No Competition

"No Taxis de Monterrey" is the latest insight into Mexican culture that I see stuck on most of the local taxis in large letters on the back window.

The issue is simple: A new taxi company from Monterrey wants to offer competitive service in Culiacan but the local taxi mafia doesn't want the competition. However, it makes me laugh to think that putting the name of the competition on their taxis is going to help the mafia's cause. There's no such thing as bad publicity. Could they not have taken a different approach? For example: "Best Service", "Safety First", or "Locals first". No, they put the relatively unknown competitor's name on their taxis in very visible lettering.

Abraham Levy - A Real "Action Man"

Abraham Levy deserves respect as a someone who not only gets sponsored to do what he loves, but also because he's bringing a lot of positive attention to the sport of kayaking and Mexico. An adventurous friend of mine who's a fan of Abraham invited me to welcome Abraham to Yameto, which is our local kiteboarding hot spot. I suppose I was expecting to meet someone with the aspect of Tom Hanks in Castaway but Abraham has the cool Mexican humility that makes you feel like you've always known him when you've just met. His vivid stories of encounters with humpback whales, sealions, and "pirates" kept me asking him questions about his motives and fears. He admits quite honestly that he's doing this for himself and clearly understands the inherent risks. He's not on a mission for some greater cause yet the magic of his adventure is that he's getting a whole lot of people interested just because of the simple audacity of his goal to kayak the entire 11,000 km of Mexico's coastline. Currently, he has completed 8,500 km. Learn more about Abraham's adventures and communicate with him at www.abrahamlevy.com

The Amish Shall Inherit The Earth?

One hundred years ago electric cars outnumbered internal combustion cars. Our ancestors chose to buy cheap Fords instead of electric cars and now we can see the results of having total dependency on a cheap but finite and polluting energy source: Rising costs, supply crisis, and global climate change. Lesson learned, but how many other dependencies do we have now that will leave us totally dependent on corporations in 100 years or less? Can you grow your own food? Will Wal-mart always give us the best price?!? Maybe the self-sufficient Amish are wiser than our tech-industrial revolution!

Anarchy and Economics

The problem with democracy is that the majority often gets what they want even when the majority doesn't have any idea of what's good for them. Let's start with subsidies.

Mexico has always had distinct separation between classes and the "revolutionary" efforts of the governing party for most of the last century caused that the separation to become an infinite abyss. Subsidies are the source of the abyss. I'm not against subsidies but they should be used to increase use of products or services that are beneficial and unpopular for a limited amount of time.

Here's how it happened in my point of view:

• The impoverished masses demanded support from the government.
• The government responded with subsidies on water, basic foods such as tortillas, electricity, and gasoline.
  
• The poor masses were complacent for a while and plenty of money that could have been used to promote productivity and education was spent to keep the masses quiet with tortillas and cheap energy. Meanwhile the government nationalized PEMEX and telecommunications.
• This went on for decades until the economy got into such a spin drift of increasing subsidies that productivity became completely dependent on oil exports and sweat shops. The subsidies also favored larger companies who, with greater efficiencies, could still make a profit under price controls. Rural farmers and smaller civic centers couldn't compete causing mass migration to Mexico City and causing increasing poverty in the poorest areas.
• Adding cheap gas, mass urban migration, minimal infrastructural investments, and corruption (subject for another post) results in congested and polluted cities with marginal productivity and high crime. In the "campo" (countryside) thousands of small farms and businesses were abandoned. Mexico is practically 98% dependent on gasoline and derivatives for its energy.
• The largest cities now had dominant economic and political power meaning that rural Mexico became forgotten from government agendas and development focused on the saturated urban areas causing more migration to the cities. The urban black hole could not be stopped.
  

So, do you think the people are going to ask the government to lift the subsidies now? Actually, the government is now left with no choice but to start lifting price controls and subsidies and the result is a massive social uprising and "crisis".

People asked for cheap tortillas; now that's all they can afford. They asked for cheap telecommunications; now they have just one choice: Telmex who's owner, since privatization, is now the world's richest man ever. They wanted cheap gas; now they are dependent on oil in a world running out of it.

What's the future for Mexico... Organized crime? Socialist revolution? Foreign takeover? The only sure thing is that rapid economic recovery seems unlikely. However, looking at the world it seems Mexico is definitely not the worst off and has a wealth of resources and resourceful people who are accustomed to crisis which makes them more prepared for the imminent global economic crash than countries who are accustomed to prosperity and equally dependent on cheap energy.

My hope is that the subsidies will shift from consumables to productive technology and education. Also, that the spending on development will be diverted from the monstrous urban centers to revive the forgotten rural poor. A proportional re-distribution of population and development can alleviate the congestion and revitalize the poorest areas.

World War 3 - The Drug War

120 murders last month in Sinaloa is the highest since anybody can remember. Most of the fallen were police and narcos. 2 hours after the official start of the recent military operation "Culiacan - Navolato" I heard the thunder of automatic weapons kill a man in his car just a block from our home. The drug war is on... at least here.

This is a global war being fought on Mexican territory. Drugs from South America destined to markets in North America and Europe with guns and grenades from Asia. Nobody wants to admit it but World War 3 began a while ago. The US dollar and the drugs are so inseparable that it's estimated 80% of the bills in circulation are tainted with cocaine... literally.

Back in Canada a large cartel was just "taken down"this week in Toronto. Just the tip of the iceberg and about as comforting as watching the Arctic ice shelf melt before our eyes.

Why are people with so much wealth and technology consuming drugs? Are drugs that good? Probably. Is it too late to stop the trend? Probably. Is there something we can do? Yes. We can legalize the entire narcotics culture and the world becomes as predicted by Huxley: Peaceful and high. A tough pill to swallow? Only the first time.