www.CostaRicaTicas.com

What is everyone's opinion on CAFTA?
(Central American Free-Trade Agreement)

What impact do you think it will have on certain Central American economies?

Do you think it will cause Central Americans to like or dislike the U.S. more or less?

Damm, I know I'll get blasted for this but here's my take:
Apparently the other Central American countries have rattiffied it but Costa Rica isn't so hot for it. Competition from US companies can and will hurt thier monolpolies here. ICE, INS and the power companies seem dead set against it. I should point out that while they are monopolies, they seem to provide a decent service at fair rates.
The other Central American countries will benifit as they are not as well off as Costa Rica. For Costa Rica, it could be a problem.
I, for one would probably benifit as I would have access to more American goods at a more reasonable price.
LVSteve

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Just an old horney, fat gambler.

With regard to ICE's telephone service.

Sometimes when I call my friend, I can't get through to her cell because it's raining down there. My call goes straight to her voice mail instead of ringing. Sometimes when I call her house phone, there will be lots of static on the phone when it's raining.

Why has Costa Rica maintained a monopoly on ICE and INS for so long?

Overal, I think CAFTA will help Costa Rica. Consumers are the main beneficiaries of lowered trade barriers: they get a bigger variety of products at better prices. The opening of insurance and telecom (both currently government monopolies) to private competition will have the effect of putting colones in the average citizen's pocket. Further, Costa Ricans are in better shape than their Central American neighbors to benefit from CAFTA because of their higher levels of educational achievement.

For us mongers, it may give us a chance to get a decent steak (USDA prime, that is). I would also expect the tourism industry to prosper, but that may mean that aspects of Costa Rica may be spoiled by success.


Osogrande

In Canada we have nafta and it took many years about a 10 year phase in and very little benefit to the ordinary fellow with an exception of lower clothing prices which would have happened in any event. Free trade generally only benefits large multinational corporations because i still cannot go to the US and bring back unlimited goods duty free milk cheese booze smokes etc. Cafta will probably be the same for the ordinary folks here because there are so many exceptions trucking and some foodstuffs like wheat and beans to protect the farmer to name a few. As I see it the main beneficaries will be insurance co's and later down the road the teleco's.

Don't get me wrong I believe in free trade but it has to be fully and completely implemented.

I won't get into the US not paying Canada the money it owes over the softwood timber accord about 5 billion, and the US record of saying one thing and signing a treaty and doing another.

I look at a country here CR crying poor and we don't have money for the roads yet opens the toll booths at rush hour while at the same time raising bus fares. Go figure.

The will help and hurt CR.

I think it helps USA, no hurt. I've heard that it is more an intelligent property rights issue for US record companies, film companies and especially software companies. The subject is just too complicated really.

No offense, but sometimes that are too many emotions involved with subjects such as this (political). It basically comes down to money in the end - as usual - so wtf or wtf are we to judge this complicated agreement?

LVSteve - I love that response, you'll probably get blasted! Very funny (to me) and honest. I just know I'd get along with you well - you are so straight up and somehow easy going at the same time.

Guys,

CAFTA, NAFTA we don't hafta discuss this kind of stuff here. There are other forums for politics and trade.

Whatever happens as far as CAFTA's effect on our hobby, we will as a group neither be able to change or control anything.

Will CAFTA raise the price of poon? That's the really important question.

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Pura Vulva! Wandering through the dark, I am El Ciego.

You hit the nail on the head El Ciego. All I care about is what effect it will have on our hobby if any. Will rates go up, down,etc. Will the U.S. start telling CR how to run their country? Like if you want this concession make prostitution illegal? Far fetched, but anything is possible with good old Uncle Sam.

I LB,

If the U.S. lobbies Costa Rica to criminalize prostitution, then our government had better be ready with the checkbook.

prostitution is, for better or worse a significant part of costa Rica's "Aid to Families with Dependent Ch*ldren;" without prostitution or a lot of welfare, the results in terms of human misery would be horrendous. For this reason, I speculate that even with posturing, pressure and promises of non-payment, the oldest profession will continue to prosper in Paradise.

However... Dozens of U.S. companies are poised to start doing business in Costa Rica. The influx of foreign capital and jobs could possibly stimulate C.R. to even higher rates of inflation, and thus rises the price of panocha.

I've read writings by veterans here and elsewhere which recall a time when a guy could get a quality hour with an outstanding woman for around $20.00, and we're talking BM and ZB calibre girls. Some old timers have told me tales of scoring five-dollar love as recently as the early 1980's. It is obvious that the presence of visitors from the industrialized world, demanding their own creature comforts and consumer goods will continue to drive prices higher in Costa Rica, with or without CAFTA.

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Pura Vulva! Wandering through the dark, I am El Ciego.

OK, I take the bait.

CAFTA in my opinion will affect the P4P biz as well as many aspects of tourism in this country. If this economy (that I live and do business in) continues it's current path, you will see trade going to all the countries that signed...and not CR. If that happens, you will see fruits and vegetables spoiling on the vine, inflation will fly higher in a short period of time, and many jobs will go elsewhere. This could be good for monger prices...as you will see more desperate ladies in the street and Delreys trying to survive. But you will also see more desparate crime all over the country, even more against foreigners. You will also then see foreigners fleeing this dangerous and inflated country for greener pastures. That means real estate prices will come down, and many recent buyers will be under water on their investments here.

As has been stated on this thread, sure, these trade agreements primarily benefit large multinational companies...who then supply the jobs, security and pay taxes that supposedly get the roads fixed and infrastructure built for economic progress. If you dont have all that...you might as well leave all the pot holed oxen cart roads the way they are, because this country will go back to horse and buggy days.

Hope I'm not being overly dramatic...but you get my point.

You are right. I don't like when people reduce an issue to this statement - it is too much of a sound bite instead of anything real.

What I think Tman is saying is that it starts with the multinationals benefiting, but that the trickle down theory is alive and well here. This is my take too. The multinationals are going to do what multinationals do, no one can change them at this point. I only hope CR doesn't become too much like America - the boats, the motorcycles, the cars, all the electronic toys, internet access, computers, PS2, xbox, freezen food all become 'needs' rather than simple 'wants.' I hope this doesn't happen - probably will happen but I hope it takes 20 years.

I think that it is interesting to note that Belize, the only English speaking country in Central America, isn't part of the agreement. Wonder why?

El Ciego - You just have to find another place for $20 beauties, albeit, you may have to travel further. Colombia still has that opportunity, as well as smaller cities in Brazil (even Rio if you look hard enough). Then there're places still further out like Jakarta, Angeles City and Pattaya, which I hear ROCK for $20.

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"Don't never trust a woman, till she's dead and deep....One day she'll say she loves you, next day she'll throw you on the street."

"...and if men didn't have this unquenchable desire to have sex with women, then they wouldn't have anything to do with women at all. I certainly wouldn't..."

I don't buy the trickle down theory or if there is a trickle thats all it is - a tiny insignificant trickle. These various policies, whether they're trade agreements that have been hammered through by powerful governments and their corporate backers or favorable domestic policies (including taxes) that have been hammered through by those same interests are designed primarily if not entirely to benefit those interests despite the lip service that is given to it trickling down. The only ones that really benefit are the shareholders. Those various interests would like to have us all believe that the little guy benefits too, but that is all a carefully orchestrated scam (in much the same way we were duped into believing that there were WMD's in Iraq in 2003).

Case in point, lets look at what has happened in the US since the supply siders first proposed their trickle down tax cuts back in the 80's. The primary basis for that was the Laffer curve which says that revenue from taxes peak at some point between 0 and 100% and beyond that point higher taxes lead to lower tax revenue until you get to 100% when you've basically taxed everyone out of existence. What supplysiders conveniently forgot was that the other side was equally true. If you lower the tax rate to zero tax revenues are zero. Of course everyone is happy (except those who depend on government benefits, which is everyone in one way or another) because they get to keep everything they make. It was never explained how they determined which side of the curve's peak we were on.

Okay, all very interesting, but what does this have to do with trade agreements. Patience, I'm getting there. Supply siders claimed that we were on the high side of the curve and that by lowering taxes we would provide incentives for people to work harder and business to invest and that not only would tax revenues increase but that everyone would benefit from the increased economic activity. Well, I don't know if the economy has grown any faster in the 25 or so years since those first tax cuts took place than they had in the 25 years before, but I do know that it was around then that the federal budget deficit started to explode (the only narrowing of that budget gap during that entire time occurred only after Clinton partially rolled back the earlier taxcuts). And what about the trickle down. People ARE working harder. In fact, it often takes 2 incomes to support an american household today whereas it used to take only one breadwinner back in the 50's and 60's. And what of the trickle down from corporate profits and all the jobs created. Well the jobs all went overseas where people would work for far less money and the corporations could make even more money. True, the stockmarket boomed and shareholders got fat dividends and capital appreciation, but how many people on the bottom rungs of society own stock. Even middle class taxpayers get most of their income from the wages they earn rather than their 401K. And while federal income taxes went down, so did subsidies to local govts and much more regressive local taxes and fees went up, largely offseting any tax benefit for the working guy. Meanwhile the superwealthy, who have to spend only a fraction of their income, reinvested their profits in yet more MNC's with overseas workforces so they could become even richer.

There is another curve in economics that gets far less press than the Laffer curve (btw, the so-called Laffer curve concept was actually thought up by an arabic economist, Ibn Khaldun, in the 14th century). It is the Lorenz curve which shows what percentage of total societal income each segment of that society has. And after 30 years of a continuously expanding middle class that curve suddenly started getting deeper since the tax cuts meaning the rich HAVE gotten richer BUT the poor have gotten POORER and the disappearing middle class has been squeezed. And that simple fact is indisputable. If things are supposed to trickle down, how come they haven't reached the little guy on the bottom? In fact, why is he actually worse off?

As with taxes so with trade agreements. They are a scam written up by the corporate interests to benefit themselves (much as was done with Bush's energy policy, but that is another story). These trade agreements are foisted on the general public as something that is especially good for them. Look at NAFTA. It was sold as solely a free trade issue. Capitalism at its finest and everyone benefits. Yeah right. The problem is that it is not an even playing field and the golden rule applies (those who have the gold make the rules). H Ross Perot turned out to be absolutely right. There has been a great whooshing sound of jobs flowing south. US factory workers are certainly no better off from it. But I'm not so sure the Mexicans are any better off from it either. They still try to escape their country and come over here at every chance they get. The Mexican border with Texas is economically vibrant but has become a toxic sludge of chemical pollutants and violent crime.

Fast forward to our present CAFTA. Will CAFTA mean more jobs in CR? Perhaps, but then why are the unions in CR fighting it? Because they know that at least 1/3 of the CR workforce work in protected industries in featherbed jobs and that most of them would be put out of work if this thing passes. Now I'm not saying thats entirely a bad thing. ICE and INS and other public monopolies are grossly inefficient and can benefit hugely from competition. To the extent that the CR government shares in the increased profits brought about by those new efficiencies, they will be able to continue to support their social welfare system and physical infrastructure, if not the thousands of public employees put out of work. But these MNC's are not going into CR to just to share the wealth (except perhaps with key govt. officials they have bought off to support CAFTA) most of the income will be expatriated for shareholders back in the US and elsewhere. To the extent that roads will be patched up will only go as far as the airport, seaports and factory gates. Local farmers will not be able to match the heavily mechanized and chemically aided output of the US's corporate farms that are subsidized extensively by our government. Local businesses will soon lose favor to the US-style chains due to the overpowering impact of mass advertizing (call it the McDonaldization of the world). What happens to P4P remains to be seen. There will be more economic misery as those not working for $5/day at some US-owned call center will seek other income to survive in what will surely become an even more inflationary enviroment but the so-called working girls might have to ask for more dinero because of that.

It won't change a thing with P4P the chicas already have a firm grip on CAFTA ( CAN ALWAYS FUCKOVER TONTO AMERICANS )!

Prolijo:

Much of what you say is right some is too oversimplified.

Why in the early days did it take just one bread winner? I've always thought about this. To me, it comes down to what people are willing to pay for something. More and more women went to work enabling us to pay more for goods so prices went up - if women hadn't went to work then prices would have to remain low because our willingness to pay more just wouldn't exist.

If someone a long time ago would have made it a law that only 1 person in the house (mom or dad) can work - we would still be just as we were in the early days. They wouldn't have been able to make it so difficult to survive. It gets to a point where more and more 2 parents are working and along the way prices were going up because we were willing to pay more since we COULD pay more.

They price everything not based on what is is worth, it is priced based on what we are willing to pay so what we are willing to pay established what things are worth.

Take for example concert tickets - in 1978 you could go to a Ted Nugent concert for 11.00 so at that time about the price of 2 and a half lunches. Today, a concert is priced at 10 lunches - why? Because we are stupid and willing to pay and the same goes with baseball tickets, football tickets, tennis tickets. They aren't scamming us - we're too stupid to say enough is enough - I'm not willing to pay.

This is the tip of the iceberg - so much more to this.

Some might say that it isn't the multinational's fought that we are in the mess that we are in - it isn't the mulitnationals that are screwing us over, it is ourselves.

A lot of people are just plain stupid - when they can't afford something (material wealth) they charge it. Much of the problem is instant gradification - we have to have it NOW so charge it. I wonder how many guys are here are charging their trips to CR and so paying interest on the pu*sy they bought after they get back to the USA.

Today, people think they NEED a cell phone and they think they NEED internet access and they think the NEED 180 channels on the cable box and they think they NEED a new car every 4 years and they think they NEED a flat screen TV when the old tube type is working just fine. The list goes on and on.

Too many people classify their WANTS as NEEDS - this hasn't gotten us anywhere but into debt. Many people imprison themselves into working because they've lived the high life seeking WANTS as if they are NEEDS and they do it at any cost - they pay the stores price and then they pay interest on what they've charged.

There isn't any holding back..... want want want and charge charge charge.

Let's hope the people of Costa Rica never get credit issued to them as it has to us in North America. This will be when the real destruction begins in Costa Rica (and anywhere else), if credit becomes available.

I'm so glad I was able to write all of this without saying a thing about dems or repubs. It certainly takes the edge off when you leave out these too groups.

I'm still not sure about CAFTA.