Yearly Archives: 2012

The ongoing discussion on Mexico’s labor law offers us an exceptional window onto the world of unreality in which the whole of Mexico’s political class lives. Although there are doubtlessly many interests and values involved, not an iota of the debate has been concentrated on the only three things that are important in economic matters: […]

After the storm comes the calm. The country has for years experienced an escalation of violence that is intolerable for the population. The outgoing government responded with responsibility and with conviction but not with a strategy apt to steer the country into a good port. The population supported the government because it felt threatened, vexed, […]

The darkest character in Catch-22, Joseph Heller’s novel, is Milo Minderbinder, a low-echelon official who constructs an immense empire selling supposed military surplus and accumulating all kinds of titles of noble birth, such as Caliph of Bagdad. Everything appears to thrive until Milo gets into worthless business dealings buying cotton in Egypt without being able […]

MacarioSchettinosays that Mexicans are poor because they are unproductive. No Mexican in his right mind would dispute this statement. The relevant question is why not convert productivity into the guiding principle of the incoming government’s strategy? Now that the reforms proposed by the outgoing government are being discussed and there is speculation on what the […]

The myth that some reforms would give us direct access to Nirvana returns. Three decades of diverse reforms are witness to the indispensability of reforms, but they’re not everything: without clarity of course and effective leadership, they will always come up short. The true challenge consists of knowing what to reform and why and to […]

Two visions –a specter perchance?- float through public discussion in anticipation of the beginning of the new administration. One emphasizes and evokes conflict, the differences and the supposed riding roughshod over the democratic process. The other privileges the opportunity to break with the politico-legislative paralysis that has characterized the country in recent decades and to […]

President (and now presidential candidate) Obama frets about the poor, dislikes big business and believes that the government can solve all problems. And to top this off, he rejects the importance of entrepreneurial creativity, demonizes the creation of wealth and considers social confrontation a useful instrument for advancing his political, social and economic agenda. Every […]

The great deficit of recent decades has been that of leadership. There has not been clarity of course nor ambition for transformation: there has been administration, but not the consolidation of a platform likely to lead Mexico toward a better future. This absence has not only impeded us from seizing opportunities or changing circumstances into […]

In The Stranger, Camus tells the story of a man alienated from the world who kills an Arab in Algiers simply because the sun was bothering his eyes. Meursault,the leading character, is condemned to the guillotine and in his cell begins to meditate on the absurdity of existence. Something like that happens to me with […]

The PRI victory engages many possible explanations but, beyond the specific situation –the performance of the last two administrations and the extraordinarily well organized Peña campaign- there is an angle that merits more profound analysis: that of the political culture that this party built throughout the past century and that, judging by the result, could […]