Mod, please erase my response above. This is a revised version which better addresses the quote below.
Eso es lo que se llama hablar cavalla...Everyone is well aware that things are not better.
Hm... lets see:
1. There are people here saying that their is a
visible increase in commercial activity (that's a sign of improvement). Notice, when an economic improvement becomes
visible it means that the economy has been on the rise for a while, since
visible evidence of economic improvement often lags the evidence presented via statistics by a few months.
This means that rational individuals (particularly economists) have had knowledge of this economic increase for months before it became "visible", but of course debating such with people who need to see something before believing is quite a debate.
2. Then there is a DR1er who claims that its nonsense, because those stores are in wealthy areas.
Of course, he fails to realize (or perhaps he does realizes, but "se hace el chivo loco") the fact that those stores in wealthy areas were
not as full in the past and that means that things were not good even for the upper classes and when that's the case then things are really bad. But they are now quite full according to anecdotal evidence being posted here, which is being posted because people are noticing higher levels of commercial activity vs what they noticed in the past few years. That is a sign of improvement.
Chances are that if there are economic improvements in the segment of the economy targeting high income individuals, then there are economic improvements in many businesses targeting lower income groups. Of course, there is much more competition among lower income targeted businesses, but the positive effect is probably there as well.
3. Foreign companies are beginning to make or planning to make inroads into the Dominican market (Ikea, Wendy's, Wal Mart, Home Depot and others), these are businesses that will depend on the local economy and not mostly on foreigners like the resorts. Hm, that's a sign of improvement.
Alas, some people swear things are always bad despite evidence to the contrary.
-NALs:cheeky: