joseann
don't just disappear like that.
we have never agreed on anything but we have admired your courage and what you stood for.
You were wrong so many times but we have never known you to be coward.
Let us know what going on to calm our fear. I know that you are not dead because a good soldier does not die , he just fades away1

I am only picking on xwill hannity , carlos fox news franco, dont be silent palin , and ateo limp- baugh now

hey that sosua beech!

Exports 571 m.
Imports 642.3m.
Total - 71.3m.

You have a trade deficit of 71m.
You've got work to do, no matter what your leaders.

I most certainly did not agree with what he stood for nor did I approve of his bullying nor the monotony of the comments ..but when he actually thought about an issue i enjoyed his comments

I am glad a small minority of us were correct in what we said about the strength of the economy here and also about the borrowings from the IMF and the World Bank when there were special deals for developing countries ...but now I think our level of borrowings is sufficient and in light of the sovereign debt problems in the Latin countries in Europe I would prefer a rest from more borrowings

How much of this economic gain is public works paid for with debt?

I imagine that all the improvements in the infrastructure which were made through the borrowings in the bad economic days have assisted the economy to grow ..so it was money well borrowed

jonbonz, the question really is how much of the CURRENT EXPENDITURE is being financed by borrowing. that is the question to be pondered. also, they say the economy grew by 7.5%, but nowhere do i see any figures on capital consumption. i hope they are right, not just fudging numbers.

ettinnc,
how much did you send your women in DR this past quarter???

Ricardolito
Is it good investment when the debts come due and the economy has to take a drastic nose dive to recover?
Greeces high living was paid for with government debt. Now they have to pay and cut up the credit cards. How long can the DR mainaint artificial growth based on loans with out actually increasing any kind of out put.

Ofcourse the economy is on the rebound. We have a presdient who understand the economics of running a country! Unlike the previous one who only understood the economics of catlle raising.

jon,
When the "new Punta Cana" is discovered in another country and becomes the new hot spot... Dominicans might be in the red

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100506/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street
I submit that this deficit spending is not good for the DR. The US will hit a brick wall soon and any country that is in Debt will feel it double. That is what China is hopeing for every day. Now Brazil understands this and for that reason he walks its own road beholding to no one. The are in control of thier own destiny.
Now when the IMF start calling where is the DR goign to say Dame? PRC?

The DR has nothing in common with Greece and our level of debt is totally different to the USA and to Greece ..of course the debts come due but most of the loans were at enormously good terms, but if we had an economy that you and Dreadlocks and Josean wanted we would never progress from dirt roads.it is not artificial growth . it is an economy that is reasonably strong and would be much better for Dominicans if more ownership was Dominican .
You only have to be here to see the money that is going around from hand to hand ..we do not have a dormant economy here ,,it is moving but especially in the east where occupancy figures have been very high throughout difficult times ..
I only hope we do not return to the bad times when nothing was done.

You fools believe any lie the gov't puts out there.
Where are the jobs?
Where are people working and earning a living wage?
Why are so many businesses and restaurants closing?
Is it a healthy sign that a few are getting much richer, while most are living more poorly?
No wonder Josean stopped posting. He was only talking to a bunch of idiots....YOU

You must have your eyes totally closed ..try shopping in the Herrera area in the new Jumbo or the other stores , look at the shopping in the Lincoln , Churchill area , look at the way the hotels are over 80% full in the east with many many new jobs , look at all the new golf course that have been built recently with housing commencing around them ..do you think it all has happened because no one has work ..maybe the north is a bit behind but not in the capital and the east ..you just have to be prepared to move to where the action is ..obviously not in your area .

Sure construction is up. The gov't protected drug dealers needed someplace to hide their money.
In Santiago they have built mall after plaza after apartment building. And all of them remain empty. The only shopping that most people can afford to do right now is for food.
This healthy first quarter, so beautifully managed by LF....
Are we talking about all the people "miraculously" who have found jobs (gov't handouts) right before the election?
I notice that the roads, wherever I travel, are being patched with most of the holes filled in. Amazing coincidence that they have not done a thing before election time.

Of course Josean stopped posting ,,success and prosperity were like a poison to him . He would have been happier if we had failed here in the DR and he could have said ..I told you so ...

I am far from against progress. I just feel getting loans is the wrong way to go about it. The fact of the matter is that the DR government works against itself many times. Why are all the public works projects happening right before an election and not a planned phased set of projects that are steady and cost effective.
These and many other things are blocking progress and not people challenging stupid non cost effective measures. I grew in the US and there is a rural road that said on the map it is paved because the money was spent to pave it and someone signed off that it was paved. For 20 years the money was spent on road repairs. The money was paid out for asphalt patches and so forth. 20 years later the maps were changed to reflect the reality. No one was investigated. My objections to the projects here are because I know a good 75% of the cost of what ever goes to make someone rich but nothing is finished.

Two years Prior to the economic melt down the Icelandic finance minister wrote an Op Ed piece in the London Financial time protesting against the attack on the Krona that his central bank was fighting tooth and nail to defend. Betting against his currency became the trade of choice in the forex market. Prior to that Iceland enjoyed its biggest economic boom ever fueled by binging on cheap money coming in from the int'l markets. What the finance minister did not understand was those that lend him to a stupor were the same ones who were raising the jolly roger on his country when their smell blood. Iceland went belly up,his government failed. To ad insult to injury last year McDonald had to pull out of Iceland .Due to inflation a big mac became too expensive for the average Icelandic citizen.

Now as far as myself, Josean, and Dreadlocks I really think you have me mistaken. I am so right wing I am a slightly reformed ditto head.Things that I agree with them on I say so and things that I disagree I say those also but I have never attacked them for their view and they have returned the favor. However now that I live here in the DR and my son was born here then I am looking at what I feel is in the best interest of the people around me.
Lets start with reducing the cost of living of the population. Step one fix the power. Being able to actually have stable refrigeration reduces the cost of food. Step two tackle corruption. I would bet there is a 30% invisbale tax just from corrruption.
Those two things alone would inprove the quality of life for the people more than all of these high cost public works projects. Once the corruption is tackled then the cost of the roads, Metro, aquaducts and so forth would be probably 50% of current prices.

cojelo ahi!!

Ofcourse the economy is on the rebound. We have a presdient who understand the economics of running a country! ===That ass could not even run a Colmado! Cost of living is higher here than the USA- a depressed peso 36 and prices 48 from Boca Sida along the SE dead,dead,dead to Bavaro One hotel is full because 5 have closed.

cont

The IMF is considered a lender of last result, Its were you go when nobody else will lend to you anymore. Its where you go when your debt to income ratio is all out of whack ( It is not a badge of acceptance, it is not the Paris Club). No analyst in their right mind will make a buy recommendation under these circumstance unless it was for a shylock loan.

People calm down, some of you sound like you're getting a heart attack, is only D.R. not an european nation.

MS Jersey the reason I am passionate about this is I live here. Unlike many people on here that take this as an abstract my cousins tells me approach, I drive on the roads. I see the so called progress that many times is better than last week but worse than a month ago. I do not care which party is in power I will critisize waste where I see it. I will blow the BS whistle for every loan taken out. When the DR signs a standby agreement with the IMF for a loan it is like a hooker servicing a John for a fee that she pays back with interest and if she is late her daughter has to perform more services and her interest goes up and her debt increases.
Now what ever party in power will artificially build up the economy with these public works projects paid for with loans and then ten years from now when they are not around to be blamed it will come to term.
The DR economy is just a speck for the region. The pesos is the DRs alone. So the entire OAS will not float a loan to prop it up.

I have been here when a tanker was late and we ran out of gasoline and were one day away from being out of diesel. I live through the black outs because the governement can't pay the bills.
I unlike most of the population get my income from off the Island so if the peso goes in the toilet I a helped but the people around me are hurt and I will deal with that. With the exception of rent and medical yes it is more expensive here than in the US.
Nothing I have seen out of this so called econimic growth tells me any of this is going to be better.

well Jonboz ..you must live in the Northwest in a remote part of the island if there is nothing in the growth that will make your life better ..

this is good for DR is only a matter time that dr will be a one of the most succesful country , still were no where near a powerfull nation , but leonel to all his faults has proven to a genious when it comes to making deals and contracts he is a true economist . I compare him to a modern day theodore rossevelt the man is all about making deals

In the Capitol. Sorry to inform you. I see how many people had jobs two years ago that do not now.

Now my opinion of LF is he doing a good job with what he was handed by the Hippo. And may God help the country if MVP and his friends get back in charge. Since I am not a citizen and can't vote who I support really does not count. I just worry when public works are used as part of an indicator of economic health. If you are going to build something make sure you get value out of it after the jobs created by it are gone. We have a park here near the Faro Colon that is covered with flowering trees. Why not plant it up and Breadfruit, Moringa, Mango and all kinds of Edibles. Why not have university Argo department put in a food forest in each green space in the Capital. Use the resources you have to reduce the effects of poverty. I am a firm believer that income alone is not a true indicator of poverty. A person living in the mountains gleaning most of their food from the land around them with 5mil a month is higher up the QOL than a person pulling in 20 mil in the Capital.

This county needs to be purged of a great of amount people in the Capitol. Do some land reform and I am not talk taking away from one and giving to the other.
I am talking stream lining ownership to make sure some one can get a clear title if it is supposed to be theirs. Work the small holder agriculture to build up the ability for this island to feed the region. Did you know that plots of land 1/5- 2 acres is five times more productive than big plots. Did you know that on 1 acre in this climate you can pull down 120,000 pounds of produce a year when done with intercropping? This is not including the livestock that can be run off the agro waste.
All it would take is use a park in the Capitol to turn it into a working model farm where the farmers could come and see what can be done. But this takes little money and it is not glamorous. But in the end the more food this island produces for sale off the island the more money that is made period.

33 coments in one day ?
How come?
I did not see the word "Haitians"

Etiennc the comment about the amount of produce per acre holds true for Haiti also. Happy now?

Well said Jonbonz

Ricardolito, a guy who once described himself in these pages as ¨a well trained economist ¨, repeatedly invokes my name when he has disagreements with economic forecasts for this country. now, he states that this country cannot go down the path of greece, because it has a ¨completely different economy ¨. ok, Ricardolito..the floor is yours. tell Uncle Dread just exactly how the economies are different in terms of current account deficit, capital consumption, inflation rates, how much borrowing is used to increase GDP by 1 percentage point, productivity index per capita, and government expenditure on public servants, who produce next to nothing. tell us about the trade deficit, and balance of payment issues. tell us about IMF indebtedness, and Pertocaribe loans. show us how we have this rosy economy, whilst Greece was a mess..go ahead!

Dread again shows his mastery as the wizard of the " Magic 8 Ball "

Pushing down wages, concentrating economic growth in ways that creates massive dis-utility and burdening future income with debt repayments, especially for artificially inflated assets and extra especially for unproductive artificially inflated assets like housing, means a weaker economy because of weakened demand, just as policies that inhibit capital formation weaken supply.

Ricardolito, tell me if that passage above describes something that appears familiar, in terms of debt burden and runaway construction.

and, Ricardolito, notice that there are no figures for net imports, nor investment. so, what we really have is an economy driven by a massive cosntruction boom, to the tune of a 20% increase over the corresponding period last year. unfortunately, housing is non productive, and , even the construction thereof does not benefit the Dominican individual to any great extent, since the overseers are foreigners and the labor content is mostly haitian. so, we get to sit and watch construction go up 20%, and feel no gains.

Drive the honky foreigners into the sea with your pitchfork Dread

Dreadlocks has completely twisted my words to suit his own views and asks others to give figures to justify his own points of view ..if you want to disagree , it is you who must do the work and presnt your case .
But for example the external debt percentage to GDP for Greece is around the 150% mark , the public debt is about 110% and this more than double the figures in the DR. The cost of the large amount of loans over the past 2 years to the Dr was next to nothing under the special agreements granted to the IMF by the G20 ..and the cost of borrowing by Greece has been high .
What the DR is desperately short of is capital for investment , made more difficult by some Dominicans who try to discourage investment and so we need capital to provide the capital items needed to produce and assist the exports ..these items may be office buildings , good roads and transport systems or simply tractors and machinery.

blutarsky is back from spring break

Rock on xwill ......where is the chick with the bigote

Ricardolito.
I would submit the money is here. Lets look at the second biggest industry in the DR. Remittetences that do not require any infrastructure at all to get. The amount of money sent into the country every year is stagering. But the money leaves the island as imports as fast as it comes in. Now if the situation were changed to where that money circulated two or three times before it left the country that is an imidiate economic boost. That money would get taxed two or three times before it left the island and all these projects would not require loans. It would be pay as you go at the same level or higher than is currently being done. I am saying that is the powers that be took one step back and took a deep breath they could reevaluate and redirect the efforts for a just a little cash outlay and direct the economy in such a way that the zona francas, tourism and public works do not in them selves make the economy but only enhance it.

Racardolito
I will give you one of the best things the this president ever did and it really did not add any cost to the functioning of the the government. The joint military police patrols. I actually have seen the police on the beat. With the number of police in uniform that are stationed in the capitol I should see a foot patrol walk by my house 2 times an hour. I do not even know where the police are out side the police station. They are on the payroll. So where are they? Simple law and order would improve the quality of life right this minute. Quality of life is the true test of the economy. Anybody remember the times when they did the joint patrols?
I do see these massive road blocks on the isolated roads to shake people down for money.

blu,
were you drinking body shots from college girls belly button???lol

I'm 100 % agree with Dreadlocks.

Receiving cash from issued bonds is not free money. You'll have to pay the principal or notional plus interest ( fixed).

They received 750 millions from issued bonds but they will have to pay back MORE...

This article is saying that a Huge government (national) Debt is financing the DR economy.

The concern should be how the DR will pay back this money. I guess the government issued long terms bonds so the people will pay for at least 20 to 30 yrs.

Greeks did the same by financing their tourism and their national defense ( by buying weapons to French and Germans), we all see how they finished...But let's be honest Greece , Portugal , Italy, and Spain are almost third world countries...

Nehesey the key word is almost. Also every citizen of those countries by law can catch a 200 Euro train to any other country in the EU and go to work, So they do not need to try to get a visa or sneak in a yola to migrate to greener pastures.
This is one of the reasons the rest of the EU is trying to pop them up. Even with out the Euro stabilty issue the fact the every Greek, Itallian and Spanish citizen by law can go to any other EU country and have equal rights to live and work there with out visa papers.

Jonbonz

It's true any polish, roumanian or greek can travel all over europe without any visa.

In paris the people walking around the streets and begging money are roumanians and polish , but as they have european passports, they're not considered as illegal immigrants.

The richest country in Europe is the UK ( they still have the sterling is it a sign ?) . I lived in London for almost 4 yrs and you can find people from all over europe : Polish ( the 1st group) , roumanians, russians, spanish, italians, greeks, italians, portugueses etc.

The rest of europe are trying to pop them up ( Germans are pissed off...) because the Euro exchange rate must be maintained.

of course, Nehesy , the loans are not free and this loan is the most expensive the country has received for some time and I would think it is time to pause before borrowing more in the public sector ..mainly because the very cheap loans have finished .We do not have a huge national debt ..it is around the 40 % mark and quite manageable with proper management of the economy ..and the one thing the current administration has done is manage the economy better than in most countries .Now you ask how will we pay the money back . it will be many many years before the DR has an economy without any overseas borrowings and most of the loans will have to be rolled over but as extra income is generated the budget can go into surplus and part of the surplus is used to repay debts.There are very few countries without sovereign debt .

The fact that the UK has sterling is that they did not vote on the issue to go into euros and you must be off the planet to consider Italy and Greece , in particular , third world countries . Spain has always had a huge gap between the wealthy and the peasant classes but I think there are few people that would call it third world as you do most of the African countries ..I prefer the term emerging ..so there are countries with emerging economies , those with stagnant economies , those with declining economies and the rich countries . I would be interested where you would place the old civilisations such as Egypt , Turkey and China

¨quite manageable with proper management of the economy¨, opines Ricardolito. that is the problem. the economy is horrendously mismanaged. besides, the 40% figure you toss out means NOTHING, when viewed in a vaccuum. just about every sub saharan country has a lower figure than 40% public debt to GDP ratio, and i would not consider their economies to be better than countries like Singapore, Japan, germany, Canada and Austria. the countries with low public debt fall into two categories. rich countries, such as the emirates and trinidad, do not need to borrow, so they have low levels of public debt. poor countries with low levels of public debt are like that, because they have very few sources of loan financing. nobody wants bonds issued by Burkina Fasso.

Ricardolito

Spain, Italy , Portugal and Greece are almost 3rd countries : I sign with my two hands

The south of France is full of spanish , italians, portugueses, greeks their fathers were immigrants and they felt the French heat (i.e racism) . Portugueses are the first immigration group in France.

I visited Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga , Toleda etc) , I visited Italia many times also ( Naples, Rome, Netuno etc). Damn these countries are almost 3rd countries...Specially if you into the countryside...

You guys have many fantasies about Spain lol...You should visit it from North to South in order to understand what I'm saying....Spain had lost their place a long time ago : since all the Gold they stole from the new world collapsed their economy

UK are within the European union, but they don't be to be controlled by the BCE politics.

But they're not free at the same time , if you know who controls the central bank of England you'll understand what I mean.

Some years ago George soros hurt them badly...

no we dont understand ......Who does control the Bank of England ?

Nehesy ..you are becoming almost incoherent and certainly your views seem very unstable ..I would have thought countries with much gold were in a very fortunate situation and that the Bank of England was firmly in control of the British establishment .
but of course the Royal family has a lot of German blood and even the Queens husband is from Greece so maybe we can say the UK is third world also .

Spit it out Nehesy ! .......who controls the Bank of England ?

Ricardolito

I am an investment banker lol, I work (Front office) mainly within the capital markets ( Credit derivatives) and Asset management ( benchmark) so I may say that I know what I'm talking about.

The Bank of England is state owned BUT the British money supply is still almost entirely in private hands, with 97 % of it being in the form of interest being loans of one sort or another, created by private commercial banks...

In the USA, it's the FED who produces the green note from nothing (with their pen lol), for each dollar issued by the FED the US government pays a 2% interest. The Dollar bill is produced by a private bank (THE FED) who belongs to few private banks (4 American banks and 6 Europeans).

About spain it is Economic history that you learn at the university is you study Economics and Finance : Spanish (and Portuguese) were rich in gold when they discovered and stole the natives specially Aztecs and Incas . They financed their wars with that money...BUT

There was so much gold in Europe ( the other Europeans thieves went for gold in the new world), that the value dropped badly , this event made the spanish one of the poorest country in Europe. The royal family is rich of course , they profited from the gold stolen by the wicked and savages conquistadores and from the Slave trade...

Spanish were so rich that they ordered 140000 blacks in 30 years to the British slavers (Asientos) , but their greed lost them

I hope your knowledge of banking is more astute and broader than your knowledge of world history

or Eurabia will surely be in the crapper

I was loath to make a comment ,Blutarsky, either about the history or the British or USA financial system ..glad you did .One thing that it does prove is the need to improve the education system.

Whaever we say don't matter much, D.R always gonna be D.R!

YES ,I have a stronger feeling every day that there is a large percentage of people in the DR who do not want the changes for the better that we may want for them ..the sun , the beer , the music and the women are sufficient for a content life.

Ricky is this quote satire...... " ..the sun , the beer , the music and the women are sufficient for a content life. " ....or did you receive this in stone tablets from the Guy at the top of the mountain

Ricardolito, that is the most astute observation i have ever seen you make. yes, sadly, the aspirations are low. the common man has been formatted to accept the most abysmally low set of expectations. as long as he can eat some basic food, drink copiuos amounts of rum and beer, dance his way through the night, and impregnate miscellaneous women, everything else is peripheral to the idea of life. he is content to hitch his wagon to some political benefactors, and hope for the occasional largesse, in the form of handouts or political appointment to a job he is ill suited to perform, but for which he is eminently qualified, by virtue of his political affiliation. not a good way to run a railroad, but the only way we know here.

Tsk Tsk Dread stop beating on the Poor Dominicans you will give them a complex

You may have noticed, Dreadlocks, that I have become increasingly pessimistic about things in the DR .At first, I thought my medicine was affecting me.But, recently, I have seen and read of the complete hopelessness of the court and law systems, the immorality of the politicians and the lack of concern by the people, that I am beginning to wonder why I should care myself .
one way or another, I support about 20 people in the la Romana area and firstly I never receive a thank you , never a small gift and always a I want more request . Now I know the christian ethic of giving and not expecting anything in return , but I am beginning to question why should I bother ,,just look after myself and not worry about the crap here.

Ricardolito, there are sociological root causes for the nature of things here, as there are for all the foibles of every society. i am probably never going to hear the end of this, but i will say it just the same. i am in full agreement with everything you say. like you, i have seen the absolute lack of appreciation that is apparently inherent in some people here. my buddy shelled out 220,000 pesos for an operation for a young girl who broke her femur. then, he went on to buy all the pain killers, and medications, for six months, while she healed. she is now up and walking, but now he does not even know where she is. no phone calls from ANYONE in the family to register appreciation for what he did, when they could do nothing. just use him, and, when you no longer need him, lose him. i have seen it only too often.

I won't pretend to be a scholar (too young) and Economic history is a science like investment banking.

But if you read the classical economic scolars : Adam Smith , David Ricardo , and more recently Karl Marx (these are the first we read when we start at the university), you'll see that than Spain was nothing until they participated in the slave trave and stole the gold of Mexico and Peru. Their greed los them in the 17th century.

The kingdoms of Aragon and Castille depended on the money of the conversos, marranos or new christians. They financed the war of reconquista against the Moors and they Financed Cristobal Colon who was himself a converso according to his son , and many scholars ( Cecil Roth , Jacques Attali etc). The Conversos of Castille arranged the wedding between Isabella and Fernando.

Without their money NO NEW WORLD, no gold , no need to import slaves (after destroying the indians).

hey, nehesy, everybody knows that Spain was broke at the time when they expelled the Moors and Jews in the spring of 1492. the Queen had to pawn her jewelry, and a group of jews financed the voyages of Columbus. they went from rags to riches by stealing everything that was not nailed down everywhere they went. it is factual..

The spanish and portuguese imperialism raised from the conversos money (Gilberto Freyre).

The best account of the greedy spanish if expressed by José Antonio Saco the Cuban Scholar , in his 3 volumes of "Historia De La Esclavitud Desde Los Tiempos Mas Remotos Hasta Nuestros Dias".In this book Saco shows how the greedy spanish crown organised the slave trade (Indians and Blacks) and stole the gold of the natives. Las casas gave an amazing and shocking account of that genocide too.

The big problem is many people think that their forefathers were "Hidalgos" or something.WRONG. Colombus emptied out the jail of spain in la hispaniola just read his memories. And the slave code in la hispaniola was for blacks, and WHITES.In Spain the biggest slave population were the europeans until 1580. They were the "Esclavos blancos" or "Esclavas blancas" of the royal decrees. They were : spanish , white berbers and canarios ( guanches). Saco's book is a shame for the spanish crown and nobility...

Dreadlocks

It's not factual for ricardo and bluetarsky

Hey Bluetarsky and Ricado.... Give me some other facts about the Fed and the Central bank of England...

Please....

Wall street started first as a Slave and Cotton Market. All the big banks participated in the slave trade : Barclays , JP Morgan , Lehman and Brothers ,

Nehesy, that will not faze Blutarsky, because, to him, slavery was the way God meant it to be. if he could bring it back with the wave of a wand, you and i would be tilling his soil.

you guys should start a thread on reparations and continue whining and complaining on it

I don't need reparations but my brothers and sisters who have been deported without their consent on the new world should receive reparations...

Blutarsky if you're dominican you should ask for some reparations too...lol

i have never advocated reparations. i just advocate get away from me and stay over there, and leave me over here. that is why i hate tourism, i guess.

and you are proud of it

Your ancestors were Scottish tourists were they not ???

One thing that could kill the economy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_jamaica_emergency

Got to love deficit spending and what it does for the economy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets