Will Carlos Slim Save the Economy?

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim—sometimes ranked as the richest man in the world—is known to have rescued The New York Times, but might he have bigger projects to save? “In April, when President Obama visited Mexico, Slim attended a dinner of prominent Mexicans held in Obama’s honor,” Lawrence Wright writes in The New Yorker. “According to someone at Slim’s table, Obama asked Slim to visit him the next time he was in Washington, and said to him, ‘Make sure you talk to Larry Summers before you go, because we need your advice.’ Slim did speak to Summers.” Slim tells Wright that “this crisis is the same one as 2000 and 2001.” His solution? “First, stabilize the financial system. Instead of talking about toxic assets and other in­vestments, you should recapitalize the banks through the public sector, using convertible bonds or preferred stocks.”