Happy New Year and a few memories of December 31

 

Tuesday's video: Happy New Year and a few memories of December 31

How are we going to dismantle the cartels?

How are we going to dismantle the cartels?: We posted about the Mexico cartels during 2024. We may be posting more in 2025 after listening to President Trump talk about dismantling them. Time will tell. We can tell you this about the state of the cartels. My friend Allan Wall posted this…

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How are we going to dismantle the cartels? - American Thinker https://t.co/bORytWjYvu

— Silvio Canto. Jr. (@silvio_canto) December 31, 2024

We posted about the Mexico cartels during 2024. We may be posting more in 2025 after listening to President Trump talk about dismantling them. Time will tell.

We can tell you this about the state of the cartels. My friend Allan Wall posted this:

It’s important for jobs to be created in Mexico.

But what if criminal gangs are one of the biggest employers in the country?

A recent study has found that, taken collectively, the Mexican drug cartels are now the fifth largest employer in Mexico.

From ZME Science: “Mexican cartels now boast an estimated 175,000 members, making them the fifth largest employer in Mexico, right between the grocery chain Oxxo and telecoms company América Móvil.”

Working for a cartel means that you may be selling illegal drugs on the street, bringing someone over the border, working in one of many companies funded by laundered money and maybe others. It’s a diverse operation to say the least.

The cartels are the fifth largest employer because of the power of cash. No one knows for sure how many dollars go south because of cartel operations, but it’s billions. It’s enough to create jobs and keep a few politicians happy about their local economies.

So how are we going to dismantle the cartels? It won’t be easy and will require the full participation of the Mexican government.

Mexico receives $65 billion in remittances and the cartels are the fifth largest employer. What a strange way to run an economy.

P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.

 

2014: We remember 1964 New York World's Fair

2014 has been an interesting year for 50-year anniversaries:

1) The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show;
2) The Ford Mustang; and

3) The New York World's Fair.

It was a showcase for companies and future technology, such as "a touch tone phone"!    It was also an exhibition of US confidence and self esteem!    It was the US telling the world "we are #1" rather than meaningless "hope and change" speeches!

One big development in the last 50 years is that we were a manufacturing nation in 1964 as you can appreciate in this tour of the facilities recently published in The New York Times.

We made cars, telephones, TV's and lots of other things.    Check out the industrial area from the aforementioned article:

"In the part of the fairgrounds closest to the Van Wyck Expressway, more than 45 pavilions devoted to industry (with some religious organizations sprinkled in) surrounded a pool around which was held a nightly fireworks show.
Anchored by the General Electric Pavilion’s Progressland, the Industrial area was a collective advertisement for corporate America, with the Kodak Pavilion’s roof designed like the surface of the moon, and Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen’s egg-shaped IBM Pavilion, where visitors sitting on grandstands were lifted swiftly into a theater.
At the Bell System exhibit, visitors previewed phone technology that is now commonplace.
Perhaps the biggest hit: The Pepsi-Cola Pavilion’s Unicef-Disney production of “It’s a Small World,” with a song, in rounds of several languages, that became forever lodged in people’s minds."

We don't do make products like this anymore and that is something to think about.  

Let me ask you a couple of questions:

1) How many of those companies are still making anything in the US?   Who is hiring American workers in US plants?

2) How can you maintain a middle class if everything is made by cheap labor elsewhere?

I am not peddling "doom and gloom" this morning.  I understand that 2014 is different than 1964.  

However, a great nation has to make things and we are making less of everything these days.

P. S. You can hear my chat with Frank Burke, management consultant & American Thinker contributor, about manufacturing today 

P.S.  You can listen to my show.  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.

We remember Rick Nelson (1940-1985)

Rick Nelson died in a plane crash in Texas in 1985.   He was flying to Dallas for a concert.   Nelson recorded many songs, from "Traveling man" to "Hello Mary Lou" to "Young emotions".    My favorite is "Fools rush in", a tune from the 1940's that Nelson brought back in 1963.    

You can get his music HERE.

 

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column.

1967 Dallas vs Green Bay: A great game known as The Ice Bowl

It was as cold back in 1967 as it is today.   Yet, nothing stopped those Packers' fans from showing up and watching a great finish to a great championship game.      I guess that the highlight of the game was Green Bay scoring in that last drive.

 P.S.  Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.

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December 31, 1972: The day we lost Roberto Clemente

(My new American Thinker post)

It was 50 years ago today, but I recall it quite well.  I welcomed 1973 with my parents.  My mother had made some amazing Cuban food, my father had some new Cuban music L.P.s, and it was a blast.  We watched the famous ball from New York, then spoke with my brother, who was visiting my uncle in Puerto Rico.  I hit the pillow around 2 A.M.  No one knew that my uncle's house was a few miles from the tragedy.

Then I woke up smelling my mother's Cuban coffee, and she broke the overnight news that Roberto Clemente had been killed in a plane crash.  It was stunning:

Clemente was on his way to deliver relief supplies to Nicaragua following a devastating earthquake there a week earlier.

At the end of September, Clemente had gotten his 3,000th hit in the final game of the season for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a hero in his native Puerto Rico, where he spent much of the off-season doing charity work. Some of his charitable work had taken him to Nicaragua, so Clemente was particularly distressed when he learned that very little aid was getting to victims of a devastating December 23 earthquake near Managua. 

The plane took off at 9 p.m. and the sounds of engine failure were heard as it went down the runway. It reached an altitude of only 200 feet before exploding and plunging into the ocean. Rescue workers were sent out immediately, but the task was next to impossible in the darkness. The bodies were never found. The news hit Puerto Rico hard–one friend of Clemente described it as the “night that happiness died.”

A subsequent investigation into the crash revealed that the plane never should have been put in the air and that the pilot had erred by over-boosting the engines.

To say the least, I was shocked to hear the news and to talk to my brother, who gave us a report about how the island was reacting.  We had grown up following Clemente's career.  Clemente hit .317 and got #3,000 on his last at-bat of the 1972 season.  He was the MVP of the 1971 World Series and hit .318 in that postseason.

It was a rough way to start the new year.  A few months later, Clemente was inducted to The Hall of Fame.

PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos.

We remember John Denver (1943-1997)

John Denver was born on this day in 1943.   He died in a plane crash in 1997.

In the 1970's, Denver dominated the pop charts with songs like "Rocky Mountain High" and "Annie's song".     Great songwriter and singer! His songs are HERE.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column.

1966: Eddie Matthews traded from the Braves to the Astros in the offseason

Eddie Matthews' long association with the Braves ended on this day in 1966.    He was traded to the Astros in the off-season and finished with the Tigers a year later.   He was the only man who played for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.   Spahn played in Boston but not in Atlanta.  Aaron played in Milwaukee and Atlanta but not in Boston.

Matthews' greatest years came in Milwaukee where he hit over 450 HR.   He led the league in 1953 and 1959 and was a huge part of the Milwaukee teams who won the NL pennant in 1957 and 1958.   The Braves tied LA for the NL pennant in 1959 but lost a playoff.   

Overall, Matthews finished with 512 HR and 1,453 RBI.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column.