Not surprisingly

Felipe Calderon is the president elect in Mexico. Not surprisingly, Mexico's highest courts ruled in his favor stating that he won fair and square. It is now up to him to bring together a very divided country, polarized by his opponents leftist tactics.

On a side note, its amazing that few US news networks picked up on this. Mexico's action is perhaps the most important news this year, especially for its largest trading partner to the north. In terms of economic impact, people and resources, we underestimate Mexico's importance.

Mexico and elections

The defeated candodate washed out by hail storm on Wednesday. Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador, better known by intitals AMLO has, quite unsuccessfully attempted to mutiny against democracy.

Sometimes losing can make a winner.

ESPN and soccer

Espn blew it, how lousy can it get? David O'Brien should have stayed away - far away - from soccer, he knows more about other things (we hope) than being a commentator. Plus his comment on "teaching" us how to listen to a new way of narrating soccer is immature and only highlights his ego.

Do us a big favor O'Brien, stay away from any sport.

Oil companies defending profits......

...not amazingly oil companies are defending huge profit increases. I can just imagine the good old boys patting themselves on the back congratulating each other on a job well done and counting their bonuses. Someone should remind them that their profits are a direct result of someone else's misery in this case of the many thousands affected by the last hurricane season.

There have been many hurricanes in the past, Andrew for one did considerable damage, and we didn't see the price gouging evident after Katrina and Rita. Did oil companies use the last two to increase their margins ?

Have oil companies rolled out the best of the PR people to make everyone else the bad guy, under the pretense of having to invest millions to make us feel good about oil reserves?

Claiming that this is a global industry and gouging are two different things. Use another excuse.

AP: Oil Company Execs: Fuel Relatively CheapSunday June 18, 11:36 pm ET By John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer
Oil and Gas Company Executives Defend High Pump Prices As Essential to Maintaining Supplies

Reuters: US oil defends record profitsSunday June 18, 2:44 pm ET By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top executives at three big U.S. oil companies defended record profits on Sunday as necessary to finance future investment, and one cautioned that summer gasoline pump prices could go higher with hurricane season underway.

Corporate Fraud

The news today is about Enron's Lay and Skilling being found guilty.
There is also a side article about auditors.

MSN Corporate Fraud Alive and Well "....But those auditors — typically larger, big-name accounting firms — haven’t done such a great job, according to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the body that was created by Sarbanes-Oxley to audit the auditors. After conducting inspections on those accounting firms' operations, the board found last November that three major accounting firms — Ernst & Young, Price WaterhouseCoopers and BDO Seidman — were failing “to identify and appropriately address errors” made by their clients, including mistakes that were “likely to be material to the firms’ financial statements.” The board and the firms say they are working to correct the problems."

My question then is "Who audit's the auditors?"

English

WASHINGTON - Whether English is America’s “national language” or its national “common and unifying language” was a question dominating the Senate immigration debate.

and so our taxes are used to debate definitions? Maybe its not the immigrants who need to learn English.

Baseball Hype

All this hype about a drug user beating the Babe's record is really turning people off a wonderful sport. The guy in question, supposedly as one major media group said "stuck on 713" has been using steroids for years. Its not a question of guilty or not, its all about ethics and keeping sports clean.

Earlier this week I was watching a game with my son and I was not surprised that teens have no respect for the baseball player in question who in their own way "turns them off" and I would agree. It seems that MLB and the team needs to reconsider the statistics, as far as I'm concerned the player doesn't derserve it and no matter what, will always go down in history as having reached the mark using steroids.

Immigration an Issue

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Super Bowl Ads

Yesterday we watched the Steelers beat the SeaHawks, in a game full of bad passes and many calls. The game was ok, nothing really exciting happened and Steelers did win. Pretty good for the wildcard team and their 5th SuperBowl.

What was a big loss were the ads. Always hyped and worth watching yesterday's, with few exceptions were definitely blah to bad, the worst of them all General Motors' Hummer - wow someone should be fired for that one !

The Budweiser ads "Magic Fridge" and "Bear Attack" funny and as always animals are cute, except for the streaking sheep - pretty lousy. Sierra Mist and the "Security Wand was hilarious and pokes fun at a lot of things as was Sprint's "Crime Deterrent."

Only time and revenues {or is it inflated egos} will tell us which were the best and which were successful.

You can see the ads at http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

Election Update

Chile - President elect Michelle Bachelet, won Chile's top job January 15th, 2006, defeating her rival in a second election run-off. Madam Bachelet is expected to continue to run her country along the same lines as Chile's outgoing President Ricardo Lagos.

Can Latin America Compete?

In today's ever smaller world, can Latin America compete with lower cost regions and high tech markets or are they destined to remain in an quasi-development-catch-up phase ?

Do politics affect the way they are doing business and if so what can be expected in 2006?

Your comments are welcome.

Latin American Currency Exchanges

Currency Per US Dollar

Argentine Peso 3.03700
Bolivian Boliviano 7.99500
Brazilian Real 2.27200
Canadian Dollar 1.16230
Chilean Peso 522.54997
Colombian Peso 2,274.00006
Ecuador Sucre 25,000.00063
Guatemalan Quetzal 7.62500
Mexican Peso 10.57810
Peruvian Nuevo Sol 3.44530
Venezualan Bolivar 2,145.00001

1/13/2006 9:27 AM eastern time

Latin American Election Update

COUNTRY & DATE (see Nov. 25th)

Honduras - Nov 2005. President elect Manuel Zelaya Rosales .
Chile - Dec 2005. Election run off January 15. Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera. Madam Bachelet obtained 46% of the votes last December 11, 2005 and Piñera 25.4%.
Bolivia - Dec 2005. President elect Evo Morales, leftist anti-USA. Morales has already scheduled his trip around the world. Starting with Cuba and Venezuela, he is scheduled to visit, among others, France and South Africa. Morales has a huge challenge ahead of him, as he must now prove to those who elected him that he can in fact lead Bolivia and bring economic stability to that poor nation.
Haiti - Jan 2006. A mess, elections postponed again, for the fourth time, as those in charge have not distributed 3.5 million voter ID cards and 35 presidential candidates will certainly mean a run-off. In the meantime Justices have been fired, havoc reigns and South Florida suffers.

Whether or not the results of the election will impact the rest of Latin America remains to be seen. Venezuela's Chavez has, while certainly a loud mouth, has used the threat of oil to control his position and is already at odds with Mexico and maintains a polite rapport with Colombia.