Mexican You-Don't-Even-Want-to-Know-How-Many-Billionaire Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world (and subprime lender of choice for the New York Times!). He's also a monopolistic bastard, unsurprisingly.

Slim made his money by taking over the Mexican telephone market, of which he now controls a ridiculously high percentage. Competitors are beginning to tire of that situation! They feel that a man with $82 billion does not need to hoard every customer's penny for himself! And now a court has agreed.

The WSJ reports that a Mexican court just ruled that Telcel, Slim's cellphone company, can't just file injunction after injunction to tie up the government's regulators in court for years, thereby enabling the company to just ignore the regulators entirely. He may have to stop locking every Mexican in his personal prison of high cell phone prices, it seems. Which would be a good thing.

Mr. Slim's fixed-line company, Telefonos de Mexico SAB, controls 90% of the country's fixed-line market, while Telcel controls 70% of the mobile market. The country's antitrust agency says higher than average telephone bills in Mexico cost consumers about $6 billion a year.

Huzzah for this heroic, filthy rich extortionist. The NYT consorts with businessmen of only the highest quality.

[WSJ. Photo: AP]