Happy Oil Expropriation Day from Anarchapulco,
Actually, I am partially kidding. The Oil Expropriation Day holiday was last weekend. But it is nearly impossible to keep track of all the holidays as there is virtually one every week in Fiestaland. Plus, holidays elsewhere that are four days long (like Easter) are two weeks in Mexico… or Christmas, which is generally about a week off for most people from Christmas Eve until after New Year's Day is an entire month here.
I was actually sitting at my local hangout, Mangos, last weekend with a number of TDvers who either had moved here or were visiting and we were quite confused. The entire city was jam packed from Friday straight through until Tuesday and we were unsure of why.
I had my trusty Samsung Galaxy S4 on Telcel's excellent 4G service so I plugged in "Mexican holidays" to find out what the occassion was. It was still a month until Easter and while they do take two full weeks off I would have been mildly surprised if they actually turned it into a month like Christmas.
The first holiday that I spotted for that weekend was "Oil Expropriation Day". I sat stunned looking at it before telling my comprades that, "This is all to celebrate a prior theft of assets from private enterprise!"
My free market friends also sat with blank stares.
"That can't be right, can it?" I asked, to shrugs.
I then asked the bar manager, "What holiday weekend is this?"
She responded, "It's Benito Juarez' birthday."
I again asked Google, he always knows… Who is Benito Juarez. Turns out he was President of Mexico in the mid 1800s. Apparently he is best known for resisting a French occupation of Mexico.
My mind wandered, what the heck were the French doing in Mexico in the 1800s? But then I remembered what started all this conversation… Mexico actually has a holiday to celebrate stealing assets from foreign companies?
"I thought it was Oil Expropriation Day too?" I asked the manager.
"What? What's that?" she said.
Phew. OK, so the government does have a holiday for oil expropriation day but no one has even heard of it… thank goodness.
The funny part of it is that late last year the Mexican government turned over and is privatizing the 75 year long nationalization of the oil industry. Now that might be worthy of a holiday!
Also, funnily enough, is that the USSA, the once more free-ish place on Earth, is going in the opposite direction and nationalizing things left and right… not least of which is O'Bombercare.
The amount of misinformation and misunderstanding about what is really going on in a place like Mexico is astounding. If polled, it is almost for certain, that your average American thinks Mexico is very poor and that Mexicans are dying to get into the USSA.
That not only is false but is actually the opposite of the truth. Things change, baby, and Mexico is now in many ways much more free market and prosperous than the US… or, at least, certainly going in opposite directions.
This infographic explains it well:
I certainly can speak to the truth of that from on the ground.
In fact, at TDV Passports, we are flooded with refugees from the USSA who want to get Mexican citizenship. In fact, it isn't even just Americans. Countless Kanadians are also streaming in as it is about to get MUCH more difficult to be a Kanadian snowbird and live in the USSA for more than 4-6 months per year without being fined, blacklisted or taxed. (We will have much more on that next week in the TDV blog)
And it isn't just Americans and Canadians streaming into Mexico. We have been helping people worldwide who all want to attain Mexican citizenship. Clients in the last week include people and families from Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Egypt, Iran, U.A.E., Syria and countless others.
By far the largest segment are the new rich… the Chinese. We have no less than 50 clients who have approached us in the last two months from China and want to move forward on a foreign citizenship. And they have the money to do it! It's a massive paradigm shift… but due to the Chinese government's capital controls those with wealth in China are looking to get their money out.
Not many know this (and that's why you should subscribe to TDV to get real on the ground info) but costs in China have increased tremendously as the economy has been booming and the central bank has been counterfeiting money at egregious levels. Much of the business that went to China in the last decade is now flowing into lower cost Mexico.
You can see the results in the Mexican stock exchange.
It has risen from nearly 5,000 in 2004 to 40,000 today. But, I'll bet, you never hear about that on CNBC!
Mexico is growing tremendously. Many people talk about the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) but you can forget about India. It is a disaster in the making as we have covered many times at TDV. While not as snappy of a name, it should be more like BMCCC. Brazil, Mexico, China, Chile and Cambodia… if you want to talk about areas with the most potential for growth.
Analysis firms have been placing Mexico above Brazil in their credit ratings. Moody’s elevated Mexico’s score on Thursday from Baa1 to A3, making it the second country in the region to reach A status – just after Chile. Brazil, on the other hand, has had a Baa2 rating for the last few years – and Moody’s has already warned that it might cut its rating further if the economy disappoints in the first half of 2014. And, of course, the US credit rating has also been heading in the other direction.
For this reason, TDV Wealth Management's next Crisis Conference will be held in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
And, I am in the planning process of the first Libertarian/Anarchist conference in Mexico to be held right here in Anarchapulco, likely this coming January.
I go (or used to go… I am limiting my travel to the US as it is becoming too dangerous and unenjoyable) to a lot of freedom related conferences in the USSA but, as I have often pointed out, you might as well hold them in North Korea… the idea of freedom is such a foreign concept in the US now to many.
Many who attend from the USSA, I am predicting, won't even return from the conference once they realize how much freer they can live in a place like Acapulco.
BITCOIN IN KANADA
I will be here for another week and a half before I have to head off to the Great White North… a place replete with massive extortion rackets (taxes and fines) and besieged by an epidemic of kidnappings (police).. but there is a ton of amazing bitcoin stuff happening up there so I will risk it.
Check out this video to find out more about Canada's largest bitcoin conference that I'll be attending.
INTO THE ANARCHAPULCO NIGHT
And with that, it is 1am on Saturday evening so some of the bars and discos should be just getting started and so I will leave you at that.
Peace, love and anarchy.
