Concerns of Dominicans

mountainannie

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From today's news on DR1


Gallup poll: the biggest concerns

Dominicans have issued their verdict to Gallup pollsters on what they consider the top 12 concerns. The poll is published today in Hoy and is based on the perceptions of 1,200 citizens of voting age polled between 29-30 April. The list is as follows:

Inflation, rising cost of living: 65.7%
Blackouts or lack of power: 46.4%
Robberies, assaults, contract killings, crime in general: 46.2%
Lack of jobs, unemployment: 42.8%
Trafficking and consumption of drugs: 19.8%
Lack of potable water: 16.1%
Education in general: 13.4%
Administrative corruption: 11.9%
Waning moral values, inversion of moral values: 7%
Foreign and domestic debt: 4.8%
Deteriorating public services: 2.8%
 

bachata

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That's why I'm not getting home sick anymore, I mean my desire to move back are every day farther but for vacations DR will be always great.

JJ
 

london777

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Very predictable and understandable list. I sympathize. But they have their priorities wrong. Unless they make a big effort to improve of education and reduce corruption they won't solve their main worries.

Great improvements could be made in electricity supply, potable water and in reducing crime relatively easily if they had honest politicians and officials and an educated public. Inflation and unemployment would be harder nuts to crack as they are at the mercy of the world and regional economies.

But they are too uneducated and corrupt to realize that, so it will never happen.
 

mountainannie

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I have a bit of trouble understanding why inflation is so high.. I mean, salaries are not going up, 80% of the food is local.. sure, they are producing more food on fewer acres because they are using fertilizers.. and they have gone up.. and transport.

And for the blackouts.. what was the latest figure? what percentage of the population pays for electricity?


I would have thought that corruption and drugs and education would have been higher....
 

DMV123

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The concern over inflation is so high BECAUSE wages have not gone up and prices have. The average family can buy less and less. Local food needs to be shipped and that is adding to costs.

Blackouts are getting worse and worse. I live in a B circuit and we were out over 10 hours yesterday alone. Seriously ridiculous.
 

bachata

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Watch this sad video...
<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AIBJlx4A4Mo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is the way our governments take care of the assets that belongs to the Dominican people, these auto buses were imported from Brazil recently but the bad administration and the lack of maintenance is the reason for what they are towed to junk yard today.

This should be one of the big DR concern.

JJ
 

Acira

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If you see how prices of some very basic consumer goods and I include in that gas and fuel, are gone up dramatically and that wages haven't gone up, its not surprising that that is what most Dominicans put on their primary concern list. You are not pretty much "worried" about corruption and education if you have nothing to eat or no means to cook a warm meal (no money for gas so cooking has to be done on wood fire) and no money left to take a motoconcho who raised in some area's their prices also dramatically due to higher fuel prices so means that some people just cant move themselves anymore to go to work, still less income.
Blackouts are getting worse in some area's and that adds to the feeling of being "unsafe".

I have seen families with a "reasonable" income if you can call it that, not IMO, drop down into real poverty in just a few months. The little bit of savings they had, had to be spend to keep life going on a daily basis. That little bit of savings was either a bit of money or natural products such as chickens or rabbits...all gone. What use has it to keep chickens and rabbits who will cost you money to feed them if you don't have the money to feed them and you are going hungry. The "income" from those natural sources being either the eggs or selling some adult rabbits for consumption are gone as well now of course.
 

Ken

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If you see how prices of some very basic consumer goods and I include in that gas and fuel, are gone up dramatically and that wages haven't gone up, its not surprising that that is what most Dominicans put on their primary concern list. You are not pretty much "worried" about corruption and education if you have nothing to eat or no means to cook a warm meal (no money for gas so cooking has to be done on wood fire) and no money left to take a motoconcho who raised in some area's their prices also dramatically due to higher fuel prices so means that some people just cant move themselves anymore to go to work, still less income.
Blackouts are getting worse in some area's and that adds to the feeling of being "unsafe".

I have seen families with a "reasonable" income if you can call it that, not IMO, drop down into real poverty in just a few months. The little bit of savings they had, had to be spend to keep life going on a daily basis. That little bit of savings was either a bit of money or natural products such as chickens or rabbits...all gone. What use has it to keep chickens and rabbits who will cost you money to feed them if you don't have the money to feed them and you are going hungry. The "income" from those natural sources being either the eggs or selling some adult rabbits for consumption are gone as well now of course.

Acira, good post. To add to your list, because the price of medicine has gone up so much fewer Dominicans are going to the doctor. They figure there is no point because they can't afford to buy what the doctor prescribes. This has been a problem for some time, but each time medicine prices go up, the number who don't go to the doctor does, too.
 

cobraboy

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If you see how prices of some very basic consumer goods and I include in that gas and fuel, are gone up dramatically and that wages haven't gone up, its not surprising that that is what most Dominicans put on their primary concern list. You are not pretty much "worried" about corruption and education if you have nothing to eat or no means to cook a warm meal (no money for gas so cooking has to be done on wood fire) and no money left to take a motoconcho who raised in some area's their prices also dramatically due to higher fuel prices so means that some people just cant move themselves anymore to go to work, still less income.
Blackouts are getting worse in some area's and that adds to the feeling of being "unsafe".

I have seen families with a "reasonable" income if you can call it that, not IMO, drop down into real poverty in just a few months. The little bit of savings they had, had to be spend to keep life going on a daily basis. That little bit of savings was either a bit of money or natural products such as chickens or rabbits...all gone. What use has it to keep chickens and rabbits who will cost you money to feed them if you don't have the money to feed them and you are going hungry. The "income" from those natural sources being either the eggs or selling some adult rabbits for consumption are gone as well now of course.
What you are seeing is largely a result of several dynamics:

  • The decline in remittances due to lack of disposable income from Dominican immigrants in NA and Europe. The lower economic starta is usually hit first in economic downturns.
  • Increased costs, which have little to do with personal incomes. It has to do with increases in raw materials, shipping, fuel and energy costs across the board, especially with imported products.
  • The DR gubmint is much better at collecting taxes. This has caused many businesses to go under or be shut down by the gubmint causing folks to lose their income from non-payment of taxes. They cannot raise their prices.
  • Many large infrastructure projects which injected much cash into the local economy have been shut down until the gubmint has the funding to actually pay for them. I understand the IMF is saying "no new loans" until these projects are properly funded. I know of a large dam and a couple of new, huge road projects this has affected, and know some folks laid off without pay because of it.
  • Tourism on the North Coast is in the crapper and the entire area economy has suffered for it.
All have been predicted here elsewhere, all were pooh-poohed and all have come true.
To some it has not come as a surprise.
 

Acira

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Very true Ken, medicines also have gone up quite which is another big hurdle to take for many people to even want to go to the doctor, indeed.

By just observing what is happening close to me in my neighborhood and with some Dominican families I get to know, it comes to no surprise to me what the OP stated in her original post.
 

Josemexicano

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Its really no differencr in the usa with inflation. Prices gas and ect eent up but jobs closing unemployment rises an a people make the same. They need to be an increase of cost of licin for everyones pay check
 

belgiank

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The whole list seems very logical to me, and, in my opinion, would be similar in most countries in the world at this moment, or at any moment in the past when there is a huge economic crisis.

When you are a low income family, and prices for necessities start to rise, your first concern is how to keep feeding your family. Firstly the very few luxuries you permitted yourself are dropped (the occasional small bottle of rum on the weekend, the mama juama at the house, the couple of chickens or rabbits you held, etc...). When things get even worse, you have to drop other things like a little meat everyday. We have now come to the stage where a lot of families who could live "decently" a few years ago now have enormous problems just getting food on the table.

Things like national and foreign debt do not interest them. It is "a far from their bed show" which they do not understand anyways. The rise in crime does interest them, because they know that hardship will lead less honest people to crime, that problems and hunger is a cause for tempers to flare, and that it might affect them as well.

Corruption? Well, they know it is here, that it has always been here, and that it always will be here. And this on all levels. In the DR it is very visible, but the same corruption is present in every country. Only in the first world countries it is much better hidden.

Education is of concern to them, but when you are hungry, it somehows takes second place. Though unfortunate, understandable.

The real problem is that a lot of people still earn the same wages as 5 years ago, because employers are not obligated to raise wages. You would hope and think conscientious employers would do so themselves, but that is apparently a dream.

Is it solo the DR, no. As example I will give the time I lived in Illinois. We are talking the eighties, and around Peoria Caterpillar was in big trouble and laid of thousands of people. Unemployment was +30%, people had no money to spend, and soon after the lay-offs businesses, restaurants, shops, etc... had to close. Crime went up enormously. Etc...

An easy solution does not exist, but it would help if employers would pay their employees a livable wage.
 

cobraboy

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An easy solution does not exist, but it would help if employers would pay their employees a livable wage.
Would cause prices to rise even faster, since yet another, and one of the largest, inputs into a product or service rises in cost.

Rising costs->rising prices->fewer consumers for those goods->dropping margins/revenues->employee layoffs->more businesses collapse->reduced taxation to gubmint.

The more gubmint manipulates an economy, the more problems that economy has.

"Livable wages" is a social concept, not an economic concept.
 

mountainannie

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An easy solution does not exist, but it would help if employers would pay their employees a livable wage.

yes.. indeed.. and the other thing is that the DR NEVER fell into a recession.. they always posted growth. And the growth now is supposedly smokin./ like 7% or something??? So where;s the beef?
 

cobraboy

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An easy solution does not exist, but it would help if employers would pay their employees a livable wage.

yes.. indeed.. and the other thing is that the DR NEVER fell into a recession.. they always posted growth. And the growth now is supposedly smokin./ like 7% or something??? So where;s the beef?
The "growth" was on the largess of the IMF and drug money launderers (que a long PICHARDO propaganda piece.).

That has disguised the recession.

It doesn't mean it never existed.

MA, you're an intelligent person. Tell me who should get the "living wage", how much it would be, and how many workers would get it?
 

mountainannie

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The "growth" was on the largess of the IMF and drug money launderers (que a long PICHARDO propaganda piece.).

That has disguised the recession.

It doesn't mean it never existed.

MA, you're an intelligent person. Tell me who should get the "living wage", how much it would be, and how many workers would get it?

I figure that they have what? probably 50% unemployment here? officially I think it is about 30% but then add in the Haitians and ... well.. anyone is lucky to get any wage at all! There are Haitian women who will work in households for room and board, so who am I to say that you should pay your maid 8000 pesos? I do.. but that is so that I can sleep at night.

But still there is a lot of money floating about, no?

Where is the mimimum wage applied? FTZs Hotels.. businesses?
 

Acira

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I can hardly imagine that an economy can thrive on a population that has not the basic livable income.

Well, I can if I go back in history towards colonialism or even today there are still such existing systems.
 

bienamor

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I figure that they have what? probably 50% unemployment here? officially I think it is about 30% but then add in the Haitians and ... well.. anyone is lucky to get any wage at all! There are Haitian women who will work in households for room and board, so who am I to say that you should pay your maid 8000 pesos? I do.. but that is so that I can sleep at night.

But still there is a lot of money floating about, no?

Where is the mimimum wage applied? FTZs Hotels.. businesses?

Free Zones, Banca's Household help, etc, are exempt from the mimimum wage law.
 

cobraboy

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I figure that they have what? probably 50% unemployment here? officially I think it is about 30% but then add in the Haitians and ... well.. anyone is lucky to get any wage at all! There are Haitian women who will work in households for room and board, so who am I to say that you should pay your maid 8000 pesos? I do.. but that is so that I can sleep at night.

But still there is a lot of money floating about, no?

Where is the mimimum wage applied? FTZs Hotels.. businesses?
What monetary amount should the "living wage" be? Should it be different for different sectors and industries? By education? By location?

Should it apply to just those currently working? To the unemployed? Both?

I'm trying to build an economic model that supports a social program.
 

drtampa

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Is there any hope for the DR ever having a workable civil service system to help stop some of the "Change of Administration" corruption?