Mexico: Turmoil: Earthquake, violence in Oaxaca, huge antibusiness demos in Mexico City

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As Mexico's political earthquake continues since the Jul2,2k6 election (click blog-entry title), other quakes are also in the country's news. It's been some days now since the headlines announced that an earthquake had shaken parts of Mexico, the great southmost nation of North America and one of three member-countries of the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA). Recovery is proceeding, but slowly ("Earthquake rocks Mexico City, LA Times, Aug11,2k6). The quake swayed h+rises, the tremors registering at 6.0 on the Richter scale. Another quake hit Mexico City today, "only" 5.1 on the scale with no damage reported.

In another development, also some days back, reports blared, "Violence flares in south Mexico" in the state of Oaxaca, where teachers went on strike, ostensibly for wages, but more likely they simply persuaded themselves they were the vanguard of a revolution that would overthrow the legally-elected Governor of Oaxaca.

North America > Mexico

After all, they didn't want to take second place to the huge political demonstrations then shaking the nation's capital to the north.

Indeed, in Mexico City, the Leftistos blocked Mexico's main tax office bringing everything to a standstill in the h+end shopping zone, the society's chief cultural center, which is also the location of numerous h+rise office buildings at the hub of the Mexican economy.

All these factors in confluence contribute to a pattern of instablity, certainly as viewed by an outside consumer of the news. What Mexico needs is a thriving business sector the taxation of which can derive revenues to finance the country's infrastructure, attract further investment, and create jobs on a massive scale for Mexico's unemployed. The Oaxaca teachers and the massed Leftistos in Mexico City seem intent upon exacerbating the griedwaqvous social rift between income-classes, generating a climate that is extremely bad for business.

Of course, none of the violence and mass demos encourages those in North America who are talking / thinking about a campaign to invest in job-generating enterprises in Mexico, partly indeed to take some of the pressure off the people who pour over the border to end up as illegals in the USA and Canada. Rather, instablity makes many who could help from doing so. Moving from the tax office last week, on Aug9,2k6, the Leftistos surrounded "U.S.-based Citigroup's Mexican unit Banamex, the Bancomer bank owned by Spain's BBVA and the British giant HSBC." The demonstrators stopped entry and exit for several hours, and made clear their lack of real concern for Mexico's unemployed (some of whom obviously were misled to be part of the demos, misled by flaring Leftisto rhetoric).

-- Politicarp

-- Politicarp