President Solis is now by far the least popular president in Central America, according to Gallup survey

No shit Ben. Come to the States sometime and take a look at how illegals from the South are bleeding our services dry. Ben, you are a typical Tico who takes potshots at Gringos without really knowing shit from shinola. We “thieving gringos” have a saying: “It iis better to keep your mouth shut and possibly appearing stupid than opening it and removing all doubt.”

Since you have posted a strong if typical defense of the economic contribution gringos make to Costa Rica, let me tell you why I disagree.

To stick your specific arguments, I’m not sure that expats or tourists are especially capitalists. To me, a capitalist is a person who invests money in a productive enterprise. Buying beachfront property to live in or simply visiting the country isn’t the same as investing in a productive enterprise. For the most part (there are exceptions) the gringos in Costa Rica are consumers, not capitalists. And as consumers of land, they have exactly the effect that Ben claims: They drive up the prices, often out of reach of Ticos who on the average are poorer. This is basic supply and demand. No, I wouldn’t call this stealing, but the effect is frankly similar. It is also more reminiscent of colonial feudalism than of capitalism.

There is of course the argument that as mere consumers gringos help the economy, since they buy goods and services from Ticos. However, if you notice, they actually increasingly buy their expensive goods and services from other gringos. The gringo real estate business consists overwhelmingly of gringo-to-gringo transactions, as also does the tourism industry. The Ticos are left with a few menial jobs and very limited routes to advancement or ownership. Moreover, the bulk of the menial jobs don’t even go to Ticos. Gringos or their subcontractors hire cheaper Nicas instead. Meanwhile, increasingly even restaurants and bars are gringo-owned.

You write that the gringos who first bought property were risk-taking pioneers who contributed to the economy. I think you are right about this, and believe this is why Costa Rica welcomed gringos in those days. Expats and tourists are a great way to jumpstart an economy. However, they are only beneficial as a jumpstart. At some point, reached I suspect 15-20 years, they form a demographic and financial critical mass that actually restricts alternative and superior forms of economic development. Gringos (and others) tend to look at expat and tourist developments only to pat themselves on the back and say, “Isn’t this spendid economic development for the Ticos?” What they overlook is that their dominant presence prevents other kinds of economic development by making that too costly.

Meanwhile, since about the turn of this century, Costa Rica has seen a massive shift in foreign investments from manufacturing to, you guessed it, real estate. Basically, gringos are finding that there is more profit to be gotten by investing in ritzy resorts, mainly gringo-to-gringo businesses, than in industries that provide Ticos with jobs.

I think the overall numbers show that while the pioneers did make a contribution, their followers haven’t.

As for your claim that if it weren’t for gringos Costa Rica would be as poor as Nicaragua, you may ironically be half right. Without the gringos, Nicaragua would be much wealthier today, surely equal to or richer than Costa Rica. However, the gringos made sure that didn’t happen. During the 1980s especially, the Reagan administration set out to destroy Nicaragua’s economy. Partly it did this by military actions (both legal and illegal), partly it did this by blocking Nicaragua’s requests for loans from international lenders, but mostly it did this by encouraging capital flight from Nicaragua. Nicaragua’s business class was given a bright green light to immigrate to the US, and to bring its capital with them. Neither did this end with the 1980s. Only this year did the US finally agree that Nicaragua had paid its departing business class enough in reparations to end a policy that until then had the net effect of Nicaragua actually sending more money to the US than it received.

So there’s no real mystery why Nicaragua is poorer than Costa Rica today, even though it wasn’t during the 1960s. The gringos, through their government, made it poor. It was their collective punishment for flirting with socialism.

And the punishment didn’t go unnoticed by Costa Rica (as neither did the US invasion of Panama in 1989-90). Costa Rica realized that it dare not seriously annoy Uncle Sam lest it suffer similar retaliation. The country therefore learned to grab its ankles anytime Uncle Sam ordered it to bend over, although to save a little face, it learned to play coy too. At the end of the day it will do the gringos’ bidding (witness the passage of the free trade treaty, which the US wanted to the point of funding the free trade forces and illegally interfering in the referendum) although often after making a fuss.

And as for tipping, how is this unlike gringos driving up real estate prices? When gringos tip while Ticos don’t, it amounts to gringos paying more for the same services. Once again, supply and demand operate, and gringos get more of what they want than Ticos.

Let’s not forget either that tipping is a gringo custom, the practice of which alerts us right away to the fact that gringos are not fitting into the local culture, but changing it. Sometimes this changing of the local culture is unintentional, just a result of gringo cluelessness, but other times it is intentional. I have heard tipping gringos say that Ticos should tip and they tip to set an example. Gee, that’s sweet, the morally superior gringos want teach the Ticos a lesson.

Neither should we forget that tipping is usually a thinly veiled way to buy what you want, not a gift. I have noticed for example that many gringos tip their hookers way more than they tip any male who provides them a service. Gee, what might be going on here? Meanwhile, tipping buys dominance and subordination. The recipient of a tip basically gets dependency out of it. Tips aren’t exactly capital investments that empower the recipients, after all, but patronizing gestures that enhance the egos of those who leave them.

Anyway, I challenge you (or anyone else) to show how Ticos actually get gringo expat or tourist money in any way that genuinely helps them economically. I just haven’t seen any economic analysis that shows this. What I see is that tourism is good for around 12% of GDP while providing about twice as many jobs, directly and indirectly. That alone tells me that the jobs tourism provides are lousy ones. Any industry that employs twice as many people as it kicks into the GDP is plainly providing lousy jobs.

Mind, I don’t think that gringos should go home or anything like that. It’s a global economy now and we all need to learn how to deal fairly with one another wherever we are. However, I do think that many gringos need to have the smug grins wiped off their faces. Sorry, being a relatively wealthy consumer in a poorer society is not necessarily to make an economic contribution to that society, and it may even cause economic harm. Many gringos ought really to drop their self-righteousness and assess their true impact on Costa Rica. It doesn’t have to be bad, just unfortunately often is.

Yeah, I wonder about these lines of thinking, and would really love to see unbiased economic analyses. Every once in awhile I see one put out by a local research group about a specific area, and these seem to confirm my impressions, but they are piecemeal (and for all I know biased). Mostly I see nonsensical numbers presented without thoughtful analysis by pro-tourism outfits seeking government protection, and I have zero use for these.

Also, just having mulled it all a bit, I suspect that a useful analysis would have to start by distinguishing tourists from expats, and then distinguishing different subsets of each. You know, tourists range from the language learners in homestays (supporting both local language schools and families) to those who vacation in foreign-owned self-contained resorts (and probably not supporting any locals except maids and desk clerks). Expats also vary a lot.

Anyway, I think the economic impact of both tourists and expats is very much an open question that needs to be answered by evidence rather than assertion. My guess is that some of the evidence would point to some of the tourists and expats having a beneficial economic impact. However, I recoil at the notion that simply because gringos are here spending their money on whatever they want they are contributing.