Episode 19: The impact of the Oil Reform in Mexico City

Yo Soy by #michaelortega aka @MichaelPinaComedy

So here we are another episode of yo soy. I have Rodrigo Morales sitting with me. He's actually my co-host today on all days. And he is my assistant actually Rodrigo. And I go way back. We actually, met him when he was 14. We made a movie together. Yeah, called a, he told me he wanted to be a movie star. So I. Hey, you wanna join us? We're making a movie. Yeah. Yeah. At that time, I used to want to be, an actor. Also, I broke some big girl, ah, at times. So I wanna be in a movie and seek her and make some kind of jealousy. Oh, you wanted to make you jealous, huh? Yes. We didn't know that one. That's good. You know what, that's one way of doing it another way is, to make sure that you, just do good, good work. You were a Netflix movie too. Yeah. Yeah. I was in a movie in 2020. I made a movie with, a Mexican director, the movie it's asphalt goddess. Asalto goddess. Yes. Asphalt goddess. How do you say it in Spanish asphalt? So that was a fun experience. And you were a bad guy in that movie, right? Yeah. It was a bad guy and yeah, it was a great experience. It was my first experience on stage and from the camera and also with, very good actors. Yeah. Post me. I wasn't a good actor. No, you gotta watch your words. I understand English too. It was, you were a great actor. These guys made a lot of teachers before. Yeah. Before appearing in that movies and just teasing. Huh? So now in Mexico city, and I've been doing this podcast, Yo Soy, and, the name actually came up with Yo Soy. I remember we made it, we made some hats. We've made some merch because that's what you do in the world. So you can go to our major, do major Domo list.com website, and you can find our merch as well as you can find your products in the, I just forget the name. What's it called Sobe Mercado. S U B E Mercado you'll see it on our landing page. And you can buy stuff that we found here unique in Mexico. Yeah. Inventory will be changing all the time, but today we wanna talk about an interesting subject yesterday. I RGO was busy cuz he's working on a project in, in, in his city where he grew up called Roma, Norte. See? Yeah. Yeah. Roman Norte and he's working on an apartment so he can in fact. Rent it out if he wants yeah. Or live in it in a nice place. And one of the things that happened, and I thought it'd be a great story to talk about today because we're talking about reform in Mexico, things in Mexico from an American perspective and a Mexican it's on both and from a Mexican perspective because he's Mexican okay. He grew up in Roma and, he has a little history here actually his whole life. And we thought it'd be a great idea to talk about what's going on in one subject matter. I talked about what we're not gonna talk about today was gentrification. Yeah, he and I have had a lot of conversations on gentrification, but today I decided I wanted to talk about something different. I wanted to talk about what's happening with the president, president Andres. Manuel said. And Manuel Lopez. Oh yeah. AMLO I just say as I can't say it all. And more importantly, we're talking about. Azure reform. And right now there's a big fight between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, because Mexico, when they created the north is called NAFTA at first, and now it's called some other agreement. I don't know what it's called USMC was negotiated with the last president of the United States. But the first one starts way back from Clinton. I have a huge history with Clinton, not myself, but from politics. My brother worked with political sides. Anyway, long story short, I won't go into that, but I wanted to talk about the electrical reform last year. It was it this year, it went for a vote. Yes. And it failed. Yeah. It failed. It failed. Didn't have enough, ammunition behind it. I believe that I understand why it failed. I think it failed on purpose. But we're not gonna go into that. We're gonna go into a. And I, when I was talking to RGO today, he was giving me telling me a story. He called me in a panic because something happened in his apartment and he didn't know what to do. Next. What happened was his electricity, his gas was turned off. His gas was turned off. That's right. And as he started revealing the story to me, I became fascinated by the story. And when he came back to my place to our studio here, he started telling me more of the story. And then I said, we need to do a podcast because I want to talk about it. The electrical reform. Yesterday I did a small video talking about the electrical reform and how, people are starting to say, wait for a second, electricity, gas, power, anything that touches the people is a critical element of life in that country. Yeah. So it's a national security concern. It's a true natural security concern. And if a government doesn't protect that from the people. Then other countries can control those people. Okay. For example, what people don't know is Walmart it's a huge conglomeration in the United States. It's bought land all over the country. And the reason why he's bought is bought this land, not to build new stores is because underneath that land is natural water. Yeah. So he's selling the resource. Under the Wells. Some states like California are getting wise to that. So under charging anybody, if you have land and you happen to have natural water underneath you, they're starting to charge you for your own water. So now you see the government controlling private enterprise in the United States. We thought it always was precious. Yes. Now in Mexico, that's not the same. The government owns all the buildings when it boils down. You live in a building that's, probably a hundred years old. Okay. It's older. And when the gas was turned off, I want you to tell me in your own words what happened when the guy knocked on the door, and you couldn't turn on the gas, tell me what happened. The guy arrives, and he goes, to my roof and sees all the full installation. She came back to my apartment, and he tells me, your installation is good, but, unfortunately, we, we can't turn on your gas. And I said, why? And they say you because you have your boiler inside your bathroom. And that's why that's was like, I, I. That boiler has been there like, ten years ago. What's the trouble? So they made me a contract and made a new agreement with them to turn on my gas. And also they made me move my boil. From another place and they gonna charge me every month, a price for that work. So let me get this straight a month ago, you had gas in your apartment. There was no problem. Yeah. You're paying your month every time you can afford it. Yeah. And then, all of a sudden, it got disconnected for various reasons. And now you have to. For a gas company. That's now a private gas company, right? Yeah. It's not the Mexican government. No. It's private. It's a private company, a Spain company from Spain. It's a company from Spain charging him to turn his gas back on when it was working perfectly a month ago. Yeah. So let me explain why we're having this discussion; let's first go back to who owns the infrastructure. The building is owned by Mexico They lease it to you guys, or however it happens, they lease; you bought a long-term lease from it, correct? Yeah. Your mother did what your family did. And you've been living there since you were a little kid and a baby, right? Yeah. Now, construction work was done on it. You guys fixed it, somebody fixed it. So you're using it. Then all of a sudden, the electricity, and the gaskets turned off, and now you have to pay more to get it redesigned. So that meets the requirements of this private company that now you have to pay gas to yeah. This is my problem. This private company was this deal with Binette from 2012 to 2018, he struck a deal with these private companies that privatized certain industries. And ha this is what AMLO is fighting against. He doesn't want the privatization of these utilities that are basic structures for all of Mexican. Yeah. Okay. Everybody needs gas so they can have hot water in their apartment. Yeah. Everybody needs electricity. So they have electricity in the apartment. Everybody needs these certain infrastructure things that you're paying taxes for. Correct? Yeah. The government, you are paying taxes for something. Okay. So clearly, what pian Netto did was pretty smart for the government is now the government isn't paying for anything, even though you're paying taxes to them. Because what's happening is they have the politicians in Mexico, just like they do in the United States, have set policy by working with private companies, to privatize certain commodities and necessities you need to survive as a Mexican. And now when you have to do an upgrade, not because you have to, but because the government's forcing you, I know when he first called me and said, because of the government. And I started laughing. I'm like, yeah, that's the government rules, but those rules were initiated because who's making money? Then when he told me, the gas company came back and said, oh, gotta, what's a deal for you? $59.99 a month, fast sauce. You can pay for this upgrade. We're gonna give you what you don't need, but because the government mandated it and we as the good guys are gonna help you. Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel? Do you feel like he's a good guy? I feel like an assault. An assault. He's insulting your pocket. Yeah. 10 PEs at a time. Okay. And what's the Mexican skin wage, 120 pesos. Okay. And if you're paying 120 PEs a month to fix this thing, when we find out tomorrow, That's gonna be highway robbery, and you will be insulted. Yeah. Insulted and assaulted. Double assaulted. See, that's what I'm talking about. I'm gonna get on a subject matter that people don't like a lot, but I criticize this mayor from Mexico city a lot. Like you don't agree necessarily, or I do agree. The issue is this. She's building this train that goes through Mexico, and I call it the train through nowhere that money, those billions of. That can use to build that train in nine months. So she has something good to show us that she can try to run for president. Okay. And she's done something for Mexico, and react shows that she's done nothing for Mexico because those billions of dollars could have easily paid for this guy's gas improvements. Okay. But instead, they advised away the government to stick it to the Mexican, the poor Mexican, because they let. PTO with the monies in his pocket. He's in Spain now, right? Yeah. He's in Spain with 500 million vessels. I heard. Okay. Five, Hey PTO, send him some money. He needs some money. Okay. Yeah. To pay his gas bills, please, he's even asking nicely. So here we have a solution that the government gave the Mexicans that isn't a solution. It's only a solution for the. So now every vessel that he pays for taxes is okay. Is not going to help him in his crisis of getting hot water to take a shower. It's not helping him in his crisis to have water. He can drink from the tap. It's not helping him to build out this infrastructure side of the building that the government ultimately owns. To improve the building. And everybody living in this area, especially in Roma. Roma is a highly gentrified area. And I don't wanna talk about that. Unless this podcast will get forever, but it's highly gentrified. I do remember, though, I didn't wanna talk briefly about it. Okay. When I first met Rodrigo in, I met him at that fountain. What was the fountain called? Place three. Okay. It's a beautiful fountain. I recently learned that the fountain was the only three ever made and that France sent it to Mexico as a peace. Okay. A friendship in culture. It's a statue of David. Okay. When I met him there, soon after that, I met his parents, and we went out to eat in the Roman area. We had some tacos, tacos, of course, because we were Mexican. We always eat tacos anyway. So he had some tacos and six or seven years later when I came back to Roma, I couldn't identify. I was like, where's that taco stand we ate at? It's just so different and costly. I remember that night that only cost me like a couple of hundred vessels. Okay. And that we all ate your brother, your little brother, your father, everybody. That was the rich man and 200 vessels. Okay. Yeah. Now the same, no cost me 800 vessels easily. Okay. So what I'm saying is here in Mexico city, there's a lot of change. There's a transformation in where the government is acting more like American go. The politicians are thinking more like political politicians were, where they find and devise ways to stick it to the Mexican. Yeah. Okay. Where they're actually in this particular case, when all Rodrigo wanted to do was to turn on his electric, his gas. So he could actually maybe rent the place or do something with the place and all of a sudden, even just live in it, he can't; he has to take cold, hot showers in my place. In our studio, but that's part of the deal. That's okay. But the reality. What's happening is the government is going in transition. Yeah. We have politicians like shine bomb who are globalists, who talk about things like green energy, but then in the same instance when Mexican kids need them to help, they're not there to help, oh yeah, there is that private company there to help, to charge him more money. Okay. To improve the Mexican infrastructure he has. Out of his pocket plus his taxes, and today he still has no hot water. Yeah. That's what happened. so to the Mexicans right now, to the Mexicans. Yeah. It's a serious issue. Can you think of other issues just like that, that you see happening? Yeah. You, it's a place called it here in Mexico is, there has an issue in the gas price. Because I think two, two months ago, the gas had the highest prices in history. Oh really? Yeah. It cost us, four months ago, 10, maybe nine passes and goes to the 15, 17. Oh, wow. Almost the total price. In that area, the government builds a state company. Okay. Call it the gas for poly star. So gas, it's gas for the weld. For the wellness gas for the wellness. Yeah. Gas for the belt. How does that work? And they sell the gas in that, in the whole area. They put away the price companies and take it over. Take to stop it. Yeah. To stop the price. Gouging price gouging. Yeah. What's once again, one of the fallacies in the United. Is the government not there to help the citizen, although the government's supposed to be there to help the citizen in Mexico? We're seeing a transition where half of the government wants to help the citizen, but the other half likes the money that has in their pocket. Okay. So you're not so willing to help the citizen. Yeah. And unfortunately, both those people are politicians and there's a lot of conflict. When AMLO brought up the electrical reform it was killed. It was killed by the same politicians trying to run for president when he was gone. Yeah. So it's ironic that they said, oh, we're gonna leave it till next time. You're gonna leave it till next time because you're not gonna solve the problem. Cause you don't wanna solve the problem because it was available to you to solve. And Rodriguez's example is the example of what I'm talking about. Here. We have a situation where a young millennial-aged Mexican. Yeah, Mexican educated. Who's trying to improve his life level, himself up from his family before him. And he's stuck. He's stuck having to pay for things. Now that the generation before him didn't have to pay because Pena-Nieto wanted to make some laws and no politician after him has being willing to fix those laws so that the Mexican didn't have to get stuck. Yeah. Paying for infrastructure that they do not even own. See, that's the biggest pre here in the United States. When you improve infrastructure, the theory is that, you're gonna own, it only makes it better for the next time you sell it. You're not selling anything. My friend, because the government owns it. You may lease it to somebody else for a short period and make a little markup. But that's about. So the reality is these American ideas do not work in Mexico because the basis is not the same. And that's the problem we have. And Roger goes, examples is just one of many that I see as I'm walking through Mexico city all the time. I don't wanna make this podcast too long, but I wanted to introduce you to Rodrigo. And I talked to him very much, and he's my sidekick in Mexico. And he speaks fluent Spanish. When I fluent taco. Okay. And I cook though, and he's happy you. And the reality is this is the podcast about electrical reform. We didn't talk about it explicitly, but we talked about it in the real world of how it's impacting Mexicans and future podcasts RGO will be here, and we'll talk about more subject matters and, more importantly, to support us. We do majorDomolist.com and make sure to go to our website, and look at the stuff that we're doing. Look at our podcast. And more importantly, join us the next time we have a podcast. Yeah. Thank you very much, guys. See ya. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.