Some people should read more!

Some people have responded to postings here with little, or no knowledge of what goes on in Dominican Republic. I am not a sage, but I try to keep myself informed before I open my mouth.
Someone try to correct me saying that a new book by Manuel Nuñez, "El Ocaso de La Nacion Dominicana" is an old book from 1990 and that it is old news. This is the best book on Haiti that has ever been written(new or old)

Obviously, this person is in a different country I am in. This book was revised and re-released with updated information, so new that it covers statistics from the year 2000!!! Every chapter is new. The author has been invited to every talk show of importance to talk about his new book, and even today, editorials in major newspapers are being written about the controversial, but accurate account of the Haitian problem in DR and the world. To say that this is the literary talk of the town is an understatement.

Revista Ahora, a major political and social magazine had an important report on the book and columnists all over our newspapers are talking about it. What is even more revealing and important, is that our Secretary of the Armed Forces General Soto Jimenez, himself an award winning writer and a policy maker,appeared at the release celebration of the book and made the statement that "Haiti is the biggest danger to our nationality", causing a diplomatic headache for President Hipolito Mejia, and he had to be called to an impromptu meeting to deal with the indiscretion.

So if this is outdated news, then I dont know what news is. Any opinions? Or are we talking about a different country here?

Likewise, we have people talking about our currency who do not know the fluctuation of the peso from day to day and do not even keep up to date with its projections for future months .These are people who do not even keep a chart in their own computer files of the historical behavior of the peso from the time it was a la par with the dollar, only to talk trash about it. A little research would help!

It would even be helpful if some true Americans and English speaking friends should also polish their English.
TW

eso e 'pa que no j#dan!

TW, you defile my nationality. I hope that people who read this board don't assume that all of us educated domninicans are like you: a pompous,self-absorbed,pseudo-intellectual who props up his ego by comparing himslef to the destitute and misfortunate. You propagate the stereo type of an inner-city American Latino who can only resolve deisputes by resorting to aggression and violence. Your libelous attacks not only prove your ignorance, but also demonstrate your shallow mental capacity.

When you speak to me , TW, you are talking to someone who went form living in the campos de San Juan de la Maguana to graduating from a university in Cambridge, Mass. Intelligent people never ask a question to an adversary without knowing the answer. You posed a scenario of the US$ and DR$ that I dont believe you understood yourself.

To wit, here are your own posts contradicting each other:

1.
TW on Wednesday:
"I never said that the peso was a world currency"

After having said on Tuesday:
"The peso, after the dollar, is the most stable currency in Latin America and can compete with the top currencies of the world side by side"

2. TW on Wednesday:
"The people who wish to leave the Dominican Republic are all oppressed, depressed, unemployed or underemployed, bankrupt, demoralized and hopeless."

Later that day he admits to having lived outside the DR until 1993. So which one are you then: oppressed,depressed,umemployed,underemployed,bankr upt,demoralized or hopeless? Or any combination?

3. TW on Tuesday:
"..you depend on the interest rates to cover some of your monthly expenses or to subsidize your income."

TW on Wednesday:
"I was directing myself at winners and risk takers."

You get an "F" ,young man. If you need the money for monthly expenses, then you cannont afford to risk your capital.

and so on and so on...I could go on for a while dissecting your incongruent thought process,your bad spelling and your grammar school grammar.

http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/plot.html

This link has excellent graphs on most world currency exchange rates dating back over 20 years. Unfortunately, this link does not have the DR graphs. But its instructive to see, for example, when venezuela and Mexico devalued.

Mondongo:
Try to stick to the issues at hand. And any Cambridge graduate will always edit what they write before making it public. Always remember that we are not Domninicans but Dominicans. I could not understand what you meant by stereo types. Were you talking about stereo music of a certain type, or did you mean stereotypes(one word)? What did you mean by deisputes. Was it perhaps disputes? Remember always to capitalize after a sentence.(and so on and so on?)

Well, I will give you the benefit of the doubt since you were perhaps very disturbed and nervous responding to my post. People do make mistakes under pressure.

I have never seen unemployed, underemployed,destitute Dominicans go to the finest prep schools,colleges and art schools in the United States, but if you say so, then I guess I plead guilty.
Fortunately, I live off my interest because I can. My rent pays me well enough and with the interest from certificates I keep building my capital and improving my monthly take. Early retirement is a priviledge of winners.

What about the issues at hand? Do you want to get into the discussion or just stick to gossip?
TW

for an extremely informative link.

So often the only charts available are those kept for futures trading, which includes only a few chosen "hard" currencies.

I'm not sure how exactly this subject came up, but it was probably because someone suggested that interest rates (in Dominican pesos) are sufficient to offset the exchange rate risk. Many people have lost everything with that kind of thinking, such as in the examples you point out.

A few people, like George Soros for example, have become rich taking the opposite approach - betting against a weak currency. Of course an international speculator, based in Europe, has ways to hedge himself in hard currencies that Dominicans find very difficult.

Since one can now have dollar accounts here, he may be able to avoid piecemeal deterioration of the peso. As others have found out, though, in places like Mexico, even dollar accounts are no protection in case of a massive devaluation - the banks simply dishonor the dollar accounts and pay off in local currency anyway.

By the way, congratulations on your personal success story!

TW, it is still not a NEW book. It is a second edition, revised assuredly, but the same old gist with updated data. Try reading the 1st edition and then review the 2nd edition - not a lot different!!! Obviously you were not in the Dominican Republic in 1991-1992 when this book and the author got a lot of publicity. So, he is in the news again - big deal! It is the same message as before: "Our country and its culture is under attack by insidious means from the encroachment of Haitian values (or lack thereof) into mainstream Dominican society." There, do you think I paraphrased it correctly? I didn't have to write 350 pages to get that out. I think the message gets dusted off and marched out everytime the economy is bad in the D.R., and politicians and the elite want to shift attention away from their own corruption and fraud, towards a target that cannot defend itself - Haitians. It never ceases to amaze me that so-called "educated" individuals can fall so easily for such simple propaganda.

TGF:
TGF:
I guess you are a good reader if you read 700 pages, but my impression is that you read the "second edition" listing and drew your own conclusions.
By the way, the author of "El Ocaso", Manuel Nunez is not an establishment type of guy to be in the inner circles of government propaganda conspiracy. The party in government is a pro-Haitian Party all the way, in case you don't know their history.
Hipolito Mejia is a Haitian lover and his Vice-President is a self-admitted Half-Haitian who forgot that her relative Juan Bosch planned a preemptive attack on Haiti prior to being thrown out of office. In fact, one of the causes for the division of the PRD party was that Juan Bosch really didn't want Haitian Jose Francisco Pena Gomez to be President.

And to defuse the racist conspiracy by white and light skin Dominicans it should be noted that the author of this book is a "Black" Dominican(not indio, not half-white,not-mixed race) This is strictly a cultural and historical event. Race is a by-product.

By the way, I did not fall to propaganda to be pro-Dominican, I was born one. Haitians are the racist creed. They think of themselves as one race and want to keep it that way. Dominicans have embraced every race, cultural and religious group. We are a peaceful conglomerate or tapestry of global unity. Haiti is an African enclave with no language, a culture of hidden cults and a hatred for their own enviroment.

TW

TW

Maybe things haven't changed much since 91