Mexican Billionaires Rake In The Cash While Middle Class Americans Are Called Racists

Forbes magazine has just published its Annual Billionaires List. The 2008 Billionaire List  has 1062 entries—and includes no less than ten (10) Mexican billionaires. Indeed, in second place worldwide is Mexico’s Carlos Slim, worth $60 billion.

Two years ago, I wrote a VDARE.COM article about the Mexican magnates on the 2006 billionaires list, which you can read here . It was followed up by an article about Mexican magnates investing in the United States.

Why is the presence of Mexican billionaires relevant to the U.S. National Question, the subject of the VDARE.COM?

It wouldn’t be, if Americans weren’t constantly lectured by the media and our leaders to open the border to Mexican immigrants. White middle class Americans are special targets of such propaganda. They are led to believe they are horrible racists if they don’t want their neighborhoods overrun with legal and illegal aliens from Mexico.

But why should middle-class Americans bear the brunt of-out-of-control mass immigration when Mexico has at least 10 billionaires who should be doing a lot more to create jobs in Mexico?

By world standards, Mexico is far from the poorest country in the world. It has plenty of resources and economic advantages. They have just been mismanaged.

But there is plenty of wealth in Mexico. I have resided here since 1991, and have had some contact with the local wealthy in the metropolitan area in which I live. And many wealthy Mexicans sure like to flaunt their wealth.

I remember in my very first teaching job—when I was rather naïve, I admit. I was telling my fifth-graders (who already had a good level of English) that knowing English better could help them get rich.

"We’re already rich", retorted one girl. Of course, she was right. What was I thinking, these kids were richer than me!

On another occasion, I invited the kids to accompany me outside, where snow flurries were falling, since it hardly ever snows in that region. But some of them weren’t interested—after all, they regularly flew to ski resorts in the U.S.!

And these kids weren’t even from millionaire families, of which there are plenty. But what Forbes is talking about is billionaires—dollar billionaires—and the magazine lists 10 of them.

In fact, it’s highly unlikely there are only 10 billionaires in Mexico. A private analyst (whose name I won’t divulge) has sent me his own Mexican billionaire list. According to his analysis, Mexico has 28 billionaires, 18 of whom are not listed by Forbes. The unlisted billionaires keep a lower profile and hide or don’t report or all their assets. That seems highly likely. It’s been estimated that 40% of Mexican businesses and 70% of Mexican professionals and small business owners cheat on taxes, so that up to 50% of potential tax revenues go uncollected. [Mexico planning to raise its tax receipts, By Marla Dickerson, and Carlos Martinez. Los Angeles Times, Jun 21, 2007 (Pay archive)]

Nor does Forbes report the wealth of Mexican narco-magnates, whose millions of satisfied American customers have made them quite wealthy. It’s highly likely, though, given the narco-barons’ use of legitimate businesses as fronts, that some of their wealth gets included as parts of the fortunes listed in Forbes anyway.

Nevertheless, the Forbes list is significant because it includes the ten legitimate, high-profile billionaires. Studying these men can tell us something about wealth in Mexico.

Top Mexican magnate, as I mentioned earlier: Carlos Slim. In 2006 and 2007, Slim was listed by Forbes as the world’s third-richest man. But in August 2007, rival Fortune magazine declared him the world’s richest man.   Now, in the latest Forbes list, Slim is in second place worldwide, right behind #1 Warren Buffett and right ahead of Bill Gates at #3.

In calculating this kind of wealth, much depends on how much each man’s stock holdings are worth. Forbes did its calculation on February 11th, and on that day Slim, at $60 billion, was a mere 2 billion dollars behind Warren Buffet’s $62 billion, and a scant 2 billion dollars ahead of Bill Gates’ $58 billion.

When you’re talking that kind of money, what’s a couple of billion here or there?

Mexican per capita income is less than US $12,000 and about half the population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. Yet in the past two years, Slim has doubled his worth, from $30 billion to $60 billion.

The man known as "King Midas" or "The Engineer" really made it into the big leagues back in 1990 when he bought Telmex (Teléfonos de México) during President Carlos Salinas’ privatizations (translation : crony capitalism ). Slim still has Telmex (which controls over 90% of Mexico’s landlines, Telcel (which controls almost 80% of the Mexican cell phone market) and América Móvil, Latin America’s biggest wireless provider.

But Carlos Slim is not limited to telecommunications and related industries. This guy sells everything. It’s doubtful that any resident of Mexico can escape putting more money in his already-voluminous pockets. Slim has a bank, an airline, department stores, restaurants and music outlets. Slim sells insurance, auto parts, and ceramic tile. The Mexican government pays Slim to construct roads, water treatment plants, petroleum platforms, et cetera.

My principal email account is with Prodigy, another Carlos Slim company. (In Mexico, Prodigy holds 92% of the ISP market). So that means my articles are sent to VDARE.COM on Carlos Slim’s email network!

Thank you, Carlos Slim!

As I’ve pointed out before, Slim is an open borders booster. He has attacked the proposed American border fence (which may never get completed anyway) as "illegal" and "absurd."

Why doesn’t Slim want us to control our border? I think because the World’s Second Richest Man fears that, if the emigration safety valve were shut down, more Mexicans would start to notice his wealth—and contrast it with their poverty.

Since Slim is so outspoken in telling us how to run our immigration policy, shouldn’t we reciprocate by telling him how to manage his wealth? I would think that 60 billion dollars ought to be able to create a lot more jobs for Slim’s fellow Mexicans.

Now, I happen to personally know one of Slim’s Telmex employees, and he has some good benefits. That’s great, but how about spreading the wealth around some more?

Slim, with all his wealth and monopolistic enterprises, currently employs about a quarter of a million Mexicans. Honestly, I think he could do much better than that.

Maybe Slim could even give some money away!

Let’s take a quick look at the other 9 Mexican billionaires listed by Forbes:

Alberto Bailleres is chairman of metallurgical giant Penoles, has luxury retailer Palacio de Hierro and GNP insurance company, owns interests in the fields of finance and agriculture and raises bulls for  bullfighting.

German Larrea Mota-Velasco, at $7.3 billion the third-wealthiest Mexican, is a lumber and mining magnate. His Grupo Mexico has been helped greatly by rising copper prices. Larrea also controls Mexico’s biggest railroad.

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, worth 6.3 billion U.S. dollars, runs the Grupo Elektra retail chain, the TV Azteca network, mobile carrier Unefon (competing with Slim) and has even opened his own bank which serves mostly low-income clients. Salinas is also marketing Chinese cars (but doesn’t that undercut the Mexican automobile industry?). TV Azteca’s subsidiary Azteca America broadcasts to Spanish-speakers in the U.S.

Jeronimo Arango, worth $4.3 billion. His family company, Grupo Cifra, which included a supermarket chain, partnered with and later sold out to Wal-mart and became Wal-mart de México (Walmex). Arango also owns real estate.

Isaac Saba , worth $2.1 billion, runs Grupo Casa Saba, which markets health, pharmaceutical and beauty products. Saba also partners with Telemundo (similar to Univision) to produce telenovelas (somewhat similar to soap operas). Saba has textile interests, real estate and Marriott hotels in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta.

Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, worth $1.7 billion, was CEO of Banamex when that bank sold out to Citigroup, for which he serves as a director. Hernandez also owns resorts on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Emilio Azcarraga Jean, worth $1.6 billion, runs media giant Grupo Televisa, famous for, among other things, its telenovelas—the company is now making Chinese versions! By the way, Televisa owns 11% of Univision, and Azcarraga has considered taking out American citizenship so he can acquire more. After all, what’s American citizenship about if not increasing your wealth?

Alfredo Harp Helu, worth $1.6 billion, is Carlos Slim’s cousin. Like Hernandez, Harp made big bucks off the Banamex sell-out to Citigroup, and also owns the Mexico City Red Devils baseball team.

Lorenzo Zambrano, Mexico’s tenth-richest man, is head of cement giant Cemex, which is, by the way, the biggest cement company operating in the U.S.A., and one of the world’s biggest. Additionally, Zambrano boasts the world’s biggest Ferrari collection.

Lee S. Gliddon, Jr.
Desert Conservative

What if 20 Million Illegal Aliens Vacated America?
Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a
column titled, “Mexican Visitor’s Lament” — 10/25/07. She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while
visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, “They (illegal aliens) pay rent,
buy groceries, buy clothes…What Happens to your country’s economy if 20
million people go away?” That’s a good question - it deserves an answer.
Over 80 percent of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration
stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America?
The answers may surprise you!

In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico,
it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems,
bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner,
safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English
became the dominant language again.

In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and
grand-kids - would move back ‘home’, mostly to Mexico. That would save
Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually
in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration
costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.

Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the
terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver
Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered
death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.

Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent
drop-out/flunk-out rate because of thousands of illegal alien students
speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from
our gridlocked cities in Colorado.

Denver’s four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working
poor would gain jobs at a living wage.

In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State
back to America, the rule of law, and English.

In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals,
schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free
experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home’ –

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home’, the U.S. Economy would
return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a
living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they
wouldn’t be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401
Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for
local, state and city coffers.

No more push ‘1′ for Spanish or ‘2′ for English. No more confusion
in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that
degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools
would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in
ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of
more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who
distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.

In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the ‘18th Street Gang‘ would
vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from
Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded
highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American
deaths by illegal aliens!

America’s economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get
rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn’t return to the aliens’ home
countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money
untaxed, which further drains America’s economy - which currently suffers an
$8.7 trillion debt.

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country,
costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in
California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being
bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.

Americans wouldn’t suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases
rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and
grid locking our cities. It would also put the ‘progressives’ on the horns
of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our
greenhouse gases.

Over one million of Mexico’s poorest citizens now live inside and
along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what
the New York Times called, “colonias” or new neighborhoods. Trouble is,
those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty,
filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without
sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation.
The New York Times reported them to be America’s new “Third World” inside
our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect
20 million residents of those colonias. (I’ve seen them personally in Texas
and Arizona; it’s sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing
our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.

We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own
countries and/or make a better life in Mexico. We already invite a million
people into our country legally more than all other countries combined
annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy
within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.
It’s time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our
way of life.

Interesting Statistics. Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should
vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they
are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them:

1. $11 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare
to illegal aliens.

2. $2.2 billion dollars are spent each year on food assistance
programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal
aliens. 3. $2.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal
aliens.

4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary
school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of
English!

5. $17 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the
American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

6. $3 Million Dollars PER DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal
aliens.

7. 30% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.

8. $90 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for
welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are
caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s
two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their
children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year 2005, there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens
that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from
terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine,
and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border.

12. The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of
mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost
of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.

13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances
back to their countries of origin.

14. The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex
crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States!”

The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!!

Lee ADDS: Our Main Stream Media is so busy trying to get Barak Obama elected that they WILL NOT report factual NEWS!

This entry was posted by Brad on Friday, March 21

US to help Egypt prevent smuggling on Gaza border

America transfers $23 million worth of aid to Egyptians, agrees to send engineering teams to assist in locating smuggling tunnels; budget also for building sturdier fence on Gaza-Egypt border

US helping Egypt build border fence on Gaza frontier: American officials have agreed to a $23 million aid package from which most will go towards purchasing technology to prevent the fence from being perforated and for locating underground smuggling conduits, according to information received in the Israeli political circuit.

From details that were made known to Ynet, the US intends to send teams from the US Army Corps of Engineers to the Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border in the near future. Theses teams will assist Egyptian forces deployed along the frontier pinpoint the locations of smuggling tunnels west of the border in the Rafah area.

n recent days, Cairo is completing the construction of a stone wall on the border. At the same time, Egypt has positioned a specially-trained police force near the new wall in order to prevent a new perforation in the fence. The US teams will brief the Egyptian force, which numbers around 750 personnel.

In Jerusalem, Israel officials are welcoming the move. Nonetheless, Israel also believes that more hard work is needed in order to stop the flow of terrorists and weapons from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into the Gaza Strip.

Amos Gilad, head of the political-military bureau at the Defense Ministry, traveled to Washington this week to speak with US officials about an arrangement with the Egyptians over the border fence. Gilad also stopped in Cairo, where he met with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman. The two discussed the issue of reopening the Rafah border crossing.

Israel has requested that the terminal be operated under international supervision by European Union monitors and that Palestinian Authority representatives from Fatah man the crossing on the Palestinian side. The issue is still up for contention since Hamas opposes any type of supervision on the terminal.

An Israeli official cautioned that there was still a long way to go. "More time is needed to take care of all the sensitive issues," he said. Among other things, Egypt is asking to add 750 soldiers and police to its side of the Egypt-Israel border. The issue is currently a bone of contention between the Foreign and Defense Ministries.

The Defense Ministry claims that the issues necessitate the reopening of the Camp David peace accords that were signed between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Conversely, the Foreign Ministry is ready to accept an Egyptian bolstering of forces if it deals with the entire Israel-Egypt border not just the area around the Gaza Strip.

Well there you have it folks. Our government believes it is more important to help Egypt secure it’s borders, then it is to secure ours.