With estimates of the losses from the subprime mortgage fiasco spiraling past $100 billion, Citigroup, Bank of America and similar citadels of financial genius are deep in a huddle with the Treasury over some sort of rescue operation. Pundits are shocked at the prospect of taxpayers bailing out companies whose middle managers are distraught if their year-end bonuses come to less than seven figures. After all, deregulation and global competition was supposed to banish the cozy relationship between big business and big government that justifies corporate welfare under the slogan "Too Big to Fail."

But a look just south of the border--where Citigroup has also been making headlines--reminds us that crony capitalism is not some anomaly that rears its hypocritical head in times of financial crisis. It is built into the DNA of multinational banking.

On October 17 the Mexican government announced that a syndicate organized by Banamex, Citigroup's Mexican subsidiary, had bid for and won at auction Aeroméxico, the country's largest airline. Having bailed out Aeroméxico's former owners eighteen years ago, the government owned a majority of the company's stock, which it was now privatizing.

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