Monthly Archives: June 2019

June 30, 2019

Preferences and Possibilities

Luis Rubio In her autobiography, African-American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston writes that “it is no longer profitable, with few exceptions, to ask people what they think, for you will be told what they wish, instead.” That is how we are at present in Mexico: advancing preferences and desires instead of building opportunities and possibilities. The […]

June 23, 2019

Argentina in the Horizon?

Luis Rubio Argentina began the twentieth century with the highest GDP per capita in Latin America, very similar to that of the United States at that time; a century later, the South American nation is in the 53rd place. As an Argentine friend says, “whoever says things cannot get any worse, does not know Argentina,” […]

June 16, 2019

No compass

Luis Rubio In one of the final episodes of The Simpsons, the soporific and befuddled octogenarian Abe is recruited to cross the picket line and break a strike at a nuclear plant. His tactic: to confuse, if not to lull, the strikers by telling them stories that make no sense at all so as to […]

June 9, 2019

Foreign Policy is Domestic Policy

Luis Rubio The letter sent by President López Obrador to President Trump can have many readings, but one great certainty: it is a document designed from and for domestic political purposes and, in those terms, it has been a great success. In addition to the popular support behind the president, which has been massive from […]

June 2, 2019

Capacity of Governing

 Luis Rubio There is no more pressing problem in Mexico than the stalemate between the capacities of the government (federal, state and municipal) and the requirements imposed upon on it by the government itself than the urgency of procuring development. Thanks to the differences between the government’s real capacities (increasingly fewer) and the demand for […]