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Well Mr scott the definition of rape from an online dictionary Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice. Im sorry you thought of a different definition. This was my comparison nothing sexual on my end I referenced a woman as a violation is a violation and as most commonly described.. I assume you were trying to psychoanalyze me. Darien is far from panama city and boquette areas in a secluded colombian border area and colon is also a secluded area it is the free zone area and there are poor people who live around it. oh well.
There is infrastructure here installed by the usa unlike costa rica which is failing in evey way,they cant even finish one highway.
Police here are in full force and very friendly and assisting. Unlike the little creeps running aroung costa rica.Paramilitary police in Panama? That alone should tell us something about the place. I am still amazed that a haven like Costa Rica exists, sandwiched between two heavily militarized countries, Nicaragua and Panama. But it not only exists, it is seemingly thriving. It’s the people.
I spoke briefly to an employee, a Nicraguan mechanic, of an upscale hotel in the Arenal area. I don’t know if he was here legally or not but he criticized Costa Rica for what I thought were just spurious and untrue reasons. First he claimed the CR economy was shaky and could fall away any minute. What was he doing here then instead of staying in his beloved Nicaragua?
He also claimed CR DID indeed have a military force in the form of the police. Nicaragua’s armed forces were where they’re supposed to be; in their barracks, not on the streets. I didn’t laugh at him or argue with him. I didn’t point out that any armed force divorced from the people is a huge danger. Uniforms in Costa Rica are on the streets WITH the people and part of the people..locally. So much better! I took the Tico attitude and just let it go.
Nobody can convince me that Costa Rica is a bad place to live. I haven’t live here yet, but I have visited enough, spoken to enough people and read enough to finally be pretty darned comfortable about what life is like here. But keep the anecdotal evidence coming. It’s better to talk it out than brush it under the rug.Edited on Apr 03, 2008 08:35
Soflodoug… I guess the grass is always greener somewhere else. But I have to ask once again, just what experiences did you have in Costa Rica that soured you to the place? In the spirit of sharing the good and bad about CR with the folks that look to this board for advice and information, please tell us what happened to YOU. We’d ALL benefit from your experience. I see you have no love for the police, did they victimize you? Did they not solve a crime that you were the victim of? Did they somehow insult you? Please… do tell….
You’re just plain wrong soflodoug
According to ‘Agencia Francesa de Prensa (AFP), Panama had 11.6 homicides for each 100,000 inhabitants, Costa Rica had 7.8 during the same period.
You can see the chart at [ https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/1632.cfm ] and the following taken from the Panamá América newspaper:
“Las estadísticas reportadas por la Policía Técnica Judicial (PTJ) muestran altos niveles de de criminalidad. Se ha incrementado en un 32% en los seis primeros meses del año 2007.
“El Tesoro General de La República reportó 411 muertes violentas (asesinatos, suicidios, muertes por intervención legal y/o por causas indeterminadas de intentos accidentales o no con el manejo de armas de fuego.) Todo esto solamente en los 21 corregimientos del área metropolitana de Ciudad de Panamá.
In Panama: “La policía registró 17.000 asaltos, 5.300 robos, 3.500 atracos, 1.614 robos a mano armada, 532 asaltos con agravantes. El año pasado 231 crímenes fueron cometidos en contra de extranjeros. Este año ya van registrados en los primeros seis meses 117 crímenes en contra de extranjeros y 77 robos. Esto está incrementando debido al crimen organizado que opera en el área metropolitana. “
But we all do wish you the best there in Panama…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comPerhaps you could elaborate on what you mean when you say the Panamanians are “used to americans”, what does this mean?
Also, some might say that the Costa Ricans live within their means by finishing highways and other infrastructure developments as they have the funds to do so.
The mortgage lending crisis in the US right now should demonstrate pretty clearly how excessive borrowing/lending can turn out.
I think you should find a more credible online dictionary as well.
ecotonecons, if you think the current mortgage crisis is an eye-opener, just wait for the meltdown that will accompany the maturation of the U.S.’ national debt.
David,
Could you elaborate with a definition of “Maturation of U.S. national debt”? It feels as if this debt has been up and down but mostly up…way up, over the course of my life time. The bill never seems to come due despite so many ominous predictions of the grave consequences when it does “mature” for collection. There seems to always be some saving trick or event which steps in and prevents consequences. And along the way we have these bumps in the economy. 2002, 1990, 1987, 1976….all years when there were big downturns, some lasting quite a while but none doing any permanent damage. The economy always bounces right back.
My sense of doom has to do with macro situations, primarily over population, climate change and environment degradation. These things will eventually get us, I believe, and get us good. But I have no clear sense of what time frame is involved. How can one plan for anything without enough knowledge?“The economy always bounces back” until it doesn’t…
David Walker – up until recently was the USA’s top accountant – the Comptroller General of the USA – in this ’60 Minutes’ segment [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs ] he talks about the “fiscal irresponsibility,” the “fiscal cancer” that will have “catastrophic consequences” unless the USA makes drastic changes.
“If we don’t it will bankrupt America.”
“The Medicare problem is five times greater than the Social Security problem.”
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comThat’s sort of like saying “the sun always rises, until it doesn’t”. When will be the day the sun doesn’t rise? What is the approximate date of the terminal fall of the U.S. economy?
Nobody is refuting Mr. Walker’s numbers as they stand right now. But nobody is moving very quickly to counter act what he suggests is going to happen. One reason may be that people simply cannot live their lives worried about 30 or 40 years in the future. There are just too many variables in any equation which pretends to predict what will happen that far in advance and today’s problems, of which there are always many, almost always take precedence.
Remove the variables. State with some certitude the approximate date and specific consequences AND prove to everyone that there will be no more mitigating factors such as technological advancements or massive population reduction in the meantime which would lessen the ill effects you are predicting. It may be wise to be somewhat cautious, but it is out right foolish to wring hands and move into caves in preparation for the end of the world.
The stock market experienced another rally this week. Even with tons of bad news thrown at it, the market responded well. The recent downturn may not be over yet, but it just might be. It seems the economy here in the U.S. is not a total wreck yet. We may have another 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years to enjoy. And who knows? We may be able to skirt disaster completely once again.Sprite, my use of the term, “maturation of the U.S.’s national debt” was not meant to be technical. I intended it to generally refer to that point in time when the U.S. can no longer borrow from abroad and when its obligations come due. (Then what?) Right now, as I’m sure you are aware, some countries’ national banks are turning away from the U.S. dollar as their reference currency. It’s an ominous sign.
A couple of years ago, the woman who was the first director of the U.S. Office of Management and the Budget (can’t conjure up her name), a respected Ph.D. economist, and a cohort did a projection of the U.S. budget situation. Their conclusion was that by about 2012, declining revenues and skyrocketing obligations would reduce the entire expenditure from the U.S. Treasury to five categories. If memory serves (and it may not), those were: interest on the national debt, defense, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 2012 — four years hence.
If they’re off by 100%, that only means that we have ’til 2016 which is well within the lifetimes of most wlcr.com members and their families.
As Scott has rightly pointed out, the projected Medicare obligation is five times the Social Security obligation and it is entirely unfunded. One reliable projection puts it at some $53 BILLION. What’s more, the Social Security Trust Fund is now secured primarily by U.S. Treasury securities that the government hasn’t the means to repay. A Treasury bond is only worth more than the paper it’s printed on if there’s something behind it. With eight years of declining revenues (relative to spending) and skyrocketing deficits, where will Treasury find the money when the Social Security system comes a’calling?
This situation, generally, is what I mean by “maturation of the national debt”. Your mileage may vary.
Equating the sunrise which has happened for hundreds of millions of years with the cyclical nature of an economy and the enormous debts of the USA in particular doesn’t really work does it?
Doesn’t anybody here think that the financial destruction of the USA is exactly what is planned?
Doesn’t anyone think that this would be in the best interest of some people?
Anybody read Nami Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine’ http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/profiting-disaster-capitalism “War, Terror, Catastrophe: Profiting From ‘Disaster Capitalism'”
The same people/companies/mercenaries that rebuilt Iraq (not) could help rebuild the USA except instead of little Phillipinos doing all the work we would have millions of Mexicans because the US won’t exist in its present shape for too much longer. It will be a conglomeration of Canada/USA and Mexico
Then what happens next?
As for “massive population reduction”, hasn’t that already begun? It’s called ‘war.’ The only country to use weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East is the USA. This WMD is called depleted uranium and it WILL kill millions of people, including our families in the armed forces, many of them VERY slowly and very expensively.
You think they don’t know this is going to happen? Of course they know.
In response to your post Dixon and only from personal experience. I’ve never had my passport stolen (or lost) and only know of two individuals who experienced passport problems – one was a genuine burglary and the other where the passport was mislaid.
That said, there is an increasing crime issue within Costa Rica and this appears to have started getting government attention and where plans are currently being produced to add to the judiciary and fund prosecutors more fully. In a scenario where the justice system can almost reach the level of being stagnant and taking years to handle a case, – this simply enables ‘perps’ to continue a life of crime until they are locked up. It may also be that offenses such as passport theft are committed by the same small element of offenders who are still walking the streets awaiting a trial date – tho who knows?
Considering the proportion of US folks visiting Costa Rica, it is probably inevitable there will be more of them on the victim end of offenses. It’s also fair to say that the offenders are not always of Costa Rican nationality. Of the few incidents I’m familiar with, mainly fraud-related, around 50% are committed by US citizens busy defrauding other US citizens. The remaining 50% involves primarily Costa Rican nationals who are well-familiar with the slow pace of justice here and use that to their benefit.
Despite the grass never being greener, Costa Rica is very rich in many ways and crime is still less than in neighboring countries, tho would still be nice to see the justice system dust down the backlog of paperwork and get up to speed.
I can’t recount all the books I have read or heard of over the last three decades written by experts which have put forth theories about some sort of tremendous economic upheaval. All of the predicted dates for these disasters have come and gone. New batches of theories are always coming forth and re-setting the dates. There is plenty of fodder out there to feed these theories and there is never a shortage of speculative fear in people. I am no expert on macro economics. Like most people, I have to rely on what I read and what common sense tells me about probabilities. And I strive to keep separate probability from possibility. In the end, macro economics are tied to human behavior. They are a product of human behavior. So far, there is no reason to assume that some sort of major change in human behavior has occurred so I am betting that things will continue to chug right along as before. The only wld card hee is population and climate change.
While in Costa Rica two years ago my wife and kids and I arrived in Quepos late in the evening in a taxi from San Jose.
We had a small plastic case with our passports & $500 cash in it. As we unloaded our things it fell onto the floor of the cab unnoticed.
We ripped our hotel room and luggage apart that night looking for that which we could not have possibly lost – to no avail.
The next morning as I was on the phone to the Canadian embassy the cab driver drove up and returned our case intact. He drove all the way from San Jose to do so. We gave him a great tip and could not believe our good fortune (or stupidity).
Just thought we needed a positive story on this thread.
Maybe there is not much of a market for Canadian passports on the black market…
We definitely love Costa Rica!
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