The state of the sermons and the private initiative that causes discomfort

In Mexico, politics has an admirable talent: when the country is burning, the first thing it does is look for someone to blame. This week, the favorite villain is called Grupo Salinas. It doesn't matter if public debt skyrockets, if Pemex is a terminally ill patient, or if the mega-projects cost three times what was promised. No. The problem —according to them— is that businessman who dares to remind the government that arithmetic is not ideology and that payrolls are paid with real money, not with speeches... and even less with taxes that squeeze people.

The letter published by Grupo Salinas is not a simple corporate statement. It is, at its core, a white-glove slap to the official narrative. "In the face of lies, we will always respond with the truth," they say. It hurts, because the truth here is that while companies negotiate debts, meet their creditors, and keep investing, the State manages failures... and on top of that, boasts that "everything is fine even though its own data refutes it."

The playbook is predictable: the classic strategy of the tropical, conservative, liberfascist-phobic left: fabricate an enemy, accuse them of being a tax evader, demonize them in the public square, and, in passing, disguise their own inefficiency as a heroic struggle (like the cotton-headed one). It is almost comical: the government that has indebted the country the most in decades and has already squandered the whole cake now pretends to give lessons on fiscal responsibility. It is as if an alcoholic were teaching sobriety courses in the middle of a bar... with his fly down, urinated, and with Tonayán in hand.

However, what is interesting here is not just the local fight. There is a global context: in Latin America, every time the left feels cornered by its own red numbers, it resorts to the same script. Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia... the formula is identical: control the narrative, persecute the inconvenient businessman, and build a populist epic where the State is always the hero, even if it can't pay the bill like that annoying friend at the bar who asks you to buy him a beer. Yes, the money always comes from the same place: from people's pockets (surprise, the government doesn't generate wealth).

The problem is that reality doesn't care about ideology. Bonds mature, debt accumulates, investors leave. What is left? The same as always: raise taxes (now for gamers), further indebt the country, and shout from the podium that "the people rule by doing a cheap cleansing to empathize." What they do not say is that the people are just extras, because the real show is keeping alive a bureaucratic apparatus that only knows how to spend stupidly... after all, it is not their money.

Meanwhile, the private sector operates with a different logic: training models, life and career plans, clear objectives, profitability, productivity, real incentives, constant training, and teams that produce or are out on the street (not all companies, do not start whining). That is the unforgivable heresy: proving with facts that there is another way to organize a country, one that doesn't need eternal subsidies or daily speeches.

This is why Salinas Pliego is so uncomfortable. Because he doesn't depend on official applause. Because he speaks of meritocracy from an objective standpoint and not from the imaginary one that the phrase provides. Because he defends efficiency and economic freedom in a country where those words are almost insults for those who live off the public treasury inefficiently. And because, to top it off, he has hinted that the business sector can also have a political project (even if it bothers them). What worse nightmare for the government lackeys than a businessman who doesn't kneel and has what it takes?

The ruling left insists that everything is a matter of "fiscal justice." However, the truth is that we are facing something bigger: the monopoly of the narrative. If those who produce, invest, and create value gain credibility, then the politician loses the only capital he has left: the narrative. Without a narrative, what does the government have left? A pile of debts and dead bodies outside the IMSS in a country that no longer believes anything they say.

Sarcasm is inevitable: while the "left that wants you poor" builds projects nobody asked for and multiplies debts nobody will be able to pay (and already threatens to bury the IMSS in 2030), the "right of capital" keeps millions of jobs afloat. They still have the nerve to call the businessman "enemy of the people." No, gentlemen: the real enemy of the people is the institutional mediocrity that you defend as if it were a virtue with your social alms.

In the end, what is clear is simple: this is not the end of a businessman, it is the beginning of a bigger discussion. Who should lead Mexico's future: the bureaucracy that only knows how to spend or the private sector that at least knows how to produce? Grupo Salinas's letter is just the spark, but what is truly burning is the certainty that the current model is exhausted.

Yes, you can keep shouting "rich against poor," you can keep putting on morning shows, and you can keep inventing villains. However, reality can't be covered up with speeches. The left can keep telling stories... but the numbers, those they hate so much, always end up in the red.

#MAAC2030 ?

Luis Raúl Salinas Cordón is a communicator with experience in strategic communication, training, psychology, and projects in both the public and private sectors. He currently works at Totalplay for Grupo Salinas. He writes columns as a hobby, where he addresses politics, economics, and financial freedom with a simple, critical style full of sarcasm and humor.