Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall
Mexican Billionaires Rake In The Cash While Middle Class Americans Are
Called Racists
>>"Forbes magazine has just published its Annual Billionaires List. The
2008=
Billionaire List has 1062 entries--and includes no less than ten (10)
Mexi=
can billionaires. Indeed, in second place worldwide is Mexico's Carlos
Slim,=
worth $60 billion,
Two years ago, I wrote a VDARE.COM article about the Mexican magnates
on the 2006 billionaires list, which you can read here . It was
followed up by an article about Mexican magnates investing in the
United States.
Why is the presence of Mexican billionaires relevant to the U.S.
National Question, the subject of the VDARE.COM?
It wouldn't be, if Americans weren't constantly lectured by the media
and our leaders to open the border to Mexican immigrants. White middle
class Americans are special targets of such propaganda. They are led
to believe they are horrible racists if they don't want their
neighborhoods overrun with legal and illegal aliens from Mexico.
But why should middle-class Americans bear the brunt of-out-of-control
mass immigration when Mexico has at least 10 billionaires who should
be doing a lot more to create jobs in Mexico?
By world standards, Mexico is far from the poorest country in the
world. It has plenty of resources and economic advantages. They have
just been mismanaged.
But there is plenty of wealth in Mexico. I have resided here since
1991, and have had some contact with the local wealthy in the
metropolitan area in which I live. And many wealthy Mexicans sure like
to flaunt their wealth.
I remember in my very first teaching job--when I was rather na=EFve, I
admit. I was telling my fifth-graders (who already had a good level of
English) that knowing English better could help them get rich.
"We're already rich", retorted one girl. Of course, she was right.
What was I thinking, these kids were richer than me!
On another occasion, I invited the kids to accompany me outside, where
snow flurries were falling, since it hardly ever snows in that region.
But some of them weren't interested--after all, they regularly flew to
ski resorts in the U.S.!
And these kids weren't even from millionaire families, of which there
are plenty. But what Forbes is talking about is billionaires--dollar
billionaires--and the magazine lists 10 of them.
In fact, it's highly unlikely there are only 10 billionaires in
Mexico. A private analyst (whose name I won't divulge) has sent me his
own Mexican billionaire list. According to his analysis, Mexico has 28
billionaires, 18 of whom are not listed by Forbes. The unlisted
billionaires keep a lower profile and hide or don't re****t or all
their assets. That seems highly likely. It's been estimated that 40%
of Mexican businesses and 70% of Mexican professionals and small
business owners cheat on taxes, so that up to 50% of potential tax
revenues go uncollected. [Mexico planning to raise its tax receipts,
By Marla Dickerson, and Carlos Martinez. Los Angeles Times, Jun 21,
2007 (Pay archive)]
Nor does Forbes re****t the wealth of Mexican narco-magnates, whose
millions of satisfied American customers have made them quite wealthy.
It's highly likely, though, given the narco-barons' use of legitimate
businesses as fronts, that some of their wealth gets included as parts
of the fortunes listed in Forbes anyway.
Nevertheless, the Forbes list is significant because it includes the
ten legitimate, high-profile billionaires. Studying these men can tell
us something about wealth in Mexico.
Top Mexican magnate, as I mentioned earlier: Carlos Slim. In 2006 and
2007, Slim was listed by Forbes as the world's third-richest man. But
in August 2007, rival Fortune magazine declared him the world's
richest man. Now, in the latest Forbes list, Slim is in second place
worldwide, right behind #1 Warren Buffett and right ahead of Bill
Gates at #3.
In calculating this kind of wealth, much depends on how much each
man's stock holdings are worth. Forbes did its calculation on February
11th, and on that day Slim, at $60 billion, was a mere 2 billion
dollars behind Warren Buffet's $62 billion, and a scant 2 billion
dollars ahead of Bill Gate's $58 billion.
When you're talking that kind of money, what's a couple of billion
here or there?
Mexican per capita income is less than US $12,000 and about half the
population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
Yet in the past two years, Slim has doubled his worth, from $30
billion to $60 billion.
The man known as "King Midas" or "The Engineer" really made it into
the big leagues back in 1990 when he bought Telmex (Tel=E9fonos de
M=E9xico) during President Carlos Salinas' privatizations (translation :
crony capitalism ). Slim still has Telmex (which controls over 90% of
Mexico's landlines, Telcel (which controls almost 80% of the Mexican
cell phone market) and Am=E9rica M=F3vil, Latin America's biggest wireless
provider.
But Carlos Slim is not limited to telecommunications and related
industries. This guy sells everything. It's doubtful that any resident
of Mexico can escape putting more money in his already-voluminous
pockets. Slim has a bank, an airline, department stores, restaurants
and music outlets. Slim sells insurance, auto parts, and ceramic tile.
The Mexican government pays Slim to construct roads, water treatment
plants, petroleum platforms, et cetera.
My principal email account is with Prodigy, another Carlos Slim
company. (In Mexico, Prodigy holds 92% of the ISP market). So that
means my articles are sent to VDARE.COM on Carlos Slim's email
network!
Thank you, Carlos Slim!
As I've pointed out before, Slim is an open borders booster. He has
attacked the proposed American border fence (which may never get
completed anyway) as "illegal" and "absurd."
Why doesn't Slim want us to control our border? I think because the
World's Second Richest Man fears that, if the emigration safety valve
were shut down, more Mexicans would start to notice his wealth--and
contrast it with their poverty.
Since Slim is so outspoken in telling us how to run our immigration
policy, shouldn't we reciprocate by telling him how to manage his
wealth? I would think that 60 billion dollars ought to be able to
create a lot more jobs for Slim's fellow Mexicans.
Now, I happen to personally know one of Slim's Telmex employees, and
he has some good benefits. That's great, but how about spreading the
wealth around some more?
Slim, with all his wealth and monopolistic enterprises, currently
employs about a quarter of a million Mexicans. Honestly, I think he
could do much better than that.
Maybe Slim could even give some money away!
Let's take a quick look at the other 9 Mexican billionaires listed by
Forbes:
bullet Alberto Bailleres is chairman of metallurgical giant Penoles,
has luxury retailer Palacio de Hierro and GNP insurance company, owns
interests in the fields of finance, agriculture and raises bulls for
bullfighting.
bullet German Larrea Mota-Velasco, at $7.3 billion the third-
wealthiest Mexican, is a lumber and mining magnate. His Grupo Mexico
has been helped greatly by rising copper prices. Larrea also controls
Mexico's biggest railroad.
bullet Ricardo Salinas Pliego, worth 6.3 billion U.S. dollars, runs
the Grupo Elektra retail chain, the TV Azteca network, mobile carrier
Unefon (competing with Slim) and has even opened his own bank which
serves mostly low-income clients. Salinas is also marketing Chinese
cars (but doesn't that undercut the Mexican automobile industry?). TV
Azteca's subsidiary Azteca America broadcasts to Spanish-speakers in
the U.S.
bullet Jeronimo Arango, worth $4.3 billion. His family company, Grupo
Cifra, which included a supermarket chain, partnered with and later
sold out to Wal-mart and became Wal-mart de M=E9xico (Walmex). Arango
also owns real estate.
bullet Isaac Saba , worth $2.1 billion, runs Grupo Casa Saba, which
markets health, pharmaceutical and beauty products. Saba also partners
with Telemundo (similar to Univision) to produce telenovelas (somewhat
similar to soap operas). Saba has textile interests, real estate and
Marriott hotels in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta.
bullet Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, worth $1.7 billion, was CEO of
Banamex when that bank sold out to Citigroup, for which he serves as a
director. Hernandez also owns resorts on the Yucatan Peninsula.
bullet Emilio Azcarraga Jean, worth $1.6 billion, runs media giant
Grupo Televisa, famous for, among other things, its telenovelas--the
company is now making Chinese versions! By the way, Televisa owns 11%
of Univision, and Azcarraga has considered taking out American
citizen****p so he can acquire more. After all, what's American
citizen****p about if not increasing your wealth?
bullet Alfredo Harp Helu, worth $1.6 billion, is Carlos Slim's cousin.
Like Hernandez, Harp made big bucks off the Banamex sell-out to
Citigroup, and also owns the Mexico City Red Devils baseball team.
bullet Lorenzo Zambrano, Mexico's tenth-richest man, is head of
cement giant Cemex, which is, by the way, the biggest cement company
operating in the U.S.A., and one of the world's biggest. Additionally,
Zambrano boasts the world's biggest Ferrari collection.
What can we learn from this? They are all very sharp individuals, to
be sure. However, not a one of them is known for major technical
innovations. Some built their fortunes on inherited wealth, all were
in the right place at the right time and shrewdly took advantage of
their op****tunities. Several of these men are as wealthy as they are
because they sold out to a bigger company.
And of course, their political connections were im****tant. In the old
Mexico, under the one-party PRI state, there was only one party that
counted. But in the new Mexico, no party has a monopoly on political
power. So now you have to curry favor with more than one party, which
is exactly what Carlos Slim has done.
Not one of the ten billionaires exhibits much evidence of Mexican
Indian ancestry, unlike 90% of Mexico's population. This is not
surprising if you know the Mexican caste system.
Seven of the billionaires have European, predominantly Spanish,
ancestry, which is not surprising either. In fact, one of them (Arago)
was actually born in Spain. Azcarraga has a French mother, and his
Azcarraga surname is Basque--the Basques of northern Spain and
southwestern France speak a non Indo-European language. (My wife has
Basque ancestry on both sides of her family).
Three of the billionaires are of Middle Eastern origin. Slim and Harp
are of Lebanese Maronite ancestry; Saba is of Lebanese Jewish descent.
Is it bad that these guys have all this money? Not necessarily.
But the extreme gap between these mega-moguls and Mexico's poor is
impressive.
It explains why all Mexico's rich would prefer that the "Mexodus"--
post-1965 mass emigration to the U.S.--continue. It keeps the pressure
off them.
But that's no reason Americans should continue to put up with it."<<
American citizen Allan Wall ( email him) resides in Mexico, with a
legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan recently
returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National
Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
articles are archived here his "Dispatches from Iraq" are archived
here his website is here.
If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this
permanent URL:
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