Mexico bid a sad and nostalgic farewell Monday to the legendary composer and performer Armando Manzanero, who died at 85 of renal failure after losing a battle with Covid-19.
Manzanero’s songs are known around the world in several different languages, having been recorded by legends themselves, from Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Dionne Warwick to Andrea Bocelli.
The English version of his song Somos Novios, recorded as It’s Impossible by Perry Como, was nominated for a Grammy. He won a Latin Grammy in 2001 for his album Duets, a lifetime achievement award from the organization in 2014, and another lifetime achievement award at the 2020 Billboard Latin Music Awards. He also won many international music awards.
Born in Yucatán, Manzanero started out his career as a musical director for the Mexican branch of CBS International in 1957 and as a music promoter for the EMI record label. His own recording career began after an RCA Victor executive convinced him to record an album of romantic songs.
Many of his decades-long catalog of over 600 songs have been hits not only for himself but also for several successive generations of Mexican musicians.
“A song has to be written with sincerity,” Manzanero told Billboard in 2003. “It can’t be written with the desire to have instant success or passing success but wanting to have a song forever. It’s like when you do a painting. You have to do it right so that painting remains on the wall forever. That’s been my secret.”
“We celebrate his life and work,” said the Latin Recording Academy in a statement issued after Manzanero’s death. “An irreplaceable loss for the Latin music world. We are with the Manzanero family in their grief.”
Perhaps another testament to Manzanero’s impact on Mexican culture was President López Obrador’s remarks on his death.
“Armando Manzanero was a sensitive man, a man of the people. That’s why I lament his death. He was also a great composer.”
The artist was hospitalized on December 17 after being treated at home for five days following his diagnosis with Covid. Once under hospital care, Manzanero’s symptoms appeared to be improving as recently as December 27. However, doctors said that renal complications did not improve and ultimately caused his death.
Manzanero received the Covid diagnosis just six days after attending the inauguration of Casa de Manzanero, a museum in Mérida displaying his instruments, awards and other mementoes of his career.
He also served as president of the Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico, taking on the post in 2010 after having served in other posts within the association from the 1980s onward, fighting for his fellow composers’ rights.
Manzanero: ‘An irreplaceable loss for the Latin music world.’
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has blamed a wildfire, renewable energy producers and court rulings for the massive power outage that affected more than 10 million customers in a dozen states on Monday.
But the evidence of a wildfire has been refuted and an energy specialist says the CFE is lying about the cause of the power failure.
On Tuesday the CFE and the National Energy Control Center (Cenace) held a joint press conference to announce that the outage was triggered by a 30-hectare wildfire in Paudilla, Tamaulipas.
The CFE said the fire affected transmission lines running between Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, and Linares, Nuevo León, presenting evidence of the fire in a statement supposedly issued by the Tamaulipas Civil Protection agency.
But officials said the fire was not the only reason for the outage, which left some 35 million people without electricity for as long as two hours.
Cenace chief Carlos Menéndez said the electrical grid had been weakened at the time of the fire by a high concentration of renewable energy.
He said an unprecedented 28.7% of the electrical energy in the system was from renewable sources, “weakening” it and creating instability.
A CFE official offered that the system’s failure was a result of indiscriminate granting of permits to wind and solar energy producers. In addition, said Mario Morales Vielmas, the government’s efforts to stabilize the electrical network had been thwarted by the judicial system’s rulings against a new energy policy that was intended to give the government more control over the network.
The arguments were quickly called in to question, first by Civil Protection authorities in Tamaulipas who said they had no knowledge of a fire or the “official statement” exhibited by the CFE.
Civil Protection director Pedro Granados Ramírez later declared that the document was false. The logo it bore was not that of his office, the folio number did not coincide with those in use and the signature was not that of the official named, he said.
Energy expert Gonzalo Monroy said on Tuesday it wasn’t possible that renewable energy producers could have caused the outage, and accused the CFE of lying.
He said problems with the line were identified in 2016 and never corrected.
“They are trying to make an unsustainable technical argument in order to blame renewable energy suppliers.”
Monroy called for an independent investigation, claiming that the CFE doesn’t know the reason for massive power failure.
He said it was likely a lack of maintenance.
There hasn’t been an outage of the same magnitude since 1971, the energy specialist said.
President López Obrador weighed in on the issue at Wednesday morning’s press conference, claiming that the backlash over the incident was part of a conservative ploy.
He accused conservatives of “digging for a scandal” because “they’re eager to see the energy sector sold off to private citizens.”
López Obrador: supply of electrical energy is guaranteed.
President López Obrador insisted Tuesday there would be no further power outages. It wasn’t the first time.
The president was responding to Monday’s widespread outage that left over 10 million consumers without electricity.
“It won’t be repeated,” he said, “The people can be secure in knowing it won’t happen again and that the [Federal Electricity Commission] is an enterprise with first-class technicians.”
López Obrador said the same in August when reiterating a promise to construct a combined cycle generating plant in La Paz, Baja California Sur.
Seven months earlier he delivered the same message with regard to the same plant, promising the delivery of natural gas to power the plant. “… there will be no outages,” he said in La Paz in February.
(A start date for the plant has yet to be announced.)
In December 2019 the president said Mexico’s supply of electrical energy was guaranteed.
“There will be no outages …”
In August last year he said natural gas supplies had been negotiated to ensure there would be no outages “for many years.”
López Obrador offered the same assurance a month earlier, indicated that the Federal Electricity Commission would be strengthened.
“There will be no problems with a shortage of electrical energy, there is sufficient supply and there will be no outages …”
And seven months before that, during a tour of Yucatán, he promised that a natural gas shortage would be resolved and that a new generating plant would be built in the state “so there will never be outages on the Yucatán Peninsula.”
Hernández leaves the hospital in Reynosa on Monday.
Francisca Hernández was all smiles Monday as she left the Baudelio Villanueva hospital in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, after winning a 15-day battle against Covid-19.
On her way out to a waiting ambulance and accompanied by her daughter, Hernández extended her arm to salute the doctors and nurses who had taken care of her since she arrived at the hospital with low oxygen saturation and difficulty breathing. She said she was happy to get back to her daughter and to be able to feel the sun and fresh air on her face.
“I am happy. I feel very well,” she said as hospital personnel helped her into an ambulance to take her home, where she will continue her recuperation.
Hernández likely survived the disease — without needing intubation — because she contacted emergency personnel early on, said Armando Covarrubias, the doctor in charge of Covid-19 patients at the hospital. She is part of a trend he has seen: more people who suspect they have Covid are seeking help earlier, he said.
Of the 700 Covid-positive patients his hospital has treated, Covarrubias told the newspaper El Universal, 10 have died.
Hernández said that her family took her to the hospital when she had trouble breathing, even though her other symptoms seemed mild.
“I didn’t have a fever or a headache,” she said. “It was like a cold, but I couldn’t breathe, so they took me to the hospital.”
By the time she was admitted, her oxygen saturation was less than 80%, said Covarrubias. Under 90% is considered low.
Hernández recovered with the help of medicines they administered, Covarrubias said.
“She left in a wheelchair, her oxygen saturation at 95%, and for us that is an achievement.”
The federal electrical grid failed Monday afternoon, leaving 10.3 million customers in several of Mexico’s major cities without power for almost two hours.
About 19% of CFE customers nationwide were affected in parts of Mexico City and México state as well as the cities of Guadalajara, Monterrey, Hermosillo, Saltillo, Culiacán, San Luis Potosí, Aguascalientes, Pachuca, Mérida and Oaxaca, among others.
At least a dozen states were affected.
In Mexico City, services on Line A and Line 1 of the Metro had to be suspended temporarily due to the outage.
The grid failure also affected countless citizens across Mexico caring for Covid patients at home who are dependent on oxygen supplementation.
“It was the worst 50 minutes of our family’s lives,” Mexico City resident Alejandra Carmona told the newspaper Reforma. “My mother has to be connected to an oxygen concentrator that doesn’t work without power, and it suddenly shut off on us.”
Edson Cruz, also of Mexico City, found himself in a similar situation and had to scramble to find a nonelectrical alternative to the oxygen machine for his father, who is suffering from Covid-19.
“We reacted quickly when we saw that everything had shut down. Fortunately, we were able to use one of my uncle’s portable oxygen tanks, and we borrowed someone else’s tank in order to fill it.”
Federal authorities blamed the outage on “unforeseen circumstances,” pointing to transmission line irregularities between the cities of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, and Linares, Nuevo León, which they said caused a cascade effect that eventually led to the automatic shutdown of 16 power stations, including photovoltaic and wind energy plants. They dismissed the possibility of maintenance issues.
“[The shutdown happened] to protect the rest of the system,” said Carlos Gonzalo Meléndez, director of Mexico’s National Energy Control Center, in a virtual press conference with Federal Electricity Commission chief Manuel Bartlett.
Gonzalo promised that his agency would analyze the causes of the unexpected outage in conjunction with CFE and that the public would be informed of their findings.
“These outages are not common,” Gonzalo said. “We’re talking about extraordinary cases that are dealt with correctly.”
The outage deprived the grid of 26% of its total electrical output, or about the amount needed to power the Valley of México, Gonzalo said.
Bartlett said the failure did not cause any damage to CFE’s grid.
President López Obrador insisted Tuesday morning that it was a one-off event.
“Yes, there was a power failure,” he conceded, adding: “It won’t be repeated.”
A healthcare worker raises her fist in defiance as she is injected with Covid vaccine in Mexico City.
Health authorities say a decline in new coronavirus case numbers has been seen in Mexico City and México state since nonessential activities were suspended on December 19.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said a 13% decline in case numbers had been recorded in recent weeks but cautioned that the downward trend was not definitive. On the other hand, hospitalizations and deaths have continued to rise, he said.
He linked the drop in numbers to the designation of red light status for the capital and México state on the government’s coronavirus stoplight map.
The news is not as good in Puebla, where an increase in new case numbers has been cause for alarm.
The governor of Puebla put the state on maximum alert on Monday and announceda complete halt to nonessential activities.
Seniors are next up for vaccinations against the coronavirus.
Governor Miguel Barbosa said the halt will remain in effect until January 11 in order to contain the advance of the virus, for which he blamed citizens’ failure to adhere to coronavirus measures.
He said new cases and hospitalizations have increased “exponentially” and that the state was back to where it was during the peak of June and July.
In Michoacán another seven municipalities have joined the 15 that were being closely watched due to the rising number of new cases.
Governor Silvano Aureoles said Monday that of every 10 people currently being tested for Covid-19, six are positive for the virus. He warned that unless people avoid family gatherings, particularly at New Year’s, the numbers will continue to rise, requiring new restrictions on economic activities.
The state capital is of particular concern. “If the epidemic is not controlled in Morelia, that alone could mean a red light [on the coronavirus stoplight map] for the whole state.”
Nationwide, there were 5,996 new cases registered on Monday bringing the total accumulated case tally to 1.38 million. The death toll reached 122,855 yesterday with 429 new fatalities.
López-Gatell: numbers improving in the capital, México state.
As case numbers rise and fall, the vaccination program is gaining momentum following the arrival of two shipments of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine.
As of Monday evening, 9,579 healthcare workers had been inoculated at Mexico City General Hospital, at military bases in Mexico City, Querétaro city and Toluca, México state, and in four municipalities in Coahuila.
An estimated 750,000 doctors, nurses and other health sector personnel will be inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine.
January will see the vaccination program extended to include senior citizens, its second priority. They will receive either the Pfizer vaccine or that of the Chinese company CanSino Biologics.
The versatile Medjool date livens up a variety of recipes.
I’ve always loved dates, especially the big, soft Medjools. In Mazatlán, big pyramids of them appear in the mercados as the holiday season approaches, and they’ve become one of the seasonal pleasures I look forward to each year.
Luckily for me, Medjools are the most popular date grown in Mexico, mostly in Sonora and Baja California. And while Mexico doesn’t rank very high in terms of date-producing countries, there’s enough grown to supply umpteen holiday baskets of dried fruit and nuts. Interestingly, Medjool dates are not actually a dried fruit — they’re packaged fresh as soon as they’re picked with no processing.
Over time, they’ll dry out naturally, shrinking and wrinkling like the rest of us. Store them at room temperature for a month or two, refrigerated for up to six months and in the freezer for a year. Frozen dates, by the way, make a delicious cold snack. Just remember to take the pits out before you freeze them.
Sometimes you’ll see what looks like a white powder on the skin; that’s just the date’s natural sugar rising to the surface and nothing to worry about. Datiles are 50%–68% sugar, depending on the variety.
High-fiber dates are one of the oldest known foods in the world; fossils show that date palms have existed for 50 million years! Dates were most likely brought to Mexico by the Spaniards in the 1700s.
Medjool dates may look like dried fruit, but they’re actually packed fresh.
Cheese-Stuffed Dates
A simply delicious appetizer or munchie that’s guaranteed to please.
12 Medjool dates
2 oz. blue cheese OR soft goat cheese
Optional: 2 Tbsp. pistachios (shelled), honey
Slit dates lengthwise and remove pits. Fill hollow with cheese. Crush pistachios with a rolling pin and sprinkle on top. Drizzle with honey if desired.
Pork Tenderloin with Date & Cilantro Relish
3 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 pork tenderloin (about 1½ lb.)
Salt and pepper
⅔ cup Medjool dates (about 4 oz.), chopped small
2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro plus more for garnish
Preheat oven to 425 F. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork with salt and pepper and cook, turning, until browned all over, 6-8 minutes.
Transfer skillet to oven and cook pork 10-15 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in thickest part registers 140 F.
Transfer to a cutting board; let rest at least 5 minutes before slicing. Save pan drippings.
Toss dates, orange juice, reserved pan drippings, 3 Tbsp. chopped cilantro and remaining 2 Tbsp. oil in a small bowl; season with salt and pepper.
Spoon relish over pork and garnish with cilantro leaves.
Banana-Date Smoothie
½ cup unsweetened almond or regular milk
4 pitted dates
1 banana, preferably frozen
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
½ cup ice cubes
1/8 tsp. vanilla
Optional: 1 tsp. almond or peanut butter
In a blender, combine everything (including nut butter if using). Blend well until dates are in tiny pieces and everything is smooth.
Soak the dates first before starting on these coconut-rolled sweets.
Date, Walnut & Coconut Bourbon Balls
Leave out the bourbon for a kid-friendly version.
9 oz. pitted dates, chopped
1 cup unsweetened coconut, plus more for rolling
1½ cups walnuts, minced
¼ cup bourbon
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
¼ cup powdered sugar
Steep dates in 3 Tbsp. boiling water for 3 minutes. Transfer to food processor or blender; add 1 cup coconut, walnuts, bourbon, cocoa and powdered sugar and pulse until it forms a chunky mixture. Using a teaspoon, form rounded balls and roll in remaining coconut to completely coat.
Place on a baking sheet and chill until set, at least 15 minutes or overnight.
Bring to room temperature before serving.
Chocolate-Date Energy Bars
2 cups pitted Medjool dates, roughly chopped
2 cups raw cashews
1 cup raw or roasted unsalted almonds
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. cold espresso or strong coffee
½ tsp. salt
½ pinch cayenne pepper
Place everything in a food processor. Pulse and process about 1 minute; check to ensure mixture is moist enough to stick together. Add more coffee if needed. Continue to process until mixture becomes a chunky mass.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or plastic wrap. Scoop mixture into pan. Press down with a spatula until even. Place a layer of plastic wrap on top and smooth again with your hands.
Refrigerate until firm, 2-3 hours. Remove from pan, unwrap, and cut into bars of your preferred size. Store, refrigerated, in container or zip-top bag.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats is her first book.
'Welcome to Iguala,' the sign reads, but the city has not been welcoming toward journalists.
Just before 1:00 a.m. on August 2, Pablo Morrugares, a journalist and restaurateur, opened the Facebook page for his news site and began a live broadcast from the cafe he owned in Iguala, in Mexico’s southwestern Guerrero state.
A well-known local reporter, Morrugares covered crime and gangs, a beat so dangerous that Mexican authorities had placed him under the protection of a police officer, who sat by his side at the cafe.
That night’s broadcast for the outlet he founded, PM Noticias, was typical fare for the journalist: he recounted the day’s research trip to nearby Huitzuco, where locals were “super angry” about the alleged killing of a taxi driver, according to a report in Proceso newsmagazine. Morrugares suggested that a local gang, the Tlacos, were behind the incident, and that they had pressured police and taxi drivers in the city. The town, he said, was “super hot” – extremely violent.
Minutes after Morrugares ended the broadcast, unidentified gunmen entered the restaurant and opened fire on the journalist and his bodyguard. They shot more than 50 rounds before they left the café, escaping in the dark, as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented at the time. Morrugares and the police officer, Roberto Hernández, died on the spot.
Six days later, the state prosecutor’s office announced that it had arrested eight men from a safe house, including one who was carrying a gun that may have been used in the murder, reports said. The man, who was not identified in the reports, is now a suspect in the case. The CPJ was unable to determine if any charges have been brought; its calls to the state prosecutor were not returned.
Iguala journalist Pablo Morrugares was killed last August.
It’s unclear if Morrugares’ killing was linked to his final broadcast; the CPJ’s call to the Huitzuco municipality was not returned. But it’s clear that the incident has had a profound ripple effect on the local press. According to several Iguala journalists, Morrugares’ murder was a message: stop covering gang activity or pay the heaviest price.
It was a message reinforced days after the killing, when the journalists said they were added to a WhatsApp group, where people they believed to be gang members issued a barrage of fresh threats. And it was repeated on August 4, when unknown gunmen fired shots at the offices of Iguala newspaper La Tarde, according to news reports.
Today, five months after the killing of Morrugares, the threats have continued, according to six journalists who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. And the small community of reporters who covered organized crime in Iguala – journalists told the CPJ there were at least 15 on the beat – has dwindled and gone partly quiet.
At least four reporters have fled the city. (Two others left in the year before Morrugares’ death.) One journalist stopped covering crime altogether; another now uses only official sources. La Tarde has ceased publishing its print edition, though it still appears online, according to one reporter with knowledge of the city’s newspaper operations.
“I believe we’re in a situation of maximum alarm,” said the same journalist, who fled the city. “I’ve never before seen that they attack and harass the media the way they do now.”
Located 120 miles south Mexico City, Iguala is home to more than 140,000 people, according to the latest census. A subtropical city of abundant tamarind trees, narrow streets, and dozens of busy shops, it is known nationally as the cradle of Mexican independence after a proclamation of Mexican sovereignty was drafted there in 1821. But Iguala has earned a more sinister reputation in recent years.
The cradle of Mexican independence has also become known as the cradle of murderers.
On September 26, 2014, 43 students of a rural teaching college were abducted from Iguala and murdered by the local gang Guerreros Unidos, according to the previous government’s initial probe. Dozens of police officers and alleged gang members were arrested, but many were later released in what international observers have called a botched investigation. Iguala’s former mayor and his wife are in custody. In 2018, the then-new President López Obrador announced that he would reopen the investigation. So far, no one has been convicted.
In the years since the 2014 mass abduction, violence has not subsided; bloody warfare between rival gangs has made Iguala one of the deadliest cities in Guerrero, a state in which at least 742 people were murdered in the first six months of this year, according to the most recent data from the federal Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection.
According to an October report on news website Animal Político, the recent uptick in violence in Iguala is partly due to a split in the gang the government blamed for the 2014 kidnapping, Guerreros Unidos. Another Iguala journalist, the one who has taken the precaution of only relying on official sources in his work, confirmed this report with the CPJ. He described a turf war that started between factions when alleged Guerreros Unidos members who had been released from prison began to vie for dominance with other members in the city. Other gangs have also been involved.
“Violence has increased significantly due to the clash between organized crime groups,” that journalist said. “It didn’t used to affect us as much as it does now.”
To be sure, violence against journalists in Iguala, and in Mexico more broadly, is not a new phenomenon, as the CPJ has documented. Morrugares himself survived a 2016 attempt on his life when unknown gunmen shot at his car as he was driving with his wife, according to news reports. After that incident, the journalist fled Iguala for Mexico City. He received his bodyguard through the federal mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a national program which provides protection measures like panic buttons, police accompaniment, and monitoring to reporters and human rights workers.
According to news reports, Morrugares had returned to Iguala under police protection just one month before his death.
Omar Bello Pineda, a journalist from Guerrero and spokesman for the Mexican Association of Displaced and Attacked Journalists, told the CPJ that Morrugares had been threatened two months before his death in a Facebook video allegedly posted by a criminal gang; his association tweeted on August 2 that Morrugares was named on a so-called “narcomanta,” a banner criminal gangs use to send messages to the public, rivals, and authorities.
The CPJ has been unable to determine what, if any, of Morrugares’ reporting may have drawn the attention of his assailants. But his death appears to have been the opening salvo in a new wave of violence and threats, local journalists said.
“After Pablo’s murder, they started threatening us. The gangs here are angry. They don’t want us to report on the things that are happening here,” said the journalist who now only uses official sources.
“The truth is that we feel very unsafe here,” he added. “I fear that they will kill another reporter.”
On October 13, Iguala journalists published a letter in their news outlets addressed to Mexico’s president, federal attorney general, the governor of Guerrero, other authorities, and human rights groups – including the CPJ – and the “Mexican people.” In it, they denounced the threats in detail and demanded protection. “Above everything, we urgently ask the security and justice authorities that they guarantee the exercise of journalism and prevent another reporter from being killed,” the letter said.
Federal authorities responded to the crisis by incorporating at least four reporters in the federal mechanism, according to an official with the program who asked to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. All four have been relocated, he said, in addition to other protective measures.
An Iguala murder scene earlier this month.
On November 3, federal, Guerrero state, and Iguala municipal authorities met with several dozen Iguala journalists at the municipal headquarters. During the meeting, in which the CPJ participated, authorities committed to opening a permanent dialogue with local reporters and implementing protocols to guarantee the safety of reporters, such as a local office to field complaints of threats to press freedom.
The CPJ made several phone calls to Guerrero state and Iguala municipal authorities for comment, but no one picked up.
Among the threats, a third anonymous reporter told the CPJ, were messages asking if the journalists truly believed the authorities would keep them safe.
“We don’t trust the municipal authorities at all,” said that reporter, who has also fled the city. “Municipal police have often been very aggressive with journalists in Iguala. They have accused us of spying for the gangs, pointed guns at us. We’ve heard from the state authorities that they would help us before, but then they disappear and do nothing.”
The author is Mexico’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Americas program. He works as a correspondent for the Dutch newspaper Trouw and regularly contributes to publications including Newsweek and RTL Nieuws. He is based in Mexico City. This article originally appeared at cpj.org.
Castillo, second from right, and her associates at Human Warmth.
It’s 7:00 p.m., and Mexico City resident Jessica Castillo Zepeda and her friends Rodrigo, Paulina and Miguel are hunting the streets of Mexico City in a Jeep, looking for people less fortunate than themselves.
Castillo, who lost her job in a clothing shop earlier this year, used her savings to buy merchandise and started a clothing business in September on the internet. At the time, the entrepreneur promised herself that if she managed to survive the setback, she would give a percentage of her earnings to help others.
Now, since September, she has been making good on that promise by regularly traveling Mexico City’s streets with friends who were inspired by her example. Together they look for homeless people and offer them tortas (sandwiches) and coffee along with clothing and blankets.
But perhaps what they offer most of all on these forays is summed up by the phrase Castillo emblazons on each paper sandwich bag in black marker: “Calor Humano,” or “Human Warmth,” the name she eventually gave to her initiative to help.
“I think that the pandemic should touch everyone’s heart a bit to want to help others,” she told the newspaper El Universal. “We don’t all have the same opportunities.”
Though her personal story in 2020 is one of both resilience and generosity, Castillo might have easily ended up in the same situation as people she now helps. She is just slightly older than the age group in Mexico that has been most affected by unemployment since the start of the coronavirus pandemic — people aged 20–29. According to social security figures, nearly 345,000 Mexicans in that demographic have lost their jobs.
A survey by Iberoamerican University and UNICEF found that in 37.7% of Mexican households, one or more family members have lost a job and that one in three families have seen their incomes reduced by 50% or more.
While one might feel that Castillo has done her part to help others, she has been inspired by her success and has ambitions to expand her reach to other vulnerable groups. She and her friends continue to set aside a percentage of their incomes and plan to provide support to children with cancer and to street animals, as well as buy gifts for children from poor families who will not receive a gift on Three Kings’ Day on January 6.
“Helping people makes you want to keep moving forward,” she said.
It’s year end again so the nattering nabobs of negativism in the press and the practitioners of dismal science on economics faculties are looking back to pick past winners and forward to select future winners.
Since only the feeble minded or vaccine makers could label 2020 a good year, they’re concentrating almost exclusively on the future.
“China will be the world’s largest economy.”
“By 2026,” touts one. “By 2050,” touts another.
“Wrong” and “Wrong,” I say.
By 2050, and maybe even by 2021 it will be Mexico, joining Canada and the U.S. in the newly recognized North American union as the biggest, and more importantly the best by almost any measure, even the snowflakey Green New Deal.
Let’s talk “best” first, since only bimbos and sumo wrestlers think biggest is best.
World GDP rankings per capita, excluding the accidentally oil rich sheikdoms, place the U.S. and Canada at or near the top of the world rankings. China slinks in as No. 79. Even Mexico outperforms China by 2:1 in this key measure. So much for “Best.”
Biggest? China’s GDP is estimated at US $14.8 trillion. That of the U.S. is estimated at $20.8 trillion. Forgetting for a moment that China’s leaders say they don’t trust their own numbers, even late ballot counters couldn’t close an almost 50% gap by 2026.
So let’s focus on 2050.
The cornerstones of the forthcoming North American union have been mortared in the new USMCA trade agreement. Adding Mexico’s GDP of another trillion dollars and Canada’s $1.6 trillion to the U.S. total makes catch-up a losing chase for any contender, whether China or the splintering EU. So forget China by 2026.
But by 2050, the sky’s the limit.
Imagine a single economic entity tied together by roads and trains from Thunder Bay to Tapachula. Imagine the world’s leaders in old economy fossil fuels. Imagine limitless sunshine (sorry, Canada but you do have hydro) for the new economy based on renewables. Imagine a manufacturing sector matching abundant Mexican labor with capital rich Canada and the U.S.
Now dine on the canard of the world’s biggest economy.
Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.
