Ariana Huffington on the election - the victory of hope over fear

[Plane]

I was thinking about the ownership of the oil industry , and that the biggest employer in the country is the government.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I was thinking about the ownership of the oil industry , and that the biggest employer in the country is the government.

The US oil interests were paid for their oil holdings and property in Mexico many, many years ago. There was nowhere they exploited worse than Mexico, even worse than they exploited the Oklahoma Indians.

Mexico is not a socialist country. The PRI ran Mexico, with the aid and assistance of the US government like a private company. Schoolteachers had to buy jobs from corrupt state governments. There was a compulsory donation by all government employees to the PRI from the 1940's through the 1990's. What Mexico is, is corrupt. The PAN has become almost as corrupt as the PRI ever was, and like the PRI, fixes elections, and collaborates with the PRI to prevent the PRD, which is the least corrupt party, from taking power, although it has almost certainly won the popular vote more than once.

The US is even happier with PAN domination than it was with PRI domination, because PAN is allied with the powerful rightwing industrialists of Monterrey.

[Plane]

I was thinking about the ownership of the oil industry , and that the biggest employer in the country is the government.

The US oil interests were paid for their oil holdings and property in Mexico many, many years ago. There was nowhere they exploited worse than Mexico, even worse than they exploited the Oklahoma Indians.

Mexico is not a socialist country. The PRI ran Mexico, with the aid and assistance of the US government like a private company. Schoolteachers had to buy jobs from corrupt state governments. There was a compulsory donation by all government employees to the PRI from the 1940's through the 1990's. What Mexico is, is corrupt. The PAN has become almost as corrupt as the PRI ever was, and like the PRI, fixes elections, and collaborates with the PRI to prevent the PRD, which is the least corrupt party, from taking power, although it has almost certainly won the popular vote more than once.

The US is even happier with PAN domination than it was with PRI domination, because PAN is allied with the powerful rightwing industrialists of Monterrey.

What part of this is telling me that Mexico is not socialist?

[Plane]

Mexico has a free market economy in the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal. Trade with the US and Canada has tripled since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Mexico has 12 free trade agreements with over 40 countries including, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the European Free Trade Area, and Japan, putting more than 90% of trade under free trade agreements. In 2007, during his first year in office, the Felipe CALDERON administration was able to garner support from the opposition to successfully pass a pension and a fiscal reform. The administration continues to face many economic challenges including the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize labor laws, and allow private investment in the energy sector. CALDERON has stated that his top economic priorities remain reducing poverty and creating jobs.


https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html

Ok , not as Socialist as it used to be , still more than we are , for now.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Mexico is not Socialist because the means of production- the companies that manufacture clothes, food products, beer, sombreros, Chrysler PT's, serapes, onyx chess sets, piñatas and even those who build condos and hotels in Yucatan and Baja do not belong to the state.

It is a simple concept. I fail to understand why you still do not understand it. When the means of production belong to the state, you have socialism. If you include management by a one-party dictatorship of the proletariat, then you have Communism.

It is as easy a concept to master as the "shirts and skins" divisions in seventh=grade gym class.

Raising the income tax 3% on income above $250K is also not Socialism. You need to understand that the schmucks that have defined "socialism" for you on talk radio are devious shills, paid to stuff your head with propaganda.

[Knutey]

Mexico is not Socialist because the means of production- the companies that manufacture clothes, food products, beer, sombreros, Chrysler PT's, serapes, onyx chess sets, piñatas and even those who build condos and hotels in Yucatan and Baja do not belong to the state.

It is a simple concept. I fail to understand why you still do not understand it. When the means of production belong to the state, you have socialism. If you include management by a one-party dictatorship of the proletariat, then you have Communism.

It is as easy a concept to master as the "shirts and skins" divisions in seventh=grade gym class.

Raising the income tax 3% on income above $250K is also not Socialism. You need to understand that the schmucks that have defined "socialism" for you on talk radio are devious shills, paid to stuff your head with propaganda.

It is almost amusing that the RW radio freaks call stealing our labor and money capitalism , but if we try to get a little of it back it is socialism and class warfare. It is sad that the RW morons in here believe it.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Every day, we see advertisement after advertisement, and most of these make zero sense from any logical point of view. Catch the wave, how to spell relief, Beyonce with a gold "upgrade" bling in her mouth, lies about cable and satellite TV plans, lies about cellphone service diet remedies, cars, everything. And you ask "How can any one smart enough to earn enough to buy these things believe this crap?".

But the truth is, as the inventor of modern propaganda, WWI AG Mitchell Palmer  knew, and as Josef Goebbles learned from him, all you have to do is spout lies, innuendos and mistruths again and again and again, and eventually people start to believe them. Next thing you know, there they are, sitting in their Hummer and voting for morons like Juniorbush.

Hitler called this "The Big Lie". Lie big and repeat it forever and most of the time, you will find people will start to believe it. It helps when you focus on people who already have shown that they will believe stuff with no proof, like many religions.

[BT]

yes we can

[Xavier_Onassis]

"Yes we can" is not a sales slogan. It is an attitude.

It meant originally that yes, we can elect a Black man president. Yes we can get rid of incompetent warmongers.

If you believe you can do something, you might be able to do it.

If you believe that you cannot, then you can't.

This is not the same as a Big Lie.

A Big Lie would be believing, like R Kelly, that one can fly.
That particular lie is a self-correcting one. Thise who try to fly without wings tend to plummet.

[BT]

"Yes we can" is not a sales slogan. It is an attitude.

Sure it is

Same as country first.

[Knutey]

yes we can

Are you calling yews we can a Big Lie? It looks more like a big truth now that Big O is elected.

[Plane]

Mexico is not Socialist because the means of production- the companies that manufacture clothes, food products, beer, sombreros, Chrysler PT's, serapes, onyx chess sets, piñatas and even those who build condos and hotels in Yucatan and Baja do not belong to the state.

It is a simple concept. I fail to understand why you still do not understand it. When the means of production belong to the state, you have socialism. If you include management by a one-party dictatorship of the proletariat, then you have Communism.

It is as easy a concept to master as the "shirts and skins" divisions in seventh=grade gym class.

Raising the income tax 3% on income above $250K is also not Socialism. You need to understand that the schmucks that have defined "socialism" for you on talk radio are devious shills, paid to stuff your head with propaganda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEMEX

Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) is Mexico's state-owned petroleum company. It is the 10th largest oil company in the world in terms of revenue and ranks 42nd on the list of Fortune 500 companies.

http://www.pemex.com/index.cfm

PEMEX tiene el compromiso de producir hidrocarburos y sus derivados, transportarlos y comercializarlos, así como proporcionar los servicios relacionados con su actividad en forma segura, eficaz y apegada al marco normativo, con respeto al medio ambiente.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_50/b3912084_mz058.htm

  Mexico's oil giant forks over so much money to the state that it's deeply in debt, and a price drop could set off a crisis

World oil prices are at near-record highs, and Mexico is pumping and exporting more crude than ever before. The country is the world's seventh-largest oil producer and one of the top three suppliers to the U.S., up there with Canada and Saudi Arabia. Yet state oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), a giant with $55.9 billion in revenue, is hardly thriving. Indeed, in recent years the company has only been able to make ends meet through massive borrowing, so that it now owes a staggering $42.5 billion, including $24 billion in off-balance-sheet debt. Why? Because Pemex is the Mexican government's cash cow. The state-run company pays out over 60% of its revenue in royalties and taxes, and those funds pay for a third of the federal government's budget. If oil prices drop or there are no major new discoveries of crude, that could spell big trouble for Pemex -- and Mexico's finances.

 Pemex' mounting debt has international rating agencies worried. They don't believe the company will default on its obligations, which are considered quasi-sovereign debt and are implicitly guaranteed by the Mexican government. But Pemex' debt could begin to hamper its access to international capital markets unless the government finds other sources of tax revenue to meet its budget. "Fitch remains concerned about Pemex' significant debt level and its ability to reduce borrowing absent material fiscal reform," Fitch Ratings said in a Nov. 24 report. Officials from Pemex and from the Finance Ministry were unavailable to comment for this story.

The question for Pemex, and for Mexico, is what will happen if oil prices head south -- as many analysts predict they will next year. After all, Mexico's foreign-debt crisis in the early 1980s was sparked, in part, by a drop in crude prices. And Pemex' total debt load is four times that of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s (XOM ) -- a company many times its size -- and one of the highest for any oil producer worldwide. To compound the problem, production from Mexico's biggest oil field has peaked. The shallow-water Cantarell field in the Gulf of Mexico still provides 62% of Mexico's overall crude output, but by 2006 production will begin falling by as much as 14% a year, Pe- mex says.
 

As I was saying, Mexico is more socialist than we are , less than they used to be , but apparently still socialist enough to cause some problems .

[Xavier_Onassis]

As I was saying, Mexico is more socialist than we are , less than they used to be , but apparently still socialist enough to cause some problems .


You seem to think that all the problems of humanity are casused by "socialism". That is beyond silly. Mexico's major problems are caused by corruption. Corruption at Pemex is the same as corruption at McDonald's de Mexico or Coca Cola de Mexico or any other enterprise.

If Mexico were to give Pemex to ExxonMobil or anyne else tomorrow, the same people would be doing the same corrupt things. Socialism is a system of government that is no more corrupt or less corrupt than any other. Norway is largely socialist and far, far less corrupt than the US. Nigeria is entirely capitalist and probably the most corrupt place on Earth.

[BT]

Are you calling yews we can a Big Lie? It looks more like a big truth now that Big O is elected.

Depends on what the 'can" part of the jingle is.

What was it he was selling, again?

[Plane]

As I was saying, Mexico is more socialist than we are , less than they used to be , but apparently still socialist enough to cause some problems .


You seem to think that all the problems of humanity are casused b"y socialism". That is beyond silly. Mexico's major problems are caused by corruption. Corruption at Pemex is the same as corruption at McDonald's de Mexico or Coca Cola de Mexico or any other enterprise.

If Mexico were to give Pemex to ExxonMobil or anyne else tomorrow, the same people would be doing the same corrupt things. Socialism is a system of government that is no more corrupt or less corrupt than any other. Norway is largely socialist and far, far less corrupt than the US. Nigeria is entirely capitalist and probably the most corrupt place on Earth.

That is beyond silly. Mexico's major problems are caused by corruption.

socialism/corruption
Tomato/tomaato

Pemex certainly should not be "given" at all , but what is its net worth?

If it were sold to some corporation that was willing to accept the risk it might be run more like a business and less like a government agency.

If that ment it employed more people it would be worth doing.

But Mexico is as socialist as it is because it has a lot of voters who like it that way , I don't expect this to change suddenly.

Mexico has parts of its economy that are doing better than Pemex does n't it?