
Waiting for the Nicaraguan Canal - JumpCrisscross
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/waiting-for-the-canal/?ftcamp=crm/email//nbe/FirstFTEurope/product
======
fraserharris
"The laws are malleable. Caught drunk driving out of a nightclub in the
capital Managua with a beer in your hand? Pay the security guard $1. Caught by
the police on the highway with no driving license? Pay the cop $4. It’s as
simple as that. The problem is that this malleability stretches through all
strata of society and often leads to corruption."

No, _that is corruption._

~~~
pelle
I live in Nicaragua. While this is strictly speaking corruption, it is a very
democratic form of corruption. In the US corruption is a sport mainly enjoyed
by the rich.

I like the term malleable as it describes it much better than the black and
white world of corrupt or not.

Here in Nicaragua it is part of what makes the country work and prices are at
a level that most people can be part of it.

Living police salaries are luxuries for rich countries. Nicaraguan police are
pretty honest and effective, just look at our crime rates that are well below
the region.

If they charge someone an "on the spot" negotiable fine it is something most
people accept as long as it's not outrageous. Is it ideal? No. But it's
probably better than most other alternatives for a country at this level of
economic development.

~~~
astine
"While this is strictly speaking corruption, it is a very democratic form of
corruption."

If the police are for sale, then they are for sale to the highest bidder. If
the prices seem reasonable to you, it's only because your aren't being outbid
by someone significantly wealthier.

"just look at our crime rates that are well below the region."

Is crime lower, or just the reporting?

~~~
pelle
Crime is lower. The few gangs that are here don't really spread outside their
barrios like they do in just about every other country in Central America.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/10/28/359612148/w...](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/10/28/359612148/with-
a-soft-approach-on-gangs-nicaragua-eschews-violence)

You say: "If the prices seem reasonable to you, it's only because your aren't
being outbid by someone significantly wealthier."

Thats not what Nicaragua is like. It's not the wild west. It's a pretty quiet
traditional country with a fair amount of trust. Again compared to other
countries in the region, not with say Denmark or Sweden.

There was recently a police killing of an innocent family in a botched drug
raid. It became a really big deal and the police, president bowed over to try
to make things better. Not that that excuses things, but it's a hell of a lot
better than what happens in the US.

It is very difficult to view normal life in the second poorest country in the
western hemisphere with the moral compass or glasses of middle-class US.
Things are very different here.

~~~
hugh4
>It is very difficult to view normal life in the second poorest country in the
western hemisphere with the moral compass or glasses of middle-class US.
Things are very different here.

Perhaps. But tolerance of "low-level" corruption is one of those things which
_causes_ Nigaragua to be the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere.
The values of the middle-class US are a big part part of what made the US the
richest country in the western hemisphere.

~~~
pelle
There are many things that keeps Nicaragua poor, this is hardly the most
important one. Similar low level corruption is found all over Latin America
except for perhaps Chile. It disappears once countries have been middle class
for a while.

------
grecy
If you ever get the chance, checkout the canal museum in Casco Viejo in Panama
City - it has tons of the original surveys conducted that have alternate sites
for the canal.

Here's what I wrote after my visit [1]

 _The number one attraction in town is obviously The Canal and before visiting
I make a stop at the museum in Casco Viejo which is amazing considering the
tiny $2USD admission price. My engineering background means I’m fascinated by
the surveying work that was undertaken before construction began. One map in
particular shows proposed routes through Tehuantepec in Mexico, through lake
Nicaragua, through a couple of different places in Panama and finally one
using a river mostly in modern-day Colombia. The decision didn’t actually come
down to the “shortest” distance to dig as you might think, but primarily on
how the mountain range through Central America would be dealt with. The final
location chosen meant it was possible to create a huge in-land lake and use
locks to elevate the ships 28 meters to that level. One French guy proposed
digging deep enough to eliminate the need for locks, though it was decided
this would be too great a task._

The museum is so good I went back two days in a row.

[1] [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama-
canal](http://theroadchoseme.com/the-panama-canal)

~~~
dalke
"One French guy proposed digging deep enough to eliminate the need for locks,
though it was decided this would be too great a task."

I think you have misinterpreted the history. De Lesseps proposed a sea-level
canal, and got his way. The French attempt at doing that lost a huge amount of
money.

For what it's worth, Godin de Lépinay proposed a lock system instead, but was
ignored. Quoting from
[http://www.firststrikenuts.com/artman/publish/article_28.sht...](http://www.firststrikenuts.com/artman/publish/article_28.shtml)
:

> Eight years, 200 million dollars, and more than ten thousand lost lives
> later, de Lesseps accepted reality and switched to de Lépinay’s stair-step
> plan. Lock-works and gates were ordered from Gustave Eiffel. Sadly, the
> canal enterprise was too far gone and could not be rescued, resulting in the
> largest financial collapse of the nineteenth century.

------
pelle
The official money man behind the project Wang Jing lost a huge chunk of his
fortune after the Chinese stock crash. The Nicaraguan government says it won't
affect the project. But most people I talk to down here think the success of
the project as being more doubtful than ever now.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/china-
bill...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-02/china-billionaire-
with-canal-dream-confronts-biggest-loss-of-15)

There are so many conspiracy theories about the project. One of them is that
it's secretly being funded by the Chinese government with Wang Jing only being
a front. This doesn't make much sense to me as the Chinese government is
already pretty well invested in the Panama Canal operation, but who knows.

------
mc32
That canal has been the dreams of explorers and governments over and over
since Pizarro. I think the US at one point had interest developing a canal but
work in Panama was seen as easier of the two isthmuses.

I think this will be a double edged sword for the locals. It has the potential
to pull the country from the bottom of the barrel and catapult it into a
relatively richer country, like Panama, if the government does not squander
its money --given their history, the odds seem stacked against them.

On the other hand, this would be major disruption of "indigenous" lives with
the big mighty foreigners coming in (in this case the imperialists, no longer
gringos or Euros, but Chinese. But, that's probably not the biggest concern
(mega projects are often multinational) I think the biggest issue is
disruption of the local flora and fauna specially introduction of seawater as
well as stowaway species into their lakes and streams. However, given their
poverty, I can hardly find fault with trying for prosperity whichever way they
can get it.

Interesting to see that MacAfee's travel guide[1] would be pretty relevant for
anyone going down there.

[1][http://www.whoismcafee.com/the-travel-
guide/](http://www.whoismcafee.com/the-travel-guide/)

~~~
hugh4
Out of curiosity, for anyone who knows the history: how did southern central
America manage to wind up split into a bunch of tiny countries? There's no
obvious geographic, linguistic or cultural reason that I can see.

~~~
mc32
My guess is they formed along the lines of Spanish and Portuguese
governorships. Keep in mind the smallest states in the western hemi are in the
Caribbean.

