[This is a guest column, if you will, sent to me (as corroboration?)]
I recently returned from Panama after traveling around the
country to get another look at it for the long term potential as an investment
and residential location. I have been following Panama’s development since the
days of Manuel Noriega when I remember him banging his chrome coated machete on
the podium during one of his national speeches daring the then first Bush
president, George Bush senior, and the CIA to come and get him.
Of course they did come because they had no choice; for
Noriega was a former CIA agent/informant and had collected a warehouse full of
evidence against the CIA and Bush, when Bush was the head of the CIA. Noriega
was threatening the US Government with the release of all this information if he
was bothered any more in the future. So the US Military invaded the country to
cover the ass of Bush and the CIA and engaged in a one week burn party
destroying every document that could be embarrassing. This part of the mission
was very successful and they even bagged Noriega as a trophy.
The part that did not work out so well was the plan for the
US Military to take over the banks and raid the information about all account
holders and their operations. To their credit, the banks in Panama locked their
doors and refused entry stating that any information would have to be taken by
force and that none of it would be surrendered. This justified act
of defiance has to this day had tremendous lasting affects in
a positive way and firmly placed Panama as a destination of financial security
when dealing with the larger international financial institutions. During the
United States attack on Panama, there was a virtual stampede of thousands of
corporations transferring their domicile over night (on paper) to other
jurisdictions assuming the worst in privacy intrusion by the
US Government and its pit bull the US military.
After a couple of weeks of ransacking all the secret files of
the Noriega and with the week long shred and burn party at his intelligence
headquarters (completely leveled in bombing raids) in Panama City over and with
limited luck penetrating Panama’s banking and corporate structure, the US
Government had no choice but to retreat with Noriega in tow to make sure he was
not able to say anything about the activity he did for the US Government in
Latin America. This invasion and attack left a lasting impression on the Panama
people and it’s government in a negative way.
It became abundantly clear to its
people that Panama had to be free from the United States and to find a much
larger and diverse set of friends in the world not only for its physical
security but just as important its financial survivability. What Panama realized
after the invasion of the alleged sovereignty of the county was that until their
old colonial masters (The United States) were gone, there would be no chance of
establishing the country as an independent republic that guaranteed financial
security and privacy. Without these basic guarantees, Panama had no chance to
become the Hong Kong of Central America.
As we all know, this happened on
January 1st, 2000 and set Panama down on its own road as an independent republic
with phenomenal potential to create a modern financial and shipping hub with a
colorful historical past and ecological environment and people that would make
it the envy of the world. The independent Republic of Panama was a dream that
still can be a reality but as will be shown, it has made a lot of mistakes already
and needs a lot of corrections to reach this goal.
Panama Today And Tomorrow
I am amazed at the massive amount of construction going on beginning from
just after dawn until well after dark. From the Casco [Antigua], along
Avenida Balboa, to Punta Paitilla and beyond is one big construction site.
The roar of machinery and jackhammers and the human chanting and yelling is
something to see. I walked the water front along Avenida Balboa many times
during all times of the day and night to get the true feel of the place
and sat and watched the people and traffic and the pulse of
this city in the birth stage. The entire water front or
should I say former water front along Avenida Balboa is one giant gravel pit
being formed by the filling in of the sea with gravel and dirt for a hundred
yards out or more from the original coast line to form a new coastal promenade.
The massive project, called the Cinta Costera (www.cintacostera.com) is to be an approximately mile and a half-long walking promenade with recreational facilities
for all the people to use.
The Punta Paitilla building projects of skyscraper condo mega homes that reach
to the sky are something like I have never seen before anywhere.
Just the mass of workers, like ants building giant ant hills to the sky, makes
even a seasoned traveler like me stop and stare with amazement for such a
small Central American country. I stood on the street corner at Punta Paitilla
for a long time where there was only standing room and just
watched. What I saw was both inspiring and also very scary. Scary not
in a physical threat sense because it was in broad daylight and I was surrounded
by thousands of people; and as my ex-wife used to say, “You’re a very scary guy”,
which as she clarified was to be taken in the most loving sense.
The scary part
of what I was witnessing at the massive Punta Paitilla construction site of
multiple skyscrapers is the potential for social and political unrest once this
building dynamo comes to a halt like it has already done in the rest of the
world. I watched the workers as they interacted with each other and the
upper class people that were trying to enter the area or even passing by in
their cars, enroute to the Corredor Sur interstate highway that runs parallel to
the waterfront. What I saw in the workers was a sense of arrogance and even
resentment toward those driving by or trying to enter the area to get to the
freshly built high rise homes.
The entire world is economically grinding to a
halt and with it, so will Panama . Panama, like in the days of Spanish occupation
in the 1500’s to 1800’s, is nothing more than a conduit of commerce for pirates,
whether they were the Spanish themselves transporting fortunes in gold and silver
or characters like Captain Morgan, who stole it from Panama, or the modern
entrepreneurs invading the country today. Panama has become a modern Tortuga with
its government officials selling out to the highest bidders. The tsunami wave of
economic collapse is heading right at Panama and will funnel through the canal and
overwhelm the economy: from commercial shipping to real estate to International
Banking.
When this happens in the next two years, all the construction workers and the
people working in the support businesses will let their resentment loose on the
Panama Government and the financial/real estate industry that created the bubble.
The upper class in Panama are living the good life with all of their shopping
malls created for the fast money of American style consumerism. What took
America only 40 years to do, Panama will have done in only 10
years. I could see it in the personalities of the Panama people throughout
Panama but most pronounced in Panama City . It is the dawn of arrogance where
charging a fair price or even the legal required price has been superseded by
ripping others off so one can live a more luxurious life today and not worry
about tomorrow.
I am not just picking on Panama. The rest of the world
that has been infected by American style greed and consumerism is falling into
the same trap. When these workers in Panama suddenly find themselves out of
work and their hope for this middle/upper class life style with shopping malls
and good homes and good schools for the children are taken away from them, there
is going to be a lot of trouble in paradise. These workers are already striking
and protesting for more of their piece of the pie and when the building boom
drops off in the next six months there will be trouble and Panama City will come
to look and feel very much like Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican
Republic.
The Panama Government has sold its people down the river in almost
every respect.(1) It has allowed the rapid explosion of real
estate development that is not sustainable and is both environmentally and
socially destructive. This has increased the rate of inflation to
9.6% a 28 year high. (2) It has been conned, or better put, paid off into
expanding the width of the canal by adding massive new canal locks at the cost
of 6 billion dollars; that will blossom into 10 to 20 billion before it is over.
The enlargement of the lock system, which the country cannot even begin to afford,
is happening at the time when the world is heading into a World Depression that
will last any where from 10 to 20 years. (3) The Panama Government has sold out
on all levels to foreign companies wishing to park their companies in Panama
without properly supervising their activities.
Such companies act without any consequences because they have already paid the
officials in the Panama Government off. Such companies as Epay Inc (www.epayareacardscam.com), a debit card company registered to
operate out of Panama, rips unsuspecting customers off knowing that
there are no consequences for their actions. The President of Panama and
his agency cronies are holed up in their guarded buildings like resident pirates,
collecting tributes from those who wish to operate within their domain.
The Panama Government, and increasingly its people, have adapted the Palanca
method of business operation, which is: whoever has the most financial or
political influence, called “pull”, is the one who gets the prize. The quality
of your character and that of your business is irrelevant. The only real measure
is how much you or you company is willing to contribute financially and what
kind of favors you can do for them.
Those who doubt this only need to look as
far as the three main sources of income of the country: canal operations, real
estate and financial institutions (and the pay-off kick-backs that government
officials get). All one has to do is to take the bus from Panama City across
to Colon on the Caribbean side, or from Colon to Portobello, a 45 minute ride
further [east] to see where all of Panama’s income is not going to. The Panama
Government and the wealthy families that run it are either directly or indirectly
sucking the financial life blood out of the country at an incredible rate.
What they are leaving behind are giant, modern, United States-style
shopping malls and sky-scraper homes overlooking the Panama City shoreline and
select other enclaves down the Pacific coast. Panama City has become one big
orgy of greed and deceit in the apartment/home rental business.
Companies in the financial sector, like Epay Inc, are pouring into the country and
setting up skeleton offices to perpetrate their scams on trusting new customers
that believe Panama is safe because of the deluge of “Be happy and retire in
safety” promotion web sites about Panama. Judgment day is quickly approaching
after the tsunami of investments have filled the pockets of the select families
at the top. In a year from now, the tsunami wave of greed will begin to withdraw,
as it is doing all over the world right now, and the true destruction of the wave
of greed that has overwhelmed the country will be seen. The people who have
bought into their ivory-towered sky-scrapers, over looking the Pacific, that can
still afford to stay there, will themselves be looking down on an increasingly
angry population that thought they too could have the middle-class life-style and
be able to shop in those big shopping malls.
These people will be forced to
return to their former levels of life-style and in the end they will be worse
off than they were before. Panama will become increasingly dangerous and the
ivory-towered enclaves will become fortresses of physical safety instead of
happy retirement homes. The working middle-class members will be angry because
they lost ten years of their lives working toward an unobtainable goal; and the
still poor will resent that everyone above them walked on their backs for those
ten years for nothing.
What Panama should have done was develop the country
along strict environmental standards promoting the country as a unique
ecological enclave. This, combined with the canal and the financial sector under
strict regulation (to prevent such companies as Epay Inc from operating), and at
the same time promoting the safe, private and guaranteed banking for individuals,
both Panamanian and foreigners, regardless of the bank account size,
would have put Panama on the map as a world class sanctuary.
The tourist dollars would allow the restoration to the grandeur of their former
selves in such locations as Portobello, Fort San Lorenzo and Casco Viejo, the old
quarter of the real old Panama of the past. By engaging the poor lower
class in the restoration process and with the actual operation of the different
facilities at the historic sites, would eliminate such enclaves of poverty and
crime as Chorrillo that is on the very door step of the Casco [Antigua]. The
possibilities for the development of Panama as a historical, cultural, financial
and environmental center of Latin America is virtually endless.
I like Panama before it sold out to the highest bidder and allowed scam companies
like Epay Inc to operate within the country. From Epay Inc at one end to the large
real estate developers and banks that fund them to the Panama Government, they are
raping the country and more importantly the people.
There will be a price to pay
for this behavior when the financial tsunami washes over Panama and the working
class turn on the Government and the upper class that has been ripping them off
for the past eight years. I advise foreigners to stay away
from all investments in Panama in real estate, banking, and even the ecological
restoration programs, such as teak reforestation, until Panama cleans up and
clears out the growing numbers of pirates robbing blind the country and its lower
class. There will be hell to pay in the next few years. Give it some thought.
Or better yet, take a trip there and take the path not travelled by those who
stay in the finest hotels -to get the real picture.
The Panama people are, over-all, good people. It is the upper
class and the government officials from the president on down that are the real
pirates. The Panama people have missed a wonderful opportunity and it will take
at least another generation before it will come around again.
…one man’s opinion…
