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to Relities | by Prof. German Estrada
June 4, 2001. | In this article we'll go
back to the realities of our México Mágico by means of some statistics.
The first one that seems totally outside of such reality,
and closer to Ripley's (even if you don't believe it!) is the one regarding the
salary of our President, Mr. Vicente Fox. Once he became President, he increased
his salary to $170,000. pesos a month. In comparison, Mr. Tony Blair, the Prime
Minister of England, the fourth world economy, although his salary should have
been $128,667., he decided to be paid only the equivalent of $75,343. pesos a
month. Mr. Blair was entitled to receive 110,287. English Pounds per year, but
he reduced his salary down to 64,580
English Pounds. Mr.
Fox receives almost $100,000. pesos more than Mr. Blair per month. Who said there
is a crisis in México Mágico?… Olé! We finally have
a first in something!??????? The salary of President Bush,
on the other side of the border, and those of other Presidents of so-called First
World countries were, as of last year (converted into pesos): Year
2000 Pesos
Bush USA $ 119,000
Fox Mexico $ 146,000
Chirac France $
80,000
Blair England $ 73,308
Chrétien Canada $ 70,708 Minimum
monthly salary in Mexico: $ 1,300. pesos
Minimum monthly salary in the US:
$10,000. pesos President Bush receives the same salary
that his father did, U.S. $200,000. a year. Mexico ranks
12th among the world's economies. However, it occupies the 72nd position when
it comes to income per capita. (Source: DINERO, La Jornada) The
next information concerns the amount of books that every person supposedly reads
per year. Mexico is an importer of books from Spain, and we buy books from them
in the amount of 9,090 million pesetas, almost $48,000,000 USD. In comparison,
Argentina bought books from Spain last year in the amount of 7,979 million pesetas,
while Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Peru, together, acquired books in the amount
of 2,000 million pesetas. We're told that Mexicans read 2.8 books a year, while
Germans read 47 books in the same period. The truth is that in this area, we rank
second to last among the 108 countries with economies similar to ours.
(Source:
the Editorial Sector in Spain) With regard to our economy,
the 1999 census reports that our external debt (in millions of USD) was $161.1.
Our income from exports was $136,703 while imports cost us $142,063 Million. They
say that the distribution of wealth up to 1999 was as follows:
20% richer
55.3 60% intermediate 40.9 20% poorer 3.8 Concerning TRANSPORTATION,
we are told that up to 1998 we had 365,119 kilometers of roads, and in 1999 we
had 84 Airports in the Mexican Republic, that were used by 32.9 million passengers
that traveled by plane, and 3.033 million people that traveled by bus. Until
the year 1999, there were 26,595 kilometers of railroad tracks (most of those
tracks were never or seldom used, or have been abandoned), and 14.49 million cars
were driving around the country. Up to the year 1998,
the percentage of authorized vehicles was: 67.7% autos, 31.5% cargo trucks and
0.8% passenger buses. In the line of COMMUNICATIONS (up
to 1999), there were 1,347 Radio Stations in the country, and 584 Television Stations.
There were 10.5 million telephone lines, and 7.73 million suscribers who used
cellular phones. For each 1,000 inhabitants, we had 193
TV sets, 266 Radios, 113 newspapers and 49.5 who used the internet. The money
spent on buying books during the year averaged $6.8 USD per capita.
(Source:
INEGI)
gestrada@pvnet.com.mx
Prof. Germán Estrada is the
author of the best selling book, "México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told
You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc.,
Books, Books as well as directly from the author by internet. Archives
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