Lots of Cash

The stimulus debate has entirely upended my concept of money. As I listen to Daniel Gross' Dumb Money, all of the ear-catching sums are not having their desired effect, because I've spent weeks listen to trillions of dollars being tossed about as though myself and a few friends were arguing about whether to leave $20 or $22 as a tip on a beer tab. Americans' mortgage equity withdrawal was some $200 billion in 2004, the narrator tells us. So? Is that all? You could find that in the couch cushions at Greenspan's house, right?

Thank You for Not Drugging

The Mexican Senate has outlawed the unsolicited medication of children suffering from attention deficit disorder in Mexican schools. A few random points, strung together as they formed a coherent paragraph, though as you'll see they really don't: The law also outlaws pressuring parents to medicate their children, which is a complaint I've heard from parents (though never first-hand) about the highest-end schools here in Torreón. I've never taught in an American school, but it seems like the rate of ADD students in Mexico is higher than what I remember it being in the States. Or perhaps it's just the complaining about them that is more frequent. Then again, I teach at a middle school and live with a psychologist who has many adolescent patients, so my perspective is skewed. The fact that a sufficient number of schools were jacking Ritalin into children without parental consent as to warrant senatorial legislation is extremely alarming.

More on Téllez

El Universal says that the replacement of Luis Téllez with Juan Molinar is not only a consequence of Téllez's cell-phone clumsiness and failure to get along with sub-secretary Purificación Carpinteyro, but also another example of the recent trend of Calderón filling cabinet seats with personal loyalists. Molinar joins Gerardo Ruiz (secretary of the economy), Ernesto Cordero (secretary of social development), and Juan Camilo Mouriño (former secretary of the interior) as cabinet members with close ties to the president.

Also, I don't know what the Spanish word for schadenfreude is (nor do I know the English word for it, for that matter), but Carpenteyro is feeling it after yesterday's announcement.

Slim Love

Some people live charmed lives: two years ago, Carlos Slim (briefly) became the world's richest man. This year he was named Man of the Year by the World's Boxing Council. I'd not been aware of any significant contribution to the sport on Slim's part, nor did the summary of the ceremony avail me of any. I can tell you, however, that Slim joins esteemed company: past winners of this award include Frank Sinatra and Muhammad ("Mohammed" according to El Universal) Ali.

While we're on the topic of the WBC, the organization sanctioned a title fight between Jorge Linares and Josafat Pérez. Linares is an undefeated two-division champ, a devastating puncher who left with Oscar Larios with a brain-bleed in 2007. (Of course, the WBC continues to sanction Larios for title fights, even after that injury.) In Pérez's 13-fight career, he has beaten only three men with a winning record, and is coming off a loss in his last fight (to a man with 17 losses, no less!). I don't know what type of relationship his promoter has with WBC boss José Sulaimán, but Pérez has done nothing to warrant even an elimination bout, much less a title fight. He has nothing in his track record to suggest that this won't be a horrible mismatch and a brutal beatdown. The fight was actually postponed because of a cut Linares suffered in training, but that merely delays the inevitable. Unfortunately, the WBC's competitors are equally shameless.

Today in Extortion

A couple of new lows: a 70-year-old priest in Celaya was threatened with murder if he didn't buy protection from a local group, and 25 federal police officers in Yucatán were arrested for operating an extortion ring.

Reasons for hope: the government seems to be out in front of this a little more than usual (which is to say, they are only a couple of years late to the party). Earlier this week, federal Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna and his state counterparts hammered out the Integrated Strategy of Attention to the Crime of Extortion. The program, which was designed with the participation of business leaders as well, includes new hotlines, databases, provisions for more thorough investigations, and mechanisms for accountability. At the same news conference, García Luna announced a pair of new police professionalization programs, which ideally would prevent such scandals as the second mentioned above.

American, Mexican Opinions on Legalization

Building on the previous post: Consulta Mitofsky shows that 77.7 percent of Mexicans oppose the legalization of marijuana, which is seven percent more than July 2007, when Calderón was elected. In contrast, only 17.7 percent of respondents are in favor of legalization, down from 26 percent two and a half years ago. Mexicans in the North, with high levels of education, and young Mexicans were the most likely to favor legalization. (Click on the executive report in the URL linked above for more detailed stats.) Mitofski doesn't go into any possible motives for those who changed their mind, but such a significant change in such a short period of time would seem to be due to the cartel-driven violence turning people off to anything that seems like capitulation.

In the United States, three recent polls (by CBS News, Rasmussen, and Zogby) showed support for legalization of weed at 40 percent. In none of the polls was the level of opposition more than 52 percent. This continues with a long increase in support for legalization: in the early 90s, it was about 20 percent, crossing 30 in the mid-1990s, and then reach 35 percent just after the new millennium.

Note: I originally titled this post Random Comparison, but it was not; it was in reference to the previous post. After writing the content, a la Homer Simpson, I started to get irritated about how the baked Cheetos balls are only available at one store in the city, and I got a little distracted.

Mexico in WPR

Sensible thinking on lowering demand from Andrew Bast:

[Ethan] Nadelmann [of the Drug Policy Alliance Network] said that many tend to think that tackling demand means instituting more D.A.R.E. programs to keep kids off drugs, but it is actually hardcore users who account for the bulk of consumption. However, serious addicts have few options to get themselves out of the downward spiral of addiction.

"It's more and more difficult to get treatment unless you get arrested," Nadelmann said.

For instance, users now can only get methadone in a clinic. Making it available in pharmacies by prescription -- as is done in many European countries -- would make a popular treatment far more accessible. Accessibility to treatment would mean fewer users, reduced demand and less incentive for cartels to angle for power and position on the country's border.

Nadelmann offered two more options. The first is legalization. Across the country there is a widening discussion, and greater policy momentum, toward decriminalization and a new understanding of what is acceptable. Second, Nadelmann said, "The most effective form of treatment is actually not the threat of incarceration, but it is actually paying users for staying clean, like a reward." Nadelmann acknowledged the difficult politics involved, but pointed out, "It actually costs less than locking them up."

Both proposals, in fact, are politically flammable. But in the face of ineffective policies and the threatening violence next door, all options have to be on the table.

I only wonder if there really is "a widening discussion, and greater policy momentum, toward decriminalization..." I hope so, but I haven't seen any polling data to back that up. Then again, between the end of The Wire, the famous Balko-Freddoso debate (our century's Lincoln-Douglas?), and the election of a former weed-puffer and coke-blower to the nation's highest office, it does seem like there's been a lot of chatter about legalization in recent months. 

Embarrassing Phone Calls Lead to Embarrassing Exit

Luis Téllez, the secretary of communication and transportation who has recently earned more headlines than someone in his position should, is out of Calderón's cabinet, and will take on a new role as an advisor to Calderón. He has been replaced by Juan Molinar, who had been serving as the director-general of IMSS, Mexico's public health care agency.

International Support

Some of the emails uncovered in Raúl Reyes' famous laptops have reportedly indicated FARC involvement with kidnappings in Mexico. One is said to have read:

There's the in front of us of working with some Mexican friends, you remember the ones from the loan, well with them. The part that we'd be in charge of would be the negotiation and changing the money that they pay. They'd take care of the rest. Initially, it wouldn't be any big stuff, but the idea is go forward trying it out.

Firing Back at Medina Mora

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora stirred up some trouble when he (timidly) suggested that Mexico's journalists should be more responsible in their coverage of organized crime, the implication being that they allow themselves to be used by drug gangs by jumping all over the most sensational crimes of the day. I don't think officials chiding journalists publicly --as opposed to a discreet phone call to the editor of a specific paper-- is a good idea, although a discreet phone call wouldn't have worked because Medina Mora was addressing the media at large. I also think it'd be nice if Calderón's team did a better job of investigating crimes against journalists before criticizing their work. Furthermore, it's impossible not be at least a little sensational in covering the Mexican drug trade, because so many of the newsworthy episodes are eye-catching. For all those reasons, a certain amount of umbrage is understandable and warranted.

At the same time, I think this response from Milenio's Carlos Marín offers a revealing illustration of the Mexican media's self-image, which in my mind is unnecessarily combative:

Neither the attorney general nor the criminals understand that the primary responsibility of the journalists is with their readers, listeners, or viewers, who value the information and opinion, and that that [the journalists'] essential role is getting to the guts of the origins of power in and out of the institutions.

I'd say that informing the public is far more important than determining the origins of power. That goal often includes looking for the powerful forces operating behind the scenes, but it often doesn't. The fact that a successful Mexican journalist thinks that uncovering a hidden hand moving the country is more important than merely informing his readers helps explain why in Mexico conspiracy theories often have more currency than the plain, simple, boring truth, as supported by the evidence.

Continued Support for Calderón

Some new polling by Reforma reaffirms what he have along known: Teflon Felipe's support remains as strong as ever, despite what is arguably the worst security climate in Mexico since the 1920s, and the worst worldwide economic crisis since the 1930s. Calderón's approval rating stands at 66 percent (just about where it is according to the other pollsters), showing a slight increase over the past several months.

Improvement?

Evidently, there's been only six executions in the 48 hours since the 5,000-man army contingent started arriving in Juárez, which, depressingly, represents a sharp decline.

More Worrying about Local Governments

Following Mauricio Merino last week, two more El Universal columnists worry about the local governments. First, Macario Schettino:

The state and municipal governments in Mexico don't have the capacity to provide public goods, which is of course the case with security, the same as in many other cases. Nor can they collect taxes, to be sure. If they can't take these elemental actions of a government, why do they exist?

At this moment, they are only good for losing government funds. Although we can know how much the federal government spends, on what, how and when, we can't know that for the state government. While congress has the president permanently on his toes, in the states the congresses are subordinated to the government.

Second, Jorge Chabat:

Although before the law drug-trafficking is a federal crime, in practice it affects all levels of government. It's similar to education: if primary education is deficient, than it's worthless to improve masters and doctorates programs. You have to attack the problem at its root. And the lack of protection and lack of resources in the cities and states is the root of the incapacity of the state to combat drug trafficking. Is it not time that Mexico, as a whole, commits to resolving this situation, before there's not even one honest cop alive?

With its present voting rates, reelection alone wouldn't be the answer, because that could imply Mario Marín and Ulises Ruiz in control of Puebla and Oaxaca for decades. But local and state politicians today have neither the time (since most of them are there only four years) or the incentive (because their next election depends much more on their cronies in the party than on their performance in office) to improve city and state government.

My Goal Before I Leave Latin America

I want to be able to speak Spanish with the same accent that El Cabo and Guadaña use in El Cartel de los Sapos. Click here or here for a sample.

More American Broadcasts about Mexico

More of what Tom Friedman missed: here's Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, here's Diane Rehm with a quartet of guests. If you just want the highlight, skip to the Rehm broadcast and fast-forward to the caller who will forever be known to me as Hysterical Ann (about minute 36), who accuses the group of lying about how bad Mexico was, before moments later admitting that she'd never been there.

Better Late than Never

A Friday editorial in the NY Times on the arms trade along the US-Mexico border (the northern side of it, of course):

A vast arms bazaar is rampant along the four border states, enabled by porous to nonexistent American gun laws. Straw buyers can pick up three or four high-powered war rifles from one of more than 6,600 border dealers and hand them off to smugglers. They easily return to Mexico, where gun laws are far less permissive.

Licensed dealers routinely recruit buyers with clean criminal records to foil weak laws and feed the deadly pipeline, according to a report by James C. McKinley Jr. in The Times. The countless unlicensed “gun enthusiasts” free to deal battlefield rifles at weekend shows, thanks to loophole-ridden laws, are a second source.

The federal government is allowed to only trace weapons used in crimes and has no idea of the full scope of the border trade, which accounts for 9 out of 10 recovered weapons.

[Break]

There should be enormous shame on this side of the border that America’s addiction to drugs is bolstered by its feckless gun controls. Firm federal law is urgently needed if the homicidal cartels are to beseriously challenged as a threat to national security.

PRD in DF

Predictably, the PRD has opened a lead in the polling ahead of this summer's elections for the legislative assembly in Mexico City. Forty-two percent of those polled said they'd vote for the PRD, compared to 29 percent for the PAN and 20 percent for the PRI. The article doesn't break the support down into different delegations, and I'm not sure exactly how the plurinominal distribution works in DF, but I believe this could result in a drop in the PRD's representation, which stands at 34 of the 66 delegates. It would also seem to mean a significant increase for the PRI, which presently has just four.

Agent Envy

El Universal reports that it was an FBI agent working in Mexico who put the pieces together that led to the Operación Limpieza arrests. That very fact in and of itself would be enough to ruffle feathers, and it's made somewhat worse by the fact that US agencies knew who was leaking information from Siedo for nine months before they told Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora.

Calderón Campaigning

My opinion of the president's role.

For Boxing Fans

Lots of words about Cristian Mijares, from before and after the Darchinyan fight. Enjoy! 

Friedman Loses Me

Tom Friedman, praising the inclusion of heavyweights working on regional problems in the State Department, seems to wonder if Mexico couldn't use a little more attention, or maybe even a George Mitchell of its own operating at Foggy Bottom:

Did anyone notice that the State Department issued a travel advisory for Mexico last week, warning that “Recent Mexican Army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat ... Large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico ... During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped.” That is Mexico, not Pakistan!

[Break]

No, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t have too many super sub-secretaries. The truth is, she may not have enough.

First of all, is he somehow oblivious to all the mainstream press Mexico has received lately? "Did anyone notice" that Mexico has experienced an uptick in drug violence? No, no one at all, with the exception of Barry McCaffrey, Marty Peretz, Michael Hayden, Jorge Castañeda, Newt Gingrich, Reihan Salam, Christian Brose, Forbes, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy, the LA Times, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and virtually every other media outlet in the nation blessed with a circulation of more than one. 

Second, Mexico seems like a horrible candidate for a superstar diplomat bent on solving the nation's problems. Indeed, the spate of attention on Mexico in the past several months has done absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem. The only plate-shifting actions the US could take to help Mexico would be legalizing drugs, drastically reducing demand for drugs, or crippling gun sales in the southwest. Aside from being very unlikely, none of those would benefit from an assistant secretary of state for Mexico's drug wars. The policies we would be more likely to consider --i.e., a revamped Mérida Initiative that focused more on training Mexican law enforcement and less on hardware-- can only help around the margins, if they can even do that. We could revive Dean Acheson and Thomas Jefferson and set them to work on the Mexico, and it wouldn't make much of a difference. Drug violence in Mexico is a Mexican problem, and it requires a Mexican solution.

Lastly, Friedman's prose can be mind-numbingly hokey, don't you think?

So George Mitchell is, in effect, “Super Sub-Secretary of State for Nurturing a Coherent Palestinian Authority and a Coherent Israeli Negotiating Position So That the Two Might One Day Be Able to Strike a Deal Again.” Richard Holbrooke is “Super Sub-Secretary of State for Bringing Coherence to the Afghan and Pakistan Governments So That They Can One Day Be Internally Stable and United Against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.” And Dennis Ross is “Super Sub-Secretary of State for Amassing Global Leverage on the Incomprehensibly Byzantine Iranian Government So That It Will Terminate Its Nuclear Weapons Program.”

Rutten on Mexico

In yesterday's LA Times, Tim Rutten lamented the US role (i.e. demanding drugs and supplying guns) in fueling the Mexican drug wars. Here's a taste:

Similarly, at a news conference this week, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. set off a firestorm when he mentioned in passing that the U.S. should consider restoring its ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons. That prohibition, adopted in 1994, contained a clause requiring Congress to renew the ban after 10 years. To nobody's surprise, Congress didn't, and now assault weapons, semiautomatic pistols and .50-caliber rifles that are illegal in Mexico flow into the hands of the drug traffickers there from an estimated 6,000 American gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Thus, America's political decisions to treat drug addiction as a crime rather than a public health problem, and to legalize AK-47s but not pot, fuel an incipient civil war in Mexico.

Upping the Ante

The Mexican army has announced that it will triple the number of soldiers in Juárez, which remains far and away the most dangerous spot in Mexico. Eighteen hundred have already deployed, with about 3,500 more to arrive shortly; the final total will be some 7,300 soldiers battling at least three main gangs: the Family, the Sinaloa cartel, and the Juárez cartel. For the sake of comparison, Philadelphia, which is about the same size as Juárez, has a police department of 6,900 cops.