Tourism
Could Panama City be made attractive?
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There are six conditions for a city to be attractive, and Panama lives up only to a couple of them.
Bananama Republic (http://www.bananamarepublic.com/tag/real-estate/)
There are six conditions for a city to be attractive, and Panama lives up only to a couple of them.
Panama is a distant fifth in World Bank report, and on Internations survey ranks even below Europe in cost of living.
From overpriced real estate to COPA and the legal system; here is what we'd want to see change in the next five years.
In case you didn't know: The Pacific coast of Panama, from Chame to, say, San Carlos and Playa Blanca, is going through a crime wave. Last Friday night, we understood from Eric Jackson, armed men invaded restaurant Rancho Los Toros, robbed about a dozen people and stabbed at least one other.
Even before they are being given total immunity for crimes they commit, Martinelli's police and immigration officials are already behaving as if they're members of the infamous Zetas narco gang, according to a reader's story about events in Pedasi.
And we have another great example of how just about any foreign swindler can set up shop in Panama: Silva Tree makes false claims and is led by a former real estate and timeshare con man.
Cocaine Cowboys. How the drugs transformed Miami into something that looks a lot like Panama today. "All these banks", says one of the protagonists (which also tells you all you need to know about people like Eisenmann getting into shady banking in Miami in the eighties). "All this construction", says another.
All the "analysts" were wrong: Panama's economy only grew with 2.4% in 2009. Leftist Bolivia is doing best in the region!
Is it some sort of wacky hobby then, of the fine people of US State, to repeat themselves in voluminous reports every year and push policies that demonstrably have no effect in reducing the drug trade and money laundering? Is it, maybe, an addiction?
The former Grand Wizard of the Canadian Ku Klux Klan sells shady MLM get rich quick investments at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort.