1990: Mexico Privatizes Phone Company

The Mexican government, with technical assistance from the World Bank, sells off a profitable phone company called Telmex. In the months preceding the sell-off, the Mexican government increases the rate of calls by local users from 16 pesos per minute to 115 pesos per minute in order to make the company more attractive to potential buyers. This makes the privatization of the phone system detrimental to consumers. In a 1992 report, The World Bank will admit that “the privatization of Telmex, along with its attendant pricetax regulatory regime, has the result of ‘taxing’ consumers—a rather diffuse, unorganized group—and then distributing the gains among more well-defined groups, shareholders, employees, and the government.” [Global Exchange, 9/2001, pp. 4 ]