From the first half of October 2020 to the same period in 2021, the National Consumer Price Index increased 6.12%, a percentage slightly higher than the 6% registered between September 2020 and September 2021. In other words, inflation continued to advance despite the three interest increases decreed by the Bank of Mexico since last June 24, which took them from 4% to 4.75 percent.
Inflation is hitting millions of Mexicans, the vast majority who have little or nothing to their name, and it is hitting them where it hurts the most: in the price of the food they eat.
From the first fortnight of October last year to the same period of the current year, the prices of food, beverages and tobacco rose 7.03%, those of fruits and vegetables 5.50% and those of livestock products, which include beef and chicken. 12.30 percent.
In other words, today you need 107.03 pesos to be able to buy the same food, beverages and tobacco that a consumer bought with 100 pesos a year ago, 105.50 pesos to buy the fruits and vegetables that cost 100 pesos and 112.30 pesos for the products livestock that he brought to his table in October 2020.
For those of us who enjoy a more or less comfortable economic situation, these increases surely do not cause us greater caution, but they definitely affect the lives of those who receive low incomes, those who dedicate the bulk of their money to acquire the food they must put on the table of their homes.
It does not take much effort to imagine the anguish that millions of people must feel day after day who know that what they earn is insufficient to feed themselves and their families adequately.
And these millions of men and women who suffer emotionally for not having enough to buy food must also live with the fear that their money will not be stolen from them when traveling on board a collective public transport because when they are victims of those who have specialized in this Flat crime, they go without food if they can’t find someone to lend or give them the money they need.
Thefts that are carried out on board buses or minibuses are rarely reported because the victims know that it is useless to do so. Despite this, 1,122 of these thefts were reported in September, the highest number so far this year and 22.22% more than those reported in September last year.
Most Mexicans of all ages face a difficult present and a very uncertain future. The Covid-19 pandemic and the health, economic and insecurity crises always affect those who have the least.
And that majority that survives day after day is far from worrying that university graduates are neoliberal or not, or that Spain apologizes to Mexico for the real or imaginary abuses that were first committed by the conquerors and then our Spanish ancestors against the indigenous peoples, or that the statue of Christopher Columbus on the Paseo de la Reforma be replaced by another.
Those millions are concerned about eating well, having a decent job and not being victims of criminals and they care little about the inconsequential issues that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador insists on addressing in his press conferences.
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Opinioner, columnist, lecturer, media trainer, 35 years of experience in the media, micro-entrepreneur.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx