Diario Libre editor Adriano Miguel Tejada writes in his column ?De Buena Tinta? that the proposal by Canadian entrepreneurs to purchase US$500 million worth of Central Bank certificates, the most recent of which were sold at nearly 60% interest, would mortgage several generations of Dominicans. Tejada reminds his readers of the infamous Hartmont Loan of 1869 that kicked off a series of loans that were only paid off in 1947. Tejada creates a dialogue of passengers waiting for an OMSA bus: ?Wait a minute,? says one. ?Don?t we already owe everybody and his brother?? He is answered by a person wearing a PPH hat: ?Yes, but we need the money for national development.? A country fellow from the Cibao Valley with a red PRSC baseball cap says: ?Yeah, right, just like the money from the bonds. We ain?t seen nothing of that either.? Another with the face of an unemployed poet lets loose this gem: ?Oh man, this is a plan of the Americans so they can annex us. When the time comes, they won?t have to put up a penny ? and they?ll own everything.? End of story.
(For those who do not know Dominican history, the constant late payment or non-payment of many of the loans that followed the infamous Hartmont Loan were the cause of the United States? intervention in 1916, when the Dominican Republic was under threat of invasion by several European countries wishing to collect their money.