Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Panama category.
More big news for Panama!
Panama Investor Blog: Old Howard to become hub of world class business and commerce
Blogged with Flock
Panamania…any buyers out there?
Fortune magazine covers the real estate mania in Panama. A very good read. It includes comments from a client of mine too, Paul McBride of Prima. Take a look.
We are in the US….
Hello All,
We are in the US. For those whom I was not able to tell directly via email, in person or by phone, I am sorry. But here we are, in State College, 16801, US of A. It has been an interesting journey so far. A journey that was complicated by a robbery 1 week ago.
Felisa, myself and the girls were at an internet cafe in Panama City. At some point, due to distraction of the girls, Felisa’s purse was stolen with her license (Georgia and Panama) ATM and credit cards and national ID and $500 this has severely complicated our settling process. But we have been blessed and the friendliness of friends and acquaintances in Panama and State College has been great.
State College so far has been a wonderful place to be. Yes, we know in a few months it will be white and freezing but it comes with the territory, literally.
Here are some pics…more to come soon
peace an’ luv,
Yorkali
Leaving on a jet plane…
Hi Everyone,
Some of you know, others not. My family continues our nomadic ways, we are moving to State College from Panama. Felisa was recently offered a job as a professor to teach Supply Chain Management in the business school at Penn State University. Lots of changes are about to happen. weird that we are leaving while Panama is about to explode of the map. But things are changing again, but for the best. There are many opportunities and State College is a wonderful place to raise kids, and Felisa will be able to really pursue her true passion…teaching. This is what makes the move so bitter-sweet.
Anyway that’s the long and short of it.
To our friends and family in Panama we miss you already, to our friends and fam’ in the US, wi soon com’.
peace an’ luv
Yorkali
p.s. watch this space as I update our chaos in transit.
PTY-911…again.
Although this lovely isthmus is Paradise for some….hell it will be for many. A slum in Curundu suffers another major fire in just over two months. Don Winner from Panama Guide writes an great piece on what he sees at the scene.
SAFE IN SMALL AMOUNTS!?!?!?!?!?!THEY’RE TRYING TO KILL US!!!!!!!!
Okay that does it! No Olympics in Beijing, I’m sorry. Are they trying to slow poison us all over here….dang it! Safe in small amounts. Oh my Lord. Can’t take medicine, can’t brush my teeth.
This is so sickening
One of my clients picked up on this story from the the International Herald Tribune:
Panama Investor Blog
From China to Panama, a trail of poisoned medicine
This time it’s the tailor of China that is at the center of an investigations into the deaths of so many Panamanians. Although this has little to do with real estate and land development, it is an important story about how at least 300 innocent people have died at the hands of a few people in China who were guided by greed to substitute poisonous chemicals that would later be used in cough medicine. When the story first came out last year, everyone in Panama was concerned that we had a serious viral infection spreading throughout the country. When it was finally discovered to be tainted medicine, the accusations flew fast and furious and local people were put in jail where they may still be today. Now the truth is revealed and it is scary to think that it has happened before, even in the U.S. and may happen again if appropriate steps are not taken. Be careful of the medicines you take! Very well written report.
Mediocrity in design
I read this article by Bob Garfield on Advertising Age. Excellent passionate commentary, just up my alley. As he whittles the grand Saturn/GM ad down to size I can see why brands like Oldsmobile eventually went belly up and why GM is in the financial mess that it’s in.
Mediocrity.
For decades whimpy design got pumped out of Detroit, now they have some fresh thinking but they are serving it up on cliche driven visuals and copy. The same thing is happening with Panama’s real estate advertising.
I am getting sick and tired of the same visuals and same copy EVERYWHERE. The low angle shot of the building, the infinity pools, the rolling view of Panama city. It’s nauseating! Then every other paragraph is genorously sprinkled with the word “lifestyle” Just typing it now gives me the hibby-jibbys. And of course the overtly repeated marble dripping luxuriousness of the apartments.
Now, let me be fair, not all develepors have this constrained, myopic approach to their ads. A few are actually quite uplifting, they draw you into the design and the use of the branding material is top notch. Makes me wanna call! My faves are Buena Ventura, Isla Viveros , Tucan Country Club, Valle Escondido and most recently Embassy Club. Well targeted, well designed and millenia away from the prevailing mediocrity. The remnant I hope though will become the majority soon. As the party becomes more crowded and Balboa Avenue starts to look more like Biscayne Boulevard, with the signal getting drowned in the noise of sameness, I look forward to the attitudes of the developers evolving and embracing a more mature, focused imaginative approach to thier advertising.
What most local promoters are having a problem with is transitioning from developing ad campaigns for the local market to focusing on a more design-savvy audience.
The baby-boomer.
Yes they have all the stats on how many are retiring and yes they are coming here in droves and are snapping up condos and villas at an alarming pace. Which is great for Panama and I hope it continues. BUT as the amount of projects escalate into the heavens and more Donald Trumps invest in the country, the developers will have to focus on a more powerful differentiator than just location and the “new concept” design that emblazons thier current collateral. They need to write more tantalizing focused copy. Words that speak to people at this very special time in their lives. Not just an endless list of features and amenities. It’s time to be more creative. It’s time to use our noggins to escape this sea of mediocrity. Hopefully GM will do the same.
Yorkali
Just some thoughts from my Imaji Nation
disclosure:
i. I have worked on print design for Tucan and web design for Valle Escondido.
ii. I have decided not link to or show the ads. I think it’s best to
simply mention the names of those who in my mind are doing a good job.
iii. You be the judge. Pick up a couple real estate magazines while here in Panama and you will see what I mean.
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Mad as H_LL!
It’s like everytime I rant it’s after some tragedy, well here’s one for you. Very close to home. This hollowed eve’s month the most horrific event happened. Yesterday, Monday, October 23rd, a bus exploded in Panama City.
Death toll, 18.
I watched in horror as this Mano de Piedra - Corredor Norte bus went up in flames. As the bus came to rest around 2pm, before Panama’s largest evangelical church, Hosana. The devil’s minions rejoiced as this white hearse went up in flames and spued smoke into the sky. As dawn brought light to night, the media illuminated the situation. The driver, Prospero Ortega Justavino, 50 years old, had 92 tickets, One thousand, Two hundred dollars against his name in fines, and still he was driving.
18 lives lost for 1200 dollars. How sad.
As I soak this up, being the person that I am, I like to look at context. Situations of this magnitude do not happen without a supporting cast. I’m not talking about just the bribes that took place in the local transport authority (ATT), nor the races that these busses engage in to get the next passenger or the multitude of multas (tickets) that so many drivers across the city have. I am looking at the over-arching, diabolical web of corruption that permeates this fragile yet necessary system called democracy.
The three biggest stories today in Panama are widening of the canal, the medicinal poisoning at the CSS and now this bus explosion. All three are connected through one word.
Corruption.
- The canal now voted through, faced it’s greatest opposition from the fears of corruption once those billions of dollars flow into the country.
- The medicine-syndrome crisis, which to date has claimed 32 lives with 28 still souls hanging in the balance, too is a corruption scandal. As the company Medicom that supplies the goverment with medication is suspected of diluting the medicinal supplies with engine coolant.
- Now this explosion where the driver has over 92 tickets to his name and still allowed to drive.
This only shows that we face a specter of evil that covers not just the highest levels of power, but right down to the mechanic on the corner, the driver up front , the pavo (bus conductor) on the step AND the bus owner pulling the strings.
In Jamaica we had a similar system where the busses were privatized. And of course human nature’s greed led many drivers to do machoistic, horrific, acts on the road to beat his fellow driver to the next stop or the next passenger.
It had to stop.
The government was taken to the Supreme Court for breaking thier contract with the private bus owners. It was worth every penny of those millions of dollars to have the government control things again.
I said to my wife a few months ago, after watching another accident or maybe it was a race between busses, here in Panama city, that situations like this do not change unless a prominent person dies or if there is significant loss of life.
The latter happened yesterday, now Panama, the ball is in your court.
watchagonnado?
Yorkali Walters
Read Don Winners report on the accident, he has more details in English.
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