Mexico entered the 1990s as a major trendsetter in Latin America’s economic renaissance. There was a mood of confidence about the country’s reforms, mirrored by an inflow of capital, falling inflation, fiscal consolidation, and a Brady Plan debt deal which reduced Mexico’s debt burden. Mexico’s history is rich with the rise and fall of great peoples and personalities. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, Aztecs, Mayans, and Olmecs developed advanced civilizations based on astronomy, agricultural cultivation, and architecture, including the construction of the pyramids. Mexico’s success was not without serious underlying problems. In the late 1960s the structural problems inherent in the import-substitution strategy began to cause concern among policy planners. Equally disturbing for the nation’s governing elite was the political crisis of 1968 that coincided with Mexico’s hosting of the Olympic Games. The structural problems confronting Mexico were observable in the external accounts.