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While Wal-Mart in the US certainly has issues regarding workers rights – to compare it to slavery is a complete fabrication and shows your ignorance. I think you do have a point regarding the corporate culture of Wal-Mart and the complete disregard to CR customs. However in todays global market – mañana doesn’t cut it in any country.
Haven’t you left the US yet or are you logged on from your nuclear fall out shelter.:lol:[/quote]
John,
I am still here in the States as vulnerable as ever..more vulnerable as time progresses.
“Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.[1”
In what way do we not qualify as slaves under the above definition?You don’t own property as the the State can take it from you at any time. They can (and do) seize bank accounts and property daily. Mortgage foreclosures, credit card defaults and loss of jobs and income are all due to the banking cartels and their absolute control of money, wages, the economy and your standard of living. Everyone is forced to work to survive and live under this paradigm. And it is not necessary. If you do not understand this, the ignorance is yours.
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”
In Miami, we have a large Latin immigrant population and over the decades, they have acclimated quite well into the US culture which means they have adapted to a certain attitude towards work. Importing a work force into a culture has worked here so far.
However, it seems to me that exporting an American corporate culture to Costa Rica would be more difficult. If Ticos who are employed at Walmarts in Costa Rica are indeed somewhat unhappy at work, maybe it has to do with an attempt to overlay Walmarts’ employee slave-like behavior policies onto a culture which is in direct conflict with that sort of policy. Something has to give. People who are used to living free from work slavery are naturally going to be resistant. But economic necessities generally overcome this resistance, at least that has been the case in the U.S. And it seems to work elsewhere. U.S. jobs have been exported successfully all over the planet. Any bets on who does the adapting, Ticos or Walmart Corporate policy in CR?
I am no CR expert but Costa Rica still seems a far better place than most of the US for my needs. It has gotten worse everywhere for a lot of reasons. Too many people and a supremely destructive world economic system will leave no place untouched. So if you lament the changes in Costa Rica, hold your breath and take another close look at the U.S.
[quote=”Scott”]Cuba would not be our plan ‘B’
My girlfriend is from Guatemala but although I love Antigua, there’s a palbable fear in the air in the city which is bordering on frightening.Scott[/quote]
Scott, I wish you would elaborate on this. I am sensing a similar thing here in Miami. I suppose it is normal in bad times for heightened anxieties, but I have been through bad recessions before and this time it feels different.
It’s one thing to read up on stuff that’s entertaining and speculative and to be day dreaming but I am not delusional or naive and I can’t sit on my hands once I see what has to be done. If nothing happens and three years from now, we are all still on this message board writing each other from the same chairs and computers about how great the Costa Rican weather is , then I and a whole lot of other people have made some serious miscalculations…and all is well with the world. And I will eventually make my way to my CR property hopefully before I die of old age and in a more prepared state.
In the meantime, I am in in a hurry to move to CR. I have to plan and act for my best interests on what I believe I know to be true and there is a confluence of macro events which I believe will make leaving the U.S. after a certain date impossible for me and for most others to do so easily. Do you have any convictions on the future? If so, are you acting on them?
[quote=”majicmerlin4″]hey,
did your hear about area 51? The Govt. is covering up a space ship since the year……[/quote]I guess each of us has to decide which conspiracy theories have a higher probability of being true. For my part, anything the government or the corporate media tells us is a lie.
Last year I saw an old stove dumped down the mountain to the river’s edge across from my CR property. It is depressing to consider that the planet is populated with that kind of selfish disregard for the environment. I am nearly moved to physical violence when I see that kind of behavior.
I paddle my sea kayak in the waters around Miami and Key Largo every week end. The trash floating in the water has grown before my eyes over the just the last decade. Used diapers, deck chairs, plastic bags, cans, fishing gear, condoms, the list is endless. Overpopulation is THE problem. But let me once again look in the bright side of the coming societal melt down; it could have a positive side effect of population reduction and definitely WILL have a reducing effect on consumption.
I see the war on drugs as simply another tool of control. As a tool of control, it has multiple functions; 1.subjection, fragmentation and weakening of the general domestic population and imprisonment of specifically targeted opposition leaders. 2. additional income for the black ops divisions. 3.Destabilization of drug producing countries and 4. a plausible excuse to send military components far and wide outside the physical limits of the empire. There are more advantages to the Owners.
I just don’t see legalization as a potential reality for North America.
Agree. It is selfish and stupid to create more people in an already overpopulated world. Large families, like religion, is a product of ignorance.
Why concern yourself over those frightened Americans living in their domestic prisons? Let them have all the money they can get from Uncle Sam to build higher walls with concertina wire and cameras. They have imported their fear and mistrust and slavish devotion to material wealth to a place that, I am guessing here, is merely a part time vacation spot for most of them anyway.
When you choose a place to live full time where you do not speak the language, where you do not and cannot interact with your neighbors and where you expect to live with conspicuous wealth above and beyond your neighbors, there are going to be consequences. In today’s world, we can see a dramatic version of those consequences in the recent news from the middle east and north Africa.
[quote=”maravilla”]yes, but what about the rest of us who have been burgled. why aren’t we going to get cameras? talk about being pompous, thinking they deserve it more than anyone else.[/quote]
This is what economic disparity is all about…the haves and have nots and the resulting resentment, social unrest and other negative aspects. I remember reading an article posted by Scott on Costa Rican economic disparity statistics. I don’t recall if the CR government was concerned or not but I got the impression they were at least looking at the issue as a potential problem.
On a related note, I still feel uncomfortable being identified as a gringo in Costa Rica. Besides the perceived economic disparity between Ticos and gringos, there are so many bad examples of American behavior which appear anti social such as not bothering to learn the language or being too pushy and hurried about everything or segregating themselves from communities behind gated walls. I try not to think about it but it is hard to avoid sometiomes.
Llorones…cry babies. Nobody likes to be burgled and I don’t blame anyone who wants to do something to avoid it but walls and cameras may not be effective tools. In fact, they may be clear advertisements to thieves as to where their efforts will be amply rewarded.
Living in an open community of close neighbors with equal incomes and mutual interests may not be a guarantee for theft prevention, but it beats the hell out of hiding wealth behind a wall with cameras and guards. Economic disparity is a bitch and theft is one of the consequences.
I have a real hard time empathizing with any of my fellow countrymen who chose to live in a gated community in Costa Rica and are crying about crime. They moved to Costa Rica and brought their sick culture with them, you know, the culture of living segregated inside their safe little suburban homes without even knowing their neighbors, of driving everywhere sealed in their cars and relying exclusively on armed police to protect them every place they go.
They brought this dysfunctional sickness and fear to Costa Rica. They never even bother to learn Spanish enough to understand where they are and with whom they live. Insulated and insolent, now they want US government protection in a foreign country where THEY chose to live? No nation needs this kind of immigrant.
One can hope that a world wide economic melt down will rid us once and for all of the current monetary system which has engendered the values both you and I disparage.
Cheap energy in the form of oil is to blame for our turning to dangerous nuclear energy. Cheap oil permitted us to over consume and over populate and devastate our environment by depleting it of resources while polluting it. The over population seem to me to be the biggest problem brought on by oil because now how are we going to come up with enough fuel for all the new billions of people?
None of the green, renewable energy sources have the technology behind them to satisfy world demand. The obvious conclusion is that we either reduce demand OR continue and let the system collapse which will, in turn, reduce the population which will reduce the demand. Guess which one is most likely to happen?
I want to be on my Costa Rican mountain with some sort of renewable local energy supply in place before too long.
