Via commentor Gex, Fox News shares word of the latest proposed Randian utopia:
No taxes and land along the coast? What’s not to like?
Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.
“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com….
The laws in the city will be separate from those in the rest of Honduras. Strong said that the default law that will be enforced in the city will actually be based on Texas state law, which has relatively few regulations.
“It will be Texas law with more freedom of contract. Texas scores well on state economic freedom rankings,” he explained…
MKG will invest $15 million to begin building basic infrastructure for the first model city near Puerto Castilla on the Caribbean coast, said Juan Hernandez, president of the Honduran Congress. That first city would create 5,000 jobs over the next six months and up to 200,000 jobs in the future, Hernandez said…
Well, apart from citing a couple fewer zeroes in start-up costs than Peter Thiel’s semi-defunct Seatopia, this new Liberty Colony has the advantage that its noble founders wouldn’t actually drown if (when) the infrastructure breaks down.
The Guardian, needless to say, had a less rosy-hued view of the project:
… The Central American nation hopes the plan for model development zones, which will have their own laws, tax system, judiciary and police, will emulate the economic success of city states such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
But even as the government signed a “memorandum of understanding” with a group of international investors on Tuesday, opponents tried to lodge a suit at the supreme court for the arrangement to be declared illegal because the “state within a state” risked undermining national laws, sidestepping labour rights, worsening inequality and creating a modern-day enclave that impinged upon the territory of indigenous groups.
The Honduran president, Porfirio Lobo – a landowner from the rightwing National party – has given his full backing to the plan, which was inspired by US economic advisers….
The plan appears to have been thrown together in the space of less than a year, partly to boost the economy and partly to make Honduras more attractive to foreign investors who fear crime (Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate) and political instability (Lobo was elected following a coup d’etat in 2009).
It is the realisation of a proposal for “charter cities” proposed by the US economist Paul Romer, a graduate of the University of Chicago school of economics, who is currently professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Citing Hong Kong as an example, Romer argues that cities based on a “charter” of strong, pro-business laws and institutions are the key to rapid growth, particularly when they can act as international gateways to larger regions such as China….
Call me an old cynic, but when I hear phrases like “pro-business laws” and “miracle of capitalism” mouthed by the Chicago-School economic advisor to the caudillo of a desperately poor and violence-ridden nation conveniently located to both Mexico’s drug cartels and the U.S., my first thoughts are not of the booming China market. Assuming this project gets past the taking-money-from-suckers — I mean, investors — stage, I’d guess a reasonable projection would be one resident DEA agent for every two Galtian overlords (or 17 Honduran housekeepers, janitors, home nurses & sex slaves). And since you can’t buy much Blackwater Academi security with a lousy fifteen-mill budget, I suspect the intial investors might eventually realise that “no taxes and land along the coast” could also be used to describe the most prosperous (and news-worthy!) areas of Somalia.
So, a cheering thought: No matter how little you look forward to starting your Monday routine, at least you’re almost certainly not involved with this ridiculous fustercluck…
amk
The latest DNC bomb on mittbot. All using the usual media maroons’ words.
Gotta love the new democratic party under the skinny guy.
amk
And the skinny guy is not far behind either.
Schlemizel
Not involved? Well not yet we aren’t but we could be. These guys will gladly dump 10 times that amount into this Island Of Lost Boys in order to make it the job creation machine they will then claim it to be. News coming out of it will be that it is the Gaultian paradise they told us we could have if only we would surrender everything to the meat grinder of industry.
After the hangover wears off is when we’ll find that we have been turned into jackasses made to work the mines.
PeakVT
The Central American nation hopes the plan for model development zones, which will have their own laws, tax system, judiciary and police, will emulate the economic success of city states such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Apparently the concept of geography is lost on the proponents of this plan. The Mosquito Coast isn’t exactly like the South China coast, let alone the Straits of Johor.
JPL
Mitt should start building a new home their because November 7th will be here before you know it.
Baud
With our current Republican Party, who knew that the dumbest policy idea ever conceived would be born in another country? Thanks, Honduras!
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Well, fuck. I pray to God this isn’t in Tela, the town I lived in for two years. Wherever the dystopian hellscape is going to be, though, it sure as hell won’t be any good for Honduran people. A bunch of fucking dickwads from the U.S. can head down and steal everything that isn’t neailed down–as if the U.S. hasn’t been doing that for more than 100 years–and maybe a few rich Hondurans can make out like thieves, too, but for everyday Hondurans, this is bound to be some kind of nightmare.
And on top of that, there’s already a tribe of Garífuna who’ve lived all along that coast for 200 or more years, but they own the land communally, so there aren’t deeds. When some pushy fuckwad comes along, they can say, “Hey, this isn’t your land. You have no deed. I bought this land lawfully, and I have all kinds of signed, sealed papers that prove it. So shove off, you moochers!” I don’t know what the Garífuna will do. They ended up on that beachfront land to begin with because they got shoved off all the good farmland in that part of the country, and the beachland was the only land left.
The only thing that gives me some hope is that Lobo will be out of office in a year, so maybe this thing will drag out longer than that. A randian fantasy land, just what a poor, struggling country needs. I lived there for two years, and it’s my second home. The people there took me is as one of their own, and I still have a lot of friends there, and I’m proud of that, so this is kind of personal to me.
weaselone
No regulations and all those commons to despoil. How could they not make money?
amk
Reuters
PeakVT
@amk: Ouch. If Romney loses the over-60 crowd, he’s not toast; he’s completely vaporized.
Matthias Neeracher
And the awesomeness of libertarian law is already getting underway with this project.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m not worried about this becoming a horror show of abuse of workers. Please note that these people aren’t actually moving to Hong Kong or Singapore – those cities have too many laws and taxes. Those laws and taxes allow the cities to function. Like all Libertarian theory, this plan to build a business paradise is wildly unrealistic and will not work. Note that historically company towns only worked when one single company was in charge, and those already exist down there.
Instead, I see four ways it could turn out:
1) You briefly get a really violent hellhole as private security forces battle it out every time the rich people disagree. Essentially, Somalia. This will be so unpleasant and unproductive, the rich people will leave and Honduras will reclaim the city.
2) The ‘city’ is just a gated community and tax shelter that produces no business or jobs beyond domestic work. Everything will be imported. This will mostly likely turn into (1) when organized crime moves in, but it could theoretically remain as-is.
3) The residents of the city rapidly learn Libertarianism is dumbass, pass a lot of laws and taxes, and an actual productive city-state that bears no resemblance to the dreamed-of Galt’s Gulch is born. This is extremely unlikely, but hey, people get lucky sometimes.
4) The BY FAR most likely scenario – the Galtian Overlords can’t agree on anything, lose interest, and the city is never finished.
PeakVT
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp: I think the sites being talked about are east of Trujillo.
@Matthias Neeracher: Sad, and unsurprising.
SFAW
Although it doesn’t strictly relate to Going Galt!, this comment re: Pammy Atlas Shrugs Geller from CNN.com is too good not to post here:
I think it could have legs. (The comment, not Pammy, of course.)
A.J.
Call me an old cynic, too.
When I read “inspired by US economic advisers” I wondered who, and then saw it was the U. of Chicago, as if those bastards had not done enough damage in the world. Think “Shock Doctrine.” I thought Milty was dead. Maybe someone should go see if the top of his crypt has been lifted and there is a wooden stake lying inside.
Why would anyone have US economic advisers, especially these economic advisers?
Nancy Irving
“Porfirio Lobo”? Can you imagine a better name for a Latin-American didctator?
Applejinx
@A.J.: “Shock Doctrine” is the FIRST thing I thought of.
I’m wondering who’s on this coastline. Will they wait for a typhoon like Klein outlined in ‘Shock Doctrine’, move all the people to shelters somewhere, and seize the land, or will they simply wipe out the existing people directly?
Pretty much guaranteed this will be a horrorshow if you look in the right places. Not even about ‘what it will turn into’. There aren’t really ’empty places’ for libertarians to colonize- anywhere. Unless they go to Mars. There’s an idea.
danielx
Texas law with more freedom of contract! Mmmmm, good! Sounds like just the place for an oil refinery or two. Perhaps Union Carbide can locate a Bhopal-type plant there as well. After that all they’ll need will be a nuclear waste depository and they’ll be all set. And no liability for plant owners…what could be better?
MBL
Wait, the founders not drowning when it all goes to shit is a bad thing?
GxB
Seeing as it’s coastline, let’s hope the maximum elevation for their plot is only a meter or so above sea level. With nice porous sandstone for bedrock – might as well put another one of their (no doubt) strongly held beliefs to the test. Not that I think this will get past the sucker fleecing stage…
danielx
@A.J.:
Perhaps we can export our “financial innovators” there, since our worst enemies likely won’t have them.
TheStone
Another bite at the apple for Chicagonomists brought to you by the School of the Americas.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@PeakVT:
Turns out there are a few stretches of land they’re looking at. Some aren’t too far from Tela. There have been sketchy plots to turn Tela into some kind of tourist paradise before, but they went nowhere. The people who made Cancún into a big thing first wanted to built all that in Tela, but the government at the time told them to get lost; one of the few worthwhile legacies of the old military government of the 80’s.
I’d be amazed if they went for doing this east of Trujillo. Trujillo itself is at the end of the world–in a good way–and the land to the east, well, you can’t get to it at all without flying in or taking a boat. There are already public works in the other places they’re looking at, roads and electric lines and water, and it would floor me if these libertarian freaks are going to be willing to build all that stuff themselves; hell, that takes money and work, and they want to have all the benefits given to them for free right at the outset. I wonder how much they’re willing to pay Lobo to buy him off…
As an aside, I’ll note that I sent Anne Laurie an e-mail with some pictures of Tela, to kind of put faces and scenes with the story. Even if it isn’t Tela they befoul, Tela is fairly typical of the country, at least the north coast, and the people you’ll see are just like whichever ones who are going to get reamed by this one way or another. Anyway, if she doesn’t want to put them up, and you want to see them, you can always stir up a shitstorm in the comments here. I’d like people to know what the country is like, that it’s a real place with real people. Often when we read about some faraway place we’ve never been to, it’s hard to keep it from being abstract. Maybe some pictures will help to keep that from happening here…
Schlemizel
It also occurs to me that the US spent much of the middle 1800s invading various and assorted Central American countries in order to establish slave states that would be used to support the slave states in the US. I believe it was Honduras where they actually established a government for a bit of time before being driven out.
It does seem more and more like we are living out the pre civil war days. I don’t mind the fact that people who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it – I just wish they didn’t drag us all along with them
Skippy-san
Citing Singapore and Hong Kong is a lousy example. For one thing both places have taxes and (heaven help us) mandatory contributions to a universal health care scheme that require both employers and employers to pay into. They also have a mandatory CPF contributions for retirement and a VAT tax.
And Singapore has a relatively zealous approach to law enforcement-having fines for just about everything and the opportunity to spend some time in prison if you criticize the Singaporean government.
That said -they probably like the idea of having maids paid at a substandard wage, and will probably like the idea of a pecking order in society. ( Chines first).
PeakVT
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp: One of the places mentioned is the Sico Valley, which I think is here. And it’s beyond the end of the world. I bet the Garifuna would like to keep it that way instead of being exploited. The photo layer in GMaps has some decent pics.
Lurking Canadian
Right wing economists think it is a tragedy each time a child grows up unpoisoned by lead paint, especially when that child’s father didn’t lose both hands to a hydraulic press.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
We know how this will turn out: As it fails, there will be money funneled in to prop it up. Think Medicare Advantage.
Linda Featheringill
@Lurking Canadian:
I’ve actually worked on a hydraulic press. For minimum wage. It sucked.
Todd
This one will turn out like this:
1. Eager libertarian investors will fund the thing, said funds to be initially used as bribes to the current despot to drive out any indigenous folks from the site and to jail/exile nearby rabble rousers.
2. Halfassed construction efforts begin, consisting of staking out lot lines and some desultory land clearing.
3. The stage 2 bribe gets paid, where El Caudillo agrees (for a fraction of what a libertarian would actually have to pay for constructing such things) to use the tax money from mooching, looting Hondurans to build a state of the art power plant and overland access routes to the site. Halfassed work efforts begin five months later, as some indigenous displacement again occurs.
4. As the work goes on, slowed by occasional bits of sabotage, the investors begin getting cranky, and wonder what’s up with their money.
5. Two successive hurricanes hit, completely mucking up the previously cleared area. Work is halted.
6. El Caudillo is displaced by a new military junta. New bribes must be paid.
7. The new junta proves to be not as easy to work with, and quite a bit more expensive – coups are not cheap, señor.
8. As investors flee, all that is left is a formerly grand and battered billboard about the awesome project, some surveyors stakes, downed trees and several hundred unhappily displaced indigenous folks.
Applejinx
CANCER is a key to rapid growth. ;P
Lurking Canadian
@Linda Featheringill: For minimum wage? One of the things I do for money is to design safety controls for presses. I have a healthy respect for those damned things. I don’t think anybody who isn’t extremely well trained should even go near one. I can only imagine your minimum wage job also came with (at best) minimal training? Thank God you survived.
Valdivia
Sincerely given that Honduras probably has little control of a lot of areas in terms of rule of law this just seems to me to be making something de facto into something de jure. I am sure it will be a clusterfuck, but at least we get to see these Randian assholes fail.
PeakVT
Hey, guess what? For better or worse, the federal government basically created fracking technology. And what did fracking technology create? Jobs. J-o-b-s.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@Todd:
Or assassinated. When I was living in Tela, some big plantation owners wanted to turn what was then the new Punta Sal national park into a big farm, or at least they wanted the government to let them plant thousands of acres of palm oil trees on the land. A woman named Blanca Jeanette Kawas, who had been bron and brought up in Tela, began a movement to keep the plantations out of the park. So one day, some gunmen broke into her house and shot her dead while she was sitting in her kitchen.
The whole town went nuts. There was a big parade in her honor, and it even made the U.S. national news, I later heard. One of my friends who was in the Peace Corps worked with her, and she was well shaken up. The Peace Corps wanted to pull her out but she wouldn’t go. The woman who owns and runs the school I work with was another good friend of Kawas’s She named her school after her.
Anyway, the upshot is that there was such an uproar that the government named the park after her, and there still aren’t any palm plantations on park land, though they’re all over the place in the outlying countryside. So I guess that little gambit the platantion owners tried didn’t work out quite the way they had hoped…
I’m sorry for clogging up this thread with what some might think is random & variegated non-sequitors, but I know this place as well as I know anywhere, and, if I might be a little full of myself, I kind of think maybe some firsthand understanding of the place might not be too unhelpful…
Soonergrunt
Assuming this thing takes off at all, you know that the investors/residents, being Ron Paul types, won’t treat the locals (the help) with anything resembling respect or compassion.
Things will not go well.
Then they will demand that the US government come and rescue them. At US taxpayer expense, of course.
Reklam
Thanks for ending this on the ‘cheering thought’ note. It worked to transition me from building bile to a sense of calm.
Central Planning
Hope is not a plan for economic success.
Captain Howdy
In Hong Kong you cannot own land, you can only rent it, and you have to rent it from the (Commie) government, usually on 30-year leases. That’s one of the main ways the state raises revenue, but it’s a fact usually ignored by Galtian cheerleaders (looking at you, Heritage Foundation) when they cobble together crapitalist indices on “economic freedom.”
arguingwithsignposts
@A.J.:
I didn’t even have to wonder. I knew those fuckers from UC were involved somehow.
cureforidiots
@Todd: Perfectly stated!
I would just add: a shitload of nimrods made broke!
arguingwithsignposts
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Your overly long nym stomps all over your comments in the mobile site, just so you know.
Emma
@Nancy Irving: Porfirio Lobos Ladron? (and yes, it is a last name)
Anya
Via Goldy at Slog:
Was Mittenz channeling the Book of Mormon when he insinuated that 47% of the country is made up of lazy moochers?
Linda Featheringill
@Lurking Canadian:
Presses:
They are monsters. You’re right about training. IIRC, it took about 5 minutes. Including “don’t get your hands caught in that.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie:
Pssst! I saw what you did there with “Señor Roark.”
Ash Can
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): I’m finding your comments here very interesting and informative. And this reminds me of a couple of comments I saw in another thread yesterday or the day before — a couple of commenters were remarking that, because of its length, your handle runs over into, and obscures, your comments (I believe this was happening on mobile devices, or some other such format). So, especially since you’re posting such helpful information here, you should probably be aware of that.
ETA: I see arguingwithsignposts @ #41 beat me to it.
Wilson Heath
How strong can the property rights be with “minimal government” unsupported by a tax base? There are no property rights without government other than through the ancient principle of “might makes right.”
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
@arguingwithsignposts:
@Ash Can:
And here I’d been thinking that the name I post under was more worth reading than what I write. Huh. Live and learn, I guess…
Older_Wiser
Rmoney and Bain have been involved in Central America for years: truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/11656-blood-money-helped-start-bain-capital
No doubt he will make plenty if any of this comes to fruition.
Another reason we don’t need bloody CEOs in the WH.
Lurking Canadian
@Wilson Heath: You say that like it isn’t the whole point.
bjacques
I’m with Todd. My anecdotal experience with Libertarians is that they can’t organize so much as a bake sale. And they aren’t known for their patience or ability to take a long or wide view. A strip of land to turn into a Libertarian theme park is a real comedown from an L-5 space colony or a floating republic. I guess an underwater city is out of the question…
Suffern ACE
@Soonergrunt: I wouldn’t worry about it. This project wont get to the exploitation part. I expect it to get to the missing funds and now we need a bailout point, and then die.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Suffern ACE:
I don’t know; even if it fails, it could be just what the Honduran government needs to dump the Garífunas off their land. They’ve been working at this off and on for 15 years, now, but pressure from people in Hinduras has kept it from happening so far. All they need is for some outsider to come in and run the Garífunas off the land and then, if the libertarian fuckwads fizzle out, the government can take over and sell the land off to developers who know what they’re doing. I have a bad feeling about this if it gets anywhere beyond the libertarian pipe dream stage.
me
Lots of Andrew Ryans around lately.
Aimai
These guys aren’t libertarians. They are capitalist grifters spearheading a movement desired by capitalist would be oligarchs. Libertarianism is just a soi disant form of ” I’m so pretty! Oh so pretty!” said by a Koch brother when he looks in the mirror.
quannlace
No income or consumption tax? So I guess everybody will cheerfully chip in whenever any infrastructure has to be repaired. Yup.
And I love how they use Texas as the shining beacon of freedom. Isn’t Texas one of the states that gets the most in Federal assistance?
And what’s their view on climate change and rising sea levels as they enjoy that coastal real estate?
dp
I wonder who they’ll blame when it all goes to shit?
gbear
The only advice that I would give to this group would be to quote Dylan: “To live outside the law you must be honest”.
No way that the organization of this city isn’t going to be taken over by crooks and grifters. It’s going to be a shambles.
Villago Delenda Est
Having spent six months in Honduras in the mid 80’s, I can tell you that this land is a paradise for the 1%. The 99% are desperately poor, the 1% put systems in place to make sure they stay that way, the economy is one giant opaque scam, and the government is corrupt and fully under 1% control.
It’s precisely the system that our 1% envies the hell out of.
Villago Delenda Est
@Wilson Heath:
Neofeudailsts is what these shitstains actually are.
Somalia would be the libertarian paradise if it wasn’t for all those Muslim blah people.
Unsympathetic
If they’re modeling this hellhole after Texas, will they hire folk to kidnap Mexicans – excuse me, “promote immigration” – and take factory jobs for $2 a day?
Monkey Business
Dammit people, this is how you get BioShock! Next thing you know the Koch Brothers will be wandering around the bottom of the ocean shooting themselves up with stem cells from sea slugs and shooting lightning bolts and bees at everyone!
Narcissus
And Honduras is so conveniently close to the United States Marines, too.
SFAW
@dp:
Moochers, “takers,” parasites, the soshulists in the US Government who are actively working against them, the Demoncrats, the blahs, the Lieberals, George Soros, the non-Adelson Jews in general, Obama, Biden, the 47 percent, the 99 percent.
In other words, everyone but themselves. Remember: Galtianism cannot fail, it can only be made to fail by the active subversion practiced by non-Galtians.
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est:
The neofeudalist angle is thoroughly analyzed here.
SFAW
@Monkey Business:
Well, that’s ’cause they’s ontapanures! You moocher!
Beth
My best friend’s son was just pulled from Honduras by the Peace Corps, because it’s so freakin’ dangerous. Someone was shot at while attempting to get back safely to headquarters.
This young man described incredible destitution and lack of infrastructure, apparently due to extreme corruption.
I think some lessons will be in the making, as the gritty real world collides with narcissistic heroic fantasies.
Arriba….Arriba….Andale! (quoting Mexican Superman).
PurpleGirl
Even without thinking about climate change raising the sea level, isn’t this an area which gets hurricanes on a sort of regular basis?
Gex
And, as invited on the other thread, the title said “no taxes”, the article said “minimal taxes”, and they had a laundry list of things they need before the miracle market can start up.
It’s almost as if the market is the result of government (the taxes and laws they need) yet they think the opposite. Even after listing all the stuff they need first, and failing to account for the fact that they didn’t start from scratch. They made money in this terrible, tax laden system we have here. And the unskilled labor that will have to serve them will benefit from the taxes where they live making their help subsidized by the Hondurans. AND all the infrastructure leading in and out. Are they building interstates for their commerce? Airports?
I need serious quantities of popcorn
Gex
@quannlace: The fundamental flaw in their world view is that civilization requires things that people won’t willingly pay for. And it requires things done that people won’t willingly do. On the latter, that’s where they celebrate the “social utility of poverty” to make people desperate enough to do them.
Terrible people, and that’s before you factor in that people are suddenly turning up murdered.
valdemar
‘A human rights group in Honduras says a prominent lawyer who represented peasants in disputes with large land owners has been killed.’
bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19695587
Clearing the ground?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Back to the future. 19th century Latin America was littered with the bodies of Americans headed down there to ‘civilize’ the place with a little order and commerce.
Ed Harris and Alex Cox made a movie about just this sort of thing.
Roy G.
This is an excellent opportunity to privatize The School of The Americas. Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
Jay C
@Schlemizel:
I think you’re thinking of Nicaragua, where, in the mid-1850s, one side in a civil war hired notorious “filibuster” William Walker and a band of American mercenaries to fight for them. Walker then turned on his erstwhile employers, and set himself up as the effective ruler of a pro-slavery government. Who lasted a year, I think before being tossed out. Curiously, he then tried something of the same trick in Honduras: and ended up in Trujillo – in front of a firing squad.
Think there might be a connection? Naaah, just a coincidence….
Frankensteinbeck
@Monkey Business:
Oh, no! BEES!
mdblanche
We’re colonizing Central America again? What could possibly go wrong?
Danack
So where’s the link where we can nominate and sponsor people to take part in this?
i’m sure we could persuade some wingnuts that this is such a great opportunity that if we bought them a one-way ticket to this promised land then they would easily be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to buy the airfare back – if they ever wanted to come back.
Anoniminous
@amk:
If these people vote a straight ticket the GOP are looking at losing a lot of House seats.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Captain Howdy: Captain, is your handle a Twisted Sister reference or from somewhere else? (I was super-into TS in my youth)
El Cid
Also it’s a fairly straightforward method to try and protect any monied elite types operating in these soon-to-be-utter-disaster-zones from any regulatory actions by possible future governments, if the opposition and journalists aren’t killed off in mysterious violence incidents as has been going on since the heroic coup overthrew the evil leftist dictator who threatened to potentially talk about a maybe initiative after he left office of convening a citizens’ meeting to discuss a possible new constitution.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
4) The BY FAR most likely scenario – the Galtian Overlords can’t agree on anything, lose interest, and the city is never finished.
But people will be moved off the most prime piece of land and the city will be started. Huge amounts of damage will be done and there won’t be any domestic jobs or airport fees to mitigate any of it.
Oh wait… that’s the conservative/libertarian way, rather than create a bullshit fantasy in a crappy novel they fuck over real people.
Ruckus
@Lurking Canadian:
That was good. Unfortunately too real, but good none the less.
As the prior owner of a metalworking business I spent way too much time trying to keep people from sticking their fingers where they didn’t belong. About half the people had no problems understanding danger and paying attention, the other half… I’m amazed that more adults don’t get seriously hurt in industrial accidents.
Ruckus
@bjacques:
I guess an underwater city is out of the question…
Of course it wouldn’t start out underwater. But you knew that.
good2go
The Friedmanistas have a pretty bad track record in South America. Friedman had a very cozy relationship with Chilean dictator Pinochet, with the predictable disastrous results. (Amartya Sen does a good analysis of Friedman mythology in Chile.)
Jay in Oregon
@bjacques:
Anarchists unite!
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Fools and their money are soon parted. I look forward to apocalyptic movie.
S. Marchio
I seem to vaguely recall that George W. purchased a hunk of land down that way.
bcinaz
I would like the US Government to also sign a Memo of Understanding that the Army and Marines will not be sent in to rescue their sorry asses when the drug cartels come for their stuff. And no foreign aid either.