you got that right....it is called high consumption tourism that means they spend a lot of money...now lets here from the whiners ....you know who you are... come on lets hear your negative drivel ...every time someone invests a nickel in the economy here all they do is complain about whats in it for the little people....we are sick and tired of your envious whining and socialist theory ...give us a break you losers....This will also allow air ambulances to operate economically here

Hey fine and dandy...as long as the passengers or pilots are not being paid to smuggle drugs into DR. You know small planes...who's really checking right!!!

there is still customs and immigration and documents to be checked ...this is to allow the type of tourists we are beginning to get to our destination private jets and executive travel ...not the all inclusive that we have started with 20 years ago..these people will leave a lot of money on the ground and create good jobs....now lets hear from the socialist whiners complaining about the outside exploiters and oppressors coming and buying their island

Funny you think that high fees would stop someone who has a plane load of drugs? How silly.

Because of lack of education Dominicans really don't have the slightest clue of economics, and what makes the world go round.

I agree. Lowering the fees is an excellent step at increasing tourism. Just look at the Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations. Many Dominican businessmen believe higher prices translates to increased revenues. Dominicans don't believe in taking a loss. Go the many shops and you will find the same merchandise month after month collecting dust. Rather than selling at cost or a loss and moving new merchandise, Dominican merchants prefer to let the merchandise sit, hoping one day it will sell. In addition when one merchant increases its rates or prices the others follow. Simply look at the high cost of living which is one of the highest in latin America and Caribbean.

Yes targeting High consumption tourism from the wealthiest nations is definitely a goal but this should be coupled with reducing other impediments i.e bureaucratic barriers.

let the socialists who do not like the idea of to many wealthy people coming to the DR go to the airport and picket the exploiting oppressors when they arrive to play golf and spend money

Ladronazo you got that right...but you also have the socialist marxist lets redistribute the wealth economic experts who are even more dangerous than the ignoramuses...we have a few that post often here and they shall not be named.....their idiotic financial theory has been disproven everywhere most recently in Zimbabwe....is this what they want for the DR....we must be vigilant with Hugos oil money they can buy many minds with that marxist claptrap

This airport is more of a landing strip. There is a very small military base there. You cant even buy a bottle of water without driving 10 miles to the small town, which sits on the Haitian border, which could NEVER support tourism. Even the Dominicans consider Pedernales the end of the world. Not too many people go there, and the ones that do wonder why the made the trip. One of several reasons why this area will always remain the end of the world - Europeans and Canadians (80% of tourists) will continue to go the Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Semana and all other destinations on the EAST side of the island. Just information for those that are trying to make an argument about generalizations that exist. Cabo Rojo is an exception. Not to mention the mining operation and the hundreds of dump trucks that are constantly whizzing by to load ships parked across the HAUL ROAD at the dock. Yep, tourists would be in for quite the shock if they chose Cabo Rojo for a vacation destination.

it involves all airports ricardo ..

what good would a freebee do in the middle of nowhere

Yes, all airports included. Comment posted was directed toward the caption under the photo above "The airfield at Cabo Rojo, Pedernales might not be so empty from now on. "

you are absolutely correct sorry ....the big investors have their own planes

Interesting comments posted in this session - many comments dead on correct w/rgrds to Dominican philosophy - short sighted, narrow minded and often uneducated. The decree is such a small drop of water in the big bucket - it wont spark tourism. Facilities spark tourism. Putting the facilities means big dollars paid out to corrupt politicians who have thier hands out, sorry I meant to say thier hands you investors pockets. Dominicans never see those dollars, sorry again - they see those dollars driving in thier new SUVs, dining in expensive restaruants. Not to rant on the DR, it is a beautiful place with wonderful people (as most places around the world are). For the most part, the Dominicans need tourist dollars to survive. It is afterall, an Island.

not so Ricardo all the small businesses required to make these projects work have Dominican owners...they become the backbone of the middleclass until someone like hippo comes along and wipes them out

I disagree with Ricardo post 29 Mar 12:24 pm but agree with gouletcolonial, 29 Mar 2008 1:13 PM post. The middle class is the backbone of any striving industrialized nation. Dominicans would prefer to spend 100's of thousands in a new home 40K on a SUV and not even equip it with a viable $10-15,000 Solar power system. Why? because lack of education. Dominicans prefer to show their money, just like those in the U.S. that live in low economic areas but yet have 30-40K suvs parked in front of their homes and 50 inch plasmas televisions, just to say "Look at what I have"

And though facilities bring money, "The need" brings everything else. E.g, a few planes land and someone (entrepreneur)discovers an opportunity to satisfy a need, and then the idea is built on a need. Once it is built they will come. No big facilities needed look at Belize, Bay Islands of Honduras 10-15 years ago.

......Dominicans believe in expanding agriculture rather than technology and industrialization. One of India's greatest exports is Software and Engineers. Dominicans think with their stomach, they think about today and not tomorrow. I confront this topic with family members all the time. Many attribute the problem to corruption, I disagree. The problem is EDUCATION. see my post : http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/....hy-Dominican-Republic-doesnt-work

it is difficult to accurately generalize when classifying an entire nation and thier culture. True the middleclass is the backbone, without it the economy will fall due to no infrastructure to distribute the funds to those who make it possible (the workers). I am not sure who hippo is, but I am sure gouletcolonial could document this scenario. I agree with ladronazo about the way dominicans think - this has been thier way of life for 500 years. I dont own a 50" plasma, I own a 46" LCD. It is a great TV and my 3 year old really enjoys the cartoons in larger than life clarity and color. Everyone I know has at least a 42" TV. And a car, and a cell phone etc. This is North America's way of life. We created it and we support it. The dominicans are not too far behind us. My point remains, those $$ will have to come from somewhere. They will arrive in the pockets of tourists. It is easy money. Just like India exporting software engineers to Oracle in the 90's. It was easy money

One more comment...regarding gouletcolonial statements about the businesses will need to be Dominican to survive. If the businesses are owned by gringos and run by Dominicans, they will fail. I am currently learning this as a business owner in the DR.

Regarding Ricardo, 30 Mar 2008 2:41 PM:
Ricardo, I know my statements may sound like generalizations, but they hold much truth. At the current rate, DR will not catch up to the U.S. due to no "significant" middle class with high disposable income and a paucity of tech(high income) jobs or opportunities will prevent an expansion of the middle class. Dr. needs to attract tech firms and industries willing to invest. But DR is hampered due to, its lack of an educated critical mass, government inefficiency and an unstable and inefficient electrical power system. Therefore, ceteris paribus, or even if economic conditions were more favorable, its not going to happen. One would have to remove half of the government and political officials and replace them......... with new blood. This is the way it could and should happen.

hmmmm......sounds like something saturn would write. forgive me if i am wrong.( ceteris paribus?) we are neglecting to mention the most important factor: PLANNING! Dominican planning is a political term shelf life issue. politicians do not plan long term projects: they think in terms of their political stay, and re-election . the oriental economies got to where they are because they have 25 year plans. they realise that tactics and strategy are two different things. as i mentioned in another post, vietnam has already decided that the cheap labor model of development is a temporary fix. they intend to be where japan is today in the next two decades. they realise that the most important component is education, especially technical education. they are moving full speed ahead with that plan.in the DR, we believe that speculative money, looking for high rates of return, are the answer. let me repeat a wise man's words: high tech coffee shops are not a sign of advancement. a sign of

advancement is what people are reading as they drink their coffee. no modern society can be predicated on an uninformed populace. these outmoded statistics about literacy are nonsensical. not because 87 % of the population can sign their names means we should consider ourselves literate. does anyone think that 87% literacy in DR and 87% literacy in india adds up to the same condition? and ricardo, what do you think should be the ownership/management model in the DR? do you think that if the business is foreign owned it should be foreign managed? you could have a point, especially since the way things are done in say europe and the usa, versus the DR, is miles apart. the approach to work and responsibility is completely different in those different regions

Dreadlocks, to clarify, what was meant by ceteris paribus is, "Should current economic variables remain constant against each other" i.e. growth, inflation etc, with little or no effect or if they become preponderantly favorable, DR. would still lay in the depths of social doldrums. As one here stated, its the "INSTITUTIONS". Institutions run by blazing inept opportunistic idiots. As for Saturn, well we know how that story ended.

Dreadlocks: agree with You 100% but Your opinion fits better to Your people in "Haiti"

Your comments are "Excellent" as long as You try do the same for your country not trying to discredit "Dominican Republic"

Way to go "Buddy"..................................in Haiti

ouch!

actually Jrrubirosa, i am not haitian. i have never ever been to haiti. if you believe that economic prescriptions and observations are that divergent between haiti and the dominican republic, then it is pointless discussing anything with you regarding development. you would be better served trying to learn something from posters who can enlighten you on certain topics, and leaving the insults and rudeness to those who think, incorrectly, that they can .no one is trying to discredit the dominican republic. if you disagree with anything i say, then show me with logic and data where i am wrong. i suggested that due to the losses globalization has incurred by increased transportation costs occasioned by petroleum price increases, the time has come for haiti and the dominican republic to put away centuries of estrangement and acrimony and move towards a common market. india and china have been doing the same lately, and their mutual co-operation is leading to a condition in which they

are going to be the most formidable economic bloc on earth. similar thinking here will achieve positive results. mutual co-operation and development can only be positive for both nations.it is not beyond conception: 20 years ago, india and china did not think this current condition was within the realm of reality. in its most fundamental assessment, the geographic reality means that ocean shipping is excluded from the equation, and has to be an economic benefit.

ok, now i guess i know where that ceteris paribus reference came from; HI TANK.

further .observations regarding the post by the anonymous horseman; one of the basic problems we face is in the arena of inequality . in the human arena, there are two kinds of inequality: constructive inequality, and destructive inequality. constructive inequality is the difference in human attributes such as ambition, motivation, and willingness to work. this is positive in that it allows for upward mobility and achievement for those who wish to assert themselves in the economic sphere. destructive inequality, on the other hand, is an institutional phenomenon. it is the deep and persistent difference between groups and individuals to the assets that generate income: the fact that the deck has been stacked. the most important consideration in this equation is land ownership. in latin america,land reform is one of the most pressing needs.which is why i will continue to argue against any kind of developmental model in which the price of land is artificially increased

I find your philosophy remarkably similar to Robert Mugabe....Correct me if I am wrong....with all due respect

If you need to be corrected, i will do my utmost to do so. first, i have to be aware of your premise. when you take the time to compose a postulate which exceeds one line, with some thought and substance, we can arrive at a platform for reasoning. i am very weak in discussing the unknown. 1)let us begin by saying that you find my philosophy similar to mugabe
2) show me something i said which resembles something he said, so we can draw a comparison, or ,perhaps, contrast
3)show me how the philosophy differs radically from mainstream thought
having provided you with the rubrics for the inquiry, i bid you God Speed with your reply. more than 10 words, please!

telling people the deck is stacked against them is to begin with the old victimization card....your screeds usually have some kind save the little guy through by screwing the oppressors ....and the redistribution scheme based on what?....this is why ruby jumped on you....He saw through your marxist concept....China and India working together? soon they will be singing the" Internationale " "rise up and thro off your chains"....land redistribution....power to the proletariat

i am afraid i cannot respond positively or negatively to you, because innuendo and aspersion is your forte, not mine. if you find that giving a people access to education, a fair days pay, and opportunity to make something of themselves is repulsive, marxist ideology, then so be it. if you disagree that land reform is needed in Latin America, go take that up with all the scholars who argue that issue. we will never see eye to eye, because you have a built in contempt for people, which was displayed amply today when you called me Rasta Man. you have this condescending disposition to people whom you believe to be beneath you. i am a believer that we all deserve a chance to make good. to you, a chance for a young man in a place such as the DR is for him to shine a mogul's alligator shoes! you believe that demanding a fair shake is the same as looking for a handout. i think handouts should not exist! people should be allowed to earn their just due!!

as to Mugabe, i think he is extreme in his views, and i do not think that a white man born on Zimbabwe should be thrown off his land. it is not his fault that he was born there, and he should have equal access to the fruits of the country. similarly, i dont think that it is right that Europeans should have stolen the lands of Africa and left it in the mess it is. you might disagree, since that is the' WAY THE BALL BOUNCES"

Good notes from Dreadlocks. "political term shelf life" sums it up. Building bridges over big rivers, vs small rivers analogies etc and etc. Leonel is barely going to finish up the subway project. Elections coming up in May. Should be interesting.

Jamaica is a beautiful island inhabited by a majority of nice and kind people....however each year its reputation is diminished by more and more ugly racial incidents....the failure of air jamaica is not necessarily related but the future of Jamaica is no where near potentially as bright as the DR because of the lawless crime wave on that tourist island .....and Rasta Man is not a negative so smoke some ganja and chill out

i have no expertise on the racial incidents in Jamaica. in the DR, there have been unfortunate circumstances involving locals and foreigners, and the knee jerk reaction is to blame it on the savagery of dominicans. i can recount numerous situations here wherein drunken foreigners have killed locals in traffic accidents, and fled the jurisdiction by bolting through Haiti. some of them , in their lasting imprudence, return when they think all is forgiven and forgotten. well, if they understood the country beyond where to pick up cheap chicas and who has the coldest cerveza, they would know that dominicans are not ones to forget these atrocities. so they meet with an untimely demise, and, reflexively, the press in their countries of origin becomes inundated with opinion pieces from people who dont even know where the local passport office is located they instantaneously become authorities on conditions in other lands, and, since there is a racial divide, everything is ,for them ,racial

if some guy from sweden goes to france, and he is attacked by a white guy, then it is a criminal exercise. if that same guy goes to antigua, and suffers the same fate, it's a racial thing. i am tired of hearing people say" i am not going to st croix: they do not like white people there" man, is that ever bull!!!

go to a hotel convention one time in your life....talk destinations with experts ...you will get an earful

dred have you ever been to Santa Cruz ?

not yet, but one day i might. who knows

First and foremost I would like to apologize for any misunderstandings or conflicts that my last post @30 Mar 2008 9:44 PM may have caused. My apologizies to you dreadlocks. It appears as a anonymous post. Due to a browser glitch it did not post my name. Therefore if I have offended you or anyone, I sincerely apologize.

As for the post from JRRubirosa, 31 Mar 2008 12:14 AM. which was after my entry/comments, I find his comments unnecessary and uncalled for ,and it's indicative of his knowledge and understanding of the complexities real world matters.

hey Ladronazo; no harm, no foul. apparently, the response was rude enough for it to have been deleted by the moderator. it is really a sad commentary on the human condition that people are unwilling to open their minds and learn something, instead of seeing everything through emotional lenses. funny, when Mr Lautaro or Frank the tank and mountainannie, for example, start spilling knowledge, i find it a joy. there are very bright guys who are formidable intellectuals, such as Lautaro and cibaeno, who argue from different sides, but to the benefit of the reader. then we have the guys who know next to nothing, and refuse to learn!!

dred I had to take care of some business but now I have returned.....I lived for many years on st Croix and was asked many times by many people the status of racial relations in the USVI I also had a residence in St Thomas.....if you knew the history of this island St Croix you would understand why it has the reputation it does

Racial injust in places like the DR compared to the US and Canada are very different. Yes, they do exist, but in different formats. My experiences in latin america show the racial issue to be more status related. Example, a hatian trying to make ends meet in Santo Domingo will just have to deal with the fact that he/she is at the bottom of a social status ladder. In the US, that same person will have many opportunites (called "equal opportunites") to establish and further excel. And yes, there are several examples that negate what is written above. Things are just very different in the DR. We probably would never see a Hatian successfully running for a presidential nomination in the DR, in our lifetime. But then again, that was probably said in America 100 years ago.

in the 50 s and 60 s it was an elite getaway in the style of Marthas vineyard and Nantucket it would be difficult to describe in historical context.....with the arrival of Hess oil and the refinery the social pressures changed over nite....the number of workers that had to be imported both white and black created social pressures from which the island never recovered....in 1972 came the Fountain Valley massacre...which was changed from a robbery with automatic weapons to a armed uprising by the press and probably one of your heroes William F Kunstler forever cursed on St Croix...real estate collapsed,people fled and never returned...dred it is complicated and cannot be explained easily what happened to that lovely island because of racial politics

interesting, Gouletcolonial. i will research it further. and, as an aside, KUNSTLER is one of my heroes.

isn't it interesting to note that the mastermind in the massacre was sentenced to 10 years in jail in cuba for hi-jacking the plane there? hmmm...

win at all costs he ruined that island....15 people shot of both races ...he changed it from a botched robbery to some kind of political injustice. the escaped hi jacker ishmael Labeet was US army deserter who had been kicked out of the army....where you heard of the ten year sentence I do not know but to this day he does not walk the streets in cuba....Hijacking was in1985 as i recall New Yeats eve

yes, he did get 10 years for hi-jacking the plane by the cuban government. i have no idea why something like this became a racial issue. heck, maybe he had some post traumatic stress disorder from vietnam: i do not know anything about his background. the question is this : who made it into a racial issue? did the press do it, because 9 of his 10 victims were white? did he kill the victims because they were white? did some white person tick him off? i have a friend here whose two sons and a nephew were killed on a yamaha 100 by a drunken foreigner who was having a dalliance with a local chica on the front seat of his SUV, while fully ossified on barcelo. he fled the scene and bolted through Haiti to canada. if the family caught him, which they did not, i can assure you they would have filleted him. then some reporters in canada might have called it " a racial incident".

I moved to St Croix in 1979 obviously you really do not know anything about this incident 15 were shot 8 or 9 died it took place on a piece of property owned by the Rockefellers whose philanthropy in the USVI is renowned...in1972 the height of the problems kent state vietnam,black power.....it was a robbery for money..there was no politics or race involved...the victims were of both races

if you had said William Hastie was one of your heroes I would have more respect for you.

dred show me any link that says la beet walks the streets of cuba after serving 10 that is a fiction

well, it may be fiction. as with any such incident, stories grow legs. the virgin islands daily news has an article which states that he escaped jail in the us and hi-jacked a flight to cuba, whereupon he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. as with anything such as this, multiple stories arise. he in even said to have fought with the cuban army in angola. just google fountain valley massacre and you will see multiple articles.

this is a painful subject for me.....as of 5pm raul castro lifted ban on tourist aparthied their days are numbered ...how do you say glasnost era in spanish

actually, Goulet, this might just give you the heart attack you have dreaded for so long, but i find this new iniative a welcome decision. you should find it simple to understand, coming from me. why should only foreigners enjoy the finer things the country has to offer, while locals can only admire them from a distance? that is what i have always said. isn't it strange that we see eye-to-eye on this, but from a different angle? now if only my friend could be allowed to buy that little ice cream truck. as long as the gains of the revolution, such as education, health care, discipline and societal order are not disturbed, and everything does not fall into the hands of speculators and profiteers, we could be looking at a paradise in the making. if some future US politician rises above the pettiness shown by all the others, and liberalises relationships, look out!!

Lets not forget why Cubans revolted against Batista. Because of the abuse of the bourgeoisie. It is this bourgeoisie that now lives in Miami and is deeply involved in U.S. Politics. I will say what many will not say in public for fear of retribution by their own. As many have reiterated to me, “what we really want is economic change”. These actions that Raul is taking have been long overdue and it is the continuing of these actions that the exile community fears most.. Imagine if Cuba is successful in formalizing a “socialized” democracy . Converting Cuba from a communist state to a socialized economic and political state is not in the best interest of the exiles. This would nullify their political leverage. The rest of the world would now have an open door to conduct business in Cuba more openly, thus pressuring the U.S to normalize and restore trade. If this happens then there will be great reverberations throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

the opinions of the cuban community expatriate is extremely diverse...there is no conspiracy...why didnt castro do this 20 years ago? because he did not have to...these liberalizations of personal freedoms are long over do...the people have been enslaved long enough

or, possibly he thought that the cultural gains of the revolution needed the better part of fifty years to be igrained into the society.now that cuba has become a socialist society, the rigid totalitarian mode of government has past its expiry date.the economy can be liberalised, with limitations to ensure that it does not return to the bad old days.it was a harsh passage, and many paid the ultimate prices, but what is in place is the groundwork for what could be a model society. free enterprise, operating in a just , non-exploitative way. no rapacious profiteers, education and health care for all: what could be better?

Dreadlocks, I believe you are absolutely right. You hit it on the nail. Something I've been saying for the last 10 years. in addition to your comments Castro has been waiting for the old and dying exile community to fade or to loose it influence. As you stated "to insure that it does not return to bad old days".

I have said this for many years. Castro has been waiting for an opportunity to arise. Little by little he will liberalize more freedoms and rights until he "they" mold what could be in their view "a perfect Cuba". They know they cannot open the gates to all the freedoms as this will reek of havoc and social disorder and perhaps stimulate another revolution, but worse a resulting re-immigration of the exiles.

And yes freedoms are long overdue.

yes little by liitle until the people realize how badly they were getting hosed by the party stooges and then down come the statues......they will say "You mean we really didnt have to listen to those 10 hour speeches by the beard"

Ladronazo, it was a purge. he had to wait until the of the majority of the counter-revolutionaries in both cuba and miami had died off or were too senile to create any problems, and for a new generation to develop in cuba with a different set of values. to paraphrase the old song: for every thing there is a season. now is the season for liberalisation, then was the season for iron fisted control. thankfully, then was then!

their season is over .....just like every other communist tyranny all 30 or so of them ...a little freedom is to dangerous and cannot be contained ....do not include oriental confucian societies...But Cuba will collapse just like the rest

Goulet, do you think that they do not know this? it is precisely what i was saying. what do you mean when you say CUBA WILL COLLAPSE? i do not consider liberalisation of the economy and the end of totalitarianism a collapse!

party stooges will be gone just like most places that threw them out

ceaucescu treatment for them I doubt ....but there will be no statues in their honor

dont misunderstand me the people who will run Cuba tomorrow for the most part are living in cuba today

"people who will run Cuba tomorrow for the most part are living in Cuba today"

This is the expectation from within but the fear also looms from within of the "exile community". What "they" want is in contradiction to what Cubans on the Island want. Though they there are many common threads, there will be great disparity between those on the Island and the exiles returning with the ideas, ambition, desire and most important MONEY to exert their political philosophy or doctrines. Then there is the big issue of land and property reforms i.e lost or confiscated property from the revolution.

I don't understand why is that Cubans cannot accept the idea of having a socialized political economic system, considering Cuba has never been successful at having a stable democracy. Not even when the founding father Estrada Palma was president. And a gain I said socialized not communist?

Just like there are many socialized economic and political system that don't work. there are many that do.