 |
|
|
 Editorials | Opinions | July 2007 
The Man Who Owns Mexico
 Andy Porras - The Herald
go to original
| | (Bloomberg News) |
Mexico "lindo y querido" — beautiful and beloved, as the old ballad proclaims — is also a land of depressing disparity. Dirt poor and home of the world's richest man, Carlos Slim Helu.
Is there something wrong with this picture? Many Mexicans, rich or poor, think so.
Slim is a cigar-smoking, 67-year-old tycoon worth, as of July 4, $63 billion. He doesn't believe in charitable causes a la Bill Gates. His influence in his country all but offends.
If you're a young Mexican, you were probably born in one of Slim's Star Medica hospitals and use electricity carried by his Condumex-brand cables.
You also drive on roads paved by the Slim's CILSA construction company and your vehicle uses fuels pumped from his Swecomex drilling platforms.
More than likely you communicate through his Telmex phone lines. Plus, you probably smoke Slim's tobacco and shop at Sears Roebuck of Mexico, a subsidiary of his colossal Carso Group.
In a recent interview, he said he searches for undervalued businesses, infuses them with cash, and then uses the size of his holdings to overwhelm the competition. Today he owns controlling stakes in more than 200 businesses.
In a country where nearly 50 percent of the population lives in poverty and thousands risk their lives in search of a survival wage across the border, you might understand why Slim's wealth causes some resentment.
His companies employ more than 200,000 people.
According to Celso Garrido, a Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico economist, the domination of his country's conglomerates chokes off growth of smaller companies, thus resulting in the shortage of good jobs and driving many Mexicans to seek better lives north of the Rio Grande.
Forbes Magazine notes that Slim's fortune has surged in the last two years by at least $23 billion because of his holdings in Mexico's booming stock market, although unemployment and wages have remained more or less the same.
As Slim's fortunes continue to blossom, so has criticism. The Mexican media have mentioned that he has pledged to donate $6 billion to three charitable foundations and plans a new building for an art museum directed at exposing disadvantaged Mexicans to European art.
"A museum for European art?" asks Ernesto Beltran, a naturalized U.S. citizen who crossed into the United States in the trunk of a Cadillac.
Beltran comments that it would be hard to live one day in Mexico without purchasing any of the products produced by a Slim corporation.
"Senor Slim is so wealthy and powerful. In a country with so many poor people, it's almost criminal."
So what are the chances for our southern neighbor becoming a nation of more haves than have-nots?
There are two, slim and none.
Andy Porras is publisher of the Sacramento area bilingual monthly "Califas." |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us