From The Genius Who Blew Out The Mexican Economy In 1994...

Ciudad Obregon, MEXICO, June 7, 2007 (LPAC)--That would be Pedro Aspe, the former Finance Minister in the infamous Carlos Salinas de Gortari government (1988-1994). Oh, yes: Aspe is a Harvard graduate, and a protege of none other than David Mulford, the Deputy Treasury Secretary under Bush 41 (where he was the architect of the unlamented Brady Bond scam), before going on to become the International Chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston. After what Salinas and Aspe did to Mexico in 1994, on orders from international banks such as Credit Suisse First Boston, you'd think that no one in Mexico would want to get burned twice. But now it turns out that many state governments in Mexico have hired Aspe's consulting firm to help them float long-term state bonds, that are backed by future revenue streams of the state governments from taxes, tolls, and the like.

What is driving state after state into this suicidal lunacy is the fact that one of the first acts of the new Felipe Calderon government was to dramatically slash federal revenue-sharing arrangements with the states -- which are far more significant, in relative terms, than similar arrangements in the U.S. In Mexico, states are largely dependent on these federal monies for survival.

Most recently, the northern state of Sonora had 1.5 billion pesos (about $135 million) in federal funds pulled out from under them, which led Governor Bourse to call in financial wizard Aspe, to advise them on refinancing 5 billion pesos in state debt, with a new bond issue. The new bonds have a 30-year maturity, and will purportedly be paid out of future revenues from auto taxes, parking fees, etc.

The states of Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Puebla and others have all gone down this same path. And recently, the government of the Federal District (Mexico City), headed by the PRD party's Marcelo Ebrard, announced that they too had hired Aspe's firm to do the same in Mexico City. Ebrard has also invited Al Gore to speak in Mexico City at the end of July. Perhaps he intends to invite Al's hedge funds in to make a killing on the debt scam, as well.