Gustavo Madero, head of PAN's senate group, announced he would leave his current position in order to compete for the presidency of PAN, given that César Nava will not run for reeelection.
Madero is a very strong candidate for the position, and given his earlier support for the PAN-PRD alliances, his eventual party presidency will signal continuity.
PAN wisely chooses their presidency by a majority vote of its National Council, avoiding - as has happened on every single occasion - acrimonious and devastating mass elections by the party base membership, such as the case of the PRD.
Friday, August 27, 2010
On the subject of money laundering: When will the United States do its part?
Calderón's belated initiative to counter money laundering through limitations on cash limits is laudable, but again, the key may lie on the U.S. side, where most of the money is being made in the first place.
As Martin Woods, formerly of Wachovia, put it: "“If you don’t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you’re missing the point."
Woods is referrring to anks like Wachovia, for which he headed a anti-money-laundering unit 2006-2009, but quit in disgust when it became clear that his bosses didn't like what he found: That drug gangs were using the bank to funnel billions to Mexico.
Woods is referrring to anks like Wachovia, for which he headed a anti-money-laundering unit 2006-2009, but quit in disgust when it became clear that his bosses didn't like what he found: That drug gangs were using the bank to funnel billions to Mexico.
Why not indict the bastards? That's the tricky part: According to an excellent investigation by Bloomberg a few weeks back,
"No big U.S. bank... has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again.‘No Capacity to Regulate’Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering."
The United States, then, in addition to being responsible for much of the drug consumption that fuels Mexico's "drug war," and of putting in place very few obstacles to selling the assault rifles and guns used to kill Mexican police, civilians, and drug rivals, for fear out of financial panic blocks a full indictment of the criminal wrongdoings of big banks such as Wachovia, meekly asking them pay merely a small fine and to promise not to do it again...
It has often been noted that the key to win Mexico's "drug war" is found in the United States and its policies, and the absurd banking laws of the latter country only throws more fuel on that argument.
Calderón's money laundering initiative could be hugely important, but why now?
President Felipe Calderón's recent initiative to counter money laundering, which includes a ban on using cash for real estate transaction or spending more than 100,000 pesos in other transactions, if passed, may be hugely important. Given the support of both governor Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI and Mexico City chief of government Marcelo Ebrard of the PRD, it does stand a great chance of being made into law by congress.
Yet I cannot help but wonder: Why on earth did it take Calderón more than three years to come up with this initiative? Anyone who has lived or visited Mexico will know that cash remains king; indeed, according to Washington Post, 3/4 of all commercial transactions are done with cash in Mexico, compared with only 20 percent in the United States. As such, as measures to counter money-smuggling from the United States to Mexico are of little value - the WP article expands on the subject of money smuggling, and reports that only about an estimated 1 percent of southbound cash is actually detected - this may be one of the most important legislative initiatives taken in Calderón's "war on drugs."
Yet why so long in coming? Put differently, what interests have been blocking this fairly obvious initiative for such a long time? PRD senators Tomás Torres and Minerva Hernández, while supporting the initiative, pointedly noted that one similarly important money laundering initiate has long been in the works in the senate, but that PRI blocked it in the last minute. Why? One is entitled to one's own conclusions.
Yet I cannot help but wonder: Why on earth did it take Calderón more than three years to come up with this initiative? Anyone who has lived or visited Mexico will know that cash remains king; indeed, according to Washington Post, 3/4 of all commercial transactions are done with cash in Mexico, compared with only 20 percent in the United States. As such, as measures to counter money-smuggling from the United States to Mexico are of little value - the WP article expands on the subject of money smuggling, and reports that only about an estimated 1 percent of southbound cash is actually detected - this may be one of the most important legislative initiatives taken in Calderón's "war on drugs."
Yet why so long in coming? Put differently, what interests have been blocking this fairly obvious initiative for such a long time? PRD senators Tomás Torres and Minerva Hernández, while supporting the initiative, pointedly noted that one similarly important money laundering initiate has long been in the works in the senate, but that PRI blocked it in the last minute. Why? One is entitled to one's own conclusions.
IFE confirms: No penalty for the president for breaching law
Despite the resolution by the TEPJF, Mexico's electoral tribunal, that president Calderón broke constitutional and electoral law by his "public announcements" ahead of this summer's state elections, the Federal Electoral Institute confirmed that the president will not face any sanction, for the simple fact that no such penalty is contemplated for what are defined as "electoral crimes" by the executive power.
Expect a legislative push soon to change this legal absurdity.
President of the PRD, Jesús Ortega, noted congress should reform the law to end this "guaranteed impunity." (For tis part, IFE itself, said council president Leonardo Valdés, has been pushing for an overhaul of this aspect of the law since 2008).
This sounds very reasonable. While the 2007 electoral law made it illegal to publish government propaganda ahead of electoral contests, leaving out any specific penalties only undermines the respect not for this particular electoral prohibition, but for law in general.
Expect a legislative push soon to change this legal absurdity.
President of the PRD, Jesús Ortega, noted congress should reform the law to end this "guaranteed impunity." (For tis part, IFE itself, said council president Leonardo Valdés, has been pushing for an overhaul of this aspect of the law since 2008).
This sounds very reasonable. While the 2007 electoral law made it illegal to publish government propaganda ahead of electoral contests, leaving out any specific penalties only undermines the respect not for this particular electoral prohibition, but for law in general.
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