Matt Yglesias

Mexico’s Quality Flu Response

Tyler Cowen observes that the Mexican government, which doesn’t always have the best performance, seems to have handled the swine flu episode quite well:

I hesitate to speak too soon but I’m actually somewhat impressed by how the Mexican government, at least at the national level, has responded. There have been many failures of Mexican health care systems at local levels but keep a few things in mind: a) some of the problems lie with citizens who won’t go see doctors, or who won’t go see non-shaman doctors, b) too many Mexicans self-administer antibiotics, and c) when there is so much air pollution it is harder to discover flu cases, especially in the midst of flu season there. Nonetheless Mexican reporting systems seem to have discovered an unusual flu fairly promptly.

Once the national government discovered what is going on, they acted decisively and without undue panic. There has been very little denial, a common feature in the early stages of health crises (how long was it until the U.S. government acknowledged AIDS?). No one is treating the Mexican federal government like a banana republic or a basket case or thinking that the Canadian government would have done so much better.

I think this is about right. Certainly in comparison with how the Chinese government handled SARS and the avian flu outbreak, the Mexicans seem to be acting responsibly and effectively.

Treasury’s Citigroup Plan is Illegal in Mexico

As you know, the government moved on Friday to take a large ownership stake in Citigroup. Citigroup, meanwhile, owns Banamex, the second-largest bank in Mexico. And it’s not legal for the U.S. government to own such a large stake in a Mexican bank. Felix Salmon explains:

Meanwhile, the debate over Citigroup’s Mexican subsidiary, Banamex, rumbles on. Under Mexican law, no government can own more than 10% of a Mexican bank, which is obviously a problem if the US government takes a 36% stake in Citigroup. The Mexican SEC is investigating, while Banamex is unconvincingly saying that Nafta somehow overrides Mexican law and makes the stake fine.

Otto over at Inca Kola reckons this story is a very big deal, and from what I know about Mexican politics I’m inclined to agree: no government can allow an illegal partial takeover of Banco National de México without kicking up an almighty political storm.

Presumably this could be resolved by having Citi sell Banamex off. Indeed, the logic of the situation points toward the government trying to break Citi down into smaller components and this could be a start on that process.

Department of Outlandish Hypotheticals

I’ll admit that I’ve really slacked off in terms of reading New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz’s blog. And now that I have a chance to glance at it, I think he’s deliberately being dumb to keep me on my toes. For example, yesterday he wrote “Imagine for a moment that the United States has mounted an attack on Mexico or Cuba, truly an unimaginable act.”

Unimaginable indeed. Except the United States has invaded both Mexico and Cuba in the past, multiple times each. Indeed, at this very day the United States maintains a large military installation on Cuban soil despite the objections of the Cuban government. And that installation is the legacy of decades of colonial domination of Cuba by the United States. And when America’s preferred proxy ruler of Cuba was overthrown by a new dictator, we tried several times to overthrow his government — once sponsoring an invasion — and have subjected the country to a devastating embargo for decades in an effort to keep him out of power.

Now nothing in America’s fairly long history of shabby acts toward our “near abroad” comes close to justifying Russia’s bad actions in its near abroad. But they do provide the necessary context of fairly banal great power politics rather than terrifying and unprecedented expansionism.