Word: madrid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...hardly the fiesta that Mexicans have come to expect when a new President takes office. Indeed, by past standards, last week's inauguration of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, 47, as Mexico's 21st President since the 1910 revolution was a distinctly low-budget affair. Gone were the sleek limousines that had carried dignitaries to past ceremonies, the flower petals carpeting the streets and the thousands of peasant farmers bused into the capital at public expense. Instead the guests pulled up in ordinary black sedans, the streets were strewn with confetti rather than flowers, and masses of campesinos...
...show that he would waste no time tackling the country's problems, De la Madrid began to announce new government appointments the day before the inauguration. For the key post of Finance Secretary, he chose Jesus Silva-Herzog, a Yale-educated economist who negotiated a $3.8 billion credit for Mexico this fall from the International Monetary Fund. De la Madrid also reappointed Miguel Mancera Aguayo as director of the Bank of Mexico. Mancera Aguayo had resigned from the post last September after Lopez Portillo imposed strict regulations on currency exchange. Both men are thought to advocate stringent measures...
With unusual candor, the new President told his countrymen that "Mexico is undergoing a grave crisis." He noted that unemployment was high (between 10% and 15%) and that inflation would reach almost 100% this year. De la Madrid expressed concern about the "mistrust and pessimism" engulfing the country. "We are not a defeated or bankrupt nation," he said. "I will not allow our homeland to crumble away through our fingers...
...minute inaugural speech, De la Madrid outlined a ten-point austerity program for "reordering the economy." It included deep cuts in government spending and higher prices for public sector goods. (The next day gasoline prices were doubled.) He promised to peg the peso at a more "realistic" rate of exchange and announced plans to restructure the federal bureaucracy and eliminate waste...
...American leaders, including Secretary Shultz. We don't have to prove first that we are good boys, and only then will you be kind enough to talk about normalizing relations. You demand from us that we yield at the Geneva arms talks, at Madrid, over human rights, Afghanistan and Poland. We could make a similar menu of demands to the U.S. as a precondition...