Forbes, in the guise of Forbes Conferences and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, invited specified Mexican CEO's to a closed conference in the luxurious Four Seasons hotel to celebrate the re-selection of a conservative, 'free market' politician to the Presidency and to
plan a "new Mexico" more to their liking:
The Mexican energy sector, controlled by the government, is the object of desire of international capital. Embracing the end of the formal electoral process and "the reformist spirit of the incoming government", one of the subsidiaries of Forbes, the media consortium of U.S. magnate and politician Steve Forbes, brought together a tight group of businessmen to invite them to "design a new Mexico."... [The forum document] offers its [own] solution to the economic problems of Mexico: "The solution is to carry out structural reforms, specifically in matters relating to labor, government spending, and energy."..."
Here's La Jornada's front page editorial on the matter:
Capital and its Perceptions
In the Forbes CEO Forum Mexico conclave, which took place this past Wednesday in the capital, the lords of wealth accepted as settled that the political uncertainty of the nation had ended and that the only possible turbulent factor is the 'third rail' on which negotiations could still flounder in the Legislature every time they bring up the idea of privatizing the petroleum and electrical industries, the elimination of the labor rights consecrated in Article 123 of the Constitution and the imposition of a Value Added Tax on food and medicine.
In these three points are summed, in effect, the "structural reforms" which national and international financiers have been fighting for since the Carlos Salinas regime [the fellow who stole the 1988 election] and which now will return as a central demand of capital owners upon a government headed by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
Sure, there are some awful problems in the state energy bureaucracies.
However, what will be funny, in that sort of 'end of the world' amusing way we're now used to, is that once these national jewels lie in private hands, they will be no more efficient at their former tasks, but they will be extremely efficient at concentrating capital in the hands of billionaires.
Which a lot of greedy people think is the only real measure of 'efficiency'.