Latin America braces for an era of technology-led disruption
John Price - June 04, 2017
In Latin America today, the status quo is under attack, and the weaponry of change is technology. From corrupt politicians caught blindsided by damning recordings on social media to a taxi industry up-ended by Uber, to a media industry undermined by Netflix, mobile-enabled technology is delivering unprecedented levels of transparency, efficiency and upheaval to Latin American society, politics and industry.
Nicaragua Highlights Failures of Globalization
Tortilla Con Sal - July 16, 2017
Nicaragua’s experience highlights the failure of Western corporate capitalism to promote prosperity, security and stability either at home or overseas.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government recently published a survey of the standard of living in households across the country showing encouraging declines in poverty and inequality. Overall poverty in 2016 was just under 25 percent, down from over 42 percent in 2009. Extreme poverty for the same period fell to just under 7 percent, from over 14 percent in 2009. Nicaragua’s GINI index, measuring inequality, fell from 0.37 in 2009 to 0.33 in 2016. These encouraging results, better than Nicaragua’s Central American neighbors, vindicate the Sandinista government’s social and economic policies during a period of global stagnation.
Why Nicaragua Was Smart to Reject Uber
Tortilla Con Sal - March 23, 2017
the clear business strategy of Uber’s investors is to work ruthlessly to gain a monopoly position both within individual countries and internationally.
Back in July 2016, New York radio journalist Don Debar, reporting on the Democratic Party Convention in Philadelphia, found that people arriving for the convention in taxis were stopped at the security cordon over a mile from the convention center. From there, they had to get out and walk in the exhausting Philadelphia summer sun in order to attend Hillary Clinton’s preordained triumph.
Mexico - Internet and IT Services
This is a best prospect industry sector for this country. Includes a market overview and trade data.
Export.gov - September 16, 2017
With the goal of universal connectivity, internet access was instituted as a constitutional right of all citizens of Mexico by the telecommunications reform of 2013. There are 70 million internet users, which represents 63 percent of the population over the age of six and reflects a growth rate of six percent with respect to 2015. Efforts to improve market competition over the last three years have resulted in a reduction of 13 percent in communications services prices in 2016, according to the Mexican telecommunications regulator, IFT. Mexico mirrors the global trend towards mobility. Ninety-one percent of internet users connect through a smart phone and there are currently 90.7 million active smart phones in the country.