Political Beliefs and Leonel's Travels: Benefits the DR?
One of the most basic aspect of politics that is taught in political science courses at the university level is the belief systems among political elites vs. the mass public, the latter one's being everyday people.
Now, I'll use known facts about the U.S. regarding this and from that most here can make an assumption (at least I hope most of you will be able to do that) of what its like in the DR considering the education level, socio-economic level, etc. of the typical person in such country. In the U.S., only 15% of the mass public have substantial constraint knowledge in their belief system, while half of the American populace have extremely simplistic political belief, if not complete political ignorance!
What does that mean?
1. Most people don't locate political issues in the center of their interest and attention space.
2. People have minimal grasp of the abstract political concepts that serve as constraint knowledge.
3. Interest and knowledge are greater on immediate, short-term issues than on longer-term ones.
4. Due to the sheer difficulty of trying to to understand complicated political acts/questions/issues, they have a considerable volatility in their short-term political opinions, influenced by the changes in political information.
5. Inconsistencies exists across political beliefs leading to an individual that hold contradictory positions.
6. And my most favorite: THE CONTENT OF BELIEFS IS OFTEN INACCURATE!
In short, the vast majority of people have an extremely simplistic belief system, they tend to focus their attention on a select short-term issue area, have little knowledge of other issue ares, and receive considerable guidance from information provided by the elite and the media, more often than not by the media which often functions on the same simplistic belief systems as that of the masses. But, most important of all, most people's political opinion are worthless because its mostly based on misinformation and assumptions.
On the contrary, the political elite's belief system is the exact opposite what makes up the belief system of the masses. For the most part, the political elite's belief system is characterized by extremely high levels of abstraction, ACCURACY, complexity, stability, and breadth.
Now, given that DR1 is a website/forum that is practically open for the participation of anyone, as long that they speak English and comport themselves; we can all agree that all types of people come and share information that ranges from the obscenely ridiculous to the very sophisticated. In the same matter, people of all backgrounds, socio-economic, political, educational, ages, etc. come and share information. Given the diversity of the audience, members of this website develop an unwritten hierarchy that evaluates the level of trust anyone would have on anything said by the different members of this website. Its safe to assume that two people saying the exact same thing, one being a newby and the other being a long timer, will get completely different reactions from various members, particularly in controversial issues.
With that and the definition of political beliefs in mind, I'll say the following regarding the topic and I'm sorry if this insults anyone here, but it has to be said.
Anyone that doesn't quite understand the purpose and the effect that foreign trips by the president and constant exposure of the Dominican Republic in international investment circles, such person either has a mass public type of belief system or has an elite belief system but is not being bi-partisan when presenting his/her opinion here, or is plain simply dumb to the fullest degree.
Leonel's trips abroad are NOT a waste of time or resources.
There is a VERY strong correlation between the increase in direct foreign investment in the country and his foreign trips, in fact direct foreign investment took off under his first presidency precisely due to his constant exposure of the country in global investment circles.
Tourism and Free Trade Zones, the two largest producers of jobs in the country; are overwhelmingly dependent on direct foreign investment which itself is dependent on a constant exposure of the DR in diverse foreign investment circles. Anyone who doesn't see the benefit of such trips concerning the impact they have on the local job market and economy is blind or, again, dumb as a rock.
Better yet, the current trip is to countries in the Middle East, hence Leonel is attempting to diversity the origins of investments in the DR in order to protect the country from being too dependent on ONE COUNTRY, (ie. the US) and in a time when the US is catching a cold; it makes perfect sense and its very responsible for a president to do just that!
This trip has now gotten an agreement from a Middle Eastern country that due to the this very same trip, will now formalize its relations with the DR, open an embassy and latter on develop a Chamber of Commerce with both countries, and, in effect, increase investments in the DR.
That means more jobs for people, an increase in potentially new tax revenue in the future, and assuring that the economy continue to grow at decent levels in the shaky and troublesome future.
All of that from ONE trip Leonel has made to ONE country.
Now, every time Leonel travels, he leaves with nothing and he comes back with either a new country wanting to do business with the DR or an old trading partner wanting to increase business with the DR.
Anyone that doesn't see the benefits this has for the Dominican economy in the long run, again is dumb as a rock.
All of this from traveling every now and then.
-NALs
