Not everything is cheaper in Mexico. In fact, it is quite the contrary, thanks to one lovely word that eats away the pesos from the wallets of the Mexican people: privatization.
When there isn't a privatized sector of the economy, monopolies leech on to the markets of public utilities. Current Mexican officials are making progress in efforts to privatize, but these monopolies accomplish the complete opposite of what the government says privatization will do. Instead of more investment opportunities and better service, people pay higher prices, and the money that should be used for public good - like public education and health care - instead further cushions the salaries of government officials.
For example, the national telephone service company is TelMex, which basically claims a monopoly in the market due to its privatization in 1990. Imagine paying for each local call, no matter the length, one peso - nearly equivalent to 10 cents in U.S. currency - and for national calls, paying two pesos per minute plus tax.
On cellular phones, local calls cost four pesos per minute plus tax, and national calls jump up to seven pesos per minute. This means, for an average five-minute local cell chat, you would ring up a bill of around the equivalent of $2 in U.S. currency.
Although there are several cell phone companies in Mexico, the market is dominated by TelCel, owned by Carlos Slim, who also owns TelMex, and thereby the company claims a monopoly. The company's slogan says it all: "Todo Mexico es territorio TelCel," or "All of Mexico is TelCel territory."
In Mexico, people have just one national gas company - PEMEX - so, unlike the stressful gas-price wars in the United States, auto owners pay a set price that only changes monthly. According to a PEMEX gas employee, the price at the pump increases by 20 pesos each month.
I am not an economics major but, frankly, it gives me a headache - if the pollution doesn't first - to think of the problems in the government. And you don't have to be an economics or government major to see the problems through the eyes of the people and experience them in daily living.
With the corruption in the government, Mexico's own people no longer seem to have faith in the country's ability to change its current predicaments. In fact, as one of my professors expressed, the only reason many people vote in the presidential elections is to have some kind of change; in other words, a different face to define corruption.
She said the Mexican people "prefieren reirse que llorar" ("prefer to laugh than cry") because there is no other option, no exit out of this slump, which one could argue doesn't have an exact beginning nor a possible end.
Unlike the United States, Mexico does not allow reelections in the majority of its government. This is due to the more-than-30-year dictatorship of Porfirio D+â-â-¡az before the Mexican Revolution.
It is also important to note that the elected president has the ability to lower the value of the peso during his six-year post in office. The devaluation of the peso through the course of history and the climbing external and internal debts have turned the Mexican economy into a nearly impossible disaster to recover from.
I have seen a trash truck driving around town with a poster pasted to the back saying, "Un gobierno diferente porque es un gobierno en contra de la gente" ("A government that is different because it is against the people"). This seems to capture the entire public opinion in one fell swoop.
What it all comes down to is a waiting period, an anxious hope that things will someday change, and a government will take office to care for the people - not solely for its own welfare.
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