[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'M')ilenio (Mexico City) 8/3/09

[The following figures were in an op/column titled “Achilles, the czar and July’s 854” about insecurity problems in Mexico]: This past June had held the record for execution-style murders in Mexico during any single month. That record has now been broken in July, when there were 854 violent deaths recorded. The figure for the year is now 4,300 and 12,900 from the date President Calderon took office.


12,900 deaths. I think it is safe to say that there is a civil war going on in Mexico.

[Roy]

http://fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm -- Fred on Everything -- Horror in Mexico -- from an expat living down there. Let's just say he has a different view.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')
Fred Admits Journalistic Dishonesty About Mexico

Who Could Have Thought It?



August 2, 2009



I have a confession to make to my readers. I have been lying about Mexico. Yes. I am a poor sinner and meant no harm, but the devil got into me, and I have done wrong. I have said that Mexico was a pleasant country of agreeable people, and harmless. I have said that children here run and play in the fountains and enjoy the blessed life of the happy young. No, no! It wasn’t true. They die of hunger in the streets. Nay, Haiti must seem a paradise by comparison.

Oh, if I could repent and redeem myself! I know now I have lured many innocent Americans, virgins (well, that may be stretching it), children, people of ripe years and helpless, into this hellhole of disease and corruption, where they have been robbed and killed and left to moulder in unmarked graves, like Ambrose Bierce. I laughed at Americans who asked me whether Mexico had paved roads. Oh, the shame of it! The truth is that Mexico does not. There are no paved roads in Mexico.

How I repent my lies. But it is too late.

What changed my life, and brought me to truth and the hope of salvation was the horrid death of my friend Richard and his sweet family. We found his mortal remains in the burning rubble of his home in Jocotepec, a village on the north shore of Lake Chapala. Beside his half-eaten body we found his diary of his family’s last days. I reproduce parts of it here with other accurate and damning verities about this abominable country.

“July 2. We have been hearing gunfire in thehills but figure it is just narcos settling accounts. It has happened before.”

[Cynus]

From the front news page today:
"Mexico's Fiscal Crisis Demands Action
But it is unclear whether the government will agree to necessary tax increases and budget cuts.

Mexico's public finances have been heavily oil dependent since the late 1970s. Deep recession has caused non-oil revenues to plunge as oil production falls steeply. Urgent measures are required to address a fiscal crisis that erupted practically overnight. It is unclear whether Congress will agree to necessary tax increases and budget cuts. "

Overnight? Are they kidding. Of course we who have been paying attention knew that Mexico peaked 5 years ago and have been seen this coming ever since. I guess that this happened "overnight" and that "no one could have known" are going to be their excuses.

[timmac]

Mexico has had plenty of time to make money other than relying on oil revenue, this is why they are a banana republic, millions of there unemployed are flocking over here [US] while there government sits on there hands and does nothing.

I beleave GW has nothing compared to what might happen in the coming years between our borders.

[DantesPeak]

I've been posting on the decline of Cantarell for four years now, and the news just keeps getting worse.




$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')EPTEMBER 10, 2009.Mexico's Fading Oil Output Crimps Exports
Budget Shortfall Is Likely to Worsen; Major Field Plunges

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's oil output is falling faster than expected, increasing the chance that the country will lose its status as a major oil exporter in coming years and face a worsening budget shortfall.

Output at state-owned oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos's offshore field Cantarell, once the world's second-largest oil field, has plunged to 500,000 barrels a day from its peak of 2.1 million in 2005.

"I don't recall seeing anything in the industry as dramatic as Cantarell," says Mark Thurber, assistant director for research at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.

Cantarell's slide has pushed Mexico's overall oil output down. Shrinking oil exports are costing Mexico roughly $14 billion a year -- bad news for a country that relies on oil exports to pay for nearly 40% of its annual government budget. That shortfall, aggravated by the weaker overall economy, has caused the government to cut spending this year and propose a growing budget deficit for next year.

[eastbay]

... increasing the chance that the country will lose its status as a major oil exporter in coming years and face a worsening budget shortfall.


Why do they dance around the truth like this!!! It's getting quite annoying.

Let me fix that sentence so it reflects the truth of Mexico's dire situation:

.... increasing the chance that the country will lose its status as a major oil exporter next year and face a permanent financial disaster.

[blin]

I believe Mexico will implode, but slowly, a slow crash. I see the following scenario:

Increasingly, desperate illegal immigrants will cross the border to stay with legal or illegal relatives already in the US. Every first or second generation immigrant has a multitude of relatives still in Mexico. They will come not to work - there will be no jobs as the US experiences its own worsening slow crash. They will come to live quietly in their relatives houses, just to escape the chaos in Mexico (and maybe hoping for another amnesty program). This will put an incredible strain on food and other resources in the US border states. Democracy will hang on in the US for a long time, and Latinos being the majorities there, there won't be any concerted attempts to knock down private doors and kick the illegals out. Goodhearted citizens will see the chaos in Mexico on TV and be reluctant to inform on their neighbors harboring refugees (especially since the neighbors will mostly be Latinos, also).

Among these immigrants the narco bad guys will infiltrate the border states and begin to lord over the Latino population just like they do in Mexico, taking advantage of the weakening law and order. Poverty-stricken youth will join gangs.

I see a difficult future for US border states with Mexico. Plus, add that most of the border states are arid deserts that can't support much population without cheap oil.

It seems like anyone who can should move out of the border states, though North Texas and Northern California should be relatively better off.

I'd be interested in hearing others' scenarios. I also wonder if Latinos and Caucasians will come together to deal with Peak Oil, or if they will divide along racial lines and fight each other. This is hard to predict, I think, though I expect that when the pressure gets high enough, human nature will fall into tribalism.

[Revi]

Pobre Mexico, tan lejos de dios, y tan cerca a los estados unidos.

When we catch a cold, Mexico gets pneumonia.

The only thing that will save Mexico is the fact that there are small almost autonomous villages left. They will survive.

I would rather be in a small village in Mexico than in a suburb in the US once peak oil really starts to take effect.

At least the systems that worked for a thousand years still work.

You can still grow a milpa and get water from the well.

Still, I see trouble ahead for Mexico as a country.

[wisconsin_cur]

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Via the oil drum:



The full post: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5768

[Cloud9]

Wonder what the drug export chart looks like.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'W')onder what the drug export chart looks like.

[Cloud9]

A thugocracy by its very nature kills any incentive to create or produce. We are well along the same path.

http://market-ticker.org/

[hardtootell-2]

It looks like its a bit of a gong show in Mexican resource exploration these days

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/e ... story.html

"As far as production goes, that's probably true, that the wells haven't had the production they anticipated," he said, although he added his understanding is that dozens of wells have been drilled, cased and cemented but not completed, leaving a great deal of production stranded behind pipe.

He said that situation has developed in part because of the bureaucracy involved in moving the projects along.

CIBC analyst Jeff Fetterly said Pemex was hoping to reach 2009 exit production of about 70,000 barrels per day from the oilfield, a resource it hopes will eventually replace the declining offshore Cantarell field.

He said the needle is stuck at around 30,000 bpd, although he agreed that number could rise quickly once stranded production comes on stream."

lots of hope, little production

[eastbay]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html

Wow.

The Mexican government on Sunday dissolved the company that supplies power to the capital and four central states because of the utility's unsustainable financial position, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said.

Hundreds of federal police officers seized the facilities of the company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, in Mexico City and the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Morelos and Puebla.

[hardtootell-2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '[')url=http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/11/mexico.utility.company.raid/index.html]link[/url]
Wow. The Mexican government on Sunday dissolved the company that supplies power to the capital and four central states because of the utility's unsustainable financial position, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said.
Hundreds of federal police officers seized the facilities of the company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, in Mexico City and the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Morelos and Puebla.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hardtootell-2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '[')url=http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/11/mexico.utility.company.raid/index.html]link[/url] Wow. The Mexican government on Sunday dissolved the company that supplies power to the capital and four central states because of the utility's unsustainable financial position, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said.
Hundreds of federal police officers seized the facilities of the company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, in Mexico City and the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Morelos and Puebla.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '[')b]I heard "seized" not "shut down." So I presume they are still operating, probably with the same maintenance staff as before. But the management is at bayonet point? Maybe that is a GOOD thing! We could use some of that on Wall Street.

[hardtootell-2]

An update on the state power company in Mexico: NYTimes
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')EXICO CITY — The lights have been going out all over this city. Food rots in tepid refrigerators. Computer screens pop and fizzle out. At a taco stand in Iztapalapa, José Martínez sticks a candle in a Coke bottle and serves hungry customers by its glow.
When President Felipe Calderón dissolved the capital’s money-losing electric company and fired 44,000 workers two weeks ago, he promised efficient, modern service. But across the city and its vast suburbs, the power has gone out for a day or more in neighborhood after neighborhood.
In some cases, switches appear to have been deliberately turned off — evidence, officials say, that a few of the fired workers have taken matters into their own hands.
“This is a deliberate action to bother and affect consumers,” said Estefano Conde, a spokesman for the Federal Electricity Commission, the state-owned company that has taken over the service. “They want to generate pressure, to give the idea that we can’t handle it.”
Whether or not they are driven by sabotage, if the cuts persist, they could turn public opinion against Mr. Calderón’s agenda. He won broad approval for acting against the powerful electricity workers’ union, and many Mexicans now want him to move against other entrenched interests in business and labor that experts say stifle the nation’s economic growth.