Advice for America from a Mexican Tycoon

Carlos Slim Fixes the Economy

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú—whose family fortune of about $74 billion makes him the world’s richest human (well ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett on the Forbes list of billionaires—plays against type.

[...]

How do we fix this recession?

“With the same things that were done in 2000 and 2001, when it was temporarily solved with big expenditures and very aggressive monetary and fiscal policy,” he tells me. “Aside from lowering taxes, we should be directing more money to the real economy, not to the financial economy. The volatility of the markets is so great that more is won or lost in a single day than in five years of accumulated interest. And that’s not a good thing.”

I ask if he agrees with President Obama’s so-called Buffett rule, which would mandate that rich people like Warren Buffett—who benefits from a 15 percent tax rate because his money comes from capital gains—pay at least the same rate as their secretaries.

“I don’t know what Warren Buffett pays,” Slim says, “but I think that the fiscal policy should be fair. You don’t need to raise taxes on rich people, because they create capitalization and investment. But you need to tax speculation—meaning capital gains. Why should it be just 15 percent? Salaried people pay 35 percent. Why shouldn’t that be paid on capital gains?”

Anything else?

“The welfare policies that you are following—you and Europe—are unsustainable,” Slim argues. “You cannot have people retiring at 60 years old, and you cannot provide universal health care the way you do. That’s crazy. The focus should be the support of small- and middle-size business. That is where the employment is. And there should be investment in the real economy. Infrastructure is an example. And the best way to do that is with the private sector. It’s more efficient.”

I ask what should be done about the terrible violence surrounding the illegal Mexican drug trade, with grisly murders in the tens of thousands.

“It’s a problem coming from the United States,” Slim says.

Because of the demand?

“Because of everything. You stay with the money and the drugs. We stay with the weapons and the violence. And you’re selling the weapons to the consumers in Mexico. And the retail price [of the drugs] is, I don’t know how much bigger, let’s say 10 times in the U.S. what it is in Mexico. And that means the demand is here and the money is here. It’s like what used to happen during Prohibition in Chicago. You had a lot of violence there.”

What’s the solution?

“Follow the money.”

Would it help to legalize the drugs and, as with Prohibition, eliminate the incentive for crime?

“It doesn’t ‘help,’ ” Slim says. “It finishes.” [...]

Interesting. The article has a photo.
     

Is Mexico going to be our Zimbabwe?

Police state: How Mexico treats illegal aliens

I won't quote from the above article, but it deals with the hypocrisy of Mexico criticizing Arizona, as that state tries to protect itself from violence spilling over into it from it's border with Mexico.

The article speaks the facts. What concerns me is, that as the corruption and violence in Mexico worsens, it will continue to affect us adversely.

I'm reminded of South Africa and Zimbabwe. South Africa had plenty of problems of it's own to struggle with, when across their Northern boarder in Zimbabwe, the corrupt government of Robert Mugabe ran that country into the ground, forcing millions of people to flee across the Southern border into South Africa, looking for food, shelter and work.

South Africa already had high unemployment. Zimbabwe refugees have only made that situation much worse, as we have seen in South Africa's own immigration riots. I often wonder why the South African government doesn't work to topple Mugabe's regime, so that the millions of Zimbabwean's in South Africa could then return home and rebuild their country. Zimbabwe as it is today, is a terrible drag on South Africa.

My point in the comparison is, that we don't only have and interest and a need to protect our own borders; we have an interest and a need to see the deterioration in Mexico halted, and ideally, reversed. They are too close to us, and too integrated with us, for us to remain unaffected by whatever happens there.

We don't need a corrupt basket case festering on our Southern border, dragging us down with it. Mexico needs to change. For the better, not the worse, as it's doing now. IMO, Molly-coddling the current Mexican government is not going to make things better.
     

Video: THE STORY OF A SIGN

Hat tip from Neal Boortz, who said about it:

I really hope you can find the time sometime today to watch this short video. It's from the Cannes Film Festival where it won the "short film" competition. It's beautifully done ... and quite frankly it made me choke up. Just a few minutes. Give it a shot. I promise you'll thank me and you'll end up sharing it with your friends.

It choked me up, too. It's about six minutes long.

Source URL: HISTORIA DE UN LETRERO (THE STORY OF A SIGN)
     

Mexico's National Anthem Lyrics

Some people like to complain that America's "Star Spangled Banner" Anthem is too militaristic. But I say it's pretty tame, compared to Mexico's National Anthem lyrics. Maynard at Tammy Bruce's blog has published them there. I had no idea. Can you say "bloody"?:

The Mexican National Anthem

[...]
Stanza V:
War, war without quarter to any who dare
to tarnish the country's coat of arms!
War, war! Let the national banners be soaked in waves of blood.
War, war! In the mountain, in the valley,
let the cannons thunder in horrid unison
and may the sonorous echoes resound
with cries of Union! Liberty!

Stanza VI:
Oh Fatherland, ere your children, defenseless
bend their neck beneath the yoke,
may your fields be watered with blood,
may they leave their footprints in blood.
And may your temples, palaces and towers
collapse with horrid clamor,
and their ruins continue on, saying:
Of a thousand heroes, this fatherland was. [...]

And there's plenty of war references in the rest. Read the whole thing, for your "multicultural edification", as Maynard would say. Yikes. He makes a fun remark about sanctuary cities in this context.

And if there is not enough blood for you there, you can always check out Tammy's post about Michelle Obama's latest remark:

"I Want To Rip Bill Clinton's Eyes Out"
     

The American People Win This Round...

Is it possible our government might now actually get a clue that the majority of Americans didn't want their amnesty bill?

Senate Immigration Bill 'Dead'

It's worth noting too that the opposition was bi-partisan; Democrat labor unionists in particular opposed the flood of cheap labor the work visa program would provide. Many Republicans felt the president was ignoring, and even abusing, the base of his own party:




I don't think that every part of the bill was bad. And like it or not, some form of amnesty for some illegals might be inevitable, as the majority of Americans don't want to see families split up with forced mass deportations, which would be unworkable anyway. But whatever solution about that is reached, it should not be rushed through without thorough, intelligent debate, and input by the American people. The way this bill was attempted to be pushed through in a grand rush is disgraceful.

Most Americans are for LEGAL immigration. But our whole immigration department is backlogged; it needs to be fixed. Solutions need to be found to deal with current illegals already here; a consequence we have to face because we did not enforce our laws for so long. We CAN deal with it. But NONE of that can be accomplished effectively without securing our borders FIRST. Most Americans understand that this failed immigration bill would have done nothing meaningful to accomplish that:




It's absurd to talk about reforming immigration without FIRST gaining control of our borders. This latest bill made a few token gestures at doing that, gestures that have too often been made in the past, that went nowhere. We have seen our government promise to strengthen the border before, and they never do; we no longer believe them on their word. They have to PROVE it by DOING it!

Once you put a halt to the invasion, you can rationally discuss what to do with the folks already here. Secure the border first, and everything else will fall into place. If the people in Washington aren't listening to that, they need to be made to listen, and act accordingly... or be replaced. They serve at OUR discretion, not the other way around.


Related Links:

Law and order

Small towns helped beat immigration reform

Liberal scientist finds the opposite of what he sought
This last one explains perfectly why we want legal, assimilating immigrants under the rule of law, not an illegal invasion.
     

Selective Outrage and the Rule of Law

In this essay, Victor David Hanson examines the phenomena of people and groups who disrespect, disregard and work to destroy the rule of law, but who are then upset when it doesn't magically reappear to support THEM:

Hypocrisy That Undermines Civilization

There is only a thin veneer that separates civilization from man's innate barbarity. Some 2,500 years ago the historian Thucydides once warned us about the irony of revolutionaries and insurrectionists destroying this fragile patina of culture, as if they themselves might be exempt from ever wanting it back again.

Yet no sooner, he warned, have such outsiders torn down the system of law than they are in need of it themselves when they assume power and the responsibility of governance. Even the worst terrorist apparently wants his wife and kids to be safe--and able to drink clean water when turning on the faucet. The trick apparently is to blow up the neighborhood's electric pylon while still finding enough light and power to assemble an IED device. [...]

He goes on to give examples of this dynamic in action in Iraq; among the Palestinians; and throughout Muslim cultures generally, in the Middle East and abroad.

He also examines the same thing happening in Mexico:

[...] To facilitate such massive illegal immigration, Mexican officials hector their American counterparts about our supposed illiberality in not letting millions more stream in unchecked. They have even gone so far as to publish a government comic book instructing their own citizens how to cross the American border safely--and in flagrant violation of our laws.

But Mexico has nearly the same problem with its own 600-mile southern border with Guatemala as we do with our own 1,800-mile common boundary with Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of Central and Southern Americans try to cross into Mexico, either to work as cheap laborers or to make their way eventually into the United States as competitors to illegal aliens from Mexico.

In response, Mexico's policy toward illegal immigrants on its southern border is as brutal as America's is humane. Violators are often summarily deported--if they are not first robbed by Mexican officials or beaten and killed by criminal gangs. Mexicans may lecture Americans about our purported sins in trying to secure our border, but they don't seem to care what their own government does to Guatemalans. Again, the irony arises that a government that has abandoned the rule of international law suddenly is worried that another country may be doing to it what it does to others.

What lies behind this abject hypocrisy of first undermining civilization and then demanding that it reappear in the hour of need?

Double standards depend on demanding from United States and Europe a sort of impossible perfection. When such utopianism is not--and never can be--met, cheap accusations of racism, colonialism, and imperialism follow. Such posturing is intended to con the West into feeling guilty, and, with such self-loathing, granting political concessions, relaxing immigration, or handing over more foreign aid. Left unsaid is that such critics of the West will always ignore their own hypocrisy, and, when convenient, destroy civilized norms while expecting someone else to restore them when needed.[...]

(bold emphasis mine) I call it the dishonest side of Multiculturalism at work. So what's to be done about it? Victor has some thoughts about that. Read the whole thing, it's not very long.


Related Links: (From Fjordman at the Brussels Journal blog)

The Great Conversation

[...] It is true that if you cannot define your enemy, your criticism is bound to be vague. But this is part of my point: I, and numerous others with at least average intelligence, have spent a considerable amount of time trying to analyze the doctrines of Multiculturalism. We have found this to be quite challenging, precisely because it is vague, incoherent and doesn’t have any clear philosophical foundation. Multiculturalism seems to be a curious mix of older, Enlightenment ideas such as Rousseau’s “noble savage” and later Marxist ideas, among other things. There are those who claim that it was never supposed to be logically consistent and that we shouldn’t look for any cohesive, rational arguments behind it because there are none. What little can be discerned from its ideas is sometimes quite disturbing, with elements of anti-Western hatred, totalitarian impulses and Utopian ideas involving large-scale social engineering.

But isn’t this alarming? Multiculturalism is now official state policy in many countries, together accounting for hundreds of millions of people. Isn’t it disturbing that millions of people are subject to a radical ideology that is almost impossible to comprehend, and thus to criticize? Many of its proponents seem to know that it cannot be rationally defended, which is why they simply shut critics down with charges of racism and shame them into silence whenever they sense some opposition. In fact, it is now more or less illegal in some countries to criticize it, although it could mean the most massive transformation of our countries in modern history. [...]

On Bureaucracy, Liberty and the Rule of Law

[...] When does the rule of law break down? It breaks down when laws are no longer passed with the consent of free people, when citizens no longer feel that the law is just, when regulations become so numerous that it is virtually impossible even for decent individuals not to break the law on a regular basis and when the authorities are incapable of protecting their country’s borders while criminals rule the streets. It breaks down when the law appears increasingly arbitrary, when it invades the most intimate details of the life of law-abiding citizens while it allows great freedom to criminals. In short, it breaks down when it no longer corresponds to reality and to the sense of justice experienced by ordinary people. [...]