Carlos Slim is not part of the “one percent”?

Mexico’s Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor (Profeco… more or less the Consumer Protection Agency) has devised scale of the social classes, divide by income… for the most part.

The poor-lower class (35 percent of the population) are those without regular income of any sort (temporary workers, causual laborers and those that depend on public assistance for part of their sustinance.

The poor-higher class are those that work for a living (farmers and workers) in “arduous labor for slightly above the minimum wage: about 25% of the population.

Another 25 percent of the population is “middle class”, the “lower middle” being officer workers, technicians and artisans:  about 20 perent of the total population, or the bulk of the middle class.  They may not have much money or consumer goods, but they can get by and can usually save some.  The “upper middle class” are business managers and professionals with a steady income.

Carlos Slim is only “lower upper class”.  While he’s richer than … anybody… the lower upper class is defined as those only a generation or two from their family wealth, who are rich, but not “old money”.   The nuevo riche.

The one-percenters are the old rich… those who — in Profeco’s terminology — “have fortunes so old they forgot where it came from.”

Carlos at least knows where he got his money.  He might be able to buy and sell the one-percenters, but he’ll never be part of their club.