MEXICAN BILLIONAIRES
I responded to the original post in alt.mexico but apparently is wasn't
crossposted here. Anyway, I pointed out that the vast majority of
Mexico's billionaires were all closely connected to the PRI, and
most of those were personal friends of former Mexican president Carlos
Salinas. Salinas "privatized" government-run industries by giving
them to his personal friends in exchange for bribes. This clique of
friends then all became billionaires (yes, in dollar terms) almost
overnight. If you fail to see what is wrong here, it is that
Salinas STOLE property that belonged to the Mexican people and gave
all the wealth that property contained to his personal buddies.
Mexican tax money was used to build these companies, but not one
centavo was returned to the Mexican taxpayers when the companies
were given away by Salinas. I should add that the new billionaires
later repaid Salinas (or at least the PRI) by donating US$750,000,000
to the 1994 Zedillo campaign (an unheard of amount in U.S. elections,
and the U.S. has 20x Mexico's GDP). Salinas currently sits in
self-imposed exile in Europe, living off his vast fortune estimated
to be around $17 billion (money he says he earned by selling
Girl Scout cookies).
|