www.CostaRicaTicas.com

ok, ok, then i have to wonder why does not the chinese government just pay the lower costs of Tici and Nica labor?

are they supposedly paying double the going local rate?

i know someone has the legal rates list somewhere.

how much is a skilled and unskilled construction laborer due by law?

the rate/wage is a legal law, isn't it?

_________________
The difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy Tale is that a Fairy Tale starts out 'Once Upon a Time..' and a Sea Story starts out 'This is no Shit...'

(export version only, some restrictions may apply, some assembly required, not valid where the sun don't shine...

if you live in the states of Poverty, Darkness or anywhere outside of The Blessings of Civilization Trust, Inc...other rules may apply)

China GAVE 200 police cars to the Fuerza Publica you see them all over the place.

I don't understand this concern over what China gives to Costa Rica. No one got upset when the Taiwan government was giving CR money for various project. Mainland China is far and away more recognized as the legitimate China then Taiwan by an overwhelming majority of the worlds countries. CR saw the opportunity to help itself out by switching their recognition. The rest of Central America has stayed with Taiwan and are being rewarded with funding of various projects by the Taiwanese.

Remember dollar diplomacy in emerging countries was and is practiced by the United States and most other major powers. It was okay for the U.S. to support Venezuela but now it is a big no no for Russia to do it. Third World countries have and always will be available to the highest bidder.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Here's an interesting lede to an article in Foreign Affairs:



Latin America has been so badly burnt by the policies of the IMF and World Bank that many countries have been rejecting their aid. With the resurgence of leftist governments in the last ten years, funds from these traditional western sources have been largely replaced by aid from Hugo's petro-dollars (until recently) and China. China, as it so often does, is taking a very long-term, strategic approach. It has been very generous and has put very few explicit strings on its aid, assuming that this will pay handsome returns in the future. Contrast that to aid given under Plan Colombia, for example, which is largely slated for the purchase of military equipment from U.S military contractors.

On a side note, Estadio Saprissa must hold about 25,000 and has no official parking. It seems to do fine.

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It's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money--Tom T. Hall
No man is a failure who is enjoying life--William Faulkner

here is the list

http://www.ministrabajo.go.cr/documento ... 202009.pdf

looks like carpenters, for example, make 15 dollars a day (max)

how can an imported chinese carpenter make double or triple that?

i would argue that 800-900 dollar a month figure mentioned in the article is bogus.

anyway, can you imagine the offers these imported workers would make to the little darlings?

Cien alright, cien colones!


ps - i agree with the article about chinese largeness with developing countries, particularily in mineral rich Africa.

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The difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy Tale is that a Fairy Tale starts out 'Once Upon a Time..' and a Sea Story starts out 'This is no Shit...'

(export version only, some restrictions may apply, some assembly required, not valid where the sun don't shine...

if you live in the states of Poverty, Darkness or anywhere outside of The Blessings of Civilization Trust, Inc...other rules may apply)

How is this for a hypothetical.

The United States, in an attempt to win favor, offers to build a 150 million dollar baseball stadium in the developing country of Whatsupdoc. The Whatsupions being baseball fanatics are besides themselves with euphoria and quickly accede to the U.S. condition that all labor will be by United States workers imported into Whatsupdoc for the period necessary to complete the construction.

The U.S. contractor hired by the government to build the stadium recruits the necessary workers. They tell them the prevailing wage in Whatsupdoc for common laborers is the equivalent of $1.50 a day. They can not get a single person willing to go to Whatsupdoc for that pay. They then offer the laborer the prevailing union wage for that job in Washington D.C. with the understanding that 90% of that pay will be deposited in his U.S. bank account so his wife and Ch*ldren can pay the bills in his absence and maintain their lifestyle.

Sounds like something the Chinese have worked out to build the stadium in San Jose to me.

_________________
Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

i hope so for the workers sake.

but, i doubt it.

positive outlook!

_________________
The difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy Tale is that a Fairy Tale starts out 'Once Upon a Time..' and a Sea Story starts out 'This is no Shit...'

(export version only, some restrictions may apply, some assembly required, not valid where the sun don't shine...

if you live in the states of Poverty, Darkness or anywhere outside of The Blessings of Civilization Trust, Inc...other rules may apply)

(1) The U. S. workers in Brother ID's hypothetical will actually get the money; any bets on whether the Chinese workers will?;(2) Taiwan (at least since the Kuo-min Tang were subsumed) have at least of a vestige of democracy; the Mainland--remember Tianamen Square?;(4) Costa Rica has always gone it's own way irrespective of what Central/ Latin America does; (5) I know we are near-50 years past the Cuban Missle Crisis but the Monroe Doctrine is still official U. S. policy and (in the case of Russian/ Chinese military bases in Venezuela or elsewhere), needs enforcing. (6) As for the quality of work on the Stadium, is CR doing intensive inspection, are they allowed to? Or is it going to be those Chinese schools all over again?
Finally, if there's anybody foxier than the Chinese, it's the Nigerians--now everybody in China will be getting those emails from the Nigerian Oil Ministry about "frozen" funds. Ho ho. That'll teach them.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

JazzboCR------
“Monroe Doctrine “ Been a long time since I heard that mentioned. I think it was in a grad class on international finance, with me being the only American in the room besides the professor, there were sure a lot less then happy other students as the Prop it used to explain American actions for the last say 150 years or so. ( almost every one else was from Central or South America-since those people are now runnign those counties, might explain a lot)

But you sure got me laughing on your last line, Thanks for that,

The rest of the post is pretty much on the mark. Good insight

The awesome thing is the new stadium looks like a huge vagina. The Chinese have a sense of humor after all, I bet they will look at it on Google earth and laugh every day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuevo ... cional.jpg

_________________

Living well is the best revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwUtj_YnNoY

Surely you jest. The Monroe Doctrine is over 180 years old and the Roosevelt Corollary more than 100 years old. The world has changed dramatically in that time span and the U.S. no longer speaks softly and carries a big stick in the western hemisphere.



The Monroe Doctrine was not really what was invoked in that case. If it had been the Russians would have never introduced ballistic missiles in Cuba. What the U.S. did was to react to a military threat not to a foreign power meddling in the affairs of a western hemisphere country which Russia had been doing for a few years without the U.S. invoking the Monroe Doctrine.

_________________
Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Buncha p*ssies in DC, right, Brother ID?
Tried to swing that big stick at Nicaragua in the '80's. You see how well that went--yeah, yeah, no foreign (direct; outside the Americas) involvement for the Sandinistas. I'm just sayin'...It will be interesting to see if the Chinese ask for/demand basing rights in the Americas.

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Saprissa stadium is a dump. For god sakes they have 20 year old astroturf as a playing surface. Most high schools have better facilites.That is no excuse for the USA's terrible performance, downn 3-0 in the 70th minute.

Saprissa stadium makes Estadio Pascual Guerro in Cali look like the taj majal.

FIFA needs to make Costa Rica get the new stadium built now.

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" Lo Siento pero mi no pagar cien dolares por medio hora de malo sexo, preguntar del gordo hombre con la camisa Miami Hurricanes, El Pagar Dos cientos dolares Y llegar addicional dinero para taxi.

This thread is about the new stadium that is under construction at this time.

_________________
Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Question- Has there been any mention of who will operate the stadium after completion?

I ask this as many major sports stadiums in the US after being built by the government are then run by one team and all funds ( concessions/parking/sky boxes ) from ALL other events there going to that team. So is a Chinese Corp or Costa Rican Corp getting that contract, just wondering as those are were the long term jobs will be, even if low paying

The reason for the "concern", if you want to call it that, is quite natural. We're NOT the Chinese and they're our economic rivals in the pursuit of natural resources and markets. They also have political goals that they pursue with their trade and aid policies that are antithetical to those pursued by the US.

Taiwan is a good example. The US recognizes China as the "legitimate" MAINLAND China too, what we DON'T recognize is their sovereignty over the island nation of Taiwan. The fact that "far and away" the "overwhelming majority of the worlds countries" does, arguably has more to do with the fact that most countries place economic self-interest (the HUGE Chinese market and/or all the US dollars they have to invest) over principles (as has happened with CR). Taiwan is not a paragon of democracy and human rights, but it still has a much better record than China and its citizen's have spoken quite clearly that THEY don't recognize China's sovereignty over them.

OF COURSE, we buy allegiances too (just look at the so-called "Coalition of the Willing"). But, again, most of the time that is to acheive ends that we as US CITIZENS support. OF COURSE, other countries have as much right to try and do that as we do but that doesn't mean we have to be happy about it if they manage to "outbid" us particularly in areas that are close to our hearts. And, rightly or wrongly, we still see the Americas as our backyard and find it particularly troubling when other world powers play in our "sandbox".

The Monroe Doctrine may be old but I don't see why that means it is no longer being applied. Wikipedia may not be the most authoritative source but it's article on the Monroe Doctrine talks specifically about its application during the Cuban Missle Crisis and, even more recently, during the Contra War in Nicaragua, an interventions in Guatemala, the Salvadoran Civil War and the invasion of Granada. In fact, our current Secretary of Defense (then CIA Director) Robert Gates vigorously defended the Contra operation, arguing that avoiding U.S. intervention in Nicaragua would be "totally to abandon the Monroe doctrine".

As for the Chinese employing their own people, if they're paying the bills they can do whatever they like. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the 500 police cars were shipped over from China, rather than purchased locally, or were at least built at some Chinese owned plant in the region. This is known as "tied aid" and the US does that all the time too. For example, US food aid usually takes the form of US grown grain which does as much to help our farmers (sometimes at the expense of local farmers in the destination countries) as it does to help the locals. If they paid more for Chinese workers than they would have for locals, that's okay with them because nearly all of that money will wind up recirculating in their home economy one way or the other. As I said before, they probably overcharged the workers for the goods and services that they provided them while in CR. However, unless they were duped or "shanghaied" (entirely possible when talking about the human-rights deficient Chinese government), the workers must have netted enough relative to what they were making (or not making) back home or they the government would not have been able to "recruit" them.

JB,
Where did you hear about any Russian or Chinese military bases in Venezuela or elsewhere in the Americas? Russia has been TALKING about that some, but it is highly unlikely from a purely logistic standpoint and is much more likely being used as a BARGAINING CHIP because they're not happy about some of the things WE"VE been doing in THEIR backyard (e.g. NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, anti-ballistic missile system deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, etc.). In fact, even going back to the Cuban Missle Crisis, that ultimately was used as a lever to have us pull our missles that were based in northern Turkey near the border with the USSR.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080723/114760531.htmlhttp://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/03/15/a-new-cuban-missile-crisis-russia-eyes-bomber-bases-in-latin-america/