Rewards

A couple of years ago, Carlos Slim was roasted for his dismissive comments about charitable giving. Evidently, the backlash bothered him, because he has greatly upped his philanthropic profile (though he has a long way to go before he catches Gates and Buffett). One of the fruits of that labor: the President's Medal from George Washington University, which had been previously given to luminaries like Shimon Peres and Vaclav Havel. An interview following the event with Poder focused more on his economic outlook than his seeming philanthropic change of heart: 

We all need a healthier and stronger United States. It's very hard to say when the recession will end, what we can say is that there is not going to be growth, which is why we have to try to generate jobs without growth. There are times when there is growth without employment increases, above all in the short term, but there can also be employment increases without growth, which is why we must create jobs without growth, with the stimulus measures that President Felipe Calderón announced at the beginning of the year. 

The interviewer (somewhat needlessly) needled Slim about his feelings on the increased presence of the state in private business, but Slim didn't bite:

Do you find that ironic [that after decades of encouraging privatizations in Latin America, the US is taking over private companies]?

No, not at all. I think that governments must be economic stewards and when there are circumstances as grave as those through which we are living, it is necessary for them to participate. Besides, it's clear that the government of the United States is intervening to carry out a restructuring that businesses and financial institutions require, but not with the objective of operating them and keeping them. It's the opposite. 

If only Slim would let that altruism and common sense hold over the Mexican the telephone industry.