Yearly Archives: 2020

Luis Rubio – Americas Quarterly – June 10, 2020 Mexico Blame Politics for Mexico’s Recession, Not Just the Pandemic The economy was shrinking long before the virus arrived. MEXICO CITY – The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has argued that the coronavirus crisis “fits like a glove.” He never clarified what he meant […]

 Luis Rubio For the President, Mexico should return to its roots and attain happiness through a pathway of negation. That’s the vision he extols in a video* about an old sugar-mill, the trapiche, a primitive gig employed to extract juice from sugar cane as well as to use as an ore crusher in mining, a technology […]

Luis Rubio  The ability to help individuals to frame and achieve their objectives and reach them, that which is called leadership, is perhaps the most transcending factor that makes all the difference in times of crisis. The great leaders are forged during trying times: when, due to circumstances that transcend their control, the population needs […]

Prologue to Luis de la Calle: From the Economic and Equality Deficit to the Democratic Deficit*  Prologue  The world can appear static at times, but looking back, there is an ongoing process of change that transforms civilizations in the long run. Some say these changes occur every twenty years, an arbitrary period that nevertheless reflects […]

 Luis Rubio In memory of Hector Fix-Fierro  Nothing like a crisis to learn who we really are. Crises draw out the best and worst in people and governments and countries. I remember the spirit of solidarity that took hold in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and that elicited brutal political repercussions, becoming a nodal factor […]

Luis Rubio The evidence shows that the project is about power, not well-being or development. In this context, the crisis certainly fits like a glove, as the President recently stated. It means, as confirmed by Rahm Emanuel, then Obama’s political adviser, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And by that I […]

Luis Rubio It has always seemed to me a simplistic notion that everything the president does is reduced to implementing the principles of the São Paulo Forum, a space in which today’s President appears not to have had physical presence nor direct participation. Although there could be similarities between the Forum’s proposals and some policies […]

Luis Rubio  John Lennon once said about the early years of rock and roll, “Before Elvis there was nothing”. The government of President López Obrador bodes the same. For a year and a half, it embraced an enormous latitude, unknown since the seventies, for developing its programs and advancing its priorities. But, as for all […]

Luis Rubio William H. McNeill, author of the famous book Plagues and Peoples, begins his text by telling us that he became interested in this theme on reading how a warring people that was so prepared and as numerous as the Aztecs, came to submit themselves so easily to the comparatively tiny troop of opportunists […]

Luis Rubio  The corona crisis will become a great excuse for the economic disaster Mexicans are experiencing, but it will not change the nature –or the existence itself- of the problem. The cesspool already lies open. To illustrate the phenomenon, let us think for a moment about the famous presidential airliner: the avowed objective was […]