms of helping Mexico with its narco violence, the new president will continue to implement the Mérida initiative. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is woefully insufficient. We have a golden opportunity to take advantage of American law enforcement and investigative agents whose Mexican descent allows them to obtain Mexican citizenship. Dual-citizen officers with jurisdiction on both sides of the border could finally provide a binational solution to a binational problem. They could also be very useful in investigating corruption among mainstream Mexican officials, potentially giving the Mexican President credible reports, short-circuiting the web of lies that often surrounds "intelligence" in our country.

Further, the new American President does not need aid, or the expansion of trade and investment here, to help Mexico. He can do it by investing at home. Through the implementation of a large-scale border infrastructure project on the American side, the US could get the entire region up to 21st century standards. Given that some of the poorest counties in the US are along the border, such a project would be both regionally beneficial and could be seen as a domestic anti-poverty measure. Imagine if the area could put paid to its persistent water issues with new infrastructure. Or if it could harness its incredible amounts of sunshine to power growth on both sides. And it certainly need not be wholly financed by the US; a mechanism of co-investment, perhaps according to each country's GDP, would give the Mexican public and private sectors a stake.

Unlike many intractable problems the new president will face, dealing with Mexico successfully is just a question of vision and intelligence. Having turned this country into a democracy that is friendly to the US, we've already done the hard part.

Oh, but if all of the challenges facing the new administration aren't enough, the Mayan calendar predicts the Armageddon (or an inflection point in human evolution, depending on the interpretation) at the end of his first term, on December 21, 2012. Congratulations, Mr. President-elect.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Panic of 2008

October 29, 2008

In the course of a few weeks, it has become 30% cheaper to live in Mexico (in dollar terms). Wall Street's former "Masters of the Universe" have collapsed, Greek tragedy-style, into the bewildered arms of government. Mexico's multi-national CEMEX is now worth less than 1/3 what it was at the beginning of the year, despite the fact that countries plan to build ever more cement-laden infrastructure to counter the downturn.

It is a sign of the bizarre nature of these types of financial panics that people are dumping ownership of companies with hard assets (via stocks) in favor of currency, which has no tangible underpinnings. What is even more counterintuitive, the US dollar, which is being "printed" in record amounts (through US government debt and ultra-low interest rates) has actually seen its value rise. Despite the inherently inflationary actions that have constituted the response to this crisis, the US government was offering you a mere $3.87 dollars per year for every $100 you invested in Treasuries with a 2038 maturity last week. It is an incredibly brave assumption that inflation will average less than 4% over the next 30 years, but panic-stricken investors will take anything that gives them a little peace of mind. These days, it seems, tranquility comes at a high price.

Some conspiracy theorists say that there is a political motive behind this latest chapter of the sub-prime mess. They suggest that there are hidden "powers" who have engineered the panic in order to clinch a Democratic victory next week. But weren't menacing financial conspirators supposed to be Republican, according to traditional conspiracy theorist lore? Consistency, as well as reason, seem to be early victims of panics.

As pretty much everything (except Treasury bills and the yen, which is rising for other reasons) loses value, the consumer is being affected in a quick and direct way. For example, those of us who fill our tanks on this side of the border will see the gasoline tax, called "IEPS" according to its acronym in Spanish, get a boost upwards. Just a few months ago, many editorialists were criticizing the Mexican government for keeping the price of motor fuel too low via subsidies. Few pointed out that the IEPS also works the other way. In times of high oil prices, the Mexican government makes more money, so the Mexican consumer benefits. In times of low oil prices, the domestic sales tax on gasoline rises to cover the shortfall. That is what we're starting to see today, with prices in the US and Mexico finally converging (about $2.22 dollars per gallon in Mexico and $2.45 in the US, at $13 pesos to the dollar).

So, what's in store for the peso, in particular, and our two economies, in general? This particular crisis seems to be different from previous panics in both origin and scope, so no one really knows. China still has enormous amounts of resources to maintain growth, which should limit the collapse in commodity prices, for example. In terms of the peso, if it stabilizes at around 12, inflation won't be too high and the depreciation will probably help exporters. But if the currency's swings remain erratic, it will add damaging uncertainty to millions of transactions, causing people and companies to reduce their activity, thereby exacerbating the downturn in this country. Similarly, if the flood of money coming from world governments takes too long in "greasing" the wheels of commerce and industry, the downturn everywhere else will be more severe than if the funds flow quickly.

Curiously, given the way that the terms "recession" and "depression" are so overused, there is no exact definition of either. Journalists use a "rule of thumb" for recessions, defining them as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. As the word "depression" starts to be freely bandied about, a consensus definition seems to be gaining traction, pointing at a 10%, or more, decline in economic activity during any given quarter. That hasn't happened in the US since the 1930's.

It is important to note that official American figures are not currently negative, with the latest being a healthy +2.8% for the second quarter of this year. But, given the fact that markets are mechanisms that "discount" future scenarios, they have already factored in a long and painful recession. Advanced estimates for third quarter US GDP will be published by the Commerce Department tomorrow at 8:30am EDT, so expect another volatile day.

Of course, here has never been a successful investor who did not follow the cardinal rule to "buy low" and "sell high". In case you were wondering, this is what they meant when they said "low". Just remember, don't panic... and caveat emptor.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Social Mobility

October 22, 2008

Both the United States and Mexico were born out of an effort to break the social mold. Americans declared that "all men are created equal". Thirty-four years later, Mexicans started their independence movement to grant the same opportunities to those born in Mexico that the Spanish-born ruling class enjoyed. While it is true that both countries have struggled to realize their ideals among all people, it is safe to say that equality of opportunity is one of our key founding principles. That is why we abolished hereditary titles, leaving behind Europe's enforced social stratification.

Movin' on up?

Social mobility is where the rubber of equality of opportunity hits the road of inequality. It is defined as "the degree to which, in a given society, an individual's, family's, or group's social status can change throughout the course of their life". If one who is born into poverty has no chance of achieving wealth then what good are the Utopian words of a Constitution? Social mobility presupposes some inequality (otherwise, where would people be "moving" to?), but effective social mobility lessens the sense of injustice that comes with inequality. If the poor can, by their merit, end up rich and the rich, by their foolishness, can end up poor, then there is no use raging against an "oppressive" system. "Success" becomes a matter of personal responsibility. In this system the state's role is to make sure that its people have access to a basic mix of education, health, and infrastructure, providing a "level playing field".

So, how are we doing? The good people at the Espinosa Rugarcía Foundation, in conjuntion with the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, recently unveiled the most comprehensive study on the topic in Mexico. The director of the Institute, Julio Serrano, sounds a negative note: "the reults of the Social Mobility in 2006 poll are disheartening." As proof, he cites the fact that the poorest 20% of the population (income=$0-$1,500 pesos per month, or "quintile 1") and the richest 20% (income=$30,000+ pesos per month, or "quintile 5") are ossified. That is, nearly 75% of those who are born in the poorest 40% of the population die in the same social stratum. At the same time, nearly 60% of those born into the richest "quintile" (20% of the population) die among the richest 20%. Further, there is little interaction between the most and the least educated: a statistically insignificant percentage of the uneducated marry those with post-graduate degrees. Education, according to the study, is an important indicator of wealth.

Among the 8 countries that were compared in the study, Mexico was the one with the least social mobility but, surprisingly, the US was the 6th least socially mobile. 48% of Mexican children of the poorest quintile stayed there, while 42% of America's poorest stayed the same. This contrasts with the most socially mobile country in the study, Denmark, where only 1/4 of those born into the poorest families are doomed to suffer the fate of their parents.

Getting a piece of the pie

Fortunately, there are several factors that mitigate the gloom. The first is the fact that the study shows that every quintile has seen an "absolute" increase in their standard of living. Second, both Mexico (population: 107 million) and the US (population: 305 million) were compared with places like Denmark (population: 5.5 million), because the Scandinavians are among the few who have reliable statistics related to social mobility.

Interestingly, nearly 90% of Mexico's population sees social mobility as either staying the same, or getting better. Only 1 in 10 sees things getting worse. Further, the study shows that social mobility is significant amongst the three middle quintiles.

Then there's race and geography. Simply put, white Mexicans, who are well represented amongst the rich, are segretated from indigenous Mexicans, who are over-represented amongst the poor. Literally, and figuratively, they live in different worlds. Social mobility is significant among the 3 middle quintiles, in part, because they represent the mestizo majority and their geographies often overlap.

There is no doubt that Mexico has a lot of work to do in terms of social mobility. But there are indigenous communities in places like Oaxaca and Chiapas that have rejected modernity and "whiter" communities where racism is common. For social mobility to really flourish, we must first overcome our psychological barriers.

Happy first!

This is the 53rd edition of our weekly "What to Make of..." column here in Wednesday's editorial section of The News. Thanks to our readers and to The News for its quality and insight. We look forward to continuing to play our part in the public dialogue during these fascinating times of tumultuous change in North America.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Candidates' Silence on Immigration

October 15, 2008

Immediately preceeding the second presidential candidate debate, CNN's Lou Dobbs challenged his audience to notice the care that senators McCain and Obama would take to avoid tackling the issue of immigration. He was obviously furious about their omission. According to Mr. Dobbs, here was the "number one problem in America" and the two people who aspire to fix his country's woes aren't even alluding to it. The implication, according to CNN's shock jock, is that this willful neglect must represent part of an elite bipartisan conspiracy against the American middle class.

As it happens, there is a perfectly logical, political, explanation for the Great Non-debate about immigration in the presidential election. To begin with, both candidates are genuinely friendly to immigration by conviction (Mr. McCain's tack to the right regarding the border fence notwithstanding). More significantly, Americans are of two minds on the topic.

A special report published by The Economist identifies several issues. First, "immigration is... an apparently marginal issue that can swiftly overwhelm a campaign." To wit, "candidates are often punished for saying exactly what voters say they want them to say". This strange state of affairs was seen when several rabid Republican anti-immigrationists recently lost Congressional elections. Then, the most hard-line presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, performed the worst. According to the report, Americans distinguish between the "principle" of immigration, which they are for, and the "practice" of illegal immigration, which they are against. A candidate who cannot navigate these treacherous waters, gets trounced.

So, in the case of senators McCain and Obama, it behooves neither to bring up the topic. Mr. Obama has gone so far as to be for granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, something most people oppose. But, if Senator McCain were to attack him on immigration, he could be branded a "flip-flopping" opportunist who once received full marks from the ultra-liberal National Council of La Raza. Their careful avoidance of the topic is thus not part of a conspiracy, but rather a case of political expediency based on shared principles.

Immigration was the perfect issue for many angry people who are now frustrated. First, there is that percentage of society that seeks to blame the "other" for their troubles. Undocumented migration was the ideal issue for many of them, especially after overt racism became socially repugnant after the Civil Rights era. The new wave of immigrants made great "others". They were mestizo Mexicans (brown, not white), they were poor, and they spoke a different language. They are in the country illegally, giving rise to the perfectly "accurate", but certainly dehumanizing, term "illegal immigrant". Thanks to illegal immigration, you could hate a whopping 12 million people inside your own country, regardless of their character or merit, without being ostracized. You weren't racist, you were just law-abiding volk - I mean, folk.

That is the fringe, which acts as the tinder to light a bigger social fire. Most people who decry illegal immigration are not "bigots" (which implies intolerance towards the views of others), or "racists" (which refers to discrimination based on race). Out of the approximately 50% of Americans who worry about illegal immigration a large majority are genuinely concerned about so many people sidestepping the law and disrupting their community with their numbers. But they are not angry enough to see too politicians gain power by being mean to their gardeners.

The economic crisis is set to change the status quo, but it is very difficult to know exactly how. To begin with, it is pushing the immigration issue, which is a long-term problem, onto the back burner, as people worry more about how to avert disaster today. More significantly, all of the latest figures, from Border Patrol detentions to remittances, show imporant declines. Usually, the first to arrive are the first to leave, so this reduction could reduce animosity towards immigrants in general, as the least assimilated vacate the parking lots of the local Home Depot.

For Mexico, this reversal will create problems. According to the country's National Agrarian Confederation (CNC, by its acronym in Spanish), Mexico could see the return of 350,000 migrants. That's 350,000 people who are going to need jobs back home, when Mexico's expulsion of workers to the US had been seen as a "safety valve" which kept the country's unemployment rate under control. Immigration is caused by relative differences in wealth, so if life in Mexico becomes harsher, even a recessionary USA will look relatively better... and the cycle begins again.

None of this seems to be grist for the 2008 presidential debate mill. But, for the moment, Mr. Dobbs can find comfort in the fact that the economy is "dealing" with the issue even when the candidates try to ignore it.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the New Malaise

October 8, 2008

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter spoke to his country about a "crisis of confidence". Despite never having mentioned the word, this came to be known as the "malaise" speech. Malaise is a word from the French meaning "a general sense of depression, or unease". Then, as now, oil prices were too high and Americans felt that the country was going "in the wrong direction." Then, as now, the country was in a funk.

Mexico is also feeling down. Over the last few weeks even those columnists who are generally more sanguine, like Reyes Heroles and Silva-Herzog Márquez, have sounded more worried. In the US, people are depressed about the economy, while Mexicans are in shock over the escalation of violence, including our first terrorist act of the new millennium. In both places, there is a sense that all is not well.

The national "mood" affects much of what we do. The successful Sinaloan professional isn't going to invest in a new business in Culiacán if there's a drive-by shooting on his doorstep. The middle manager in Peoria isn't going to take out a mortgage to buy a house if he feels that his job is in jeopardy. The national mood can even make you give up on your country. Your correspondent has recently spent time in the suburbs of Houston and the number of Mexican yuppies fleeing from Mexico's crime by moving to Texas is a tragic sign of how depression can turn into total resignation.

But often the national mood is just another manifestation of the cycles that are present in everything around us. There are moments of "irrational exuberance" that lead to booms and "crises of confidence" that lead to busts. These moods are often independent of the actual pressures on society. The sense of mission and unity shown during World War II, for example, kept the national mood "high" despite the tremendous sacrifices that were being made. Today, people are as rich as they have ever been and the planet is generally peaceful, but people are living with an uncomfortable sense of dread.

In 1979 President Carter asked his country to look inward and stop worshipping "self-indulgence". He said that Americans had "discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning". But self-criticism needs leadership to provide an outlet for the pent up energy that is the fruit of our frustration. It is very possible that the global middle class is living beyond way beyond its means. But it is not enough to tell it so, there has to be a plan.

Man without a plan

President Carter failed to communicate a purpose. Hence, Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 44 states during the 1980 elections. Candidate Reagan didn't offer a sophisticated plan, per se, but he did talk about a new dawn. "It's morning in America", he told them, and the country responded with a collective "hey, maybe he's right". In the year 2000, Vicente Fox told Mexicans to believe in themselves and kick the PRI out of office. But, devoid of the institutional infrastructure that gives continuity to the American system, Mr. Fox could not materialize his good intentions. Today, President Calderón's high-quality speeches give the Executive much-needed gravitas, but he is failing to convince Mexicans that he can win the war he has gotten them into.

In both countries, we have yet to see leadership that links the insight of a Jimmy Carter with the fresh-faced optimism of a Vicente Fox and the execution of a Michael Bloomberg. But national moods have a way of pulling 180s. During the Salinas regime, Mexicans came to believe that Mexico was well on its way to being a fully developed "first world" nation. During the 1950s, a time when Americans were much poorer and their minorities much more oppressed, technology held out the promise of an ever-better future. It was a promise that people wholeheartedly believed.

Of course, the future ain't what it used to be. But with a little effort and leadership, we can get back our collective chutzpah. President Kennedy set forth a cool challenge in the 1960s to get to the moon within ten years. Why not do the same thing for carbon emissions and global warming? Mexico's Calderón could offer to eradicate corruption in the 4 years left of his term, with serious oversight, penalties and incentives. While we're at it, we could reduce cruelty to animals for good karmic measure. That's something both countries could do as we fight the obesity and junk food epidemic.

Whatever the priority, the national mood needs a little leadership Prozac. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like our doctors know how to prescribe the right medicine. Let's offer them some suggestions.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Financial Confidence Tricks

October 1, 2008

Finance is a little like a confidence trick, a shell game, or a pyramid scheme. Without trust there can be no transaction. Without transactions there is no economy. This is the rabbit hole that Wall Street has gotten into.


The use of what Boston financier Eric Connerly calls "a medieval metal", under the gold standard, was a previous generation's attempt to provide a universal foundation for money. Gold provided confidence because people knew that it could not simply be printed, the way paper money can. But, with a deliciously self-serving declaration that "we are all Keynesians now", President Nixon pulled the US out of the gold standard in 1971, at the nadir Vietnam, another shoddily-funded war.


Today, confidence is scarcer than gold. And confidence is what the Bush administration wanted to inject into the system in the form of what was basically an unlimited amount of funds. Under this plan, financial sheriff Henry "Hank" Paulson would be given free reign to round up the bulls that are loose in the financial China shop.


Of course, given enough political will, the US can always "print" more money, getting out of any financial mess. This would certainly make the dollar worth less and cause more inflation. But, given enough tolerance for budget deficits and inflation, any financial crisis is surmountable in the short term.

Been there, done that...

Mexico didn't have the benefit of issuing reserve currency manna from Treasury Heaven when it legislated its massive bailout in 1994/1995 (called "FOBAPROA"). The result was a rescue plan equivalent to 19.3% of GDP, compared to "only" 5.8% of GDP if the whole Paulson enchilada were to be used, according to The Economist.


In the case of Mexico's rescue, the US taxpayer actually made money. As former president Bill Clinton observed last week on Larry King "Live", his creative use of the Exchange Currency Stabilization Fund to help bail out Mexico actually generated a $600 million dollar profit. In what has to be one of the great historical ironies in international political economy, both the Mexican leftist conspiracy theorists and the American rightist conspiracy theorists had a hissy fit. But, against the naysayers, it worked. Mexicans were able to cash their checks and Americans made a tidy profit.


Today, eggheads are pointing to the Swedish model of bank rescue for guidance (cost: a mere 3.6% of GDP). In that case, the authorities snagged a whole bunch of equity when they filled the coffers of their banks with government money. Once the system recovered, the taxpayers made out like Erik the Red because they owned equity (shares). Once confidence was restored, life was good: confidence+invested wealth=bonanza.

Not seeing the forest for the trees

Capitalism works its magic when the virtuous circle of investment, trust and talent come together. Productive enterprise channels money and creates wealth. Wealth creation then raises the quality of life. Paraphrasing Churchill, "there is no system worse than capitalism... except for all the rest."


The truth is that never in all of history has so much wealth been generated for so many. The spectacular rise of China has put paid to the old argument about global "winners" in the economy exploiting Third World "losers". We have seen that "win-win" situations can be common. To use the current financial dip to justify an attack on the entire wealth creation machine that is the global free trade system is to condemn billions to poverty. Today's crisis is a footnote in a generally happy narrative of global growth: just look at the difference between Seoul and Pyongyang. In fact, google images of the "Korean peninsula by night" and guess which side is attempting autarky and which one has benefited from free trade capitalism.


In Mexico's case, the country's "fundamentals" (budget, monetary policy, etc.) are sound, but its projected growth for 2009 has just been reduced from 2.8% to 2.4% because of the slowdown in the US and lower oil production. In general, both the economic troubles and the shocking levels of violence nationwide will probably affect the country's third-largest earner, tourism. At the same time, the collapse of the construction industry in the US means that remittances (running at about $25 billion dollars a year) are falling. Nevertheless, Banco de México seems to have things stable and the country should avoid a recession, as well as high inflation.

...and the (le) denouement?

As for the Mother of All Bailouts, determining whether it was the right thing to do is, to quote Senator Obama, "above my pay grade". As an investor, your correspondent prays every night that the sub-prime submersion will go away. When that happens will depend on when society gets its mojo back.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Dual Citizenship

September 24, 2008

People wear their national origin on their sleeve as an intrinsic part of their identity - an appendage to their ego. In fact, the nation state is so ubiquitous that it is no longer seen as a human construct. Despite its parochial European origins (circa 1648, Treaty of Westphalia), nationality is the cornerstone of human relations. This sense of belonging begets "nationalism", defined as "a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations". Think about that: "one nation above all others". Nationalism is surely the last socially acceptable redoubt of the chauvinist.

Nationality is, therefore, a jealous master by nature. But it turns out that there are those who hold two (or more) nationalities. In fact, the peculiar historical relationship between Mexico and the US makes our two countries "ground zero" for dual citizenship issues. You see, countries in our hemisphere, being the product of immigration, grant citizenship based on jus soli, or "right of soil", which is different from jus sanguinis, the "right of blood" that determines national belonging in Europe.

The US Constitution, in its 14th Amendment (1868), states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The term "jurisdiction" thus only excludes people who are in the country with diplomatic immunity (and, previously, some Native American tribes). So, out of the 28 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the US, a large majority has US citizenship simply by virtue of having been born on American soil. To the chagrin of nativists, the Mexican-American community has lately grown more through local births than through immigration, despite record numbers of immigrants.

Fringe groups in Congress consistently introduce legislation to stop what Republican Congressman Virgil Goode calls the "anchor baby situation" by conditioning US citizenship to the immigration status of the parents. "Anchor babies" and "birth tourism" (reportedly popular among upper-class Asians) refer to undocumented immigrants and other non-residents/non-citizens having children in the US. These American citizens can then petition to bring their parents as legal residents under the family reunification clause of US immigration law. Legislation that conditions US citizenship hasn't gotten very far, however, thanks to both constitutional and political considerations.

Regarding dual nationality, the US State Department specifically recognizes that there are legitimate circumstances under which a person can be a citizen of more than one country. Its website states "U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship."

So, historically, the problem with having both Mexican and American citizenship has been on the Mexican side. Up until 1998, Mexicans were not allowed to have dual citizenship (many underdeveloped countries are standoffish about their nationality due to self-esteem issues). Mexico used to require its citizens to specifically abjure their other nationality when affirming Mexican citizenship, forcing people to choose.

Fortunately, those days are over. Belonging to two (or more) friendly countries opens up many possibilities for both the individual and the nations they serve. Even in the case of two countries that are antagonists, sharing the loyalty of one of its citizens can create much-needed bridges of communication. This has been the case with Iranian scholars who also have US citizenship and the valuable advice they give to further diplomatic solutions to international disputes.

Here in North America, a stronger, more democratically consolidated Mexico is in the US national interest. So, an argument can be made that what is good for Mexico is good for the US. Under these circumstances, dual US-Mexican citizenship opens up a number of possibilities that can benefit both countries. For example, this column has suggested the use of Mexican-American investigators and law enforcement professionals to help with our overwhelming crime problems, many of which are international in origin. In business, dual citizenship can mean that people can be judged on their merits and not the color of their passports, freeing up talent.

Of course, dual citizenship brings obligations, as well as opportunities. But in a bi-national region that is as tightly bound together as the US, Mexico, and their huge border area, we have been remiss in exploring the possibilities that dual nationals offer. Most of the time, our governments overlook this precious human resource. As our problems grow and our relationship becomes more complex, we would be foolish to fail to recruit our dual citizens to be a pivotal part of a solution to our bi-national challenges.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Conspiracy Theories

September 17, 2008

The Republican National Convention in Minneapolis had competition from the Right during its brief stint in Minnesota. Across the river in St. Paul, Ron Paul (no relation), rallied his freethinking faithful to back his "rally for the Republic". While The Economist reports that many worthy topics were discussed, such as government waste and the need for a profound review of US deployment of military power, another whipping boy reared its paper dragon head: the imminent creation of a North American Union. In the fantasies of its believers, this would tie down the mighty United States, Gulliver-style, subsumed by nebulous Big Business interests, Canadians and Mexicans (the mightiest Lilliputians of this tale). I kid you not.

Presumably, reading Jerome Corsi's "The Late Great USA" is de riguer among North America conspiracy theorists. The anti-Democrat character assassin author of "Unfit for Command" (anti-Kerry) and "Obama Nation" (anti-Obama) set his sights on our governments' cooperation mechanisms and treaties to denounce "the coming merger with Mexico and Canada". Like the tomes relating to the Democratic candidates, "The Late Great USA" is a New York Times Bestseller.

In the interest of full disclosure, your correspondent is revealed in the book to be a co-conspirator, by virtue of having attended a meeting of the North American Forum in 2006 (a list of attendees is included in an appendix). The fact that I write for an English-speaking newspaper in Mexico probably proves to them that I am a card-carrying member of this fifth column of "elites". But the mood at the conference was much more one of concern about the lack of coordinating mechanisms between the three countries. Specific gripes related to a lack of military coordination with Mexico (our armed forces are still wary of the Americans), protectionism vis-à-vis Mexican trucks entering the US, and American softwood lumber trade disputes with Canada. All very mundane.

For the cloak-and-dagger set the supposed mechanism for integration stems from the wishful words of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an initiative announced by President Bush that basically proposes further cooperation, mostly to safeguard the continent and its trade. The initiative was announced in 2005 and very little of substance has occurred, but in the face of this snail's pace, the paranoid cite that this is in line with the "incrementalist" approach seen in Europe. Of course.

Then they point to the disappearance of the two dollars (American and Canadian) and the peso, to give rise to the "amero". This stems from an academic exercise by Canadian Herbert Grubel of the Fraser Institute in 1999, and it has no policy initiative basis whatsoever, but boy did it capture the imagination of conspiracy theorists. A series of infrastructure improvements in Texas are evidence of a "NAFTA superhighway", presumably to be used for Schengen-like open borders in the near future.

The one element of substance that Corsi and his believers point to is the massive amounts of Mexican immigration into the US. The fact that much of this coincided with the beginning of NAFTA, a bona fide government policy, makes it look like it's all part of a "master plan" to integrate the two countries.

NAFTA was a necessary but woefully insufficient step in the direction of modernizing Mexico's economy. The legal limbo in which 6 million illegal Mexican immigrants live (out of a total of 28.3 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans) is a result of the imperfect de facto compromise that the stalemate on the amnesty question has wrought. Rather than being an example of politicians overstepping their mandate, they are evidence of a lack of strategic long-term thinking.

Having borne witness to the birth of NAFTA on Capital Hill as an intern in Washington, and having attended these cabalistic conferences, I can perhaps give hope to those who are afraid of North American cooperation. What this correspondent has seen is groups of well-meaning technocrats and ex-notables trying to find politically viable stopgap solutions, such as trade agreements and the Mérida Initiative, to issues that have, quite frankly, overwhelmed our continent.

What's especially frustrating is that, when something that was never going to happen doesn't happen, conspiracy theorists often claim that it was their fearless exposure of the plot that lead to its demise. It's a self-fulfilling non-prophecy.

North America has legitimate concerns that demand cooperation between our three governments, not the least of which is security. There is no conspiracy to subsume anyone's government to anyone else's. If anything, our cooperation mechanisms are too limited and fragile (in the sense that they can be easily derailed by misunderstandings). To throw stones in this house of glass is silly and irresponsible. The danger is not that the world's leaders talk too much amongst themselves, but rather that they do not talk enough.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the American Example

September 10, 2008

President Clinton said last week that the US does better when it leads with "the power of our example" than with "the example of our power". Curiously, while Mexico wrestles with this long period of instability, it needs to heed both. On the one hand, it can look over the border for many of the answers to its public security issues, taking strength in knowing that Mexican-Americans are such an effective part of law enforcement in the US. On the other, it needs to take the responsibility of government with the same seriousness that Americans do. It needs to heed their example of a powerful State that is willing to make difficult decisions in order to safeguard its people. Most urgently, it needs to stop thinking that Mexico is too different to apply the solutions that have worked elsewhere.

We're not so different, you and I

Mexican-American mayors govern enormous American cities (Los Angeles). They govern entire American states (New Mexico) and they patrol the streets across the country as honorable police officers. Recently, a Mexican-American was Attorney General; Mexican-Americans have among the highest rates of participation in the US military. Incredibly, the very chief of the Border Patrol, the most important part of the Department of Homeland Security, is Mexican-American David Aguilar. Mexican-Americans, many of them with two Mexican-born parents (like in the case of LA Mayor Villarraigosa) are keeping millions of Americans safe every day.

So, why is it that Mexicans play such an important and effective role in securing the most threatened country on Earth (the US), but are so astonishingly inept in their own "homeland" (Mexico)? Is it because the 3/4 of the population that has not left for the US is more corrupt, violent and prone to anarchy? Of course not.

Certainly, a good number of our diligent poor, as well as many from our law-abiding, nation-building, professional middle class are now in the suburbs of San Diego, Chicago, Houston, etc. There is no doubt that the country becomes more accommodating to the wrong types of people every time we lose another middle class family to the Woodlands. But, in spite of the lure of the American Dream and the anti-Capitalist rhetoric of the nationalist left, Mexico maintains a 20 million-strong middle class. At the same time, most of the rest of the country is made up of hard-working, honest individuals who just want to do what's best for their families.

But this silent "moral" majority (pace Rev. Falwell) has yet to find its voice, or be effectively organized at the local level. They don't get along with their neighbors, being suspicious of those among them who try to lead because they think they are just acting for their political benefit. Despite the fact that most in the Mexican upper-middle classes visit the US regularly, when it comes to learning what keeps American streets safe, they turn a blind eye, thinking that what works "there" could never work "here". So at home they avoid getting to know their local police. They keep their children from studying criminology, or starting a career in crime prevention. They stand idly by while Mexico's intelligence agency, the already-emasculated CISEN, gets even more pared down for political reasons. Behind their walls, they avoid trying to cure the symptoms of the malaise: the graffiti, the dilapidation, the constant littering, the incessant public demonstrations.

The truth is that the way to make a place safe is the same in Mexico City as it is in New York, or Mumbai. It all comes down to controlling a pre-determined physical space and implementing mechanisms to consolidate this control. The Colombians began with Bogotá and have used their gains there to expand outward. As we've seen in the case of Mexican-Americans, properly trained and incentivized Mexican officers are as good as any in the world... but they need the training, equipment, incentives. And given the current state of infiltration, they need to be incubated, away from contaminated peers.

During an interview on Sunday with Univisión's Jorge Ramos, Republican presidential candidate John McCain talked about President Calderón battling with organized crime "for Mexico's soul". He sees the Mérida Initiative as the beginning of a period of much deeper cooperation between the two countries. Ideally, the US would make the most of the "soft power" so often championed by Senator Obama, as well as Mr. McCain's "hard power" (including applying some of the lessons of Iraq to our border cities, for example).

But more importantly, middle class Mexicans need to be convinced that theirs is not a unique, impossible situation. They need to channel the power of the American example and make an example of their own power.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexican Gun Laws

September 3, 2008

One of the things about Americans that foreigners find most curious is their attitude towards private gun ownership. No other major country has such liberal laws with respect to firearms. Americans not only have the constitutional right to bear arms, recently upheld by the Supreme Court against the (presumably lily-livered) government of the District of Columbia, but they are also darned proud of it. As the blood-curdling refrain goes, "you'll pry my gun from my cold dead hands".

Things could not be more different elsewhere. Londoners pride themselves on their "bobbies" being traditionally unarmed. In Japan, talking about guns is frowned upon in polite conversation. Europeans, in general, consider their low rates of gun ownership as a mark of an advanced civilization. Even in countries that have an important hunting heritage, such as France and Spain, people would never think of buying a pistol to supplement their rifles and shotguns.

In Mexico, owning a gun is also seen as a little uncouth. Firearms are for criminals and drug dealers. You can legally own a .38 caliber gun, and you can own some other types of guns if you belong to a "hunting club" and have registered with the Defense Ministry. But very few people exercise these rights. There is a stigma of illegality to guns in Mexico that also has to do with the amount of legal "grey area" that surrounds their ownership and transport. Further, self-defense laws, which are so incredibly lenient on those who kill others while saving themselves in the US, are not so clear in Mexico. It seems that if an intruder is killed inside your house, the police shouldn't arrest you, but outside you're exposed to all sorts of "preventive" measures.

So, why is there such a difference in attitudes between Mexicans and Americans towards guns? Some people talk about the influence of "cowboy culture" in the US, but Mexico shares much of that heritage. In fact, when the Anglo settlers arrived in the West, they adopted the pre-existing local vaquero culture whole hog. This is why so many words, such as "rodeo", "lasso", "burro", "corral", etc., are imported from the Spanish.

It probably has much more to do with the stark individualism of the American character, the trust they have in their community and their distrust of government. Most of all, Americans give their middle class, law-abiding majority the full benefit of the doubt. Laws are made with them in mind and their right to defend their life and property reigns much more powerfully than anywhere else in the world.

Lock and load

If the US were living through a crime wave similar to the one that is victimizing Mexico, citizens would be organizing and implementing vigilante justice. There is vigilante justice in Mexico, but it usually takes the form of public lynchings in poor communities. Batman, the ultimate tricked-out vigilante, is very much an American phenomenon. When multimillionaire Mexicans, like Alejandro Martí, become indignant about crime they don't arm themselves or create private armies; they organize demonstrations with candles. It is a testament to the way that the professional classes in Mexico dislike being a party to any kind of violence. Unfortunately, it seems that this innocence could well be the death of us.

Welcome to Dodge City

Your correspondent is normally an ardent believer in gun control. But Mexico is currently living the worst of both worlds: criminals have all the firepower they could ask for while law-abiding citizens are left helpless. There is no doubt that self-defense laws should be strengthened and that people with no criminal record should be given the immediate benefit of the doubt when they hurt someone who is trying to rob them.

But we need to go even further. Living beside the most armed nation on Earth also means adapting to this reality. Most guns in Mexico come from the US. Given that we have no hope of strengthening gun restrictions in our neighboring country, and that we have shown ourselves to be patently unable to police our land, it is becoming more and more obvious that our gun laws are just serving to protect the criminals.

As much as it pains this author to say it, the Mexican State can no longer legitimately restrict the right of its citizens to protect themselves with firearms. In the face of its astonishing failure to protect its citizens, it must now get out of the way. As a global solution, it is incomplete and inadequate. But as an individualistic stopgap measure, primal and unfortunate, it has now become necessary.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Peaceniks and Warmongers

August 27, 2008

In the study of international relations the conventional wisdom is Hobbesian. Countries pursue their ends in a selfish and brutish manner, in line with what their politicians consider is their "national interest". Given that there is no universally effective international conflict resolution mechanism (the UN is often ignored), we are left with the irony that countries commit acts of violence on a macro-scale (war) that would be unacceptable at the micro level (murder). The Cold War took this human tendency to its absurd conclusion when it reached the level of "MAD", or "Mutually Assured Destruction". Peace was maintained thanks to the effective threat of guaranteed annihilation. So, the US and the USSR vented their anger through much less apocalyptic wars, via "proxy" Third World nations. Not very edifying, but at least we're still here.

Fortunately, the citizens of the three North American countries have, in general, been lucky. Our countries harbor no territorial ambitions against one another and all three are mostly sincerely friendly with each other. Two of the three, Canada and Mexico, have foresworn nuclear weapons completely and the neighborhood's superpower generally respects the sovereignty of even its weakest neighbor, Mexico. While this could change if an openly anti-American administration were to inhabit Los Pinos, Mexicans seem surprisingly content to be über-pacifist on the international stage. We should not take this fortunate state of affairs for granted: the norm is for powerful countries to bully the small (Russia-Georgia, China-Taiwan, etc.) and for weak countries to make a nuisance of themselves (North Korea, Afghanistan, etc.)

The current crisis in Georgia puts the gains of the post-Cold War era into stark contrast. Despite having surpassed competing ideologies (communist dictatorship versus liberal democracy), the West and Russia still see the world in a very different way. As was recently highlighted in The Economist, Russia only seems to feel safe when its neighbors are insecure and fearful. The West, including several of the aforementioned neighbors, believes that security is attained through mutually reinforcing mechanisms of security and prosperity. New ground rules were not agreed upon to mitigate this, so conflict became unavoidable.

Peace is not a destination; it is a journey.

At the other extreme, many countries have eschewed international violence altogether. Mexico found its pacifist consensus through the hard-knocks school of American 19th century territorial expansionism and 20th century interventionism. Neutral Sweden seems to have arrived at peace mongering through prosperity and intellectual analysis (of course, it is surrounded by equally rich neighbors who have no designs on its territory). Switzerland, which has not fought anyone since 1815, found its peaceful international stance after witnessing the endless horror of European wars engulf its pretty little cantons. Interestingly, they put teeth on their pacifism by recruiting and arming all able-bodied males as a ubiquitous militia, to be activated in case of an invasion. Hitler was supposedly deterred by this fact. Meanwhile, in the Americas, December 1st is "Military Abolition Day" in Costa Rica; a testament to that country's distaste for violence after its civil war.

But these are the exceptions. In the rest of the world, military spending is at an all-time high. Countries still feel they have the right to unleash Hell whenever they consider their national interest is at stake. And their people generally back them up. During the recent dialogue at pastor Rick Warren's church, it was telling that both candidates to the US presidency felt it necessary to espouse a Manichean worldview by proclaiming that "evil" did exist and that it should be confronted. The problem is that black and white lenses often impede your ability to see slippery slopes.

Waking up from history?

It has been 19 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That's within 6 years of an entire generation. Already we are starting to see some of our hardest-learned lessons fade.

In this era of renewed Russian imperialism and cavalier European attitudes towards the benefits of European integration, recall three lessons from the 20th century. First, the rise of Hitler, in what was considered to be the world's most highly-educated country, proved that we are all, potentially, just one messianic sociopathic leader away from genocide. Second, peace is often like riding a bicycle; it requires forward movement, constant confidence building, in order to avoid our falling off or backtracking; we should never underestimate the need for these efforts. Third, for all practical purposes, those bullet-shaped ICBMs are still aimed at our children's heads, so beware of politicians pandering to their "base" (or base instincts), or we'll be left singing along with 1980s Sting: "I hope the Russians love their children, too".

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Security Dysfunction II

August 20, 2008

The tragic murder of 14 year-old Fernando Martí by his kidnappers has rightly sparked a new wave of outrage regarding crime. What it has not done is create a realistic strategy to stop what has become the longest crime wave in Mexican history. In fact, the nature of the problem is profoundly misunderstood not only by oft-criticized governments, but by our business community and NGO ("non-governmental organization") activist community, as well. A review is in order.

A brief history of crime

Mexico has spent most of its time as an independent country under authoritarian rule. Dictatorships and one-party states have a different view of crime prevention than democracies do. The job of their police is not only to protect law-abiding citizens, but also to stop political dissent. Crime is perceived less as a social problem than as a nuisance. With no checks or balances on power, it is often kept under control without regard for due process. Extrajudicial punishment is common.

Mexico City lived through a crime wave at the beginning of the 20th century. Dictator Porfirio Díaz promptly ordered the police to "deal with it". Much blood was reportedly spilled, but lore has it that for several years the DF was the safest major city in the world. Under the rule of the PRI's "perfect dictatorship" things were fairly similar. Under Mexico City Regent Ernesto Uruchurtu there were persistent rumors of extrajudicial killings and the DF spent most of the post-revolutionary years of the 1900s without major crime problems.

Then democracy came. In successful democratic transitions, the judiciary is strengthened and the police purged of old-school henchmen and political operators. Politicians are left to do their job, while law enforcement is professionalized. Such was the case in Chile, Spain, Taiwan and South Korea. But presidents Zedillo and Fox saw the transition more about what they would stop doing, rather than what they would do. It was more about letting go of the reins of authoritarian power than creating new mechanism of democratic governance.

The upshot is that Mexico lost the political will to act brutally against criminals, without creating the institutional framework to justly enforce the law. Mexico City was especially affected because it voted for a PRD government as soon as it held its first election in 1997. In Mexico, the Left has a foolish disdain of law enforcement because it is still haunted by the specter of authoritarianism. It also suffers from the tragic misconception that crime is mostly a result of poverty. It really, really isn't. Crime is mostly perpetrated by the disaffected urban lower-middle class because it is easy, profitable and safe (for them).

Hello, McFly?

Notice how not one of the three major parties knows how to deal with crime. As Excelsior columnist Leo Zuckerman points out, crime is "political kryptonite" and no one needs to touch it because everyone is equally inept. So, politicians make mollifying pronouncements, instead of executing major overhauls.

Meanwhile, the economic elite has been charmed by the siren call of the media and public "pressure". The powers that be ought to sit down quietly with public officials, hashing out a well-funded coordinated response where everyone has a role to play. The private sector could be funding best-practice analysis and some large-scale private monitoring of certain high-profile areas, people, and officials, among many other things.

For example, why wasn't an obvious target like Fernando Martí, who was a minor, wearing a GPS chip? Or why isn't there a database of officials who have been dismissed from their police forces? It would cost the equivalent of two ransom payments, but it is not being done.

Ya basta... de marchas

There are literally thousands of solutions to this problem, mostly involving intelligence and control of pre-determined physical spaces. Organizing another demonstration (which highlights the sense of lawlessness) is not one of them. Politicized working-class interest groups take to the streets because it is the best way for them to pressure a distant government. In contrast, business leaders whose families are being targeted were instrumental in bringing President Calderón to power. It's time for them to cash in their favors with a clear, unpublicized commitment to solve this problem once and for all. Forget the fanfare. Forget even going after criminals. Start with the government's own employees: aggressively purge every single institution of law enforcement and continue by professionalizing the new (better-trained, better-paid) hires. Then, create accurate databases for everything: citizens, visitors, cars, etc. Oh, and build lots of new jails that incorporate best practices to reform the convicts: the current system has generated a lot of wayward young men who need to be both incarcerated and rehabilitated.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of (Never) Ending Conflicts

August 13, 2008

Efficient and effective conflict resolution is the most important role of both national and international institutions. At the national level, the failure to create a system of resolving society's run-ins (criminal, economic and political) perpetuates underdevelopment. It is, in fact, the main reason why the establishment of the Rule of Law is so important to social development the world over.

We have "issues"

Mexico's dilapidated legal system does not provide either efficiency or effectiveness in conflict resolution and its political system has adopted the ill-advised habit of using social conflict to further political gain. In Mexican political parlance it is referred to as "pressuring" the opponent.

These types of power plays have become common because they work. In keeping with people's tendency to react to incentives, Mexican interest groups have understood that if they cause enough damage they can expect to get what they want. This is the social blackmail that keeps the nude demonstrators on Reforma and teacher henchmen on the streets of Oaxaca. Taxi drivers who want to keep their monopoly rents have just used these same tactics in Los Cabos. This debilitating conflict "resolution" mechanism is one of the reasons Mexico is so stubbornly underdeveloped.

The US has always understood the importance of effective (if not always efficient) conflict resolution. Its system of checks and balances grants the judiciary the credibility to be the final arbiter in disputes. If there is enough of a social outcry there is always Congress, which can create and change laws. But the Courts are generally allowed to do their job because people believe in them. Tellingly, when Al Gore narrowly lost the US presidential election based on a split decision by the Supreme Court, he conceded, despite having won the popular vote. When PRD candidate López Obrador narrowly lost his election after a unanimous decision on behalf of the Federal Electoral Tribunal, he took to the streets on a massive scale to pressure the system into giving him what he wanted. Guess which attitude is better for economic development.

Me Tarzan...

On an international level, no matter how much lip service is paid to the need for an effective framework of laws, unregulated violence rules. It was once thought that the US could play the role of "global policeman", a sort of honest broker with guns. But the leadership in Washington was never able to temper its view of its own immediate national interests. Confidence-building measures were never enacted. Worse, the US did not follow the rules set forth by the international institutions Americans had themselves created. So, they lost all credibility and the US came to be seen by the two most cynical powers, China and Russia, as their (im)moral equal.

...you Jane

The upshot is that the Russians have invaded Georgia and there's nothing the West can do about it. The Putin/Medvedev government waited until the world's attention was on the Olympics. They struck before an unpopular American president, who himself invaded two countries (one without UN authorization), left the White House. The European Union, with its multiple, differing national interests, is not in a position to counterbalance the Russians. Hence, it is safe to say that the eastward march of NATO has ended.

It is very likely that the West missed a historic opportunity to invite Russia into both NATO and the EU when it was still reeling from the fall of Communism. Each of those institutions has very effective conflict resolution mechanisms. Certainly, the process would have been complicated, as well as expensive. But the resurgence of this strong, spiteful Russia, with its oil money and a Siberia-sized chip on its shoulder, will probably cost much more.

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war": Churchill

The failure of conflict resolution mechanisms at the local level, in countries like Mexico, and at the international level, in conflicts like the invasion of Georgia, bode ill for the advancement of all people. That is why we must always be on the lookout for bold, sincere efforts at resolving festering conflicts. In this past week that gave us the invasion of Georgia, New York Times editorialist Nicholas Kristoff published an initiative he has discussed with the Dalai Lama regarding a comprehensive peace plan for Tibet. It concedes all of the major sticking points that China had demanded from the Tibetan spiritual leader, including recognition of full Chinese sovereignty. It is still unlikely that the Chinese government, still bolstered by its Olympic power trip, will open genuine negotiations with the Tibetan government in exile. But with the Dalai Lama coming to Mexico City next month, we might get a chance to support at least one fair resolution to a terrible conflict.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Security Dysfunction

August 6, 2008

This past week saw major changes at the office of the Attorney General, signalling the Calderón regime's frustatration with its own efforts to combat crime. Meanwhile, violence continues unabated in many communities throughout the country. Most of Mexico is still safer than the world assumes, but that does not mean that what is happening is not unacceptable. As it turns out, it is also unnecessary. But the Mexican governing class needs a "paradim shift" in its approach to security. It needs to shun the "preventive police" model, which separates investigation policing and ignores intelligence.

Narcoviolence, which tends to be incestuous, and other types of crime, which affects society at large, intersect in two ways. First, narcotraffickers corrupt what are weak institutions with the "silver or lead" business model. This opens the way for criminals to establish "businesses" based on extorsion, kidnapping, etc. This "spillover effect" intensifies when government crackdowns disrupt the business. Hardened, well-armed criminals venture into the "soft underbelly" of society - its unarmed citizens. This is what is happening today.

Second, it becomes a part of the anti-social behavior that Mexicans are all-too-complacent about. Graffiti and other forms of public vandalism, as well as public demonstrations, add to the perception of lawlessness.

What part of "control" do you not understand?

Public security is all about control, which is related to political will. Americans have understood this for years. It is why adjacent neighborhoods in that country are radically different in terms of security. The University of Chicago, for example, has traditionally prided itself in having the largest non-governmental security force outside of the Vatican. The U of C is in the dangerous South side of Chicago and their message is clear: once you cross into our territory, the political will exists to do everything necessary to keep you from hurting people. There is effective "control" over a specific territory. The political will does not exist on the other side of the road, so there is much more crime.

Some have tried to suggest that this has been an example of the "establishment" not caring for those on the "wrong side of the tracks". The truth is that, whatever the economic situation, criminality thrives where people just "look after their own", without caring for their community. This is what happens in Mexico. People solve (or pretend to solve) their security problems at the family level, but by opting out of real solutions (hiring bodyguards, etc.), they contribute to the problem in the long run.

To really fight the drug war, this column has argued in favor of a binational police force made up of Mexican-Americans with dual nationality and a separate, binational, judicial system, paid for according to each country's GDP. The idea would be to sever the narcotraffickers' relations with Mexico's overwhelmed system of justice, giving the country's beleaguered institutions a chance. But, independent of the lack of imagination and boldness on behalf of both our governments, at the very least, if you're going to fight a dirty war, you need intelligence... and a plan.

For the last 14 years, since the beginning of the Zedillo administration, Mexico's government has relied on the "brute force" model of law enforcement. This has meant that the beleaguered "preventive" police, and now the military, are constantly reacting to violence by simply moving into an area. This modus operandi has cost thousands of public servants their lives. What is needed is a coordinated, stealth, approach, based on intelligence, that establishes control over a specific territory before moving on to another territory. Our security apparatus needs to investigate in secret, move in quickly with deadly and effective force, establish control, and not leave the area before leaving clean local institutions that can "hold" their positions. Only then should they move on to the next crime-ridden community.

Whether one is talking about Iraq after the "surge", the Johannesburg business district post-Apartheid, New York in the 1990s, or Bogotá in the 2000s, success against crime is measured one street at a time. In the long run, it is about monitoring and community outreach programs that maintain police presence.

Mexico lacks even a basic system for identifying its citizens, so criminals are able to use multiple names to skirt the law. When high-level security meetings take place in Mexican border cities, they do so on the US side. This is because the border provides a control mechanism that guarantees the participant's personal safety. The US visa system acts as an effective identification system, proving that security is not "rocket science", but simply a result of vigorous application of basic rules. There are too many international success stories for the Mexican government to keep feigning ignorance: intelligence and control need to be our rallying cry.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Public Lies and Innuendo

July 30, 2008

In the aftermath of the difficult election of 2006, there was an article by a well-known columnist in Mexico in which he talked about his encounter with Luis Carlos Ugalde, the president of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). Mr. Ugalde had invited the journalist to breakfast in a good faith attempt to clarify what had happened on election day. This was important to him because he felt that, in the columnists fervor for backing the candidate of the PRD, he had overlooked the significant amount of honest work that had been done. The journalist subsequently wrote an influential column attacking him both professionally and personally, painting a distorted picture of their meeting and quoting him out of context. Independently of Mr. Ugalde's actions as head of the Institute, the acerbic editorial was treacherous.

People build careers out of betrayal, distortions, lies and innuendo. When it's about actors and movie stars, it's salacious. When it's about politicians, it's snide. Either way, it's dishonest and nasty. And we love it.

What we are saying is that "you are fair game because your desire to lead us exposes you to our ridicule". More succinctly, "we own you". But beyond the personal tragedy that slander entails, there's a more insidious issue.

When bad things happen to good people

Good people are avoiding public life because of systematic character assassination on behalf of the unscrupulously ambitious. This is true in both Mexico and the US and we, as the public, are guilty of egging them on.

This column has decried the "hate profession" before. The "industry of scandal" works in tandem and it is enjoying its heyday. Today, we have an unprecedented responsibility to interpret information intelligently, but we are coming up short. In the same way that Weimar Germany became a tragic example of the most advanced society creating the world's most hateful monsters, there are thousands of intelligent individuals who dedicate their time to a twisted version of journalism. They do it because we give them the 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol talked about. These often sociopathic individuals end up saying what's necessary to make a mark on the world, even if that mark is charcoal black.

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

So, what distinguishes Woodward and Bernstein from the proliferation of vicious bloggers who now seek refuge on the Internet? How can we protect ourselves from our own instinct to dignify rumor and innuendo? By asking, first, is it relevant? Second, is it credible (in terms of the medium, the context, etc.)? Does it make me angry, or does it get me thinking? Lastly, am I participating in a smear, or an analysis? Usually, when it's the former, there are telltale "cheap shots", such as statements about luxury that have more to do with the chip on the exponent's shoulder than the subject at hand.

Those who participate in the "hate profession", and its similarly ugly cousin, the "scandal industry" are heaping suffering on the subject of their derision. But they are also setting themselves up for heartache. They are aware of their lies and they know when they are appealing to their audience's basest instincts. In the end, they get marginalized. Or they get a "rant" show where they are forced to be hateful gossip-mongers throughout their professional lives. Either way, it has to be an awful way to live one's life: just look at the furrowed brows on that Australian-owned cable network.

Before the Internet, defamations had a short life. Desperate rabble-rousers had to search through arcane books and documents at their local library to find something of interest. Now, everyone can destroy anyone else. Once you post something on the Internet, for as long as people pay their webhosting provider, it remains written in digital stone.

No recourse

The upshot is that defamation, hatemongering, jihad-training and other real-life shoot-em-ups are now the most successful "Massively multiplayer online role-playing games" ("MORPGS"). "Second Life" is nothing compared to the audience of this pernicious sport. What is worse, as anybody who's ever run for town council knows, reacting is counterproductive. In what has to be a prime example of bitter irony, public figures are forced to be silent on the issues that are most important to them, personally. The law might punish, but it won't help.

In the Internet age, truth is irrelevant. Binary code does not distinguish between malicious slander and worthy investigative reporting. We are left to our own devices. For the system to work we need to exercise caution. So cancel your RSS feeds and subscriptions to sources that act in bad faith. Repudiate the lies and denounce the innuendo. Act like our democracies depend on it. Because they do.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Europe and Mexico

July 23, 2008

During a recent breakfast with the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, Mendel Goldstein, head of the European Commission's delegation to Mexico, made much of the fact that the EU is establishing a "strategic partnership" with this country. At the same time, in Brussels, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, specified that this would include closer ties in security, environment, energy and trade.

This is significant. It puts Mexico at the highest level of cooperation with the European Union, short of application, acceptance to the Union, or ties with European Free Trade Area countries. It is in addition to a free trade agreement that Mexico signed with the EU in 1997 and it establishes a framework of summits and other high-level exchanges.

Curiously, Mexico, does not, in general, have the closest ties with the EU among Latin American countries. Brazil, for example, has a much higher percentage of its trade directed at Europe than Mexico does. Argentina's blood links with Spain, Italy, Germany, and even Britain, are ample, recent and direct. Mexico, in contrast, is much more integrated with the US: 85% of the country's trade takes place with its North American neighbor and 1/4 of Mexicans and people of Mexican descent live in the US.

The amigo country

But Europe sees that Mexico is strategically important as a "bridge" between North America and Latin America. Similarly, it is seen as a "bridge" between the developed and the underdeveloped world. Despite being a laggard in the BRICSAM (Brazil-India-China-South Africa-Mexico) grouping because of its relatively low growth rates, it is still one of the largest economies in the world and one of the most important oil producers.

Mexico also has the benefit of not being a controversial country. It is big enough to be well-known, but small and pacifist enough not to have enemies. Despite the mutterings of some Latin Americanists in the Mexican intelligentsia, it has no desire to become a regional power and, internationally, it adopts all the right "politically correct" postures. It has abjured nuclear weapons, is adamant about peaceful conflict resolution, and it believes in strengthening international enforcement institutions like the International Criminal Court. The fact that it struggles with narco-violence and corruption issues does not diminish the country in European diplomatic circles. Rather, it is seen as an area where Europe can help.

Unfortunately, this "strategic partnership" will most likely be a disappointment. Not in the sense that Mexico will embarass the EU, or that something will go terribly wrong. Rather, in terms of lost potential opportunities. Europe, it turns out, can help much more than either it, or the Mexican government, currently imagines.

If they're giving an inch, take a mile

The European "experiment" has perhaps been the most successful project in modern history at creating peace, prosperity and developing stable democracies. Europe has the most experience at helping countries shore up their economies and their institutions. As soon as a country begins accession talks, European specialists go there to advise its government on all sorts of key issues. They give them a framework and then provide the milestones to measure progress. Bulgaria notwithstanding, Europe has an enviable record of helping countries govern themselves significantly better.

A lot of Europe's massive amounts of soft power comes from the billions it spends in "structural" aid. But Mexico doesn't need Europe's money and it does needs the sort of expertise that the EU has. Our government should voluntarily submit itself to the sort of scrutiny that EU aspirants go through. It should adopt European best practices in all areas of institution-building and transparency. On a more clandestine level, it should invite a crack team of Spanish investigators to help our Federal Police put an end to narco-violence. Mexico, for example, should immediately implement a national identity card program in order to do away with the fraudulent IDs that allow so many criminals to get away with murder. It just so happens that Spain runs one of the world's best national ID programs and databases.

None of this implies losing any of that cherished "sovereignty" that politicians go on about: Mexicans would be doing the work. But by applying some creativity, a little humility, and tremendous amounts of political will, Europe could provide important answers to some of our most urgent nation-building questions. All with the added benefit of Europe not being the United States, which is the logical partner, but whose cooperation ruffles so many feathers on both sides of the border.

Mexico desperately needs international help. Fortunately, it has exceptional amounts of international goodwill. Unfortunately, the ruling elite functions as if the world had nothing better to offer than photo opportunities and shopping trips.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico's Economic Self-Sabotage

July 16, 2008

Underdevelopment requires a lot of work. It is hard to consistently make the mistakes and the misguided interventions that stifle growth. It is a skill that Mexico has mastered. Not so much as to make it a total economic basket-case, but sufficiently to have missed out on one of the greatest growth spurts in the history of man. Mexico has been a victim of poor government communication that has allowed Mexicans to be overcome with a paralizing fear of change.

The left preys on these fears, using class conflict to sell anachronistic platforms that the spectacular rise of capitalist China has proved wrong. But, despite 26 years of center-right presidents (Miguel de la Madrid to Felipe Calderón), Mexican economic liberals have yet to convince society that their welfare-infused free-market model is best. Mexicans don’t trust anyone, but given a choice between socialist-bureaucratic kleptocrats and capitalist kleptocrats, they have been taught to choose the former. It’s a combination of “better the devil you know” and a self-sabotaging tendency to cut off their nose to spite their face. Five successive free-market presidents have been unwilling to face down the ghosts of Mexico’s statist past because they think that ordinary Mexicans are either too dumb, or too contaminated by the left, to understand how wealth is created.

The upshot is that Mexicans feel patronized, so they listen to the siren-song of a left that has no time for intelligent analysis (or reason). Demagogues celebrate a mediocrity that Mexicans feel comfortable with and then revel in their economic suicide pact. It’s all incredibly dysfunctional.

Business is from Mars, the people are from Venus

The average Mexican is enterprising, hard-working and has the same aspirations as the average American. But, unlike Americans, they are fatalistic and, in their fatalism, they prefer the corruption of the left (bloated, opaque unions) to the corruption of the right (politically-connected private-sector monopolies). They need to be convinced that the world doesn’t have to work that way; that proper free-market competition is the solution, not the problem. How?

First, get rid of the “rich is rich and poor is poor and never the twain shall meet” attitude. Second, don’t run from the PRD’s blatant effort at a media coup de grace via the referendum on energy. Embrace it with an intelligent communication strategy. Imagine if the federal government were to win a national referendum that included the more capitalist northern states?

In fact, the energy issue was the perfect platform to present an econonically liberal, socially democratic version of the country under strong leadership. But Mexicans have to visualize the benefit and be overtly shown the loss. In 2006, they visualized their homes being foreclosed if an AMLO presidency brought a financial crisis, which is why he lost. Every time he sticks to defending the status quo, he wins.

This is because Mexicans mistrust change. Most are not ideological, but they believe López Obrador when he tells them that capitalists are trying to pull a fast one on them. So, in the energy debate, it’s about how much each Mexican would benefit from much more investment, not about the “treasures of the deep”. The President could have committed himself to make future investors play by his rules and threatened to re-nationalize those who didn’t. People want to believe that their president works for them. Today, they think he works for Big Business.

In his book, “Words That Work: It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”, Frank Luntz explains how key words define debates and change minds. As an example, he shows how people were in favor of the “estate”, or “inheritance” tax, but are against the “death” tax. They are all exactly the same thing, but framing the debate in terms of taxing death, not taxing inheritance, changes everything. The Mexican left was successful in killing meaningful energy reform because they stole the debate with one ugly word: “privatization”. The fact that the PAN didn’t even want to have a public debate simply proved their point. Mr. President, you now have nothing to lose. It’s time to take your arguments to the people.

Good capitalism offers a "win-win" proposition, where wealth is created and everyone gets a job. The dark side is oligarchic corruption. Good socialism concentrates on equality of opportunity. The dark side is the closed-minded contrarian sillyness that ends up justifying a statist kleptocracy. Today, despite being better off thanks to free-market reforms, Mexicans see only the dark side of capitalism and are being convinced that messianic socialism is their only defence.

Meanwhile, the president has surrounded himself with an asphixiatingly tight circle of people who don’t believe in changing public opinion. For President Calderón to succeed, this exasperated arrogance has to go.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Mexican Worker

July 9, 2008

Mexico City-born Rosario Marín, the first Mexican-American Treasurer of the United States, was in town this week to present her book, "Una líder entre dos mundos" ("A Leader Between Two Worlds"). In it, she chronicles the poor childhood that led her family to the US when she was 14 and the dedicated hard work that made her a force in California politics. This same hard work eventually put her signature on every US currency note printed during her stint as US Treasurer under President Bush.

The element of hard work in Ms. Marín's inspirational story is now a common theme for many Mexicans on both sides of the border. After having lived in five countries in America and Europe, this observer has noted that Mexican workers are the hardest-working in that select group. Significantly, in what must be one of the most important changes of perception among Americans, the "lazy Mexican" stereotype has been replaced by the eager illegal, able to outwork Americans in backbreaking labor all over the country. Today's stereotype is more Speedy González than Slowpoke Rodríguez, with Americans complaining that the Mexicans are working too hard. Who knew?

Back here in Mexico, the benefits of the Mexican worker's willingness to put in long hours, and be of service, are immediately apparent in all areas of an expat's life. Further, the agreeable attitude of most and their flexibility (which often makes up for an unfortunate lack of training) should be very much appreciated by those of us lucky enough to hire them.

There is, however, something unusual in Rosario Marín's tale that is the dark flip side of the Mexican worker's attitude towards their job life. That rare element is ambition. Unlike their Asian immigrant counterparts, Mexican workers don't really believe that their lot in life can improve much. They can't "taste it", so they don't long for it. This saps their spirit and makes them complacent. The tragic upshot is that the same people who are willing to out-carry their peers on the loading dock throw in the towel when it comes to hitting the books. Their attitude towards education makes them self-segregate into generations of menial job-holders.

Because they live side-by-side with nerdy Asian immigrants in the US, the contrast there is strongly evident. But the same lack of ambition among the urban lower classes (who are the ones that have a chance at free higher education) can be seen here. In fact, the main distinction between a member of the coveted "middle class" and those of the lower classes resides in their ambitions, not in their wealth. A middle class family can owe decades of mortgage and car payments, having a negative net worth, but they are still "richer" than the lower-class street urchin who could well have been born in the same barrio, but decided not to study at one of the multiple subsidised state universities.

It was not always thus. The "Mexican miracle" of the 50s and 60s created a significant amount of social mobility. Newly arrived provincianos sent their children to the UNAM soon after arriving in Mexico City, confident that the fast-growing Mexican economy would absorb them readily. The memory has now faded, but the country that grew the most between 1937 and 1977 was not Japan, but Mexico. Of course, unlike Japan, Mexico's fecundity took longer to adapt to better health care. In the 1970s, the average Mexican woman had over 6 children. In the 20 years between 1950 and 1970 the population nearly doubled, from 25 million to over 48 million. It was too much for our GDP per capita to handle: despite the growth, Mexico never achieved even 20% of the average US income per person. The same class of people who waited expectantly for the Revolution to "do them justice" fell into despair as the crises of 1982, 1987 and 1994/95 took their toll.

Now, for Mexico to grow, we need to know that Rosario Marín should not be the exception. After all, Ms. Marín was succeeded as US Treasurer by another hard-working Mexican-American woman, Anna Escobedo Cabral. Take that, Slowpoke Rodríguez.

Meeting John McCain

Last Thursday your correspondent had a chance to meet with Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Despite his nearly 72 years and relatively short stature, Senator McCain "owned" what was an impressive roomful of people. This was doubly admirable given his campaigning, his traveling, and the early morning visit to both the Guadalupe basilica and President Calderón (each on opposite ends of a difficult city). Given the hopeful intelligence that Senator Obama brings to the table and the experienced, principled leadership that Senator McCain exudes, Americans are going to have a difficult choice to make in four months.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of 1776 and Mexico

July 2, 2008

This Friday, July 4th, your correspondent will lead a discussion on channel 40's "Pensar México" on what American Independence Day means for Mexico. Most Mexicans, even relatively learned ones, know very little about the birth of the US as 13 "Free and Independent States" on the eastern fringe of North America. People are so used to seeing the US as a unitary, continent-wide whole, that they would be hard pressed to name the original colonies of New Hampshire, Massachussetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

But the 4th of July is full of significance for Mexico. It can be seen as the birth of our own independence movement: a beacon that would showcase the grandure of the Enlightenment for all Americans to witness. Or is is the ominous start of a continental power that would soon take half of this country and consistently meddle in its neighbor's affairs? Which is it?

An inspiration to us all...

On the one hand, there is no doubt that the Thirteen Colonies' rebellion, the first in the New World, was a major source of inspiration for future independence movements throughout the continent. Insofar as one believes that the emancipation of the Americas from Europe was a good thing, something that is generally accepted, the 4th of July, 1776, is to be revered. This reverence can easily dovetail with further admiration for the liberal (in the classical sense) democratic tradition that continues to inspire the world with its universal values. Who doesn't get goose-bumps upon hearing the awesome words of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"?

Then there's the fact that the system of government that would arise in an independent United States would be copied throughout the Americas. Within a few years of the Declaration of Independence, the new Republic would enshrine such fundamental concepts as the separation of Church and State and the system of checks and balances. Its concept of a presidential head of the Executive, separate from Congress (the ultimate repository of a nation's sovereignty) is the system Mexico uses today.

The beginning of the end...

On the other hand, Mexico would come to rue the birth of the United States. With its self-conscious superiority, the new country, which would cheekily take the name of the entire continent ("America") as its own, would establish its "elbow room" on half of Mexico's territory. It would take nearly a century to abolish slavery and another century after that to completely abjure the institutional racism that underscored it. Seeing Mexico as an unworthy "mongrel nation", the US would intervene economically and militarily as it saw fit. Beyond the taking of its capital, it would send "punitive expeditions" against its revolutionary leaders and, perhaps most tragically, be an accomplice to the assassination of Mexico's first democratically-elected President. All pretty nasty stuff.

Compare and contrast

The upshot is that Americans see their history as a triumphal tale that culminates in a happy ending (today), while Mexicans see history as the Cross they bear. Given the profound interconnectedness of the two countries in the past and in the present, both peoples need to start understanding the other's point of view. Despite the fact that so many pivotal events are shared, they are seen differently, which can lead to conflict. It is no longer practical to see the the past as an island inhabited by "me and mine".

In particular, Mexicans would gain much by studying what the 4th of July meant to the Founding Fathers of the United States. By studying the Declaration of Independence, we can all learn about humanity's place in the world. We can see how the citizenry should be treated by its government, as well as witness some of the sources of tyranny. Mexicans have yet to resolve many of these issues.

Further, the Declaration of Independence begat the Articles of Confederation. By studying that document we can understand key issues in federalism, related to the rights of the states vis-à-vis the central government. This is especially relevant as Mexico tries to shake off the legacy of an overly centralized federal govermnent.

Finally, there's the Constitution of 1787. With four glorious pages of momentous brevity, it is the world's oldest functioning Magna Carta. It has 27 amendments, while ours is about 1/3rd as old and has been changed 376 times. Why?

In sum, what does the 4th of July mean to you? Discuss.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Cancún vs Miami

June 25, 2008

One of the most tiresome clichés that Mexicans repeat is that Cancún is "not Mexico". They say it is "Miami", when what they are really insinuating is that there is some sort of contradiction between what is Mexican and what is modern. It plays to the need for Mexicans to try to distinguish themselves from the giant next door, but it does the country a disservice in two ways: 1) by downplaying an impressive Mexican success story, 2) by ignoring differences with Miami that show Cancún the way to a more economically secure and prosperous future.

For better, and for worse, Cancún is not Miami and it very definitely is Mexico. Most of the investment in the area is from Mexican institutions and investors. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow conuntrymen and women have left their homes in Yucatán, Mexico City, etc., to build a new life in formerly Mayan territory. Despite widespread use of English and the dollar, the city's hospitality is decidedly Mexican and 40% of its visitors are now domestic.

It is, in fact, an incredible Mexican success story, with nearly 60,000 area hotel rooms and millions of visitors per year. According to some estimates, nearly 1 in 4 dollars that Mexico earns as a tourist destination is due to the Cancún/Riviera Maya region. That's not bad considering that this country is the world's 8th most important destination and that it contains such powerhouses as Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Acapulco, and Mexico City itself, which according to Euromonitor, received more international visitors than Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 2006. Despite being much smaller than Guadalajara, Monterrey and Tijuana, Cancún's airport is second only to the DF in the number of flights it receives. The area, which includes Cozumel, is the world's most visited cruise destination.

Your loss is my gain

Both Miami and Cancún were affected by Cuba, whose capital Havana lies almost exactly in between. But the way that Cuba influenced them is very different and it provides clues as to where Cancún's areas of opportunity lie.

Cancún became the pre-eminent Caribbean tourist destination in large part because Cuba, which is closer to the US, removed itself from the competition by establishing an anti-American Communist dictatorship. Miami got its start as an international hub because the same phenomenon led to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, including "the best and the brightest", so-called "Golden Exiles" of the 1960s. So, while Cancún became a leader in tourism in part by default, Miami benefited from an enormous wave of immigrant energy and brainpower.

The upshot is that, while Quintana Roo receives millions of cruise ship passengers, the headquarters of the cruising industry are in Miami. While Miami certainly has a bustling tourist trade, it is also a major financial services center, with the largest concentration of international banks in the US (including New York). According to UBS it is the third richest American city and the 22nd in the world.

Today, wealthy, entrepreneurial and professionally-trained Latin Americans who merely vacation in Cancún, make their home in Miami. That commitment makes a difference, with the Floridian city being a credible, well-rounded "world" city and Cancún being a "one-industry town". Thus, when multi-millionaire Mexican stars want to live in the capital of "Latino" glamour, they buy their houses in Miami, not Cancún.

Turning vice into nice

Throughout most of modern history, the United States has been very effective at harnessing the world's entrepreneurial zeal via its immigrants. Perhaps it is a stretch to think that a lonely outpost on the Yucatán Peninsula could fully measure up to a city on the mainland of the American superpower. But other cities in developing countries have carved significant niches for themselves by embracing the world economy and the people who drive it. Not only places such as Hong Kong and Dubai, but even Central American Panama, have understood that a solid tourism industry can open the door to full economic development. But that such development comes from an increasingly diversified economy and it requires openness and a belief in the creative power of hard-working immigrants from all over the world.

Cancún shows that Mexico and modernity can thrive together. But Miami shows what is necessary to go from being a seedy resort town to being a world city. In the 1980s, South Florida was synonymous with drugs and "Miami Vice". In the 1990s it cleaned up its act and now the building boom that is causing so many headaches can be seen as a "growing pain" on the way to a more consolidated future. Cancún needs to take heed of its Caribbean cousin. Not because of what it is, but because of what it could be.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Ethics in Journalism

June 19, 2008

Tim Russert, NBC TV's long-running moderator of the political roundtable "Meet the Press" died this past week, leaving the world with one less ethically professional journalist at a time when it is in sore need of them. His absence will be a silent reminder of the fact that much of what today passes for journalism in both Mexico and the United States serves not to illuminate, but to divide. The way we relate to our media has changed, which means that there are fewer Tim Russerts and more Lou Dobbs.

All the news that I think is fit to print

The dictionary definition of journalism is broad. According to Webster, it is "the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media." Many believe that true professionals are completely objective, but beyond the fact that the very "editing of news" is subjective, the public is demanding much more opinion from their journalists than before. This is true in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Much of this has to do with the proliferation of both new media (the Internet's billions of "channels") and the dramatic expansion of actual TV channels via cable/satellite. This allows people and corporations to "narrowcast" very specific information to small, but fanatically interested, audiences. In 1969, 85% of all televisions watched in the evening were tuned to the three broadcasting networks; in 2006 it was only about a third.

The upshot is that journalism, which had been tempered by its need to appeal to the mass market, is now pressured to appeal to the fringe groups that constitute the core consumers of the different media "franchises." In political terms, they are "appealing to their base," effectively shutting the rest of us out. Millions of people egg journalists on to vent their own fears, prejudices and frustrations. And there is gold in vitriol, as Fox News (and copycats) have found.

But journalism is at its best when it strikes a balance between information and opinion. Top-notch reporters do it when they go to the most dangerous, controversial, or off-beat places and give an unexpected, insightful, or "just-the-facts-ma'am" report without contempt, condecension, or cultural blindness.

Talk show hosts, like Russert, have to walk a finer line. Russert found that, through investigation, he could get his guests to question themselves by quoting what they had said in the past. He was incisive, but never rude, resisting the urge to be a "shock jock." This blue-collar "boy from Buffalo" ended up having much more class than the big-city sophisticates that surrounded him. In the world of broadcast journalism, the late Peter Jennings had pulled it off, as does Brian Williams. Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were not as successful, but they were better than most of the new generation.

But it is Mexican journalists who should take special note. In post-PRI Mexico, crassness and self-righteousness often masquerade as journalistic chutzpah and independence. It's a fine line and it is crossed with clumsy gusto. That is not to say that many Mexican journalists aren't intelligent. In fact, Mexico can be proud of much of what is being offered on the radio and in the "cultural channels" of 11, 22 and Proyecto 40 (where your correspondent is sometimes guest host).

But they often fall prey to one, or all, of the three major issues that haunt Mexican journalism: 1) self-righteousness, which is all the more shocking given the shady circumstances that surround all electronic media concessions, 2) ideological pidgeonholing, where they become predictable in their allegiance to a political party and 3) promoting the boss' interests, a vice that is especially prominent among Mexico's TV duopoly.

Tim Russert, despite having been a disciple of a Democratic Senator, was considered by Republicans, Democrats and Independents as being fair to all of his guests. He respected the democratic process, and he knew that politicians often fall prey to the contradictions of their constituents. He knew that it is not personal and that, while it was his role to catch these contradictions, it was not his place to humiliate anyone. In a telling nod to his professional ethic, Russert would decline to comment on his guests outside the studio. Each time he was asked, he would turn the question around and say, "what do you think of him/her?"

Finally, Russert had tremendous good cheer, understanding that politics is often like a game and that not every disagreement is the end of the world. Perhaps that is the most salutory lesson of all: that you can be an incisive interviewer and an insightful editorialist, but that all of that skill doesn't mean you have to take yourself too seriously. Thank you, Tim.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of this Odd, but Hopeful Election

June 11, 2008

This long primary season has been very strange. Both parties nominated candidates who were considered among the least likely to win at the beginning of their internal elections. The Republicans ended up with the most centrist candidate, choosing what many believe was the only person in their lineup who could could win, given the country's anti-Republican mood. Meanwhile, the Democrats made history with the least conventional candidate ever.

For Mexico, the process should provide a big sigh of relief: both parties chose the candidates with the best positions with respect to Mexico and Mexicans. Even when Senator Clinton was narrowly beaten it seemed like good news for Mexico. Despite her intelligence and pragmatism, it had become obvious that a Clinton presidency would have been much more beholden to special interests on the Left than Senator Obama, meaning more protectionism and economic nationalism. By contrast, Barack Obama's power is much more centered on his person, giving him the opportunity to act according to his judgment.

Hope versus pragmatic optimism

In traditional, pragmatic, terms, Mexico's candidate is border-state John McCain. He will not question NAFTA and he has the same law enforcement vision of fighting narco-traffic as President Calderón. In that sense, whatever happens to the current Mérida Initiative, it will probably be very similar to solutions proposed during a McCain presidency. But Mexico has also suffered McCain's tack to the right: his thoughtful instincts regarding immigration have given way to harsh border proposals while trying to shore up support from the large xenphobic contingent in his party.

Barack Obama represents a fuzzy hopefulness. Despite his mutterings against NAFTA, one gets the sense that he means it when he says that security and prosperity in the Americas begins with a "renewed strategic partnership with Mexico". Although he has never been south of the Rio Grande/Bravo, could his intelligence and his international upbringing bring a much-needed fresh perspective to bilateral relations? We'd like to think so.

Electorally, as things stand today, Mexican-Americans could very well decide the election by tipping swing states (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado) towards one or the other candidate.

Truth really is stranger than fiction

But none of this takes away from the fundamental oddity of this election, beyond the unforeseen results of the primary process. Neither candidate was born in the continental United States (Mr. Obama is the first candidate from Hawaii and Mr. McCain the first from a military base in Panama). Senator McCain is not only the oldest first-term candidate, but was also considered too far from the Republican base to be viable.

But it's the Democrat who really breaks the mold. The man's name is Barack Hussein Obama. During what fundamentalists on both sides believe to be a war between Islam and the Christian world, the potential 44th president of the United States shares his middle name with American-deposed Saddam Hussein. Although Christian, he is the son of a Kenyan Muslim, a religion professed by about 0.5% of the US population. This is one of the most jingoistic periods in modern American history, but the Obama family's nationalism is nuanced and self-aware.

Further, most media have focused on the fact that Senator Obama is black. But the fact that Barack Obama is the son of a black man and a white woman is less significant than the fact that Mr. Obama is not like the vast majority of US blacks, who have been in America for many generations. He is a second-generation American of actual (not just racial) African descent, on his father's side. To understand this, consider that the US population is 13% black and 15% Latino, but its first minority President would be the son of a non-naturalized African, an immigrant segment that is equal to about 0.3% of the US population (versus 9% of the US population that is Mexican, or Mexican-American).

In TV's "The West Wing", which filmed its final season years before the primaries, a charismatic minority Democratic primary candidate, supposedly born in 1961, exactly like Obama, beats the party establishment's candidate at the last minute. He then goes up against a centrist Republican, unloved by his base, who is haunted by his age and buoyed by his straight talk. In the series, the Democrat is a Mexican-American, played by Jimmy Smits, but except for the differences in the ethnicity of the Democratic candidate, it's uncanny.

America at its best

But beyond the curious anecdotes, this week's cover of The Economist gushes: "America at its best", with a picture of both candidates looking visionary. The truth is that the US has recently frightened a lot of people. Fortunately, the success of senator's McCain and Obama is bringing many a sigh of relief.

Agustín Barrios Gómez is President of SolutionsAbroad.com, Mexico’s on-line service and information resource for foreigners. He is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Protests in a Fledgling Democracy

June 4, 2008

Protesters are back in Oaxaca, choking the city and laying waste to the progress that had been made since the last mass protests destroyed the lives of thousands of hard-working oaxacans and made tourists flee. It is true that the vandalism of the “teachers” of Oaxaca make the historic city an especially obvious victim of this anti-social behavior. But recent data shows that Mexico City’s tourism, for example, has yet to recover from the taking of Reforma following the election in 2006. Yet, in all cases, Mexicans are too permissive of people who blackmail society for personal and political gain. When the constitutional right to protest butts up against the consitutional right to free transit, the former invariably wins to the detriment of all.

Why are so many Mexicans so heartily inclined to mess with their fellow citizens? Because it gets results. The more damage you inflict on society (via demonstrations, blockades and mass vandalism), the more privileges you can ask for. We reward anti-social behavior. After a menacing-enough protest, wages are raised, kleptocratic union leaders confirmed and demands too often met.

But street protests are part of the old style of politics. The politics of manipulation and blackmail. Of bad men and women using deluded and angry poor and lower-middle class people to shift the balance of power in their favor.

So why do we stand for it? Partly, it has to do with the ghost of 1968, when, in an act that is reminiscent of China today, a quasi-dictatorial regime violently repressed protesters on the eve of hosting the Olympics. Despite the tremendous changes in Mexican society and the mass democratization of the political system, street protests are still sacrosanct in the minds of many who vowed not to repeat the mistakes of 1968.

Another reason Mexicans put up with so much anti-social behavior is that there is a constant, nagging questioning of the legitimacy of government. This has little to do with close elections, or the annoying insistence of López Obrador and his “legitimate” parallel presidency. It is more insidious and more long-standing than that. Mexicans always feel that someone is “putting one over on them”; that they are being tricked. This extends to all levels of government and it is one of the reasons for Mexico’s underdevelopment. A country that is constantly second-guessing itself cannot help but move more slowly.

In a democracy, protests that hurt others are illegitimate. The voting booth permits people to give vent to their disapproval directly and in an orderly fashion. And even when there are questions regarding the process, Mexico’s multi-billion dollar federal and state electoral bodies provide more than enough forums for voicing grievances. It is also safe to say that there is enough diversity and competition in Mexico’s party system for any cause to find a willing institutional sponsor, making civil disobedience unnecessary.

Of course, it is the justice system that should be the main forum for conflict resolution and it is there that our society needs to do more to build better institutions and achieve more legitimacy. In the meantime, however, all of Mexico’s hard-working silent majority needs to ensure that anti-social behavior is less tolerated and never rewarded.

Senator Patrick Leahy

Last week this column called Senator Patrick Leahy to task for adding controversial provisions onto the Mérida Initiative related to human rights and corruption. Specifically, it highlighted the fact that these conditions will very probably be rejected by the Mexican government because they will be seen by many in Mexico to be interventionist.

On Saturday, Senator Leahy took the unusual, but very laudable, step of reaching out to the Mexican public and explaining the changes he made to the Initiative. He published an editorial in Mexico’s largest-circulation daily, Reforma, where he recognized the noxious role the US plays in the drug wars by providing both the market for the drug traffickers and the guns with which our police and military are being slaughtered. He also explains why it would be wrong for Congress to write a “blank check” when money has so often been misused in the past.

I still believe that, if the Senator is serious about helping Mexico in human rights and corruption, there are far better, less publicly controversial, ways to achieve these ends. Nevertheless, the Senator’s effort to communicate directly with Mexicans is to be applauded. His translated text shows that he “gets it” more than this column gave him credit for. His words are especially visionary in asking for much more comprehensive cooperation between our two countries, in recognition of what is the most intense relationship between two nations anywhere in the world.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Worst Case Scenario

May 28, 2008

Most of Mexico is safe, welcoming and pleasant. Millions of middle and upper-class Mexicans and Americans live very well south of the border, prospering or relaxing in what is, in this correspondent’s view, one of the best places to live in the world.

But Mexico’s institutions are being threatened by a war that is, in part, being waged on behalf of a United States that demands drugs, and the policies of both governments that insist on criminalizing their use. The upshot is that criminal gangs are posing a serious threat to Mexico’s stability, which ought to frighten even the most cynical US legislator. But the discussion regarding the Mérida Initiative in the US Congress shows that the nature of the threat has not been understood.

If Mexico were to become a failed state, the results would be catastrophic for everyone. The prospect of unbridled chaos south of the border, although unlikely, is currently real. And it was raised during the discussion of the Mérida Initiative in the US Congress, backed by a “helpful” report from Stratfor, an intelligence consulting firm, titled: “Mexico: How a Failed State Might Come to Pass”.

You don’t know what you’ve got, until you lose it

For all of its weakness, Mexico’s government has been effective in keeping terrorists from its northern border through draconian visa requirements for Arabs, tailor-made for the US. It has imposed macroeconomic stability, and it supports a significant middle class in a $1 trillion dollar economy, keeping tens of millions more Mexicans from crossing the border illegally. These all-important activities should not be taken for granted. If the Mexican government’s delicate balancing act were to be upset, the consequences for North America would be disasterous and immediate, both in terms of US national security and in the flood of refugees this country would generate.

Unfortunately, America’s legislators didn’t get it. When Senator Patrick Leahy talks about attaching conditions to granting military aid based on subjective evaluations of corruption and human rights, he is missing the point. Mexico has tremendous human rights and corruption issues, but the worst way to help is for the US Congress to be seen as meddling in the country’s internal affairs. The democratically elected, pro-US, Calderón regime needs the full support of Congress in what is very much America’s drug war. Then, concerned senators could pressure the Bush administration to work with its Mexican counterparts to implement specific programs, trainings, and reforms that would actually help fix human rights and corruption abuses. Here, as in so many international issues, pontification alienates.

For the US, the biggest danger doesn’t come either from the possibility of military action from a rogue Mexican regime (nuclear technology notwithstanding), or from enemies lobbing bombs into San Diego, à la Israel and Gaza. It comes from the possibility that those things, or infiltration by terrorist groups, could force the US into military intervention. The last time the US took Mexico City, in 1847, the country’s population was 7 million, mostly living in the center of the country, with poor transporation links. Mexico’s current 106 million people and its geographic attachment to the entire US southwest would bring consequences to the American homeland that would be dramatic and immediate; very different from the far-away theater of Iraq (population: 27 million, distance: 7,000 miles).

Fortunately, all of these scenarios are highly speculative. But they are not unthinkable. Mexico is especially vulnerable to a presidential assassination, for example, because it has neither a vice president, or a clear line of succession (ironically because of worries about the underlings’ incentives to kill their president). That is just one way that things could spiral out of control.

The 'decider' gets it right

In the case of Mexico, President Bush’s black and white attitude towards international affairs served him well. He recognized the danger and acted, albeit with a plan that has many shortcomings and is not particularly well thought out. Nevertheless, Congress decided to kick the most important part of the plan: its symbolism. With 27 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans already in the US, major oil imports, massive trade, and a symbiotic relationship between sister cities along a 2,000 mile border, Congress’ cavalier attitude towards violence in Mexico (perpetrated with US-bought guns, by the way) is irresponsible, to say the least.

President Calderón has shown that he doesn’t understand politics in the US. Mexico should have begun a public charm offensive and lobbying efforts at the beginning of his administration. But Congress has been reckless in antagonizing America’s few friends: icing the Colombian free trade agreement and now insulting the Calderón administration. Should the worst come to pass, it is very clear what type of political grandstanding will have “lost Mexico”.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Dearth of Energy Leadership

May 21, 2008

Modern life requires energy. Lots of it. Nevertheless, this very demand is causing the price of fuel to rise dramatically, making our current mix of energy supply unsustainable in the medium-to-long run. Further, as Polar bears can attest, our main source, oil, is affecting our environment in ways that will negatively affect all of us within a short period of time. Worryingly, greed drives decisionmaking among both the suppliers and the consumers of this essential commodity and true leadership is lacking.

Think locally

Net oil exporters are having their vision clouded by greed, which chokes supply. Countries that had opened their oil sectors to foreign investment, like Russia and Venezuela, are busy breaking contracts and raising barriers to entry. Thus, an oil company executive quoted in The Economist recently discounted further investment in Russia, noting that, by his calculations, fully 92% of profits are being snapped up by the “assertive” Russian government. Meanwhile, Russian oil exports have started to decline, as new investment has dwindled and local mismanagement begins to take its toll. Something similar is happening in Venezuela.

Mexico is another case in point. It produces 4% of the world's oil with only 1% of the world's proven reserves. But, as has been mentioned in previous editions of this column, the left has spun itself into such a frenzy regarding the country’s nationalized oil industry that a large segment refuses even to analyze the urgency of new investment. During a recent breakfast with members of the Georgetown Club of Mexico, the head of the Mexican Congress’ Energy Commission, former PRI presidential candidate, Francisco Labastida, was candid and knowledgeable regarding both the problem and possible solutions. Nevertheless, most of the best ideas are off the table “for political reasons”. That’s a politician’s way of dramatically lowering expectations. It means that public opinion has been so contaminated by “nationalist” (read: shamelessly manipulative) rhetoric that reasonable leaders have all but abandoned espousing real solutions for fear of being branded a traitor to their country. By polarizing our public discussion, we are all responsible for allowing things to come to this.

So, greed in oil producing developing countries takes the form of broken promises (to private investment) and the protection of vested interests (kleptocrats, unions, etc). Here, it is all about taking as much of the windfall profits from providing the “input” side of the energy equation.

On the other side, both oil-importing developing countries (China, India), and the rich world, should be focused on mitigating the impact of their energy consumption. Their greed manifests in their persistent justification of both current and future levels of energy profligacy, blaming the “other” for the consequences. The upshot is that no country is doing nearly enough.

Act globally

The Europeans, especially Scandinavia, have done the most to emphasize the conservation aspect of the energy conundrum. But even they have yet to propose, or implement, a universal solution to both the demand for energy and its negative environmental impact.

True environmental leadership would espouse a universal approach. A simple survey of the options currently available provides clues as to what this might look like. It would probably have a hefty dose of conservation, with things like LEED (“Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design”) buildings and minimum levels of efficiency in both transport and industry being mandated. Non-fossil fuel burning sources of energy would be encouraged, including a significant increase in nuclear power generation, under the watchful eye of a radically strengthened International Atomic Energy Agency. Public transport would be an important element of the ideal mix and private cars would have to be weaned of gasoline and fed with electricity. A survey of the planet would show where to implement tidal energy, where solar energy (probably not Germany, which is where it is currently being subsidized the most) and where geothermal energy (here, for example). Wind could be harnessed in most places. Corn-based ethanol would be recognized for the environmental red herring it is, given that the latest Harvard study shows that it requires as much energy as it produces. But other biofuels, such as that made from switchgrass, would be looked into. Meanwhile, oil producing developing countries, like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela, would be encouraged to take full advantage of their current situation by honoring contracts and encouraging private investment: if the world were to espouse true energy leadership, fossil fuels would become as worthless as they are dirty.

Finally, true environmental leadership would confront the two elephants in the energy debate room: demography and material expectations. In a sustainable world, how many of us will be able to consume how much, given projected levels of technology?

That is the key question of our time. Everything else is just so much more greenhouse gas.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Real Estate Market

May 14, 2008

Your correspondent spent the better part of the past week at a convention of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in Dallas, Texas. Out of the many hours of talks referring to the economy, in general, and the real estate industry in the US, in particular, two conclusions stand out. The first is that the most likely economic scenario (with a 50% probability) is that the recession will be mild, ending by the fourth quarter of 2008, but with a sluggish and drawn-out recovery. The second is that we are only halfway through the housing price decline cycle, which they predict could see another 10% fall in house prices, nationwide. Of course, there are important regional differences, with California, Florida and Arizona being “ground zero” of the crisis and Texas, Utah and Washington having come through unscathed up until now.

Panelists also highlighted differences among market segments, with condominiums being the hardest hit and commercial property holding its own. Also, as lending standards have become ever-more stringent, the rental market is expanding significantly with people who would normally have purchased their home, but who are unable to get loans in today’s market. Although many projects have been cancelled, the slack between sluggish demand and oversupply will, according to ULI’s experts, take longer to disappear because of the amount of foreclosed properties entering the market.

Mi casa is affected by su casa

The US real estate market is important for Mexico on several levels. First, it impacts the country’s second and vacation home sales directly. Despite the availability of US financing for Mexican homes, most buyers have ended up paying for their Mexican acquisitions by leveraging their US assets. This because of better interest rates and less hassle. Second, it hits the Mexican economy in general via the so-called “wealth effect”; the increase, or decrease, in spending that accompanies an increase, or decrease, in wealth (or perceived wealth). As the price of their homes decreases, Americans feel poorer, so they spend less. Given that consumer spending constitutes about 70% of US GDP, and that upwards of 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the US, this is very important.

As one of the few Mexicans at the ULI convention, your correspondent was approached by several potential investors regarding opportunities in the Mexican real estate market, specifically in the retail, industrial, and logistics sectors. This implies that a lot of investors are looking for opportunities outside the US market. On the negative side, Ernst & Young, an accounting firm that provides investment consulting, highlighted the fact that, despite the $250 billion dollars in infrastructure investment announced by the Calderón administration, this crucial sector’s underperformance will hamper Mexican growth.

But Mexico’s real estate sector is relatively healthy. Fortunately, there were no “NINJA” loans (money given to people with “No Income, No Job, or Assets”); lending standards have never become too relaxed. A director of Century 21 Mexico (the country’s largest real estate broker) was recently quoted in this newspaper as saying that the overall market remains healthy – except for northwest tourist destinations, such as the Tijuana/Ensenada corridor and Puerto Peñasco (“Rocky Point”). As mentioned in previous articles, these have been adversely affected due to their symbiotic relationship with the southern Californian and Arizonan markets.

These areas probably represent the best opportunities. The US grows by approximately 3 million people per year. Unless there is a significant fall in American living standards, this growth promises a healthy long term future for real estate. Further, given that inflation is making all building materials more expensive, it is a safe bet that prices in the most depressed markets (the American southwest and Mexican northwest) will look like a bargain within 2-5 years, as replacement costs rise.

But American demand is changing. ULI panelists noted that consumers are shifting to smaller houses. The average size of an American home grew from 983 square feet (91m2) in 1950 to 2,400 square feet (220m2) in 2005. Today, stagnating incomes and dramatic energy inflation mean that the market is looking for smaller units, a trend that will probably continue well into the future.

In Mexico, there is a (very necessary) shift from isolated buildings and projects to more master-planned communities. Nevertheless, the country still has a long way to go in terms of urban planning. This fundamental piece of the development puzzle has been neglected for too long and its success is hampered by the fact that Mexico’s 2,500+ mayors serve for a single 3 year term, without the possibility of reelection.

Mexico would do well to solve its urban planning deficit and take advantage of the long term opportunities in the real estate industry. Investors would do well to take advantage of what could be the best buying opportunity of this decade.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of TJ

May 7, 2008

Tijuana, “TJ”, or the former “Rancho de la Tía Juana” (literally, “aunt Juana’s ranch”) bills itself as the most visited city in the world. The constant lines of thousands of cars crossing into and out of the city bear witness to this. The city is Mexico’s 6th largest and it is one of the most important manufacturing centers in the world for things like refrigerators and televisions, with around 600 maquiladora plants. And it needs a little help.

The Other California

As I-5 ends and Tijuana begins, the contrast is not so much one of poverty (which isn't immediately discernible), but the intensity of the urban sprawl that surrounds the monumental Mexican flag. Then there's the fact that the city seems scrunched up against the border, with a major two-lane thoroughfare following the older of two American fences, from the San Ysidro border crossing to where the avenue turns southward to go along the Pacific as a (very good) four lane toll road. That is the road you take to go to the beachside developments that are branding themselves as “Baja North”.

Driving parallel to the US side, with its open spaces, the dense cityscape of sprawl just comes to a halt at the corrugated metal fence. There is empty land on the US side, as well as a second, concrete, fence and tower-based banks of lights.

Tijuana has much urban blight, but there are large areas of the city that have modern office buildings and wide tree-lined boulevards. Walking into a Starbucks there felt much like walking into one in San Diego.
The Baja Californian Pacific coastline is rugged and beautiful. Large stretches of it are very similar to the Pacific Coast Highway/101 that is the main coastal highway of US California. Condominium prices are about 70% lower, however, and it is easy to see why people like Trump have plans for the area.

A promise unfulfilled

But residential tourism there is currently languishing because of 4 problems: 1) ever-longer waiting periods to cross back into the US, 2) violence in Tijuana, 3) the sub-prime economic crisis next door, 4) the unplanned, poor, mess of a city that makes up most the border town’s sprawl.

You get the feeling that if Puerto Vallarta, or even Monterrey were there instead of Tijuana, the area would have better prospects.

TJ doesn't feel overtly dangerous and the people are friendly and hard working. But groups of narco-traffickers just killed each other there to the tune of 14 people and you are reminded of the subtle warning from that old Steely Dan song about a weekend in TJ: "it's cheap... but it's not free."

The front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune a week after the massacre had an above-the-fold picture of a Mexican Military Hummer with a declaration by Mexican authorities that they “will win the war”. Americans are scared of Tijuana.

Then there are the interminable lines of cars to get back to the US. Customs and Border Protection currently has 320,000 people registered in its three “trusted traveler programs” that includes expedited border crossing from Mexico and Canada. SENTRI (“Secure Electronic Network for Traveler’s Rapid Inspection”) is the Mexican land border system, but so many people now have the RFID-tagged card that there are lineups in their special lanes, as well. With about 50 million people (17 million vehicles) crossing into the US every year through its gates, plans to double capacity at San Ysidro are running very late.

Two things need to be done for Tijuana to begin to fulfill its promise as a prime destination and a decent home for its residents. The first is for Mexican authorities to make Tijuana a test case for success in the war against organized crime. With new well-meaning PAN government officials at both the city and state level, as well as potential help from US government agencies and plenty of Mexican federal money, success is possible for Tijuana. Even if it takes curfews and emergency powers to finally leave the city with a strong and honest police presence, it can be done.

The second is to create a desirable destination. Flying through Los Cabos (800 miles away) after visiting Tijuana, the contrast was striking, with an overflow of happy Americans returning and arriving. Like the regenerated “Gaslamp” quarter in neighboring San Diego, “Baja North” needs to create an attractive story for itself, with top-notch restaurants, hotels and entertainment, not just gated condominium communities. If possible, a third border crossing (cost: about US$50 million), next to the beach, that would be exclusive to the new Baja North destination town and its development corridor, would avoid the urban blight of Tijuana proper, which anecdotal evidence suggests is a major detraction for US (and wealthy Mexican) tourists.

The results of these two significant but not impossible efforts would be practically guaranteed to pay off in spades. Just look at the other California.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico’s Wealthy Exiles

April 30, 2008

The sheer number of poor, uneducated Mexicans who have crossed, are crossing, and will cross the border into the US has meant that they have received nearly all the media attention. Nevertheless, Mexico has a long tradition of losing large amounts of wealthy and talented individuals to the United States, as well. One aspect of this has been the well-lamented “brain drain”, where often American-educated Mexicans end up pursuing their professional opportunities in the US. According to the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), just in terms of scientists Mexico has lost 2,100 of its scholarship students since 1971, directly losing over US$100 million dollars in subsidies.

But there is a more insidious aspect to the exodus that has to do with wealthy families and up-and-coming professionals giving up on Mexico, usually after a traumatic experience. During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was normally due to an economic crisis (1981/82, 1994/95, etc.); the “tragic dozen” years of Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo did much to push many away. Then, crime became the issue. Neither the Mexican nor the American governments keep relevant statistics, but anecdotal evidence points to thousands of affluent families going to places like Coronado (home of the famous “Taco Towers”), San Antonio, Los Angeles, New York and Houston.

Your correspondent is a frequent visitor to the Lone Star state’s oil Mecca. So, what do wealthy Mexicans see in Houston? It is certainly a worthwhile city, America’s fourth largest. It has some of the world’s best shopping malls, outstanding medical facilities and great museums, like the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, now purported to have the best collection of contemporary Latin American art in the world. Also, despite the fact that George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) is a US$70 dollar cab ride from downtown, it has flights to pretty much everywhere. For Mexico, thanks to Continental Airlines, it is the first international destination for a number of second-tier cities, like Querétaro and Aguascalientes, beyond the dozen daily flights to the capital.

But it is no New York, or Paris, or even Los Angeles. Its interminable concrete highway ribbons afford no cosmopolitan pedestrian thoroughfares. It has no attractive historic center, curbside cafés, or gallery “scene”. The weather is consistently muggy and the area is prone to hurricanes. Its astonishingly flat topography is monotonous and global warming could turn its 13 meters above sea level into a massive flood plain. It’s not even necessarily the best place to be in Texas: some believe that Dallas is the better city, while hippies and artist-types flock to “keep it weird” Austin. In other words, it is not the kind of place to move to just for the sake of being there.

But when wealthy Mexicans move to anywhere in suburbia, USA, they are looking for the peace and tranquility of the white picket fence lifestyle. Often, they will earn less, given that their contacts and experience are much less prized. They will certainly give up on having live-in domestic help, chauffeurs, and the like. But they are willing to forego these things for the benefits of relative security (Houston is not exactly a crime-free zone) and anonymity.

Mexico has a better quality of life, but there are risks involved with being here. Specifically, Mexico City is a place that is very cosmopolitan, has year-round Spring weather, and has access to some very attractive places, like Valle de Bravo, Cuernavaca and Acapulco. But, unfortunately, if you’re in the sights of organized crime, you have no recourse to the law.

Professional and upper-middle class Mexicans leave their country out of a sense of hopelessness. The phenomenon occurs inside the country, as well, with places like Cancún and Querétaro picking up the slack of crime and traffic-weary chilangos. But when someone decides that they are willing to brave the humiliation of Homeland Security, they have given up. They have seen their last narco-assassination headline, or heard their last harrowing kidnapping story. Their children often grow up American and, unlike the fairy tales that Samuel Huntington would have us believe, they blend into the great Vanilla that is the USA.

And, finally, Mexico loses out. Not only in the sense that we thin out our purchasing power, or that our economy misses out. Mexico loses on a much more profound level. A little cosmopolitan piece of us dies in the process, as our fellow countrymen and women dream their American Dream.

For your correspondent, this is the best place in the world; the people, the country, the attitude, the weather, are second to none. Nevertheless, I understand those who run; those who just want to be left alone. When your life has been turned upside-down, anonymity is very alluring.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Government by Simulation

April 23, 2008

In a democracy, where so many political interests are represented, it is often easier to pretend to govern than to actually do it. Recently, the Mexico City state assembly spent a lot of time and effort passing the toughest anti-smoking legislation in the country, despite the fact that hounding smokers is not anywhere near their constituents’ top priority. But solving the key issues of crime, poverty and urban blight require a level of work and leadership that the local authorities have tacitly decided they are unwilling to provide. So they go for the low-hanging fruit, which is a time-honored tradition in this city. When urban lawlessness became a big issue for Marcelo Ebrard, for example, he ditched civil liberties to go after drunk drivers using roadblocks. Street violence is still as much of a problem, but at least the checkpoints provide a semblance of authority. Local PAN governments implement similar red herrings using blue laws, or firing up the religious base with anti-gay marriage legislation and other such gems of political simulation.

Cognitive dissonance

The US government is also simulating leadership in order to appease anti-immigration groups by pretending that a wall will solve its illegal immigration problem. Never mind the fact that around half of unauthorized migrants arrived by plane and overstayed their visas, or that you can always go around, under, over, or through a fence. Republican presidential candidate John McCain knows the whole thing is a farce, but is aware that simulation is the only politically viable option. “I get it”, he says, grinding his teeth, “we must secure the border first”. Some have simulation thrust upon them.

The two leading Democractic candidates are simulating economic leadership by bashing NAFTA, when both obviously know better. Barak Obama says that “I will restore that leadership by working to advance the common prosperity and security of all of the people of the Americas. That work must begin with a renewed strategic partnership with Mexico.” But if his NAFTA simulation ever came close to being taken seriously, Mexico would be thrown into an economic crisis that would banish the hope of both “common prosperity” and a “strategic partnership” for at least a generation.

Trade has a long history of forcing politicians to simulate leadership. Simulation was what allowed President Clinton to justify his original backing of NAFTA, pretending that the “parallel” labor and environmental agreements were for real. The current Democratic Congress has jumped on the politically expedient protectionist bandwagon, effectively killing a small but symbolically fundamental piece of trade legislation with Colombia, perhaps the most important ally the US has in South America. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s position makes no economic sense and goes directly against her country’s strategic national interest, but political theater often trumps intelligence.

Simulation is what the PRD is doing, receiving public money from institutions that represent the status quo and then preaching violence and blockading their own offices in Congress. In this case, the taxpayers are Lenin’s “useful idiots”; naïve fools who pay for peaceful coexistence and effective conflict resolution, but receive neither. There are many within the organization who are sick of this doublespeak, but are terrified of not simulating support for the charismatic leader of the radical half of their shrinking party. Simulation is often born of fear.

Vive l’indifference

Government by simulation is a product of political expediency. This is related to opportunism, which is “the practice of taking advantage of circumstances with little regard for principles or consequences”, according to Merriam-Webster. At the end of his life, Francois Mitterrand was asked what was the most important quality for a successful politician. “Indifference”, was his damning reply. Nevertheless, except for the fanatical fringe, driven more by fear than by information, expediency comes from a belief that the voters are unwilling (or perhaps unable) to understand the analysis that is required of intelligent political decisionmaking. When smart politicians adopt evidently stupid policies they are throwing in the towel, convinced that voters will never understand the detail required to back real leadership on a given issue. It becomes easier to follow than to lead… and it becomes impossible to speak your mind.

It is expedient to say that Mexicans are to blame for unemployment in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It is a cop out to say that PEMEX should remain in the clutches of kleptocratic power brokers. It is disingenuous to say that white rust belt workers are not bitter and that Mexicans on both sides of the border are not their scapegoats. But every time we demand compromise; every time we fail to go into the nuanced detail of smart policy; every time we are charmed by the soundbite, we participate in the simulations that throttle the possibility of progress.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Our Similarities

April 16, 2008

Last week this column touched on the differences between Americans and Mexicans. This week the focus is on the multiple similarities that exist between our two North American countries.

We share a European cultural heritage, with both Spanish and English mainly Latin-based languages. In religious terms, Mexico and the US are broadly similar, given that both countries have Chistian majorities. Despite the fact that many of our citizens take this for granted, one need only look at national neighborhoods like those in the Middle East, or in South Asia to understand just how different two countries can be. These similarities in particular bode well for us both. There is, for example, very little possibility of a “clash of civilizations” happening here.

Both Mexico and the United States are Western democracies. Mexico’s presidential system, its Constitution and its Congress are, in part, based on the American model. Both countries have been defined by the immigrant experience, which permeates the concept of citizenship. For example, it is unthinkable for countries like ours to base our citizenship on jus sanguinis (based on blood), like most European countries, rather than jus soli (based on place of birth). In that sense, our two nations are profoundly “American” (in the broad sense of the word), seeing themselves as lands of opportunity for people from all parts of the world.

The current US would be impossible to understand without the 30% of its territory which once belonged to Mexico. It is a huge swath of land that includes California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, parts of Utah and Wyoming and, of course, Texas. There, place names and Western culture are a testament to the shared history of our two countries. Thus, the cowboy heritage that Americans consider so emblematic of their culture was adopted from the early Spanish/Mexican settlers. This is why so much of the vocabulary is actually in Spanish (ranch/rancho, burro/donkey, lasso/rope, rodeo, etc.)

On the other side, Mexico’s history would be unintelligible if it weren’t for the influence of the United States. Mexican liberals were inspired from the very beginning in both their search for independence and the ideals of the northern neighbor. Juárez was backed by the US, which helped the fall of Emperor Maximillian and finally rid the country of European rule.

We have shared symbols: the US flag flew over the Zócalo in the mid-nineteenth century (which is why the Marines’ hymn begins “From the Halls of Montezuma…”) and the Mexican eagle still graces the upper left-hand corner of the Seal of the City of Los Angeles. The official name of Mexico is the United Mexican States.

Mexico’s consumer culture has been imported practically unchanged from the United States. Wal-Mart is this country’s largest retailer and the material aspects of the “American Dream” are very much a part of the aspirations of Mexico’s middle classes.

Both Mexicans and Americans prize their freedoms. Thus, both are countries that are generally open to trade and globalization. While it is true that Mexico and the US have learned very different lessons from history (Mexico is a pacifist nation, while the US often imposes its ideas by force), both peoples share similar values when it comes to freedom, individuality and democracy. Compare these attitudes with countries like Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, or even Japan, which prizes its racial homogeneity and is often mistrustful of the rest of the world.

Then there is the very real process of integration that is mixing our peoples and our cultures, with approximately 9% of the US population being either Mexican, or of Mexican descent. Over a million Americans live in many different parts of Mexico and millions more tourists travel between our two countries. In fact, each is the other’s favorite travel destination. Hundreds of billions of dollars in trade and hundreds of millions of legal border crossings via 27 inland ports of entry and 55 lanes of traffic cement our ties along 2,000 miles of border. In fact, that entire region exists only in relation to the sister communities on the other side.

Politicians often lead us to believe that our differences are irreconcilable and that “good fences make good neighbors”. But, fortunately, the reality is very different. And even when we have differing viewpoints, such as those relating to international relations, it is often to our unspoken mutual advantage: the main beneficiary of Mexico’s pacifism is the United States, while Mexico benefits from the implicit security shield that the US provides. Imagine a world where Mexico sought to use its nuclear technology for weapons, or where Mexicans born in the US were denied citizenship, as happens with Turks born in Germany. Unlike in other world neighborhoods, Mexico and the US are similar enough for peaceful coexistence to be the rule, not the exception.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Our Differences

April 9, 2008

This column has repeatedly argued that, despite the large gap in economic and social development, the United States and Mexico, as two Western democracies with Christian majorities and open economies, share many of the same values. That despite the divisive rhetoric in the media, each is lucky to have the other as its neighbor and that both countries could do a lot worse. Nevertheless, there are differences in the way we interpret race, history, and certain basic concepts, such as freedom and the Rule of Law. As both countries become more and more intertwined demographically and economically, it becomes increasingly important to analyze why we often don’t understand each other.

History is relative

The concept of history differs depending on which side of the border you are on. Americans see history as a linear succession based on the progress of universal ideas culminating in a happy ending (today). Heroes are fixed. Mexicans see history as a cross that they must bear. Our list of heroes depends on whom you ask and when you’re asking. Thus, attitudes towards change are different. For Americans, change brings opportunity. For Mexicans it brings loss.

Each territory was colonized differently. Spaniards and Britons encountered very different groups of Native Americans. In New England, there were few tribes; and those that did exist were nomadic. The colonists saw natives as external to their vision of an ideal society, which was to be a “city on a hill”. Families arrived looking to settle.

Fewer, male, adventurers arrived in New Spain, finding many (up to 20 million, according to some estimates) often urbanized natives. Thanks to the surprisingly enlightened official view of the Catholic Church (which stipulated that Amerindians were simply wayward children of God), the Spaniards interbred with those they converted. But, as revolutionary as the Spanish were in their liberal attitudes towards mixed marriages, it was the Puritan Americans who were revolutionary in their nation building, leaving Mexico to stagnate in its colonial period and convulse in its independence.

Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.

All of these differences affect ideas regarding government, which Americans consider essential. Control is exercised from within, according to a system of checks and balances. Authority is necessary for the greater good, which is the Rule of Law. It is rarely questioned because it is paramount.

Mexicans gave up on government a long time ago. They see it as a necessary evil and, given that it won’t provide honest leadership, it should give as much as possible to the poor. Authority is questioned ad nauseam and the Rule of Law is irrelevant because of a nagging sense of perpetual victimhood.

Freedom, as has been noted in a previous column, is also defined differently. Americans have many of their freedoms curtailed, but except when they feel they are directly threatened (as has been the case lately), they are adamant about defending the freedoms they consider basic. Institutions guard these zealously. In Mexico, freedom means absence of authority, which comes from weak institutions.

Both peoples see democracy as the best system of government. But, for Americans, democracy grants absolute legitimacy and authority to the winners of electoral contests. Voting is based on trust. For Mexicans, democracy is a novelty. It confers some legitimacy and some authority on the winners of electoral contests, sometimes. But it is often seen as a “free-for-all”, so elections are constantly questioned.

Economic freedom is the foundation of both economies, but Americans believe in capitalism on principle. Seeing themselves as victims, Mexicans grudgingly accept capitalism, although with a heavy dollop of “social justice”. Hence, meritocracy in the US is an organizing principle. In Mexico, the mistrust that underlies social mechanisms of reward and punishment often trumps merit.

You just don’t understand

Americans think their country is the best on Earth, ever. For them, it is the ideal to which the world aspires and the bearer of a manifest destiny to propagate its ideals. For Mexicans, the US is an awkward, self-serving giant; it is where cousin Jesús moved to and the place where he made enough to buy his shiny new pick-up.

For Americans, Mexico is a poor country full of “Mexicans” which, for them, is a racial, not a national, designation. Mexico provides workers who have the annoying habit of overstaying their welcome. Drugs come from there, as do vacations in Cancún. Both countries are profoundly ignorant of each other.

But the United States and Mexico are undergoing a long process of de facto economic and demographic integration. The 21st century will be one in which tens of millions of our citizens will decide to move between the two countries. It behooves us to spend a little time making sure our nuanced differences don’t overcome our blatant common interests.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico’s Diverse States

April 2, 2008

Mexico is a land of snow-capped volcanoes, deserts, coniferous and tropical rainforests, of glistening cities, grey slums, colonial gems and pre-Colombian pyramids. Topographically, architecturally, and in socioeconomic terms, it is a country of contrasts. These changes show in the diversity of its states and are also manifest in their growth and development. But rather than converge, different states and regions are living different realities. While these differences threaten to create all sorts of problems for the country in the medium-to-long term, they also present opportunities that should be taken advantage of, both in terms of tourism and in terms of investment (foreign and domestic).

The inhabitants of the Federal District and Nuevo León (home of the most Americanized Mexican city, Monterrey) have GDP per capita figures approximately five times those of Oaxaca and Chiapas, the country’s poorest states. Mexico’s richest states have similar levels of development to the poorest American states, while its least developed regions compare to Iraq and Bolivia.

It has become a truism among many analysts that the “rich” Mexican North is pulling away from the “poor” Mexican South thanks, in part, to the former’s ability to take advantage of NAFTA. The reality is much more nuanced than that. To begin with, the fastest-growing state is Quintana Roo (+8.4% in 2007), which borders Central America. The other stars in the top five are Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Aguascalientes and Querétaro. All of them grew well above 5% in 2007 and none of them are border states. In fact, the Mexican state that grew the least, Durango (0.8%), is more of a “northern” state than any in the top 5.

The example of the central state of Guanajuato is especially interesting. A traditionally poor state with bad infrastructure, it had the distinction of being one of the main sources of migration to the US. Beginning with the PAN governments in the mid-1990s, it declared itself “open for business”, increasing its infrastructure and doing its best to replace its declining shoe-making industry with new sources of growth. Today, León is a bustling medium-sized city with a top-notch hospital complex that seeks to take advantage of the opportunities offered by medical tourism. Its colonial cities, like San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato are a must for any well-traveled North American; safe and well connected by air and land.

All marketing should be local

In terms of tourism, these challenges also represent an important opportunity. By branding destinations separately, downplaying the “Mexico” and highlighting the local, “safe” cities like Guanajuato and Los Cabos could avoid the stigma related to the violence in border cities, the capital and Acapulco. Regional marketing strategies could make places like Yucatán, Veracruz, or the Bajío, destinations on their own, bypassing the bad publicity that comes with crime and demonstrations. The fact that many more secondary cities like Querétaro and Aguascalientes now have international airports and excellent toll highway connections should make the Ministry of Tourism rethink its hokey “Visit Mexico” strategy. An “all Mexico” strategy is not only simplistic; it also means that bad publicity in one area affects the whole country. So, when Oaxaca had its problems, it was fundamental for Chiapas to promote its stability. When Baja California has issues, Sonora needs to play up its differences, etc.

Similarly, the “selling” of Mexico as an investment destination needs to be diversified and targeted. With over $23 billion dollars of Foreign Direct Investment in 2007, Mexico could promote its states and regions á-la-carte, offering better educated but more expensive industrial workers in Aguascalientes versus cheaper labor in the southeast. Thus, Nuevo León would compete with the similarly-developed Czech Republic, while Chiapas could be favorably compared to Guatemala.

Mexico City-based decision-makers must break from their centralized mindset. Too often, people in the capital see Mexico in general terms, doing the country a disservice. The country’s current situation is complex. It is suffering from a rise in violence as narco-traffickers are persecuted in several different parts of the country. It has social “movements” that often make the news, damaging the country’s reputation. But it is also a large country with plenty of local success stories that never get played up. Mexico’s states are very different and they need to start branding themselves differently. They need to create distance between their local realities and the bad news that is often reported as being representative of the country as a whole.

Mexico is not going to stop serving up nasty surprises. Hence, both the private and public sectors should take advantage of the differences that exist in a country with 105 million diverse people, four seas, 32 states and nearly 2 million square kilometers of extremely varied territory.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Panama as a Latin Hong Kong

March 26, 2008

Your correspondent was recently in the Central American Republic of Panama, a country of 3.2 million that has about 5% of Mexico’s land mass (about the size of South Carolina). Its GDP per capita is similar to Mexico’s, but its growth rate, at 7.8% last year, is more than double this country’s. Like Mexico, Panama has beautiful beaches and friendly people, which make them both attractive to American retirees. But although the American population in Mexico is 20 times bigger, Panama’s numbers are growing faster thanks to government incentives.

Two competing opinions have been voiced regarding Panama’s dramatic building boom, which has created an enviable skyline of multi-storeyed waterfront skyscrapers in Panama City. The first points to the possibility of a bubble based on artificial economic growth. The second highlights the multiple sources of Panamanian growth. It is the second view that seems most plausible. Moreover, and more significantly, Panama is turning into something Latin America desperately needs: a small, democratic, Latin Hong Kong.

A consensus for growth

One could talk about the “strategic” location of Panama in the same way that one talks about Hong Kong’s “privileged” place as a major sea/river port on the “belly” of mainland China. But many poor countries have fortunate geographic locations which they fail to exploit (Mexico is about 50/50 on this front). The main things that distinguish the Chinese city-state and Panama are: 1) the establishment, by outside force, of a relatively strong institutional framework and 2) the consensus that exists among most of the popuation in favor of growth based on free trade.

In Honk Kong’s case, it was British rule which provided a legal framework that has endured after the 1997 handover to the Chinese under “one country, two systems”. In Panama’s case, it began with US-backed independence from Colombia in 1903. It continued with the American construction of, the Canal, one of the most crucial pieces of infrastructure in the world. It consolidated after the 1989 US invasion and the subsequent handover of Canal operations (under the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of 1977) in 1999.

The only thing to fear is fear of change

Panama has gotten a number of important things right. It dollarized its economy, avoiding the monetary crises that often rocked Latin America. It implemented successful policies to become a world fiancial center, giving it the second-most populated banking system in the world in terms of number of institutions. It confounded its critics by running the Panama Canal well and it accepted, by referendum, a $5.3 billion dollar expansion that represents 30% of one year’s GDP. Crucially, its people seem to have little time for anachronistic infighting over the benefits of globalization.

Panama has allowed easy entry to professionals (and retiring Americans) and, as such, has benefited from the implosions that regularly take place on the continent (Venezuela, et al). It has also benefited from the post-9/11 “closing of America”. Thus, Miami’s loss has been Panama’s gain. Lastly, because growth has been so high for the last few years, people believe in the future. This hope, so scarce in Mexico, reduces fear, which allows progress. Because progress requires change, the less fear there is of change, the greater the chance of progress.

Diversified sources of investment

Many Mexican companies attest to the country’s openness. CEMEX trucks abound, there are large Comex paint franchises and, more impressively, ICA has built much of Panama’s toll-road infrastructure. As a testament to the country’s promise, President Calderón removed visa restrictions for Panamanians, something only rich Western countries enjoy.

Beyond the myriad sources of foreign investment, most condominium purchases are by Panamanians themselves. According to José Boyd, the president of the Real Estate association, only 40% of sales are to foreigners. Further, most investment in hotels is also local. Both of these facts bode well for the stability of the economy and say a lot about the country’s home-grown impetus for growth.

Where the similarities end

Of course, Panama is not the economic powerhouse that Hong Kong is. Not only is the Chinese city-state nearly 4 times larger in terms of population, it is also many times richer and its market framework is much more sophisticated. But, despite problems with money laundering and corruption, Panama is a democracy, and it has the Canal.

And Panama has a lot to offer the region. Latin America, like 1970s Asia, is often too insular. And it has a lot of talented, entrepreneurial people that are being harassed by their own governments. Perhaps the most important thing it offers to fellow Latin Americans is a place where they are left safely alone to go about their business. Wishing, perhaps, that others would learn from Panama’s optimistic example.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Calderón’s First Big Mistake

March 19, 2008

President Calderón named Juan Camilo Mouriño Secretary of Government (“Gobernación”, sometimes mistakenly translated as “Secretary of the Interior”) because he trusts him. The President jealously guards his inner circle’s loyalty and this was a talented 36 year-old who shares Calderón’s vision. They both had high hopes for the opening of the energy sector because they believe that massive amounts of private investment in the oil industry would boost Mexico’s GDP growth rate by a very impressive 2 percentage points per year.

Perhaps. But they never built the social consensus necessary to achieve these reforms and, worse, Mouriño was precisely the wrong person to try to negotiate them. These errors in judgment are the first major mistake of the Calderón administration.

Bad idea

The situation had the makings of a political disaster from the beginning. Juan Camilo Mouriño was born in Spain and Mexico’s bête noir regarding the oil industry is the possibility that it might fall into “foreign” hands. He and his family have had multiple business dealings with PEMEX and he has admitted to signing contracts that benefit his family while being in positions of power. Although perhaps not illegal, this situation fits the dictionary definition of conflict of interest. Mouriño is one of the youngest ministers of Government in history, a thin ex-businessman taking a job which is mostly about experience and gravitas. His previous position as behind-the-scenes power broker was perfectly suited to both his and the President’s ambitions, but a miscalculation brought him to the most politically sensitive position in the country. Further, the previous Secretary of Government, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, whatever his shortcomings, was an effective operator who actually fit the needs of the current government surprisingly well. What can one make of this mistake?

It is possible that the President and his confidant actually believe that Mouriño is a hopeful for the presidency, an idea that most pundits consider highly improbable even in the best of circumstances. But, as political analyst Luis Pérez de las Heras points out, “if that was the plan, you make him undersecretary, giving him positive media exposure, then spring him as Secretary in 2011, when he can ride out the end of the presidency to clinch the nomination. Nobody knew Mouriño before the scandal. The only reference they have is of his involvement with the scandal, so public opinion will never give him the benefit of the doubt.” The only possible explanation for this surprising lack of political foresight is that the Calderón team is falling victim to hubris because they misunderstand the circumstances that brought them to Los Pinos.

Some have greatness thrust upon them

President Calderón’s rise to the presidency was completely unforeseen. His resignation as Secretary of Energy during the Fox presidency had been acrymonious. Many believed that his bid for the PAN candidacy was doomed because of President Fox supported his rival, Santiago Creel. Further, he seemed to lack charisma. Nevertheless, thanks to intense and effective lobbying with panistas who would determine the outcome of the internal election, he was able to secure the candidacy.

As the PAN’s presidential candidate, he faced opponents who were very different from the norm. The PRI candidate was someone with such a negative public image that he never really stood a chance, while the PRD candidate was a charismatic figure who made several mistakes that eventually led to Calderón’s victory. Therein lies the crux of the problem: the President is making the first major strategic error of his reign because he believes that he and his team won the presidency thanks to their own abilities. The truth is that the election was lost by his PRD opponent. The distinction is important because it makes the President rely on a team that is too cliquey, too inexperienced, and arrogant in uncertain circumstances.

Perception is reality

President Calderón has sabotaged his chances of passing his reform of the energy sector. This is a pity because the country would do well to rationalize its oil industry. He apparently believes that if his friend can weather the criticism, better times will be in store. He can’t and they won’t.

This is President Calderón’s perfect storm and it is of his own making. His PRD opponent had managed to maneuver himself into a political straightjacket, but the fact that Mouriño can be portrayed as a “foreign” influence-peddling enemy of Mexican oil has revived his fortunes. For many people this scandal could prove that Andrés Manuel López Obrador was right. That there really is a plutocratic elite that seeks to “steal” the oil industry from the Mexican “people” in a massive right-wing conspiracy. For the good of the country, President Calderón needs to stop making the case for him.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Anti-NAFTA Populism

March 12, 2008

Both Democratic front-runners recently fell all over themselves to attack NAFTA. They did so despite the fact that one is the wife of the President who achieved its passage and the other is on the record saying that the agreement has been good for the United States. This implies that they know better, but that the need to win over blue collar workers in Ohio ran roughshod over their own judgment. Adding to the idea that the anti-NAFTA rhetoric was mere opportunism was the fact that no anti-NAFTA pamphlets were circulated in Texas (which held elections on the same day as Ohio), where the trade agreement is relatively popular. The fact that it could just have been political posturing, however, does not make the statements any less dangerous to the prosperity and stability of the continent.

Be careful what you wish for

Conventional wisdom says that reopening negotiations on NAFTA would cause the agreement to fall apart as special interest groups in all three countries would pounce to get their pound of protectionist flesh. For a start, Mexican corn farmers and Canadian factory workers (victims of the strong “loonie”) would love to scrap the agreement even more than Ohian blue collar workers, so the danger of reopening the treaty is very real. Hence, most analysts assume that no sitting US President would open a Pandora’s box by scrapping the current framework of trade in North America. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves what is at stake.

Nearly $1 trillion dollars in trade flows between Mexico, Canada and the US. Several million jobs in each country depend on it, equivalent to many times the population of Cleveland. Industries like the US automotive sector have based their entire manufacturing platform around NAFTA. Strategically, under Chapter 6 of the Agreement, all three countries’ governments are barred from interfering in the sale of energy products, such as oil, to the other two countries. The US is the only net importer of oil in North America, so its supplies depend, in part, on the trade agreement. Further, the mere possibility of the US pulling out of NAFTA would probably cause an economic crisis in Mexico. This would generate more unauthorized migration to the US and would create a strategic nightmare for the US if Mexico were to implode. Oh, and if the situation in 1994/1995 repeated itself, the US would be called upon to put up tens of billions of dollars for the financial rescue. All to try to protect jobs that will probably end up in China, anyway.

Et tu, Brute?

The curious thing is that Democrats have triumphed when they have taken a leadership position vis-à-vis the trade agreement. Like when Al Gore won the NAFTA debate against protectionist Ross Perot or when Bill Clinton proved his worth by pushing NAFTA through Congress. On the flip side, the anti-North America candidates in this race lost everything. John Edwards, the only candidate who flat-out called for NAFTA’s demise was roundly defeated. Virulently anti-immigrant Tom Tancredo consistently polled at the bottom of the Republican field and dropped out without one single delegate. In fact, in both parties the candidates with the most liberal stands on both trade and immigration are at the top of the list.

If NAFTA has been so good for the Democrats, why the betrayal? Except for the opportunity to show leadership, trade is a lose-lose situation for a politician. Its benefits are diffuse and its supporters are complacent, while those negatively affected are vocal and angry. Free trade is a tonic to the economy precisely because of the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that forces human and capital resources to shift from where they are not competitive to areas where they can be. Confronting people with the reality that their work is no longer wanted, however, is difficult. The upshot is that political leaders have been shamefully silent on the benefits of NAFTA and the agreement is, today, at its least popular in all three countries.

The truth shall set you free

There’s a scene in the book/movie Primary Colors, a fictionalized account on the Clintons, where Jack Stanton, the Bill Clinton character, bravely stands in front of a group of blue collar workers and tells them that their jobs are not coming back; that they must retrain themselves to work in a globalized economy. Ironically, John McCain was the candidate that had a “Clinton” moment when he told factory workers in Michigan exactly that: “some of these jobs… are not coming back”. For the good of both the working-class (“beer-drinking”) Democrats that support Mrs. Clinton and the intellectual (“wine-sipping”) Democrats that support Mr. Obama, the Democratic front-runners need to start putting experience over expediency.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of AMLO Post-2006

March 5, 2008

In recent days we have seen Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former leftist presidential candidate, return to the limelight by inserting himself as the defender of a statist PEMEX and the promoter of Alejandro Encinas to head his party, the PRD. The man Enrique Krauze called the “Tropical Messiah” has gone through several transformations. To understand his new role, we must analyze who he was in the years running up to the 2006 election, and his reaction to finding himself without formal power in its aftermath.

It was a simpler time

In 2003, López Obrador wore his best “statesman” clothes. He was riding a wave of popularity and he was using Mexico City’s budget to curry favor with the lower classes, via subsidies to the elderly, single mothers, and the handicapped, as well as the middle classes, via massive amounts of road construction. Gone were the days of protests that blocked oil facilities and brought mayhem to the streets of the capital when he led protestors all the way from his home state of Tabasco. His message was clear: AMLO the statesman was ready to lead all of Mexico.

Nevertheless, some worrying signs kept surfacing. Chief among them was the fact that the PRD majority in the local legislature kept efforts at government transparency at bay. Further, AMLO seemed not to “get it” when it came to Mexico’s desperate need to establish the Rule of Law. Responding to lynchings that had taken place on his watch, he implied that they didn’t bother him, saying that mob justice was part of a “deep” Mexico.

The scandals that surfaced regarding his former chief of staff, as well as the Las Vegas videos that showed his secretary of the Treasury gambling large sums of money, seem to have started the bunker mentality that would later dominate the inner circle. It became obvious that President Fox was obsessed with keeping his nemesis from winning the presidency. It became equally obvious that López Obrador’s charisma ran a tight ideological ship, but that his team lacked the executive and administrative skills needed to tie up the multiple loose ends which could be used against “the movement”.

2006 and all that

The energy and the dynamic of the presidential campaign, as well as the groupthink that dominated inner-circle decisionmaking, began to eat away at the self-control that had characterized “AMLO the statesman”. His certainty at beating an obscure former energy secretary from the PAN, and a very unpopular PRI “dinosaur”, gave free reign to his street-fighter instincts. He started ranting against the financial establishment and being disrespectful of the sitting President. This was his undoing: when the President and business leaders called him reckless, AMLO’s loose lips made sure that the epithet stuck. Further, he underestimated the profound changes that had expanded Mexico’s “middle class” via homeownership. These new stakeholders would have loved a monthly stipend of $700 pesos for their grandparents, but they weren’t willing to risk their mortgaged house to get it.

A house divided

The PRD was tragically unprepared for an AMLO loss. Thousands of people who were ready to take positions in a new regime were left in the cold (literally, in the middle of Reforma). In the absence of an AMLO presidency, Marcelo Ebrard, who was never really trusted by “true” perredistas because of his recent PRI past, held the party’s most powerful office. Psychologically, López Obrador was even less prepared than his party, blaming literally everyone but himself and creating a bizarre parallel “legitimate presidency”. He took refuge in the most radical elements of this society (the 13% that make up the disaffected urban lower-middle class) because they were the only ones who could channel his outrage.

Today, AMLO is trying to use the fact that he was responsible for the unheard-of electoral success of the party in Congress to impose Alejandro Encinas as party head. But the hatred he has inspired is generating a backlash even among thick-skinned party members. Curiously, two of the most important amlistas, Encinas himself and Ebrard, are much more pragmatic and institutional than they let on. But, in a show of how dysfuntional the relationship has become, they dare not show their “good” side.

Unfortunately for Mexico, “AMLO the statesman” is gone. What is left is a leader of insidious and destructive civil disobedience, but not an insurgent, which is why his threats of violence over PEMEX ring somewhat hollow. The hope is that if the repudiation of angry intolerance in the PRD is loud enough, the party can find the voice he so carelessly rejected. The one that recognizes that most Mexicans today actually do have something to lose. The one that seeks to lead the country, not divide it.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Cuba

February 27, 2008

For a Caribbean island with only about 11 million people, Cuba has caused a lot of trouble. It created a war between the United States and Spain in 1898. It nearly brought the end of civilization during the missile crisis between the US and the Soviet Union. It corrupted various American presidential administrations, linking them with renegades and criminals in order to try a botched invasion and several assassination attempts on its anti-American ruler. And, for nearly 50 years its dictatorship has inspired murdering guerrillas, misguided romantics and wanna-be despots all over Latin America.

From Argentina to Alaska, Cuba is a conversation-stopper. Leftist contrarians cite the Communist regime’s achievements in the areas of health and rote learning (education, in the full sense, would require more freedom of speech than Cubans are allowed). They point out that the island’s repression of basic liberties has created an egalitarian society, which is preferable to Latin America’s usual combination of very rich and very poor societies. Others are appalled by the material shortages and the violence the military junta uses to crush dissent. To the claim that Cubans live in a Socialist paradise, they point out the many benefits foreigners in Cuba enjoy that are unavailable to the locals. More objectively, on the Human Development Index several Latin American countries rank above Cuba, and even unequal Mexico is nearly on par with it. Certainly, the fact that despite harsh visa restrictions many Cubans have flocked to Mexico and that few Mexicans (who don’t have trouble getting Cuban visas) move to Cuba, is telling.

Whatever one’s point of view, Cuba has always been important for both Mexico and the US. Hernán Cortés began modern Mexican history by leaving Cuba for the shores of today’s Veracruz. Four hundred years later, Fidel Castro trained and funded his revolutionaries in Mexico, reversing Cortés’ trip on a yacht called the “Granma”. Later, in a grand bargain with the the then-ruling PRI, Mexico was spared much violence when Castro agreed not to foment insurrection in Mexico, in exchange for Mexico’s tacit support and crucial mediation vis-à-vis the United States.

With respect to the United States, Cuba has always brought out the worst in the superpower. From poorly executed subjugation of the island in the early 20th century, to embarrassing pettiness during the embargo, Americans have made costly mistakes. Ironically, they have allowed its 1.5 million-strong Cuban community, which has enjoyed unprecedented easy access to US citizenship, to dictate its Cuba policy from the beginning of the Castro regime. The angry intelligence of the Cuban diaspora, added to the pivotal electoral importance of Florida, has meant that American politicians have committed themselves to policies that have hurt the US strategically and diminished it in the eyes of the world.

Today, Fidel Castro is stepping down, providing an opportunity to correct some of the emotional excesses that have tainted our continent’s relations with the island. For Mexico, a “normal” Cuba would reduce some of the destructive attraction that the Castro regime has excercised over a significant portion of our left. On the negative side, a major challenge would arise for Cancún, given that Cuba would quickly rise as the Yucatán’s most important competition for tourist dollars. Nevertheless, Mexican multi-national companies like Cemex and América Móvil could find many economic opportunities in an open Cuba.

The US would certainly benefit from normalized relations with its Caribbean neighbor. Americans would probably gain the most from the commercial opportunities and, more significantly, removing the embargo and allowing its citizens to visit Cuba would put much international bad blood behind it.

As things currently stand, there is little hope of quick liberalization on the island. Foreigners have very little direct influence on what happens there and will probably be disappointed when the regime does not fall apart after its charismatic leader has gone. Nevertheless, for both Mexico and the US, ostracizing Cuba has had more drawbacks than benefits. Who can forget President Fox’s humiliation when Castro released a recording of him saying that the Cuban should leave the country quickly after a summit in order not to inconvenience President Bush? Mexican leaders always lose credibility when they are seen to pander to the United States with respect to their position on Cuba.

History has shown that Cuba is dangerous when it is slighted. The nuclear threat is gone, but in a world with terrorism, where hundreds of millions of people would like to see America’s downfall, Cuban real estate is too close to Florida for comfort. Even if our two democracies do not get the type of liberal regime we would like to see in Cuba, it’s time to engage with the island’s rulers. The mingling of our people – through commerce and tourism – could be a powerful incentive for Cubans to put their destructive political tendencies behind them.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of the Energy Debate Farce

February 20, 2008

The Calderón administration is embarking on its most ambitious legislative project to date: the reform of the legal framework that shackles the Mexican energy sector. The urgency comes from the fact that Mexico’s oil supply is dwindling due mainly to the drying up of Cantarell, once the second-most important oil field in the world, 80km off the coast of Campeche. The consensus among economic liberals is that only private investment and foreign technology (preferably together) can reach the deposits that remain on Mexican territory. President Calderón, a former Secretary of Energy, believes that the looming oil shortage is frightening enough to force the different political parties to forge an agreement that will allow private investment in some areas related to the extraction of fossil fuels. Outright privatization has been ruled out and no one is facing down the ideological ghosts that are at the root of the problem. That could prove to be a fatal mistake.

Worshipping idols

When it comes to money, Mexicans fear foreigners and they don’t trust each other. This insecurity is exacerbated regarding oil because part of this country’s official history extols the virtues of President Lázaro Cárdenas, who stood up to the evil foreign corporations by nationalizing the oil industry. Covetousness regarding oil is so strong that state ownership of this dirty fossil fuel is enshrined in the Constitution. The national myths related to this commodity run so deep that people feel as strongly about it now as they did 50 years ago.

The upshot is that, as things stand today, too many Mexicans are too emotionally invested in the topic for this discussion to generate the best results for the country. “Best” here means getting the most oil out of the ground at the lowest cost and then selling it for the most amount of money. The best result has nothing to do with “sovereignty”, or with unionized overstaffing at a state-run monopoly, or with the manipulation of large amounts of money for political purposes. That is PEMEX today, arguably the most inefficient major oil company in the world.

Nevertheless, political considerations are front and center of the “debate” as it has been proposed. That makes a farce out of the whole discussion. By paying lip service to the totem of state control over oil, members of all three parties are hobbling the debate nearly to the point of irrelevance. Mexico is, today, an internationally competitive, diversified economy that produces about $1 trillion dollars worth of goods and services per year. But the political establishment insists on seeing Mexico as a Banana Republic when it comes to oil. The fact that a commodity could still have such a stranglehold on the imagination of so many Mexicans is alarming and it should be dealt with. Mexicans need to be shown that oil is a product like any other and that keeping it in the hands of politicians breeds inefficiency and corruption.

Unfortunately for a pragmatist like Mr. Calderón, the president is the only one who can lead this difficult discussion. But he must use the presidential “bully pulpit” to tell Mexicans what he wants to do and why. If he wants a public and private solution, he needs to tell us why. If what he really wants is to privatize, he should explain the benefits of privatization versus the drawbacks of state monopolies. Presumably, in the big picture, what Calderón wants is for Mexico to be an economically liberal democracy that is capable of alleviating (not subsidizing) poverty. That’s a vision to be proud of, not one to hide.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face

So, in many ways the debate is over before it has really begun. The PRD is suspicious of any sort of change, the PAN is afraid of fighting the ideological battle, and a navel-gazing PRI persists in its delusion that it lost the presidency because it abandoned its “nationalist” principles, making it of two minds despite the fact that it knows that the country needs a liberal reform. This is no way to debate the future of a multi-billion dollar industry.

There is an old Russian saying that if you give a Russian a choice between having one good eye, but with his neighbor having two good eyes, or both men being made blind, the Russian would rather be blind than allow his neighbor to be better off. It is exactly this sentiment that currently taints the discussion in the hearts of much of the PRD and the PRI. If we do not engage in the greater debate – if we insist on avoiding the issue of our victim complex and the fears it engenders – no amount of lobbying will produce the laws that the country needs in order to best exploit its natural resources.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of Calderón’s American Trip

February 13, 2008

What a difference a sexenio makes. In 2000, President Bush and President Fox had been elected in the same year. Breaking with tradition, the first foreign trip Mr. Bush made was to Mexico, saying that it was the most important international relationship for the US. President Fox then went to Washington during the first week of September 2001. He was received with mariachis and fireworks at the White House and he addressed a joint session of Congress. Then, five days after his departure, a group of Arabs attacked New York and Washington. This past Sunday his successor, President Calderón, arrived in New York to a much more hostile United States. He, and his country, deserve better.

No more pomp and very different circumstance

Mr. Calderón believes that an American trip was overdue. He ignored many who advised him that a lame duck presidency, a hotly-contested election, and the angry debate about Mexicans in the US meant that it was not the right time. So, the Mexican President kept a low profile, visiting Mexican immigrant communities and dropping by his alma mater, Harvard University, to receive an award. California, so far from Washington and so close to Mexico, is welcoming Calderón more ceremoniously: today he meets with Governor Schwarzenneger, Mayor Villarraigosa, and the state’s Congressional assembly. Nevertheless, compared to 2001, it’s all very underwhelming.

Of course, the intensity of the US-Mexico day-to-day relationship, with the largest permanent US diplomatic presence in the world here, persists in relative harmony. But the mood is one of foreboding, which interjects unnecessary volatility into an already difficult relationship.Of course, the intensity of the US-Mexico day-to-day relationship, with the largest permanent US diplomatic presence in the world here, persists in relative harmony. But the mood is one of foreboding, which interjects unnecessary volatility into an already difficult relationship.

Meanwhile, public opinion on both sides of the border is dangerously ambivalent to the relationship, mainly because they don’t understand it. In Mexico, just 18 months ago the US was 0.59 percentage points away from having a Mexican President ideologically opposed to Washington who did not believe in the pro-American economic and social status quo, or even in the desirability of the rule of law. On the American side, hostility to Mexicans and anti-NAFTA sentiment has gone from the fringes of the political debate to the center. On both sides, nationalist protectionism is gaining ground thanks to the information vacuum left by our government, business and qualified academic leaders.

Tell it like it is

President Calderón understands this, but has not created a coherent plan to stop it. Worryingly, he has picked up the ill-advised habit of scolding the US for its treatment of immigrants, which is sure to rally both his friends and his enemies against him. What is needed is a well-organized information campaign that influences public opinion, not presidential statements that are later used as verbal canon fodder by talk show hosts. There are plenty of American and Mexican-American experts (Robert Pastor, Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, as well as many from the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, for example) who could be on the talk show circuit, explaining this complex, but vital relationship. They, not Mexican politicians, should be on the air. Non-governmental Mexican and American organizations should be disseminating information about Mexico and its cooperation with the US. In addition, North American companies with interests on both sides of the border could launch a nationwide campaign to educate people regarding NAFTA. After so much one-sided talk about job losses, it’s time to see “This Job is a NAFTA job” bumper stickers on the pick-ups of millions of American workers who depend on North American trade.

On the Mexican side, Americans themselves are not an issue, but NAFTA is. A similar grass-roots campaign needs to be organized here in favor of trade, with real workers, not government ministries, as the stars. With the removal of tariffs on corn and beans there is now a certain caché in being anti-NAFTA. But the poverty of the Mexican farmer is due to half a century of political opportunism masquerading as agricultural policy, not to North American trade. Meanwhile, many more Mexicans depend on NAFTA-related jobs and Mexican consumers (i.e., everyone) depend on the low prices free trade ensures. Government officials, businesses, trade-related workers and consumers need to address the issue in a coordinated, direct and intelligent manner.

In sum, President Calderón needs to get interested parties with more local legitimacy to argue Mexico’s case on both sides and avoid making costly personal asides. But even as he winds down an imperfect first visit without public opinion on his side, he certainly deserves a much warmer American welcome. Not only because his efforts have been perfectly in line with American policy priorities, but because if he fails and things go terribly wrong in Mexico, the US won’t need a fence – it will need a dome.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of “Securing the Border First”

February 6, 2008

One of the things that Senator John McCain is known for is his “liberal” stance on immigration. He sponsored bipartisan legislation which would have established a path to legality and even citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million unauthorized immigrants that live in the US today, about 50% of those are Mexican. The legislation failed and the fury of the right wing of the Republican party has made any deal unworkable, for now. Although he has not yet openly rejected the bipartisan proposal he sponsored, Senator McCain now says that “he got the message”. I.e., that before anything else “we must secure the border first.” This idea has been picked up by practically every candidate in both parties, so it looks like more fences, drones and camaras are in the cards no matter who is elected. Nevertheless, it is McCain’s second idea, for a secure biometrics-endowed identification for immigrants, which should be analyzed by Mexico for its own citizenship. If Mexico was to have a proper database of the people in its territory, it could begin to take control of the country. And that would put it in a much better negotiating position when the immigration “pendulum” swings back to problem-solving territory.

The irony of it all

Americans like to feel they are in control, which is why their southern border makes them uneasy. It is variously under the thumb of organized crime, human traffickers (“coyotes”), the Mexican military, the US Border Patrol and, often, no one at all. The Canadian border is longer and, unlike Mexico, Canada has immigrant Islamic malcontents. But the US trusts the Mounties and they don’t trust the Federales. Worryingly, skirmishes along the border occur every day. According to the Border Patrol, smugglers and other troublemakers throw things at them in order to distract or annoy them. According to Mexico, when the Border Patrol retaliates by throwing tear gas into Mexican territory, as happened a few days ago, they are overstepping their authority. In a word, “la linea”, as migrants call it, is a mess.

An estimated 400,000 people cross the border without American authorization every year. And, in what is perhaps the biggest single human tragedy story in North America, thousands have died in the attempt. As Jorge Castañeda notes in his book “Ex Mex”, the numbers crossing over from Mexico remained proportionally the same throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. One hundred years ago, crossing was legal (or at least open), during the 1930s many were deported, then Mexican mass migration was legal again under the “Bracero” program (1942-1964), then much of it was illegal until the 1986 amnesty, when it was legalized. Thereafter it’s been mostly illegal, although Mexico maintains its status as the country which provides most of America’s legal migration (30% of the total), thanks in large part to family reunification. What has changed is what analysts call “circularity”, the centuries-old tradition of Mexican laborers coming and going across the border. Circularity has been halted by security measures, so it isn’t that many more Mexicans have been crossing into the US, it’s that they have been staying and bringing their families. Ironically, “securing” the border has played an important part in “the browning of America”, which is presumably what its supporters wanted to avoid.

Auspass

Beyond “securing the border first”, Senator McCain proposes a biometric identification system to identify immigrants. This call for proper identification should be taken to heart here in Mexico. Despite the unpalatable orwellian undertones of creating a national identity card, Mexico needs to have an accurate database of its own citizens. Its voter ID cards are insufficient. Today, there are millions of Mexicans in rural communities who have no documention because of either neglect, or the relatively high cost of getting a birth certificate. Mexico cannot ask a US President to “take down the wall” until it achieves control over its territory. Identifying its people is a necessary prerequisite. In fact, Mexico will probably have to eat its pro-immigrant words because part of establishing control is closing its own southern border to unauthorized entry, which it will have to do if it wants to negotiate a full North American solution to migration.

According to Castañeda, for a brief period at the beginning of the Fox and Bush administrations, there was the possibility of legalizing those who already left (called the “stock”) and creating a guest worker program for those who would go in the future (the “flow”). Although that possibility looks improbable now, history teaches that there is a pendular aspect to the issue of immigration. By identifying its citizenry and taking control of its territory, Mexico would go a long way to becoming a trustworthy partner the next time the pendulum swings our way – perhaps during the next presidency.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico’s Urban Blight

January 30, 2008

Most editorial ink regarding indifference in Mexico touches on indifference to poverty and to bad government, both of which inspire more exasperation than actual indifference. But there is another indifference in this country that has to do with a lack of shame regarding our image and our surroundings. This type of indifference costs the country billions in lost tourist revenue, security and self-image.

Have you no shame?

In general, Mexicans tend to have excellent personal hygene. Studies at Procter & Gamble from the 1990s showed that Mexicans wash their hair twice as often as Europeans, for example. Nevertheless, our streets are littered and our walls graffitied. People seem to have an utter disregard for their surroundings, throwing away their PET bottles and ignoring the defacing of public spaces. This is in direct contrast to most of the US, where people have understood that this sort of anti-social behavior is unacceptable, at best, and leads to higher crime, at worst. Why the difference?

Perhaps it’s because people lack a sense of ownership. Americans are obsessed with property values and they understand that the quality of the neighborhood “experience” affects their pocketbook directly. It also probably has to do with enforcement: there is no disincentive to litter. Tellingly, many of the same people who do it here don’t do it in the US, where they might be punished. Lastly, for some latter-day anarchists (mostly on the far Left), this type of anti-social behavior has become a badge of honor, raging against the “establishment” and lowering everyone’s quality of life in the process.

But indifference to urban blight has dire consequences. The “broken window theory”, which was successfully applied in New York in the mid-1990s, showed the link between urban decay and serious crimes. The idea is that if a building has a broken window which goes unfixed, over time it will generate an atmosphere of permissiveness that will lead to further vandalism. Eventually, the area surrounding the building will be in danger of being used for selling drugs, prostitution, etc., as tolerance to crime is tested. This works in reverse when “neighborhood watch” signs are posted, which help even when the neighbors aren’t actually watching.

In your face

In terms of the graffiti that has defaced public and private spaces in Mexico in the last 15 years, it comes in three varieties. The first is “graffiti”, which has an aesthetic intent. The second, more common, form is known as “placa” (“plaque”). This consists of hieroglyphics that send messages to other criminals. They signal which gang dominates where, which drugs are sold, etc. Thus, thousands of delinquent “billboards” dot the landscape without the public, or governments, batting an eye. The third are “pintas” (“paints”) which are typical anti-establishment rants, like “Viva la revolución”, etc. They’re purile and annoying, but less dangerous than “placa”.

Apart from fostering crime, urban blight also affects tourism. Tijuana, for example, is one of the most visited cities in the world. It lies across from idyllic San Diego and millions of potential tourists. But anecdotal evidence shows that there are many thousands of people who avoid visiting the rest of Mexico because of their negative impression of Tijuana. The same goes for places like Juárez and Nuevo Laredo. Looking at our border, it seems that Mexico wants to give the worst impression possible. For the cost of one luxury beachfront development in Cancún, these cities could at least be rid of their dirt and graffiti, even if much of the crime problem persists.

Don’t mess with Mexico

The pervasive nature of Mexico’s indifference to its urban blight is striking. It is telling that, despite Felipe Calderón’s bid to be a “law and order” president, the area around Los Pinos in the Miguel Hidalgo sector of the capital has some of the most unfortunate signs of urban decay. Fighting crime is partly about sending a strong message of order, which is today not being sent for lack of a minimal amount of political will.

Some people incorrectly assume that the situation is incorrigible. That cleaning up would lead to a cat-and-mouse game with delinquents. This argument was proved wrong in the specific case of the New York subway system, where the Transit Authority stopped the painting of its trains by not allowing them to exit their facilities with graffiti. After two weeks of seeing their “work” come to naught, the vandals gave up.

Neighboring Texas succeeded in getting people not to “mess” with their state by applying thousand-dollar fines for littering. But whether it’s Texas, New York, or Shanghai, fighting anti-social behavior successfully involves three things: enforcement, public opprobrium against the infractors, and consistency. Mostly, however, it depends on the public taking responsibility for their surroundings and pressuring their authorities to show some respect for the areas they govern.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of the Hate Profession

January 23, 2008

A large group of successful people on both sides of the border make their living trading in hatred. And much of that hatred is channeled at people from the opposite side of the border. In the US, hate professionals are usually right-wing “shock jocks”, while in Mexico, it’s usually left-wing politicians.

Of course, many sociopaths are drawn beyond words to illegal violence, but a true professional of the hate industry lives off inciting hatred legally, through words. They inspire violence, not commit it.

Hatemongering goes mainstream

During a recent stay at a North Carolina Marriott, your correspondent was faced with a large flat screen filled with Jim Gilchrist, founder of the border vigilante movement, the Minutemen. His advice was sought by the Fox News Network to talk about the alleged killing of Maria Lauterbach (Anglo) by US Marine Cesar Laurean (Latino). Given that Gilchrist is neither an expert on forensic science, nor a legal scholar (he’s actually a CPA from Aliso Viejo who declared personal bankruptcy in 1992), the only reason he was on prime time Fox TV was to bash Mexico. The man was given long minutes of airtime to speculate 5 times that if Laurean had indeed crossed into Mexico, it would not extradite him because he would face the death penalty in the US, which is unconstitutional in Mexico. Behind-the-scenes, hate professionals succesfully twisted the story of a fugitive US Marine into a fantasy about the unscrupulous complicity to murder of the Mexican legal system and the need to build a border wall (irrelevant for this story), with a leitmotif of Latinos as mommy-killers. All of this on the regular newscast, without shock jock Bill O’Reilly’s commentary. Evidently, hatred has gone mainstream.

Unholy alliances

In politics, haters are not always on the same side of the political isle. Curiously, haters are better represented on the Right side of the American political spectrum, but in Mexico, more vitriol spews from the Left. The way to know a professional political hater is by their pointing out the target audience’s legitimate problem (say, joblessness) and the people who should be blamed for it (illegal immigrants for the American Right, Multinational Corporations for the Mexican Left). Hatred, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows: both the anti-immigrant Right in the US and Mexico’s anti-American Left despise NAFTA in equal measure, for example.

In Mexico, hate professionals live mainly off politics, although more than a few earn their keep in public universities (which is scandalous) and in the left-wing press. Hate-inspired Mexican politicians have toned down their anti-American rhetoric since the 1970s because they realize they must now appeal to many people who either live cross-border lives, or who depend on remittances sent from “the other side”. To his credit, 2006 presidential candidate López Obrador realized this and uncharacteristically kept mum on the topic. Of course, they still “hate” everything the US stands for, but they couch their rhetoric in vague terms about evil multinationals and exploitative trade agreements. In private, anti-Americanism remains. Fortunately for them, Mexican hate professionals can tap into a cornucopia of local class and racial hatred.

Hatred is a corrosive habit

A boon to professionals in the hate industry has been the advent of narrowcasting: you can now life with wall-to-wall hatred. And, in keeping with America’s awesome ability to turn everything into an industry, hate professionals have hate networks, hate blogs, hate podcasts, hate magazines and hate lecture circuits to keep the righteous indignation flowing 24/7. The emotion is addictive and the fix is everywhere.

Certainly the most destructive element of the hate profession is the way it divides human beings into “us versus them”, leading to hate crimes (locally) and wars (internationally). The saddest part, however, is seeing how it encarcerates the hating professional, typecasting him or her in their role for life. As they realize that they are making a living by inspiring the worst in others, they make a habit of bringing it out in themselves. Soon, well-meaning aspiring politicos and journalists who dabbled in vitriol lose the freedom to talk about different topics, or to go into any sort of measured, thoughtful analysis. They now fear the fickle remotes of their hatemongering audience and they have no hope of appealing to anyone else.

This columnist believes that hatemongers are sowing the seeds of their own, and other’s suffering. For all their money and fringe-group acclamation, I have yet to see a happy hatemonger. In the US and Mexico, it is also a loser’s profession. In the US, the Right risks political irrelevance as it alienates the largest-growing segment of the population. In Mexico, it is foolish to think that Americanized globalization can be rolled back. So, don’t hate the haters, have compassion for them… and ask your local Marriott to change the channel.

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Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of an American Honest Broker

January 16, 2008

The past week has seen President Bush taking a stab at peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Despite a general consensus on behalf of world public opinion that he is too supportive of Israel, his interest in his legacy and the obvious benefits of a settlement for the “War on Terror”, suggest that he is sincere in his efforts. Putting aside predictions regarding the possible success, or failure, of the venture, Mr. Bush seems to be adopting that most noble role in international affairs: the honest broker.

Why should I?

The role of honest broker is essential to effective leadership - and leadership is in the self-interest of the dominant power. When a superpower takes the stage, by definition the status quo is in its best interest. Simply put, it has the most to lose.

In that sense, perhaps the greatest benefit of the rise of China is that this behemoth is now a stakeholder. The US can now invite China to join it as an honest broker on the world stage, but it can only do so if it is seen as being a true proponent of the general welfare. In the few instances when it projects this image, the US can be very effective, like when it convinces the Chinese that a nuclear North Korea is a threat to everyone, not just America and its allies.

Gentrification as foreign policy

Honest brokerage can lead to a win-win development policy, as in the great peace-and-prosperity-making machine that is the European Union. Recognizing this, when President Bush met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Washington last week, he enthusiastically endorsed Turkey’s application for membership in the EU.

Nevertheless, the US government’s role regarding this historically imperative project is not seen as that of an honest broker, in large part because of the way it treats Mexico. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted when she was first confronted with President Bush’s opinions on Turkey and the EU: Europe will invite Turkey as a full Union member when the US invites Mexico as the 51st American state. The implication is that the US has no moral authority to ask the EU to be hospitable to Turkey at the same time as it is walling itself off from its own large, strategically important, poor neighbor. In pushing for its key Middle Eastern ally to be Europe’s development problem, the US is not acting as honest broker, so it is not taken seriously.

Though Merkel was obviously being facetious, there is an argument to be made for “enlightened self interest” on behalf of the US, vis-à-vis Mexico. Just as Eurasia needs an example of a stable Islamic democracy that is rewarded for playing by the rules, so Latin America needs a success story of a free-market democracy that benefits from being an ally and partner to the US. This is not to say that North America is ready for EU-style integration, but by making symbolic financial guarantees and creating a “road map” for Mexico’s development, a Latin American poster child of Mexico’s size could effectively silence the Chavezes of the region.

Noblesse oblige

There are signs that other countries are willing to do their bit. Australia has taken on extensive peace-keeping responsibilities in the South Pacific, for example; the US and Europe avoided a bloodbath in the former Yugoslavia, and South Africa seems to be taking on a positive role in sub-Saharan Africa (despite its leader’s silly fetish for Zimbabwe’s tinpot dictator, Robert Mugabe). Nevertheless, only US leadership can create a global virtuous circle of honest brokerage, just as it was the force behind the United Nations, the IMF and World Bank.

Despite millions of generous people in every country, who make daily sacrifices for the greater good, the world stage is usually a showcase of selfishness. Pettiness is the norm in international relations, which is why the honest broker role is often so effective.

Of course, one does not need to be a global do-gooder to be an effective honest broker. One just has to be congruent and to communicate a sincere desire to see both sides benefit. 30 years ago, despite the fact that both sides had issues with the Americans, President Jimmy Carter’s earnest Georgia smile did the trick for Egypt and Israel where Kissinger’ Realpolitik and “shuttle diplomacy” faltered.

Today, President Bush has allowed many honest brokerage opportunities to pass him by, with global warming being perhaps the most scandalous. But if he and his successor take to this the honest broker role earnestly, the result might be what every beauty pageant contestant aspires to, but so many world politicians foolishly dismiss: world peace.

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Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of the "Browning" of America

January 9, 2008

Despite the stereotypes, prevalent on both sides of the border, that being Mexican automatically means that one is Mestizo, Mexico’s population cannot, and should not, be defined by one race only. As Mexican-American singer Linda Ronstadt once remarked, “like the US, Mexico is a land of immigrants.” A good rule of thumb is to see Mexico as 80% Mestizo, 10% Native American and 10% White. In fact, two of Mexico’s most famous figures, multi-billionaire Carlos Slim and Hollywood star Salma Hayek are of Lebanese descent and our previous President was partly of Anglo-American descent which explains the Irish surname, “Fox”. Even in terms of Mexican migration to the US, which has usually been a Mestizo phenomenon, the recent waves of middle-class migration have taken Mexican Whites to the US, as can be seen on Univisión, with anchor Jorge Ramos.

Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the preponderance of the Mestizo race in Mexican cultural/ethnic identity and as a major factor in the debate taking place in the United States regarding illegal immigration. It would be hard to imagine so much talk-radio vitriol against illegal immigration if all Mexican immigrants looked like Ronstadt, or Ramos. Hence the ambiguous term, the “browning” of America, which for some is a rallying cry and for others is simply an observation of a demographic shift that includes 26 million people in the US (most of them US citizens, by the way).

It has always been thus

Despite the universality of its impressive Constitution, the US was born obsessed with the role of race in the social order. Not only were some of the Founding Fathers slave owners, but the indigenous population was immediately relegated to the physical and cultural margins of the colony. European families arrived to these shores looking to establish a “City on a Hill”; an ideal community far from the religious persecution of Europe, but which did not include equality for non-Europeans.

The contrast with Mexico’s colonization is striking. There, European males arrived with the express Mission of converting the local population to Christianity. It was the Catholic Church, with its explicit acceptance of Amerindians as children of God, which encouraged the intermingling of the races. And the Spaniards mingled with gusto.

Take the land, leave the people

In Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds, Mexican-American author and LA Times editorialist, Gregory Rodriguez argues that this clash of races helped define the United States as a nation. He notes that the first problem of “acculturation” in this part of the world was, in fact, the issue of Anglo assimilation into Mexican Texas: “In 1825, the Congress of Coahuila y Tejas agreed to grant Anglo settlers additional land if they married Mexican women… to facilitate Anglo assimilation into Mexican culture.”

After the US occupied Mexico City, Rodriguez notes that the debate changed to whether the US should annex all, or just the northern half, of Mexico. It was a debate about the future of the American experiment itself, as congressman Wick of Indiana remarked, we “do not want any mixed races in our Union, nor men of any color except white, unless they be slaves.” Senator Lewis Cass was more direct: “We do not want the people of Mexico, either as citizens or subjects. All we want is their [uninhabited] territory.” Despite the fact that, as Senator Calhoun noted, some Mexicans had “Castilian blood in their veins – the old Gothic, quite equal to the Anglo-Saxon in many respects – in some respects superior”, the browning of America by the Mestizo majority was then unacceptable. The experience proved definitive, as Rodriguez says, “US expansion into heavily populated areas thereafter would be achieved either by way of economic penetration or colonial mandate. Americans were eager to exert economic control over other areas of the world, but they were not willing to absorb nonwhites into their body politic.” The American empire was to be different from those that came before it, a difference that plays itself in Iraq today.

Migration in North America: a triumph of people over politics

The Mexican government was unsuccessful in keeping Anglo settlers out of its northern territories. Given the scope of consolidated Mexican migration, it can be said that the US government was largely unsuccessful in keeping out eager Mexican immigrants. For those of us who believe that people, not governments, ought to choose where to live, this is a good thing. For those who dislike the intermingling of the races and nations, this is a threat.

Interestingly, census figures show that Mexican-Americans continue to intermingle, showing some of the highest rates of inter-racial marriage in the US. At the same time, more Americans are moving to Mexico. Perhaps the browning of America should be seen as just one side of the intermingling of North Americans, free to decide for themselves where, and with whom, to live - beyond racism and politics.

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Agustin Barrios Gomez, president of SolutionsAbroad.com, has been commissioned by the newly-relaunched English-language daily The News (www.thenews.com.mx) to produce a weekly opinion column on Mexican current affairs. The column is published every Wednesday in the paper and also here online. Our president is a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs and is an analyst of politics in North America with a degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

What to Make of Mexico in 2008

January 2, 2008

This series began two months ago with a brief overview of Mexico’s situation in 2007. Today we can look forward to a 2008 which promises to be very similar to 2007 and which will present opportunities and challenges similar to what we have seen this year…only more so.

Best of Times, Worst of Times

The international context is mixed. The enthusiasm that had Mexico included in an expanded definition of emerging BRIC nations, (called BRICSAM, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and Mexico) has been tempered by the country’s constantly slow growth. Nevertheless, despite the fact that Mexico is not China, its “country risk” rating has remained at historically low levels, allowing for more and more people to enjoy the trappings of credit. Commodity price inflation is both boon and bane for Mexico, given the fact that the country is a net food importer and that its oil production is falling due to the exhaustion of the Cantarell megafield.

Sub-prime and All That

Perhaps the most significant danger to the Mexican economy in 2008 is the slowdown in the US economy. Fortunately, there are no sub-prime loans in Mexico because lending standards were never relaxed to the point of giving NINJA (“no income no job no assets”) loans. Specifically, Mexico’s housing boom has occurred as a result of conditions that have arisen because of Mexico’s financial stability, not because of a speculatory bubble.

Of course, Mexico is a big country, with a variety of different local situations that color the relatively stable whole. A cursory glance at the different markets shows continuing growth in Cancún/Riviera Maya, Puerto Vallarta/Nayarit, Los Cabos, San Miguel de Allende/Bajío, Guadalajara/Chapala. Stable in most major cities in the North and center (including Mexico City) and problems in places like Puerto Peñasco (“Rocky Point”) and Ensenada/Rosarito which are related to automotive tourism near the bubble markets of California and Arizona.

Second home-buying Americans often financed their purchases with their US mortgages, so there is a red flag in this segment of the market. Nevertheless, the unrelenting push of Baby Boomer retirement, as well as the devaluation of the dollar, which makes peso properties cheaper to Europeans and Canadians, should keep foreign purchases, as a whole, alive.

The property market relates to one of the major reasons that investors have been sanguine regarding the credit crunch and its effects on Mexico: the growth in internal demand and the rise of the Mexican middle class. According to figures quoted by Jorge Castañeda in his most recent editorial in Reforma, over the past 10 years the middle class (defined as having income between US$8,000 dollars and US$16,000 per year) has doubled to more than 10 million households (out of a total of about 25 million). Of all of the economic news that flows from the media, this is perhaps the most important for stability. Further, this expansion of the middle class has also seen Mexico’s Gini coefficient (the most widely-used measure of income disparity) go from 0.50 to 0.47 (worst than the .40 for the US, but much better than Brazil’s .58); a small, but important improvement.

Adapting vs. Reacting

However, Mexico gets into trouble when it comes to long-term trends. Rather than adapt (or even innovate), Mexico reacts - often too late. It stayed with the “import substitution industrialization” (protectionist) model well after the Asian “tigers” had shifted successfully to export-led growth. It has proved incapable of overcoming many of the ghosts of its statist past, including monopolies (both public and private) that are a massive drag on the economy. Thanks to another totem, ejido land distribution, the countryside is still woefully inefficient: about ¼ of the country’s people produce 1/10th of the national product. But perhaps most telling is Mexico’s spending on research and development; the lowest (as a proportion of GDP) of any OECD economy. That shows how Mexicans are resigned to follow, not lead, in the world economy, which is fine, but it does not a developed country make.

Politics vs. Economics

Manuel Gómez Morín, one of the founders of the PAN, once noted that Mexico’s problems were not economic, but rather political. This is not to say, as is so often the scapegoat, that economic problems are the “fault” of the politicians: Mexican politicians are very much a representative cross-section of the society they govern.

Rather, there is a lack of consensus for making the sacrifices necessary for rapid growth, which is reflected in Mexico’s politics. Worst, the system lacks the political will to purge itself of endemic corruption and radically reform its criminal justice system.

At the end of the day, for Mexico the difference between 3.5% growth and sustained 8%+ growth lies not in details, like the privatization of PEMEX, but in the big questions regarding the Rule of Law. We are unlikely to tackle that problem this year, so happy 2008…like 2007.

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What to Make of a Solution to Narco-Violence

December 26, 2007

I am a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of being for individual rights and equality of opportunity. According to this view, matters of personal choice are none of the State’s business. Hence, I share the British newsmagazine, The Economist’s, opinion that the problem of adult drug use should be a health and social issue, not a criminal one.

Nevertheless, I am also a realist. I know that Mexico and the US are not ready to decriminalize the use of recreational drugs, despite the fact that the “War on Drugs” is being lost (see Rolling Stone magazine’s November 27th article, “How America Lost the War on Drugs” for an excellent recap of this mess).

Silver or Lead?

Mexico currently tailors its internal policies to the perceived needs of the American government, as was demonstrated by President Fox’s veto of a liberalization of Mexican drug laws because of US pressure a few years ago. Nevertheless, the devastating choice that organized crime forces on Mexican officials (the many who would otherwise do their job) is proving too much to handle. As they say, “either we give you ‘silver,’ or we fill you with lead.” To someone who makes between $400 and $1,500 dollars a month and who has every reason to believe that he or she will be betrayed by his own co-workers, the issue ends up being about life and death even more than personal integrity.

Drug trafficking is causing serious strains on the ability of Mexico’s institutions to govern effectively. The danger that Mexico will become a narco state is a serious worry for all of those who live on this continent. Mexico is one of the world’s largest economies, it has nuclear technology, and it is a 100+ million-strong nation with an economy that is integrated with its American neighbor. The inability of its government to come to terms with the serious (US-bought) firepower of narcotics traffickers and their massive corrupting influence is a globally important issue. Hence, it’s time to start thinking of a real and lasting solution. It’s time to think outside the box.

How We Can Do It

We must begin by acknowledging that it is a binational problem that requires real international solutions. Everyone pays lip service to this idea, but nobody is really doing anything truly binational, except for a few high-profile extraditions and some cooperation between law enforcement agencies. The Mérida Initiative is a step in the right direction, but given the magnitude of the problem, it does not go nearly far enough. A new, binational justice system, with the ability to enforce a specific set of clearly defined drug laws on both sides of the border needs to be created. And Mexico needs to decouple its domestic criminal justice system from the fight against narcotics trafficking.

Who can do it

There are currently an estimated 26 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. About 14 million have US citizenship. It would take a small effort to create an elite police force with dual nationality which could act in both Mexico and the United States. They would remit their captures to special judges chosen according to their rectitude and ability (not their nationality), with their identities kept secret to all but a binational governing body whose chief would be rotated among Mexicans and Americans. They would be approved by, and report directly to, both Presidents. The new apparatus should be financed proportionally, according to GDP, not according to whose fault the drug problem is, or on whose side the violence takes place. In fact, this financing model, with contributions defined yearly according to GDP at current exchange rates, should be adopted for all binational initiatives, including long overdue border infrastructure projects.

Mexico is too important to sacrifice to this quixotic war as it is currently being fought. By decoupling its legal system from this massive source of violence and corruption, Mexico could begin to rebuild its criminal justice system. Such an effort would certainly make Mexico a better neighbor and it would make North America much safer. Mexican police and its armed forces would no longer be in the line of fire of the narcotraffickers because they would no longer have any authority over them.

Perhaps this sort of solution is too radical for our time. There are certainly many people who, despite the dual nationality of the officers, would worry about national sovereignty. There is also the issue of the significant amount of drug violence that occurs because of local gangs fighting over local markets. Nevertheless, both the US and Mexico are putting too much at risk by allowing this problem to get out of hand. The good news is that we have two exceptional resources that are being neglected as part of a potential solution: our border and our Mexican-American community. Let’s enlist their help and put this issue behind us.

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What to Make of the Angry Left

December 19, 2007

Perhaps the best sign of a country’s political maturity is when its “left” decides to participate fully and responsibly, playing by the rules of democratic government. This attitude is what intellectuals normally refer to when they talk about a “modern” left, as opposed to the “old” left, which insists on seeing everything through the prism of class struggle. Paraphrasing Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, the modern left is socially aware, but they’re not angry about it.

Mexico’s left is angry and it’s not modern. From the teachers’ marches in Guerrero to the profound indignation of López Obrador supporters, our left still doesn’t fully accept that an economically liberal democracy based on strong institutions is either possible, or even desireable. The deepseated belief that they alone represent the interests of the poor makes all dissent an afront to millions who suffer daily in poverty. Even though they don’t say it anymore, these types of leftists have not completely overcome their desire for Marxism’s dictatorship of the proletariat. That, beyond the “radical chic” element of fashion, is the reason why the hammer and the sickle, as well as the mug of Ché Guevara, keep showing up in the endless demonstrations that do so much damage to Mexico’s social fabric. According to them, only a socialist dictatorship, free from the messy dealmaking that is the hallmark of democracy, can truly liberate the desperate masses and achieve true legitimacy. In this mindset, both institutions and laws should in all cases be subservient to what they interpret to be the interests of the working classes. Their disdain for the rule of law is not just based on ignorance, but on their belief that laws protect the interests of the powerful to the detriment of the “weak,” with which they associate.

Malcontents of the World Unite!

When López Obrador lost last year’s elections he appealed to the angry left, which makes up a not-insignificant 13% of the population. This 13% is not the poorest segment of the country (the PRI won a majority of the vote in the poorest, rural, communities). It is the urban lower-middle class, a group that saw its material aspirations fade with the multiple crises and years of lackluster growth after the “Mexican miracle” of economic growth ended in the early 70s. It is the urban lower-middle class which was taught by a public school system that was handed to the academic wing of the angry left and was never reformed.

The lack of serious education reform, not just in terms of quality, but of ideological content, is an oversight that will keep undermining Mexico’s economically liberal democracy. After 25 years of center-right governments public universities still teach dependencia theory (of developing nations on the “periphery” being oppressed by rich countries) at a time when “poor” countries are the main drivers of world economic growth. The ruling PAN would be better served by tackling these fundamental ideological differences rather than spending their time on red herrings that are matters of personal choice, like gay marriage and euthanasia.

It’s a Question of Attitude

Some parts of the country, like Monterrey, have exorcized the left’s ideological ghosts. In discussing this with sociologist Juan Zapata, he noted the difference between poor urban neighborhoods in the Monterrey metropolitan area and those around Mexico City. Zapata cites the significant improvements in what used to be Monterrey’s slums, compared to the pervasive urban blight in places like Chalco (east of Mexico City). At the risk of oversimplifying, in Nuevo León there is a degree of “hope” based on social mobility, while in the slums of the DF and Mexico State there is a feeling of desperation based on social stagnation. Hopelessness makes people angry.

At its most fundamental level, the biggest difference lies in how one perceives the world and the changes that occur around us. The angry left believes that life is a zero-sum game and that all change that is outside their control is to their detriment. It is a “victim” mindset which turns into an insidious habit. It can also serve as a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, as their entire reality morphs into one big conspiracy against them. That is why López Obrador’s speeches have become so alien to those who are not immersed in their X-files world view.

It is time to have a serious discussion about these fundamental issues. Leaders need to revisit the issues we take for granted. Mexicans are a freedom-loving people, but we need to explain again and again why liberal democracy is a superior system to despotic Communism. Why empowering people to unleash their potential is better than imposing artificial equality. Why a socially responsible liberal democracy, based on the rule of law, is morally superior to socialism. Why only a meritocracy can generate the wealth to pull everyone out of poverty. And we need to do it without getting angry.

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What to Make of 3 Approaches to International Relations

December 12, 2007

During his recent visit to Mexico City, Mohammad Khatami was invited to breakfast at the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. The actual conversations were off the record, as is always the case at the Council, but Iran is an interesting point of reference for an analysis of how countries deal with each other.

Specifically, Mexico, the United States and Iran offer three completely different approaches to international relations. Each country “grew up” in a different world neighborhood, subject to differing foreign pressures and interventions. As a result, each has learned contrasting lessons from history, which leads them to act in opposite ways despite the forces of convergence driving 21st century globalization.

Three Destinies Manifest

After a brief spell in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of independence and early wars with the British and their Canadian colonies, the United States grew up in the suburbs. Its privileged position as a consolidated country in a large and sparsely populated North America kept it from being pushed around by anybody. Further, the US had idealistic parents who left it a strong ideological and institutional trust fund. What Americans learned from history was that great national ideas, such as liberal (in a British sense) democracy, have legs. So, the US grew up to be a neighborhood “Mr. Fix It.” International problems were there to be solved and, with trillions of dollars worth of firepower, by golly they were going to solve them. The US has never been about conquest, which is why the “empire” label is off-target. That is why, except for the “elbow room” wars with Mexico (which were more about consolidation than about conquest), the US does not colonize the countries it invades.

Mexico, on the other hand, grew up in the Projects. Unable to “get it together” in its infancy, it was always being told what to do by European powers (Spain and France). Later, the bully next door took over half of its house and then left it to lick its wounds. So, Mexico decided to stop going to the playground. When President Benito Juárez said that “to respect another's rights is to live in peace,” he was expressing a hope as much as an ideal. Mexico learned that it was best to mind its own business and hope that others would do the same.

Iran grew up in the international equivalent of a crack house in Compton. Gang-like world powers harrassed it constantly. Religious fanatics of different persuasions forced it into dysfunctional relationships. As Persian Shiites surrounded by Sunni Arabs, Communists, Turks and an assortment of despots, it is impressive that it was able to avoid even more wars and achieve a modicum of democracy. The street fighter learned that offence is the best defence and that you can’t trust anyone. Worst, it came to absorb some of the intoxicating fumes of Islam’s absolutist undercurrents. As a result, it is itching for a fight with Israel, which is the rich guy with powerful friends who constantly “disses” the brothers. With this attitude, it naturally runs up against the global village Mr. Fix It, who has the biggest stake in the status quo.

Nature vs. Nurture

In terms of economic and social development, Mexico and Iran are very similar. They occupy similarly-sized pieces of land (2 million square kilometers versus 1.65 million for Iran), their populations are 100 million versus 70 million and Mexico’s GDP is a mere 15% higher per capita GDP. Even their flags are alike, using the same green, white and red.

Both countries have nuclear technology, but Mexico gave the world the Tlatelolco Treaty of nuclear non-proliferation in the Americas, while Iran savors the cold sweat of its rivals that its nuclear hide-and-seek elicits.

Part of the difference in outlook has to do with the US itself. Americans have engaged Mexico with a respectful “hands off” approach since the 1910 Revolution. They accepted some basic anti-American decisions, such as the nationalization of the oil industry in the 1930s, in large part because the cost of causing major social unrest on their doorstep was considered too high. Iran, with its remote geographic location and fiery religious anti-American rhetoric, was ostracized and told it was evil.

Jaw Jaw vs. War War

Which is the best approach for dealing with the Iranian street fighter? The US Mr. Fix It approach, or Mexico’s “loner” attitude? At the risk of oversimplifying a complicated issue, perhaps the best approach is a little of both. Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, the idea is to “jaw jaw” backed up by “war war” firepower. What the loner does understand better than Mr. Fix It is the need for the street fighter to feel that he is being respected. Just like in the ‘hood, a misspoken word, or gesture, can lead to a gunfight. In a world where people prefer to make their point than to be happy (to the point of committing suicidal murder), maybe the loner is not so dumb, after all.

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What to Make of Mexican Freedom

December 5, 2007

During his first annual anniversary speech, President Felipe Calderón repeated his pledge to fight organized crime. In order to do this he has gone against the prevailing conventional wisdom of the international law enforcement community by calling on the armed forces to do what would normally be considered the job of the police. In part, this is due to a tacit acknowledgment that there is a low-level civil war (of sorts) that is being waged between organized crime and the Mexican State. Nevertheless, the current violence can also be traced to a profound misunderstanding regarding the concepts of freedom and justice. In the case of “freedom,” the contrast with the way that Americans understand the term is enlightening.

Mexico: Land of the Very Free and Home of the Truly Brave

In comparison to the US, Mexico is a land of the very free and the home of the truly brave. Mexicans conceive of freedom differently from Americans: Mexican “freedom” is based on the absence of authority. In the US, “freedom” is a catch-all phrase that encompasses a series of rights that are backed up by strong institutions. Compared to Mexico, American freedom is very limiting because of the fact that it is protected and limited by the Rule of Law, which does not exist in Mexico. That is not to say that Mexico does not have laws, or that they are always transgressed. Rather, it means that the default position in Mexico is that of a tug-of-war between the individual (or the company) and the legal institution represented by the official, or the bureaucrat, who often have an agenda independent of their employer’s.

The big question in the minds of those who come in contact with Authority in Mexico is: how far is the Agent of the Law willing to go and how much can I get away with? Often, there simply is no enforcement. Sometimes, it is the Law of the local cacique that is enforced according to his or her interests. Either way, in Mexico one must play the Brave: with limited recourse to the law there is little protection, but also less coercion than there is in the ever-vigilant United States.

It’s Not a Free-for-all

Nevertheless, Americans in Mexico have to be very careful not to fall into the free-for-all attitude that sometimes afflicts the unwary visitor. Because the law is often a negotiation, Mexicans know how to negotiate (mostly). One poorly chosen word can make the difference between a successful “negotiation” out of a difficult situation and an insult that can make you the target of “the full weight of the law.” Benito Juárez had a saying, “to your friends apply justice with grace, to your enemy, apply the law.” This twisted concept of the law as an instrument of repression and vengeance survives today. While it is uncommon for a Mexican official to hold a grudge against a minor transgression on behalf of a foreign visitor (they are more often the subjects of ridicule than of vindictiveness) nobody reacts well to uncouth arrogance.

Democracy Arrived Before the Rule of Law

Mexico has changed significantly in the last few decades, but it is very unlikely that things will change for Mexicans in the near future. The institutionalization of democratic practices has meant that Mexicans can now vote and that the media is a virtual free-for-all in terms of freedom of expression. Everyone is “free” to pursue his or her own interests, often to the detriment of the national interest (which also contrasts to the US system of checks on things like monopolies and slander).

The lack of recourse to the Law has not been touched by democratization. Unlike countries that made the transition to democracy by way of fading dictatorships (e.g. Chile, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan), the systems of autocratic control in Mexico were dismantled before an institutionally strong democracy took hold. The old PRI system was basically a very large social plumbing device that channeled certain interest groups and controlled others. Organized crime was often treated as a legitimate interest group but its effects were often kept in check, as was the case of the notorious mafia boss-cum-police chief, Arturo Durazo, in the 1970s.

The expansion of the drug trade coincided with the loosening of the reigns that democracy brought. At the same time, the population explosion of the ‘60s and ‘70s created the boom in feral young men on which crime waves feed, while economic stagnation (with virtually no increase in real per capita GDP since 1981) provided the perfect atmosphere for this to explode.

In order for Mexican democracy to succeed, it will have to redefine “freedom” to include a system of checks and balances that are the basic tenets of the Rule of Law. Because this is the very foundation of a working society, it is even a more pressing concern than the oft-cited issue of social inequality.

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What to Make of Texas and Mexico

November 28, 2007

Your correspondent recently attended a meeting of the Border Trade Alliance in Austin, Texas. A visit to the capital of the border state shows the special relationship Texas has with Mexico.

So, from a Mexican standpoint, what should one make of this state, which is the size of France and is second in terms of size (after Alaska), population, and economy (after California), in the American Union?

Tex-Mex NAFTA

Texas has traditionally had the second most open relationship with Mexico, after New Mexico. Nevertheless, the size of the state, and the fact that it accounts for approximately half the physical border with Mexico, has meant that it has been the most important entity when dealing with Mexican issues. 35% of the state’s population is Latino (compared to about 14% nationally), with the second-largest border urban area (after San Diego/Tijuana) at El Paso/Ciudad Juárez. This last pairing, however, is, according to El Paso’s own leaders, symbiotic, whereas San Diego often recoils from its unruly (and often unseemly) neighbor.

Among many who have studied the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement there is a consensus that NAFTA was very much a Texan initiative. From the first adopted Texan President Bush, through Hidalgo, Texas, native Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Texans in the Executive and the Legislative branches were a driving force behind the design and passage of NAFTA.

Today, about 40% of the $330+ billion dollars worth of bilateral trade goes through Laredo, Texas, which is the most important inland port in the US. The Mexican natural gas pipeline system is linked to the US via Texas and the price of natural gas in that state is the reference for prices all over Mexico. In Houston, wealthy Mexicans who like the bucolic tranquility of the American suburb can be seen in the nicest homes of the Woodlands. Some have moved there completely, others commute on the more than 100 daily flights that link Texan cities with Mexico. Around this country, second-tier cities often establish their first international air link with Houston, as has just happened with Toluca, Querétaro and Puebla. People from another Mexican city, Monterrey, drive up to the Texas Gulf resort of South Padre Island to vacation there on a whim. Of course, it was not always thus.

A Story of Illegal Immigration and Four Republics

Texas was a part of Mexico until 1836, when it became a Republic for nearly ten years. Things were not as clearly defined as many believe, however, and there was often much confusion regarding what belonged to whom and who belonged where. When Anglo immigration flooded the state at the beginning of the 19th Century they became the first “illegal” immigrants in North America, moving to what was then Mexico often without permission of the Mexican government. People, and places, sometimes switched sides. Stephen Austin, the “father of Texas” and the capital’s namesake, had sworn allegiance to Mexico before leading the independence movement. The city of Laredo declared a separate country as the capital of the Republic of the Río Grande.

All of this curious history can be seen at the Texas State History Museum in Austin. In typical American museum style, the presentation has high production values. In fact, one of the best artistic renditions of Mexico City’s cathedral is on display there to simulate the view from Texas founder Stephen Austin’s prison cell when the Mexican government captured him.

Brownsville and McAllen’s Last Stand

Today, the biggest irritant for Mexico is the border fence/wall that is being extended 700 miles along the border. Texan border communities, whose life is symbiotic with their Mexican counterparts, are livid, and they made their positions clear to the Department of Homeland Security officials who were present at the Border Trade Alliance conferences.

Already the US Visit program, which requires the digital fingerprinting and picture-taking of foreign visitors beyond the 20 mile border zone, as well as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require returning US citizens to show a passport at the border, are affecting them adversely. They feel that the fence is an affront to a way of life they have had for hundreds of years and that it will be an environmental disaster. So, the border cities of Brownsville (birthplace of US Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza), and McAllen (whose megamall exists to service middle-class Mexicans from Monterrey), sued the federal government to stop the building of the fence in their communities. Compare that to San Diego’s eagerness to wall off Tijuana.

The Secretary of Homeland Security has the Congress-given authority to overrule local attempts to stop fence-building on national security grounds. Secretary Chertoff did just that when he swept aside concerns regarding the environmental effects of building a wall. Nevertheless, no matter what happens in Washington, it seems that much of Texas will continue to be Tex-Mex.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Environmentalism 2.0

November 21, 2007

The front page of The News on Sunday exclaimed: "U.N. panel calls for urgent, global action on climate change." The headline referred to a report released the previous day in Valencia with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. While Mr. Ban and the Nobel Prizewinning UN committee are certainly pointing to a serious global problem, it is time that environmentalism took on the weightier issues of population size versus social expectations of material wealth and consumption. Call it "Environmentalism 2.0." Without addressing these fundamental issues, conservation (the current rallying cry of the environmental movement) will be woefully insufficient to "save the planet."

Gucci versus Birkenstock

There is something fundamentally irrational about most of the environmental debate. Positions are often determined by a person’s world-view in a way that is quasi-religious (and is often a function of their religious beliefs). Within Christianity itself there is a debate between “stewardship” Christians, who believe God gave the Earth and its creatures to humanity in order for us to be responsible stewards of both. On the other side there is the "God will provide" school which believes in endless, heaven-sent, earthly bounty.

Politically, the extremes are between Big Business Republicans and anti-Capitalist Liberals. The classic caricature is that of President Bush (the "toxic Texan") versus "treehugging hippies": a Devil-take-the-hindmost materialism versus self-righteous material penitents. In the middle are scientists, doing their utmost to interpret a world (literally) of data in order to try to make predictions about that which is mostly unpredictable.

Despite the pitfalls involved in making decisions based on these calculations, the scientists are the ones we, as voters, should be listening to.

Population, Material Expectations, and Technology

True environmentalism is like economics. It deals with the use (and abuse) of the Earth’s natural environment which, like economic goods, is finite. Further, as 6.5 billion people do their utmost to consume like middle-class Americans, the environment’s inability to withstand human exploitation has made it a scarce "resource." Though accurate data is hard to come by, it is generally accepted that the commodities we currently see as resources would not withstand more than a very rough 100 years of middle-class consumption on behalf of everyone on Earth. With the astonishingly rapid rise of the Chinese and Indian consumer, for the first time in history the prospect of a majority of the world getting a shot at the American consumer dream is in sight. That state of affairs would be short lived and the aftermath could get very nasty as countries fight for the remains of the Earth.

Given this scenario, there are three possibilities. First, the aforementioned apocalypse of selfish nations barreling towards war and scarcity without agreeing on anything. In the second scenario, countries reach a hodgepodge of watered-down agreements that stave off some effects of global warming, tolerating some disastrous loss and waiting for technology to provide lasting answers. The third possibility is that the Earth subscribes to a scientifically and ethically enlightened form of environmentalism, where responsible decisions are made regarding population stabilization that is in-line with realistic material expectations. In this scenario, technological advance provides the yardstick with respect to what is ultimately sustainable and how many people can inhabit Earth at a given level of material prosperity. Unfortunately, our world political system is based on petty mistrust laced with religious absolutism, so it is a fair bet that the answer will be more between options one and two, rather than between two and three.

Surf’s Up!

Humans inhabit the superficial part of the one percent of the Earth’s mass that constitutes its shell, or "crust" (less than 100km of rock). We breathe and move about in the bottom five percent of the Earth’s atmosphere (less than 100km of air). Damaging the actual planetary spheroid would be very hard for us to do in the absence of a big asteroid. What it seems we are doing is complicating things for that sliver of the habitat that harbors life. True environmentalism would analyze this human failure and keep the welfare of all life on the planet in mind. This involves tradeoffs we are currently unwilling to make.

In 1739, Benjamin Franklin argued for "public rights." At the time, he was only referring to downtown Philadelphia. Today, all but the most enlightened Scandinavians are willing to make the necessary sacrifices for global public rights to prevail. Mostly, developing countries believe that it is their right to consume beyond reason because Euroamericans have been doing it for so long. At the same time, there are Westerners who welcome the looming possibility of environmental Armageddon because they believe it will bring their savior back to them quicker.

Politicians have been too busy pandering to their vocal fringe groups to provide effective leadership. Meanwhile, environmentalism has spent its energy on pushing for conservation, which is minimally relevant given today’s population and its lifestyle expectations. The bottom line is that we are reaching the limits of our planet’s ability to support our consumption before we have been able to develop the minimum level of global trust and ethical responsibility necessary to make the difficult decisions that face all of us today. Godspeed, Mr. Ban.

For the latest thought-provoking article by Agustin Barrios Gomez please go to our Opinion Column page

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What to Make of Mexico City

November 14, 2007

To understand Mexico you have to understand the city that gave the country its name. The former Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire, is in a basin (incorrectly referred to as a valley) whose human habitation goes back at least 1,400 years. Its founding on the site where the Aztecs found an eagle in combat with a snake is represented in the middle of Mexico's green, white and red flag. This foundation myth is also represented in many state and local logos of the United States, including the top left-hand corner of the Seal of the City of Los Angeles.

Size Matters

Mexico City is full of "firsts" and "mosts," including the first mint in the Americas, the first university in Latin America, the largest stadium (in seats) in the world, one of the most extensive subway systems, the largest university in the world (UNAM), etc. It was the first city in the world to host the World Cup twice and is said to have the most museums in the world (160+). In the mid-80s it even became the most populated metropolitan area on the planet, a title it now disputes with a few other cities in Asia. With its myriad towns and suburbs spanning three distinct historic periods (pre-Columbian, colonial, modern), Mexico City is a world onto itself.

Mexico City is is the 8th largest metropolitan economy in the world, according to PriceWaterhouse. It had the misfortune of becoming “The Biggest City in the World” at a time when the concept was originally conceived in the 1970s/80s. When humanity took notice of the urban behemoths that were being created by the 20th century population explosion, these megacities were mushrooming mostly in the Third World. Hence, the tone in which one made reference to places like Mexico City was one of dismay, highlighting the problems of such a concentration of people. Further, this coincided with increasing concern for environmental issues. In terms of international image, the convergence was a fiasco for Mexico City, a place which had been called the "city of palaces" with "the clearest, bluest sky in the world" up until the late 50s, but which became the poster child of urban blight in the 1970s. It was noted as having the most polluted air in the world (now much cleaner).

City of Man

The reality is, of course, much more complex. Mexico City has palaces, suburbs, slums, buildings with every known architectural style, clear, spectacular days, and days immersed in haze. It has boulevards lined with skyscrapers and the quaint co