2019 BORING? NO WAY!
We start 2019 with a strong disposition to grow and hopefully, write only about all the good news that we can see in San Luis Potosi, Mexico and, generally, the world… but, unfortunately, all our good will was swept away as if it were champagne (or cider, more probably), almost right after New Year’s…
In San Luis Potosi we just happened to stumble right into the yearly scuffle to raise the public transportation, which has to be analyzed and determined by the State Transportation Council and which also has several conditions, including inflation, fuel cost, changes in prices of several supplies, (parts, tires, lubricants, etc.)… but, it turns out, that the law also stipulates that to get the raise, the bus owners (public transportation in San Luis Potosi is operated by several “licensees”, which are granted a permit by the state) had to fulfill several conditions to improve the service they give, the most important of which are, setting up surveillance cameras in the buses, which had to be linked to police headquarters… obviously, no bus complied. That being the case, in an early Saturday meeting, the Council broke the law, and gave bus owners a raise, from 8.50, to 9.50 pesos per single ride (at the current exchange rate, it went from 47 to 50 US dollar cents).
That raise might seem minimal, but if you remember that many families survive on a monthly income of under 350 US dollars and they pay several bus rides a day, it is a huge chunk that is bitten off a workers salary. And really, we have to point this out: service is awful!
And remember: if buses go up, sooner or later taxis and UBERS will also hike their prices…
Now, lets turn around to the Mexico scene… and it also gets really interesting!! After the presidential election in which leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) was elected and who took the oath of office, on December 1st, markets sort of had a roller coaster ride: down, then up, then down, then again up, to fall again, al lot which had to do with several actions he took as president: first, he cancelled work on the new Mexico International Airport (NAIM), closing it down, in spite of what was already done and invested, offering to buy the bonds sold by the previous administration, of a 1.6 billion dollar project… markets reeled! And then, starting this year, president Lopez announced a frontal battle against the illegal fuel business, known as “Huachicol”, of which estimates are that they drain the Mexican oil company, PEMEX, of approximately 3 billion dollars per year… yes, pretty much everyone has agreed on the need to curtail huachicol, but the logistics were so badly thought of, that it has caused a severe shortage of gasoline (or petrol) in service stations of between 9 to 11 states, strangely enough, those that are governed by parties other than the president’s, except for Mexico City. Here in San Luis we haven’t had real problems, except for some panic driven purchases in a few service stations and people from other states (namely Guanajuato), crossing into Potosino municipalities like Villa de Reyes, to buy fuel in plastic containers, of anywhere between one gallon, to 100 gallons. State, Federal and Municipal authorities have forbidden this, on safety concerns, and while it has gone down, it hasn’t really stopped.
And if ALL that wasn’t enough, we have President Trump and his government shutdown…
It really is mind boggling for many, what is happening in the good ‘ol US of A: we have a president who, on campaign, vowed to build a border wall between the US and Mexico, emphasizing that it would be paid by this southern neighbor… Mexico of course, has pretty much laughed at the very idea, and since the country just doesn’t seem to cooperate, payment has now shifted, to being paid by US TAXPAYERS! through budget funding… so Democrats have told Trump “No way”, which really irked him and now, there’s been the longest shutdown in American history! Down here, it is laughable, but in the States, it is closely getting to be a severe finantial problem, and we can bear in mind that if the USA gets a cold, pretty much the rest of the world will get pneumonia.
So, did 2019 start out boring? You tell me!
