In 2020, INEGI’s National Housing Survey counted 5.8 million rented homes in Mexico, 16.4 percent of all private inhabited homes. According to a report on the survey by the legal publication IDConline, only 54 percent of rented homes had a current lease contract.
The Code of Honor of La Merced
In an article in the Revista Mexicana de Sociología, the sociologist Héctor Castillo Berthier described the traders of La Merced, the Mexico City market that preceded the Central de Abasto. The traders followed customary norms rather than formal law. They kept “un riguroso código de honor,” a strict code of honor, and their deals were not made in writing, with notes and receipts.
The large wholesalers extended credit to the smaller traders, and the credit bound the smaller traders to them.
You Eat and You Leave
In March 2002, Mexico hosted a United Nations summit on financing for development in Monterrey. Before it, President Vicente Fox telephoned Fidel Castro. He invited the Cuban leader to lunch and asked him to leave after his speech, “para que no me compliques el viernes,” so that he would not complicate Friday for Fox. The call became known by the phrase comes y te vas, “you eat and you leave.”
In April 2002, Cuba broadcast the recording. The Mexican government answered that Fox “en ningún momento le pidió a su contraparte que no asistiera a la Cumbre de Monterrey,” at no time asked his counterpart not to attend the summit. In 2016, Fox called the arrangement “una propuesta mía,” a proposal of his own.
Payment Deferrals
On March 25, 2020, Mexico’s banking regulator, the CNBV, announced that banks could defer payments of capital, interest or both for up to four months, with a possible extension of two more. The measure covered mortgages, consumer loans, credit cards and business loans that were current at the end of February 2020 and whose borrowers had lost income.
According to a CNBV study, deferred business loans made up 16 to 17 percent of the business loan portfolio between March and June 2020.
Postpone the Rent
On March 27, 2020, Claudia Sheinbaum, head of government of Mexico City, asked landlords to postpone the rent of tenants with lower incomes. “Es el llamado a la solidaridad con personas que tienen menores ingresos,” she said, a call for solidarity with people who have lower incomes. She compared the request with the banks, which had postponed payments by four months.
The request had no legal force.
Not in a Position to Pay
On August 20, 1982, Finance Secretary Jesús Silva Herzog told the international financial community that Mexico “ya no estaba en condiciones de cubrir el servicio completo de su deuda externa,” was no longer in a position to cover the full service of its foreign debt. Earlier that month, the Bank of Mexico had only 180 million dollars left, against about 300 million dollars falling due within days.
According to the historian Carlos Marichal, of El Colegio de México, Mexico did not formally suspend payments. Its first moratorium lasted about six months, until January 1983.
Something Extra
A pilón is the small extra that a Mexican vendor adds to a purchase, such as one more quesadilla. An article in the journal of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico defines it as “una cantidad extra de mercancía que el comerciante regala a su cliente en agradecimiento por su compra,” an extra quantity of goods that the vendor gives the customer in thanks for the purchase.
The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy lists a Mexican verb for the other side of the relationship. Amarchantarse means “hacerse cliente habitual de un comerciante,” to become a regular customer of a merchant.
Herod’s Law
Luis Estrada’s film La ley de Herodes (1999) is set in 1949. Juan Vargas, an honest clerk, is made mayor of the village of San Pedro de los Saguaros. His padrino político, his political godfather, is López, the private secretary of the governor. López advises him to use his power and gives him a gun. By the end of the film, Vargas is a federal deputy.
According to El Universal, the state film institute IMCINE tried to pull the film from the Acapulco film festival in November 1999. The film went on to win nine Ariel awards.
Blind Loyalty
On September 24, 2020, after Jaime Cárdenas resigned as head of the Indep, the institute that sells seized assets, President López Obrador said: “Pedimos lealtad a ciegas al proyecto de transformación, porque el pueblo nos eligió para eso.” “We ask for blind loyalty to the project of transformation, because the people elected us for that.” He said that the loyalty was owed to the project, not to him. Cárdenas had said that his loyalty was reflective, not blind.
In February 2026, Expansión reported that Julio Scherer, in his book Ni venganza ni perdón, describes López Obrador’s formula for appointments: “colaboradores con 90% de lealtad y 10% de capacidad,” collaborators with 90 percent loyalty and 10 percent ability.
Nobody Stays
In mid-December 2018, two weeks after López Obrador took office, at least 200 employees de confianza of the presidency’s private secretariat and communications office were dismissed. They had served under Enrique Peña Nieto. According to the workers, they were pressured to sign resignations without severance. The workers said they were told: “no se quedará nadie,” nobody will stay.