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Notes -
Something interesting is happening in Mexico. I will preface by saying this is a fact-finding point of analysis at this time but seems interesting. I have not yet made up an opinion on the situation.
Today Mexico elected Claudia Sheinbaum. Despite being widely expected Mexico etfs and markets took a huge dive. EWW appears to be one of the more popular etfs and was down 11% today. Milei and Trump each had big day 1 sell-offs but if my memory is correct both after winning elections had calm and relatively unchanged equity indexes by the close of U.S. trading.
Sheinbaum is from the same political party that has been running Mexico - AMLO. The big difference is the election was more of a landslide than expected. Super-majorities in Congress that will be able to pass whatever they want. She is even being called by the U.S. msm as a lifelong leftist. Her grandparents when they left Europe were both Jewish and communists.
On the plus side she was mayor of Mexico City and achieved a 10-15% reduction in murder (I usually think murder data is trustworthy). She does appear to be smart and technocratic but very left. I believe I saw her show support for Palestine and there is talk she will be friendly with Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia.
The other interesting thing to me is a Jewish (secular) women feels very odd as a national candidate to me in Mexico. No Spanish or indigenous roots. And Mexico’s Jewish population is extremely small (though as always there are some big hitters). Which feels very odd to me for a society to elect such an outsider (maybe Obama is close?). Also I guess she’s had some birther style attacks.
I talked to a few Mexican friends. One said he hated her and she was a communists, also said she wasn’t Jewish which surprised me as I thought most people considered Jewish an ethnicity. The other seems more open-minded.
Trump being elected could make negotiations between them tense since they are opposites on the political spectrum.
As far as markets go I want to figure out how she will govern. Mexico does seem to have some tailwinds with reshoring so the discount today looks interesting. The counter is the degree of the election victory means she has a mandate so if she does have leftist instincts I think there is a risks Mexico ends up on an Argentina or Venezuela path for a while. If you feel confident you can underwrite her politics will be more of a technocrat with leftist vibes/rhetoric but largely AMLO continuation then it’s an interesting time to pick up Mexico exposure at a discount.
https://x.com/BrazilBrian/status/1797627767808294933
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/world/americas/claudia-sheinbaum-jewish-mexico-president.html
Slightly off topic, but it's kind of remarkable that Mexico elected a Jewish president before the US (and it's a younger democracy as well).
That's kind of a Latin American thing, right? electing outsiders. Fujimori in Peru, Bukele in el Salvador, I think some others I'm forgetting. They like electing ethnic outsiders.
There's an old joke in India that the country would be much better off if all control of governance was handed over to the very small group of Zoroastrians that constitute the Parsis.
They're known to be competent and not have any particular beef with others, and they could be as corrupt as they like without making a dent, given how few of them there are.
Unfortunately, there's even fewer now, to the point where there's hilarious advertising by both governments and their interest groups alike for the few eligible bachelors and bachelorettes left to attend a few sponsored dating events and just fucking hook up already.
So I suppose there's merit in looking at entrenched and bickering ethnic or religious groups, going fuck that and hoping someone else does better.
To be fair, the Hindus don't have a beef with anyone else, or even others, or even alone.
Maybe I'm sleep deprived on duty because I took you seriously for a moment and was going to go on a diatribe about that lol.
But surprisingly enough, there are Hindus who consume beef. More commonly in Southern India.
Once, I was stupid enough to order a hamburger in Kochi. Worst fucking abomination I've ever eaten. Like the chef had learned how to prepare it from eavesdropping on tourists talking about burgers.
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