Mining the Globe For Some Mexican Items

I hope you enjoy!

"Mexico may open energy resources" New York Times, August 13, 2013

MEXICO CITY — President Enrique Peña Nieto, pushing one of the most sweeping economic overhauls in Mexico in the past two decades, proposed Monday to open his country’s historically closed energy industry to foreign investment.

The president’s plan, which would rewrite two amendments to the Constitution, challenges a bedrock assumption of Mexico’s national identity — its total sovereignty over its energy resources — by inviting private companies to explore and pump for oil and natural gas.

Why not? The world is being turned over to corporations. Let 'em have it all before the whole thing goes down the cosmic toilet.

Peña Nieto’s goal, like those of presidents before him, is to recharge Mexico’s economy — the nation’s economic growth has averaged less than 2 percent a year since 2000, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — by tackling areas that analysts agree hinder the nation’s expansion. Perhaps the worst of those is the creaky energy sector. Already, Mexico must import almost half its gasoline — mostly from the United States.

Who benefit$ there?

Mexican companies pay 25 percent more for electricity than their competitors in other countries, the government says.

What is the Mexican equivalent of Enron, 'eh?

Although Mexico has some of the world’s largest reserves of shale gas, it imports one-third of its natural gas. 

That means more fracking, meaning the jokes about mexican water are about to get worse. Anyone for flaming water for flaming hot food?

In advancing the plan, Peña Nieto is making a gamble that the support he has built with opposition parties to make deep-seated changes in education and telecommunications policy will carry over into the debate over energy and a related tax reform.

See: Mexican Education

The proposal would allow private companies to negotiate profit-sharing contracts with the government to drill for oil and gas.

$ounds good, but as we have $een it is u$ually the "government" -- in thiese cases meaning the actual taxpayer -- that gets $crewed on these kinds of deals. Hasn't been much talk about chump change royalties oil and gas pay to frack on federal lands these days. It's all fart mi$t, if you know what I mean.

Under such a scheme, the reserves will continue to belong to the Mexican state, but investors will get a share of the profits.

That is the correct word, all right! Inve$tors get the profits, not the people.

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Let's get those energy re$ources out and on market:

"+14 dead, at least 100 hurt in Mexico oil co. blast" by Michael Weissenstein and Olga R. Rodriguez  |  Associated Press, February 01, 2013

MEXICO CITY — An explosion at the main headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company in the capital killed 14 people and injured 100 on Thursday as it heavily damaged three floors of a building, sending hundreds into the streets and a large plume of smoke over the skyline.

Maybe they do need to privati$e.

Another 30 people remained trapped in the debris late Thursday, according to the Interior Ministry, as teams of military with rescue dogs showed up to extract the victims.

The blast occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the iconic, 51-story tower of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, one of the tallest buildings in Mexico City.

‘‘It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris,’’ employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had suffered a leg injury. ‘‘Co-workers helped us get out of the building.’’

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"Official says Mexico blast an accident" by Mark Stevenson and Michael Weissenstein |  Associated Press, February 02, 2013

Would they admit anything else? How could they?

MEXICO CITY — An explosion that collapsed the lower floors of a building in the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, crushing at least 33 people to death beneath tons of rubble and injuring 121, is being looked at as an accident although all lines of investigation remain open, the head of Petroleos Mexicanos said Friday.

As hundreds of emergency workers dug through the rubble, the company’s worst disaster in a decade was fueling debate about the state of Pemex, a vital source of government revenue that is suffering from decades of underinvestment and has been hit by a recent series of accidents that has tarnished its otherwise improving safety record.

Until now, virtually all had hit its petroleum infrastructure, not office buildings.

‘‘It seems like, from what experts can observe, is that it was an accident,’’ Emilio Lozoya, Pemex director-general, told the Televisa network. ‘‘However, no line of investigation will be discounted.’’

President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico has pledged to open the oil behemoth to more private and foreign investment.

And this kind of makes the ca$e, huh? Hmmmm.

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Do I know what happened? No, I don't. And my newspaper may or may not be telling me the truth, and thus I can not trust it.

"Natural gas suspected in Mexico oil company blast" by Michael Weissenstein |  Associated Press,  February 06, 2013

MEXICO CITY — A water-heating system may have leaked natural gas into a tunnel beneath the headquarters of Mexico’s national oil company for more than seven months before it was accidentally detonated by a maintenance crew’s lighting system, officials said Tuesday, adding fresh detail to the narrative of the petroleum giant’s worst disaster in a decade.

Oh, a "fresh narrative," huh? Has the fresh smell of a cover-up, but who really knows? I don't have time to research or find out, and that stinks.

Mexico’s attorney general said Monday night that a buildup of an unspecified gas was responsible for the explosion that collapsed three floors of the administrative building in Petroleos Mexicanos’ Mexico City headquarters complex, killing 37 people. He indicated the gas could have been either natural gas, which is used to fuel water boilers, or methane. 

Leaking for that long couldn't have helped the global-cooling, excuse me, climate change problem? When you think about it, we had more carbon pollution and other warming gas leaks and yet the globe has had no warming for the last 15 years and seems to be in a cooling trend. Little contradiction there with the government-$upported $cienti$ts, but that's fine. Just another Globe SBD.

Assistant Attorney General Alfredo Castillo told reporters Tuesday morning that the likeliest source of the gas was a tunnel that ran beneath the devastated building and carried hot water from a natural-gas heating plant to the 54-story central tower of the complex.

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Something else that stinks in Mexico (as it does everywhere else):

"Old party returns to rule a changed Mexico" by Mark Stevenson  |  Associated Press, December 01, 2012

MEXICO CITY — The political party that ruled Mexico for seven straight decades is back, assuring Mexicans there’s no chance of a return to what some called ‘‘the perfect dictatorship’’ that was marked  by a mixture of populist handouts, rigged votes, and occasional bloodshed....

I hate to say it, but wouldn't that be the guy who rousted the private central bankers and set up a bunch of work camps for certain parasitical elements? I mean, it's not the way I would do things. I think endless light on the $OBs with a constant caterwauling of a$$hole, a$$hole, a$$hole, should smoke 'em out for punishment and imprisonment. 

But I digress.... 

President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto promises an agenda of free enterprise, efficiency, and accountability.

That's mu$t be the "imperfect" kind, like the one we all have now.

He’s pushing for changes that could bring major private investment in Mexico’s crucial but creaking state-owned oil industry, changes blocked for decades by nationalist suspicion of foreign meddling in the oil business.

Well, that is why they nationalized in the first place and booted the U.S. oil interests out nearly a century ago.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, leaders acknowledge the party is returning to power in a Mexico radically different from what it was in the party’s heyday. The nation has an open, market-oriented economy, a freer, more aggressive press, an opposition that can communicate at the speed of the Internet, and a population that knows the PRI can be kicked out of power.

Yet critics already see hints of a yearning for the old days of an imperial presidency in some of the measures the PRI is pushing through Congress.

Take it from the gringos up north, bad idea.

A bill proposed by Pena Nieto would gather the police and security apparatus under the control of the Interior Department, an office long used by the PRI to co-opt or pressure opponents, rig elections, and strong-arm the media.

PRI leaders say the measure would unify a fractured security apparatus and produce a more coordinated strategy in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels.

Political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio says a return to the old ways is unlikely, noting there are now independent electoral authorities, judges, and rights groups to help keep authorities in line....

Why not?

But Alejandro Sanchez, the assistant leader of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, warns of an attempt ‘‘to return to the authoritarian regime of the 1970s, when torture, contempt for opponents, and impunity were the norm.’’

The PRI no longer holds a majority in Congress, so it will probably have to negotiate more.

Probably? And torture is a form of negotiation when you think about it. You agree to confess to (enter official statement here), and you won't get (insert favorite state torture tactic here).

This month, PRI members in Congress, who include several autocratic labor leaders, successfully maneuvered to block a measure to require secret ballots in union elections and approval by union members of proposed contracts.

The PRI also supported a bill that to give federal and state auditors more authority to block spending by governors, who currently face little fiscal oversight. That may help curb the power governors have acquired since the PRI lost power, but some critics see the measure as a bid to return to the days when presidents controlled the states from Mexico City. 

Mexico is going BACKWARDS, huh?

Another PRI proposal would restore the president’s ability to hire and fire hundreds of mid-level government officials at will, removing the posts from civil service protections. Senator Javier Corral of the National Action Party, which has held the presidency for 12 years, said the PRI ‘‘wants to bring back the old custom that has done so much damage in Mexico, of treating power as booty, and giving out these jobs according to the party’s criteria.’’

The people have $poken in an election, right?

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Related:

"PROTEST ROILS MEXICO CITY -- Demonstrators in Mexico City slashed Sunday with shield-carrying police at a rally against the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto before the opening of a new legislative session (Boston Globe September 2 2013)."

Why would they want to do that with the $hiny new government they ju$t got?

Also see: Ex-candidate quits Mexico’s main leftist party

Having an election stolen from him probably had something to do with it.