Foreign Policy: How Slim Got Huge – (Carlos Slim that is)

Come back, Bill Gates! After some initial misgivings, the world had largely grown comfortable with the Microsoft founder as the closest thing capitalism has to a mascot—the No.1 spot on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest people. We liked that Gates was a self-made Harvard dropout; that he helped make computers easier to use; that, due largely to him, it was suddenly cool to be a geek. Anger over Microsoft’s near monopoly status had subsided in recent years due in part to Gates’s stunning philanthropy and the emergence of Apple as a hip corporate alternative. Having Gates atop the Forbes list told us a lot about the world we lived in—that we were all part of a “new economy,” an ideas-driven society where technology, innovation, and intellectual capital were the keys to getting filthy rich.

What, then, to make of the man who in the summer of 2007 appears to have replaced Gates as the world’s richest person? His name is Carlos Slim Helú. Today, his fortune stands at more than $59 billion—and grew, on average, more than $1 billion a month last year. What kind of world are we living in now? Slim has been widely accused of monopolistic practices; he catapulted himself to the top spot on the back of his company Teléfonos de México, or Telmex, which has a 92 percent stranglehold on his country’s local fixed-line market. Slim’s business empire, the scope of which is largely unprecedented in modern economic history, ranges from cigarettes to airlines, from electric cables to floor tiles. In all, Slim’s net worth is equivalent to a stunning 6.6 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP), easily eclipsing Gates (0.4 percent of U.S. GDP) and even John D. Rockefeller at his peak (slightly less than 2 percent in 1937). Although it may be unsurprising to see such gross wealth disparity in Latin America, what do we make of the growing list of billionaires in countries such as China, India, and Russia that supposedly represent the global economy’s future? Are we entering a new era of robber barons? Does the shift of investment and production to emerging markets herald a rise in “crony capitalism” worldwide? Or does the rapidly accumulating wealth of Slim and his ilk merely signify an undesirable byproduct of a very desirable process—the spread of free-market capitalism around the globe?”*

• Ricardo Salinas Breaks Ground for What Will Be the Most Modern Television Studio in Latin America – Mexico City
• Brazil replaces Mexico as China’s top market in Latin America and boosts its surplus as well.
• The mayor of a wealthy suburb (San Pedro Garza Garcia) of Monterrey said Monday that he has sent his family to the United States for their own safety as he pursues his campaign against extortion and kidnapping gangs.
• Expert: Juárez violence a ‘terrorist war’
• Mexican Mennonites Impacted by Drug Violence
• Mexican farmers reeling from worst drought in decades
• Mexico City’s famed dance-for-peso halls fading
• Americans Running South: Why We are Flocking to Mexico for Work
• On the mayor’s agenda: ‘Civilize’ Mexico City – Marcelo Ebrard
• Juárez violence: Drug-war brutality persists despite presence of military
• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• LatAm Immigrants Are Changing Spain, Sociologist Says
• Mexico’s top domestic security official said Friday that sectors of the general public have cooperated with drug cartels in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, and the government is about to launch new social programs there to combat gangs.
• Susana Iglesias, writing from the streets – Mexico City native is winner of the first-ever Aura Estrada Prize, an international competition for young women writing literature in Spanish.
• Mexican authorities predict fewer Mexican immigrants will be back home for Christmas
• Mapping Out Mexico – Navigating your way through Mexico can be tricky business sometimes – MexicoMaps.com
• The current global crisis will cause the number of poor people in Latin America to rise by 9 million to 189 million this year, the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean said in a report presented on Thursday.
• Mexican migrants are spending more money on taxes in the United States than on the remittances they send home to relatives, according to a new study by Mexico’s largest bank, BBVA Bancomer.
• Ana Maria Perez Gonzalez, said to be the oldest woman in the world, died in Mexico this week. She was 119.
• Welcome Ceremony for José Hernández Moreno, NASA Astronaut in México