World's richest man to invest $1.5 bn in Argentina

[Judi Lynn]

World's richest man to invest $1.5 bn in Argentina
Irish Sun
Sunday 17th April, 2011
(IANS)

Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, ranked as the world's wealthiest man by Forbes magazine, plans to invest $1.5 billion over the next two years in Argentina's telecommunications sector, officials said.

During a Mexican-Argentine business gathering Friday here, Argentine Planning, Public Investment and Services Minister Julio de Vido said Slim will be investing in broadband, mobile telephony and fourth-generation networks.

The official added that Slim will travel to Argentina in May to provide specifics. The business tycoon has also expressed an interest in investing in energy and mining although no new announcements were made in that regard.

Slim has fixed-line and mobile interests in Argentina through his Telmex and America Movil groups, respectively.

http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/770275/cs/1/

[Peace Patriot]

1. His fortune went massive via monopolistic practices in the '80s-'90s privatization era

and by buying politicians (the Salinas government).

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Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world

The son of a Mexico City shopkeeper has built a staggering $59 billion fortune. Fortune's Stephanie Mehta tells the inside story of how he made it to the top.

By Stephanie N. Mehta, Fortune senior writer

August 20 2007: 12:12 PM EDT


"Portly and often puffing a cigar, Slim could pass for a latter-day Latin American J.P. Morgan. But with his dominant stakes in everything from phones to finance, his business profile more closely resembles that of John D. Rockefeller, who likewise thrived in a loosely regulated environment. .... The average Mexican encounters a Slim-owned business when she visits an ATM, drives a car, stops for coffee, and especially when she picks up the phone - Slim's Teléfonos de México controls 92% of the country's phone lines, and his América Móvil wireless service has a 70% market share. George W. Grayson, a professor of government at the College of William & Mary, coined the term 'Slimlandia' to describe how entrenched the Slim family's companies are in the daily life of Mexicans.

"It's not a reverential term. Many Mexicans hoped privatization, which began in the early 1990s, would create competition and drive prices down drastically. That hasn't happened. 'Slim is one of a dozen fat cats in Mexico who impede that country's growth because they run monopolies or oligopolies,' says Grayson. "'b]The Mexican economy is highly inefficient, and it is losing its competitive standing vis-à-vis other countries because of people like Slim.'"

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/03/news/international/carlosslim.fortune/

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These billionaires create a dead "marketplace" then use their billions to kill nascent competitors, and purchase governments to freeze their massive advantages in place and devour and control more lucrative markets--as we see in Slim's case--92% of the country's phone lines meanwhile leveraging that monopoly to gain a wireless monopoly (70%). He's now using his multibillions to move into and control telecommunications in the rest of Latin America.

This is NOT capitalism, it is PREDATORY capitalism. It is NOT a "marketplace." It is Gangsterland--maybe in Slim's case without the violence--I don't know. That much money seems always to have its armies and enforcers. But, in any case, the principle is the same--one guy controls everything--accumulates money, land, resources and power--and uses that to get MORE money, land, resources and power, and every advantage imaginable in driving out the competition.

Imagine you are a small seller of beets that you grow yourself and bring to an ancient market town to sell--and there you find that an owner of vast fertile lands, who uses slave labor, not only has carted in tons of better beets that his agents can sell cheap, undercutting your modest price, but also tons of every other food product, plus reams of cloth woven by the wives of the slave farm workers, cartloads of pottery from his slave labor pottery works in a neighboring town, and other products, and he thus drives every small seller in this "marketplace" into ruin and poverty. They become beggars. And from his powerful position, he then starts jacking up the prices, squeezing his monopolized customers for every peso.

He also buys the marketplace land itself, and extorts payment from any enterprising small sellers who maybe try to bring pickled beets to the market--investing more time and skill in their product--or finer cloth or prettier, stronger pots. They, too, remain poor, or are driven out, or he steals their technical secrets and ruins them that way. He then buys up all the gold mines and controls the currency and on and on.

The king--in modern times, "we the people," the sovereigns of democracy--should intervene, but he does not, and we do not because we don't really have a democracy; we have a capitalocracy--predatory capitalism. In that ancient marketplace case--with relevance today--intervention would be land reform, to divide up the fertile lands in a more equitable way; a progressive tax--the more you make, the more you pay; grants/loans to the smaller sellers' co-ops; free public education--to train people in higher skills and bootstrap the poor; banning slave labor--making the rich landowner pay decent wages, etc.

But the thing is that this Gangster now owns the king. Reform is not possible. A decent, equitable, healthy society--with a marketplace that is full of variety and fun, because there are many sellers of many things--is not possible, and the society descends into fascism, violence, massive dislocation, vast poverty, illicit markets (drug trafficking), repression, chaos, ruin. The ruin of the "small seller" is the ruin of the nation.

Yet another principle of the common good is violated by the big gangster buying the marketplace land--that the very rich can buy up the infrastructure and thus dictate the rules to everyone else. The king--and in a democracy, the people--should be providing the infrastructure, through fair taxation and investment in common good projects--whether it's telephone lines, wireless, electrification or common spaces. Certain things should be owned by all, and managed in a democratic way, so that all may have a decent life. NO ONE should own 92% of vital infrastructure. That is perhaps the biggest error of the 1980s and 1990s--the billionairization of our common infrastructure. (--although there are so many grave errors of that period, it's hard to choose).

This money.cnn.com article is not particularly kind to this multi-billionaire (big gangster) but that's probably because it's shilling for some U.S. gangster who wants Mexico's and the rest of Latin America's telecommunications. Would they do the same (a "warts and all" article) about a U.S.-based monopolist--say, the Gap clothing store empire of Donald Fisher, so similar to the Carlos Slim empire (sons and all) but with the addition of literal slave labor operations in the Mariana Islands (where Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy clothes are sewn)? And what of John McCain's interest in telecommunications in Honduras, a comparable industry, where the U.S. supported a rightwing coup d'etat to aid McCain's and others' interests? Slim is not a real gangster, that I know of. And he doesn't use slave labor, that I know of. "Big gangster" for him is just a metaphor. That is how I mean it. But the Fisher/Gap empire, because it is based on slave labor, and McCain's, Chiquita's and other interests in Honduras, because they also involve slave labor as well as murder, massive repression and fascist government, ARE fairly called "big gangsters." Will money.cnn.com take them apart as they do this Mexican oligarch? Have they? I don't think so.

And guess what? I just read page 2 of this article, and I was right. They rag on Slim's monopolies because AT&T wanted in! Ha!

I fear for Argentina with such a big monopolist moving in on it. Governments crumble before that kind of money. Democracies are destroyed--as ours has been. We need to find out more about this--Argentina's regulatory framework, the views of Cristina Fernandez's (leftist) government, UNASUR's view, etc. Billionairization leads to corruption and ruin, inevitably. EVERY society throughout history that has developed these vast rich/poor discrepancies has fallen. This is the biggest threat that "western civilization" has ever faced. Latin America's huge leftist democracy movement has been a bastion against it--a surprising and amazing and very big movement AWAY from predatory capitalism. There could well be a far rightwing/corporate political agenda behind this new Carlos Slim monopolistic move into Argentina and other countries.

[rabs]

2. Slim hits a bump in the road

Carlos Slim fined $1 Billion US Dollars


But that is pocket change -- he is now worth over 70 billion according to news reports.

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Written on 16 Apr 11 at 6:00 pm by Murry Page
Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission ended an investigation into Telcel that started in 2006 with a fine of 12 billion pesos ($1 billion US). Telcel is the Mexico subsidiary of America Movil, controlled by Carlos Slim. America Movil is Latin America’s largest mobile-phone carrier with 225 million customers and annual revenues in excess of $30 billion. Its Mexico subsidiary, Telcel, has over 57 million customers and about 80% of the cellular phone market in Mexico.

The FCC accuses Telcel of abusing its dominant position with monopolistic practices in the market for call termination on mobile phones. Smaller mobile phone operators say Telcel charges excessive fees for network access, stifling competition.

A spokesperson for America Movil said, “America Movil and Telcel are analyzing the reach, grounds and legal motivation for the ruling with the aim of using each and every one of the defense means at its disposal.” Carlos Slim said his rivals should invest more in their own networks rather than expect bargain prices from Telcel.

http://mazmessenger.com/2011/04/16/carlos-slim-fined-1-billion-us-dollars/

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On the same page there is this: (From the resort center in Mazatlan)

WHAT’S HAPPENING
Notice to Foreigners Returning North:
The Tourism office has arranged a police escort for foreigners driving north to the US/Mexican border. This will take place on Saturday April 23, 30 and May 7. The meeting place is at the Ley Plaza across from Wal-Mart at 7am. There must be a minimum of 7 cars for the escort. Rudy Villalobos, President, Friends of Mexico.

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Gotta be the only place where people from the United States go enjoy the beach for a few days then need an armed police escort to drive hom.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Yeah, I was wondering about the U.S. "war on drugs" mayhem in Mexico--the deliberate creation

of violent, chaotic conditions that favor militarism and fascism--and if Carlos Slim and his empire have any connections to that horror. I'm also wondering if he uses slave labor for the manufacture of anything, and where he is manufactures things, or what subcontractors he's using and where.

A lot of unknowns.

I know that, in the case of Donald Fisher (Gap, Inc.--similar empire), he had a hand in writing the WTO textile rules that facilitated his slave labor ops in the Marianas, where scumbag politicians like Tom Delay were hanging out. Those sweatshops import girls and young women from dire poverty pockets in Asia, and then indenture them for their passage. And the corruption goes to the beginning of the manufacturing process. They get their cotton from the horribly pesticide poisoned soils of Uzbekistan, and the cotton is spun somewhere and then tankered (more pollution) to the Marianas. The Fishers also expanded to logging northern California's last redwood forests (which is where I encountered them and watched them make mincemeat of the environmental movement in northern California.)

I simply don't know how dirty Slim's ops are, or how much he has meddled in the Mexican government beyond seeking his own advantage and profit. But, as with "absolute power," absolute money tends to corrupt absolutely.