Results for “honduras” 68 found
Comayagua, Honduras
Comayagua is one of the very nicest and most classic of Central American towns. It is safe (yes, this is Honduras), walkable, delightful, and comes to life later in the day in the main square. It is full of colonial buildings and some churches. I didn’t see any North American tourists, and the surrounding countryside is lovely. Population is about 100,000.
A few years ago Honduras switched its main international airport, so a flight to the capital Tegulcigalpa actually brings you much closer to Comayagua — visit there instead! Here is Wikipedia on the city.
As for food, go to Hotel Helechos (central in town, but oddly no one has heard of it), walk out to your right and immediately there is an amazing baleadas stand. The pupuseria on the corner of main square is excellent. In general, Honduras is the country where the quality difference between roadside and street food, compared to the restaurants, perhaps is greatest. And it doesn’t favor the restaurants.
Charter city finally in Honduras?
Próspera is the first project to gain approval from Honduras to start a privately governed charter city, under a national program started in 2013. It has its own constitution of sorts and a 3,500-page legal code with frameworks for political representation and the resolution of legal disputes, as well as minimum wage (higher than Honduras’s) and income taxes (lower in most cases). After nearly half a decade of development, the settlement will announce next week that it will begin considering applications from potential residents this summer.
The first colonists will be e-residents. Próspera doesn’t yet have housing ready to be occupied. But even after the site is built out, most constituents will never set foot on local soil, says Erick Brimen, its main proprietor. Instead, Brimen expects about two-thirds of Prósperans to sign up for residency in order to incorporate businesses there or take jobs with local employers while living elsewhere…
After years of debate, Próspera will be the first real-world test of a divisive libertarian idea, says Beth Geglia, an anthropologist who studies charter cities. “There was a noticeable lull in the startup city movement in general until the Próspera Zede project got off the ground,” she says. “It’s ground zero.”
There is considerably more at the link, if this continues on track I will gladly visit and report back.
A charter city finally in Honduras? (from Mark Lutter)
Prospera, Honduras just launched on the island of Roatan. It is a ZEDE (Zona de Empleo y Desarollo Economico), the legacy of Paul Romer’s time in Honduras promoting charter cities. It has substantial autonomy, different taxes, different courts, different labor law, and more. It is one of the most innovative jurisdictions in the world.
First, a bit of history. The ZEDE legislation was passed in 2013. It allows for the creation of a special jurisdiction with an almost unprecedented amount of autonomy. The only recent comparison is the Dubai International Financial Center, which, as the name suggests, focuses exclusively on finance. The ZEDE legislation allows for different labor law, environmental law, business registration, dispute resolution, and more. It is more analogous to Hong Kong, or at least the Hong Kong ideal, of one country, two systems.
In 2013 and 2014 rumors swirled about ZEDE projects, including a port in the Gulf of Fonseca, but nothing materialized. I even moved to Honduras in 2014, at the time the murder capital of the world, to be closer to the action. As late as 2017, the Honduran government was saying projects were about to begin.
The ZEDE legislation is the successor to the RED (Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo) legislation, which Romer helped introduce to build charter cities. Romer had a falling out with the Honduran government in 2012. Shortly after his departure, the RED legislation was declared unconstitutional. The ZEDE legislation was passed to address the constitutional shortcomings of the RED legislation, though it also benefitted from seeing the Supreme Court judges who ruled against the RED legislation fired. To be fair, the government claims they were fired for a ruling on a police brutality case, which I am wont to believe. If there was sufficient government support behind ZEDEs to fire Supreme Court justices, it would not have taken seven years for the first ZEDE to be launched.
I worked with much of the Prospera team under the previous incarnation, NeWAY Capital (I’m not sure of the formal relationship between the two). I left around the time they pivoted to Honduras, 2.5 years ago. I was skeptical, as Honduras was the place projects went to die. Years had gone by without projects gaining meaningful traction and I expected them to run out of funding before launching. I’m happy to have been proven wrong.
Congratulations to Erick Brimen and the team. It is a lot of work to create a new jurisdiction, especially one as innovative as Prospera. The Charter Cities Institute has two team members spending approximately two thirds of their time on developing a “Governance Handbook,” a guide to the governance of a new jurisdiction. It will likely take about 9 months to complete, and that is just for the handbook, not implementation…
Residency costs $1300 annually, unless you’re Honduran, in which case it costs $260. Becoming a resident also requires signing an “Agreement of Coexistence,” a legally binding contract between Prospera and the resident. Prospera, therefore, cannot change the terms without exposing itself to legal liability. Most governments have sovereign immunity, this goes a step beyond removing that, with a contract that clearly defines the rights and obligations on both sides.
After signing the Agreement of Coexistence, all residents are required to buy general liability insurance which will ensure themselves against both civil and criminal liability. General liability insurance, as well as criminal liability insurance, has been proposed by economist Robin Hanson, among others.
That is from an email by Mark Lutter, Founder and Executive Director of the Charter Cities Institute. I thank Massimo for drawing my attention to this.
Charter cities in Honduras update
The Economist has a lengthy and very informative article on this, here is one bit:
Another candidate to be the first ZEDE is a public-private partnership with Canadian investors to create an “energy district” in Olancho department, where wood would be harvested for fuel. The ZEDE itself would be confined at first to a 1.6 square km (0.6 square mile) patch, which will be occupied by a power station. But it could eventually expand to an area covering 8% of Honduras’s territory and including 380,000 people. HOI, a Christian NGO based in the United States, is to provide health care and education from the outset in this “area of influence”.
…Even now, just how ZEDEs will work is a matter of argument among their supporters. The law places effective control in the hands of investors and a “technical secretary” who will administer each zone (and must be a Honduran citizen). They are answerable to an independent “commission for best practices” (CAMP). Civil and criminal cases will be adjudicated by special ZEDE courts, though it is not clear whether each zone will have its own or whether they will join a single parallel system. They could employ foreign judges to hear civil and criminal cases, just as Honduran football teams hire foreign players, suggests Mr Díaz. A “tribunal of individual rights”, guided by international conventions, will protect residents. Its decisions can be appealed to international courts.
But this governance structure is not settled; participants do not agree on what has been decided or even on who is part of it. The original CAMP, appointed by Mr Lobo, had 21 members, including Grover Norquist, an American anti-tax campaigner, Richard Rahn, then of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC, and Mark Klugmann, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. This body met just once, in March 2015, on the resort island of Roatán.
In short, the prognosis is still unclear, which I take to be bad news. In any case, there is much more at the link.
Are free and charter cities making a comeback in Honduras?
By a large majority (110 votes to 128), the Honduran Congress approved the modification of three articles of the country’s constitution, giving powers to Congress to create areas subject to special arrangements, referred to as “Model Cities” that were declared unconstitutional last October for being considered “states within a state.”
Laprensa.hn reports that “The law consists of two approved articles. The first amending Articles 294, 303 and 329 of Decree 131 of January 11, 1982 containing the Constitution, which divided the country into departments. These ‘are divided into autonomous municipalities administered by corporations elected by the people, in accordance with the law’.
Without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding two paragraphs, Congress can create areas under special schemes in accordance with Article 329 of this Constitution ‘.
Here is more, and here is a related article of explanation. I am still told, however, that yet another piece of legislation needs to be passed. I don’t pretend to understand any of this (for one thing, how much do these developments represent genuine suspense?), but at least one insider seems to think it represents a breakthrough of sorts.
The political business cycle in Honduras
In Honduras, one of Latin America’s poorest countries and also its most dangerous, candidates dole out another kind of political swag: coffins for the destitute.
Charities organized by politicians scour poor neighborhoods in search of families of murder victims who cannot afford funeral services or even a simple casket to bury their beloved. There are plenty of takers in this Central American country, where two out of three workers earn less than the minimum wage of $300 a month, and more than 136 people are killed every week.
Here is more, courtesy of Daniel Lippman; here is Daniel’s piece on Medicaid cuts for dental services.
Paul Romer on what happened in Honduras
Paul sends me the following, which he describes as “a personal statement to the news media”:
Qn: Prof. Romer, are you still working with the government of Honduras on the creation of a RED – a Region Especial de Dessarrollo? Or on what some have called a model city?
Ans: I and the other people who were named to the Transparency Commission wrote a public letter to President Lobo stating that we have no ongoing role in the project. Personally, I have also resigned from the CORED advisory committee.
Qn: In the beginning, you were an active supporter of the RED project. What changed?
Ans: From recent newspaper reports, I learned that the Honduran agency responsible for public-private partnerships had signed an agreement about a RED with a private company. When I asked for information, I was told that I could not see this agreement.
This was a departure from the standards of transparency that the administration had led me to expect. It was also a departure from the role for the Transparency Commission outlined in the Constitutional Statute passed by the Honduran Congress.
Qn: How can it be that a member of the Transparency Commission could not see such an agreement? Under the process set out in the Constitutional Statute, doesn’t the Transparency Commission have to give an opinion about any proposed RED?
Ans: In December 2011, President Lobo signed a decree naming me and four other internationally respected individuals to the Transparency Commission. At the time, these appointments were reported in the international news media, in particular by the The Economist. However, the government never completed the process of publishing this decree in the Gazette. The administration’s current position is that because the decree was never published, the Transparency Commission does not exist in the eyes of the law and the five named members have no legal basis for reviewing any agreements.
Qn: Can the government create a RED if the Transparency Commission does not yet exist?
Ans: If the Transparency Commission does not yet exist, the administration can propose a RED directly to the Congress. The RED will then come into existence if the Congress passes an act describing its geographical boundaries. Passing an act that specifies boundaries may seem like a minor detail, but under the Constitutional Statute, it has important legal consequences.
Qn: Does the administration have to disclose the terms of any agreement that it signs with a company that will invest in or manage a RED? Does the company have to disclose the identities of its financial backers? Does the company have to disclose anything about its experience or qualifications?
Ans: The law states that the Transparency Commission must be given all the information needed to evaluate any proposed RED. If there is no Transparency Commission, the Congress is the only remaining protection. To make sure that it is comfortable with the identities of the investors and the governance structure that the investors have negotiated in their agreements, the Congress could insist on full disclosure before it votes a RED into existence. The Congress might also want to insist that it have a separate right to approve any agreement related to a proposed or existing RED that could place a financial burden on the Honduran government. This kind of burden could arise, for example, through an agreement that lets a private party bring a claim for damages against the government.
Qn: Do you know how the misunderstanding about the legal status of the Transparency Commission came about?
Ans: Various explanations have been offered, but I cannot be certain why the decree naming the members of the commission was never published in the Gazette. Nor can I be certain why the administration did not disclose its decision not to publish the decree.
Whatever the reasons for these decisions, the result was an important failure of transparency. The public perception, that the Transparency Commission was in operation, differed from the reality. This gave the wrong impression about the checks and balances that would be operating as the first RED came into existence.
From the very beginning, I made a commitment to the citizens of Honduras, to the members of the Honduran Congress, and to the many people around the world who wish Honduras well. I committed that I would work for their benefit and do so transparently. This means that at a time such as this I have to be willing to state to the public what I know to be true.
Paul also sends along these links (in Spanish):
Honduras may appeal to London courts
Tricky legal dispute in Central America? Sort it out in the London courts. Honduras, the state with the highest homicide rate in the world, is preparing to send appeal cases to the judicial committee of the privy council (JCPC) in Westminster.
The extraordinary expansion of UK legal jurisdiction is being negotiated in an effort to support the development of a pioneering enterprise zone in the crime-scarred republic.
The Honduran government is establishing what amounts to semi-independent city states, hoping that improved governance backed by international partners will attract business investment and create employment.
The complex constitutional agreement under discussion involves Mauritius – an island 10,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean – guaranteeing the legal framework of the courts in the development zones, known locally as La Región Especial de Desarrollo (RED).
Here is more, and for the pointer I thank P.
Will there be a charter city in Honduras?
Paul Romer hopes so, here is an update:
Much will depend on the transparency commission. The first batch of members appointed this week comprise George Akerlof, another economist and Nobel laureate; Nancy Birdsall, formerly at the Inter-American Development Bank, who now runs the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank; Ong Boon Hwee, a former senior executive at Temasek Holdings and Singapore Power; and Harry Strachan, an investor who used to run INCAE, a leading Latin American business school, with Mr Romer himself in the chair.
The article is interesting throughout, the pointer is from Michael Clemens.
Is a charter city coming to Honduras?
David Wessel reports:
Honduras is interested. Two weeks ago, with only one "no," its Congress voted to amend the constitution to allow for a ciudad modelo.
(No filibuster there!) And:
In early January, Mr. [Paul] Romer went to the capital, Tegucigalpa, to meet privately with various groups, then make his case at a public gathering. "You can't change the rules in the middle of the game," he said, flashing a photo of a soccer game on a screen. "Create a new playing field and see if anyone wants to play." Think big, he pleaded. Build an airport big enough to be a hemispheric hub, he said, turning to his father Roy, former governor of Colorado, to tell the story of how Denver got its big airport.
Friday assorted links
1. Over 100 comments here on an MR blog post, and by far the best one is by GPT-4.
2. My older posts on time management. I’ll think if I have any revisions. Speaking of old links, here again is Martin Shkreli on SBF and prison.
4. I welcome Ben Klutsey to his new role as Mercatus Executive Director. And have had a great ten years working with Dan Rothschild.
5. Honduras trying to break its contracts. Ten of the eleven pending cases are against Honduras.
6. “Memories are made by breaking DNA — and fixing it.”
7. “Martin Scorsese to Headline a Religious Series for Fox Nation.” (NYT).
In Conversation with Próspera CEO Erick Brimen & Vitalia Co-Founder Niklas Anzinger
During my visit to Prospera, one of Honduras’ private governments under the ZEDE law, I interviewed Prospera CEO Erick Brimen and Vitalia co-founder Niklas Anzinger. I learned a lot in the interview including the real history of the ZEDE movement (e.g. it didn’t begin with Paul Romer). I also had not fully appreciated the power of reciprocity stacking.
Companies in Prospera have the unique option to select their regulatory framework from any OECD country, among others. Erick Brimen elaborated in the podcast how this enables companies to do normal, OECD approved, things in Prospera which literally could not be done legally anywhere else in the world.
…so in the medical world for instance you have drugs that are approved in some countries but not others and you have medical practitioners that are licensed in some countries but not the others and you have medical devices approved in some countries but not others and there’s like a mismatch of things that are approved in OECD countries but there’s no one location where you can say hey if they’re approved in any country they’re approved here. That is what Prosper is….Our hypothesis is that just by doing that we can leapfrog to a certain extent and it’s got nothing to do with the wild west or doing weird things.
…so here so you can have a drug approved in the UK but not in the US with a doctor licensed in the US but not in the UK with a medical device created in Israel but not yet approved by the FDA following a procedure that has been say innovated in Canada, all of that coming together here in Prospera.
Emergent Ventures winners, 32nd cohort
Anson Yu, Waterloo, telemetry devices that can detect compromised hardware devices to protect our electrical grid and other critical infrastructure.
Anshul Kashyap, Berkeley, neurotech and vision, to visit the Netherlands for work and research reasons.
Kieran Lucid, Dublin, Irish videos about YIMBY and aesthetics, at the site Polysee.
Matin Amiri, Antwerp, Afghanistan, and San Francisco (?), building digital clones.
Snowden Todd, USA and Honduras and South Korea, to write a book on South Korean fertility issues.
Anthony Jancso, Accelerate SF, San Francisco, for general career development.
Denisa Lepadatu, Romania and Bremen, trip to Prospera to pursue longevity research.
Jamie Rumbelow and Henry Dashwood, London, British company to ease land rights/permissions.
Anastasia Vorozhtsova, Columbia University, to study Russian education and the Russian state.
Rohan Selva-Radov, Oxford, general career development, and to develop a dating/matching service for young people.
Olga Yakimenko, Vienna, movie-making.
Rucha Benare, Dublin, Pune area, art and biology.
Brooke Bowman, San Francisco, Vibecamp.
Ruxandra Tesloianu, Cambridge/Romania, travel grant and career development, bio space, science, and meta-science.
Ukraine cohort:
Serhii Shadrin, to study at University of Chicago, and to study information manipulation and media.
Le Sallay Academy, school for Ukrainian refugees, including in France and Serbia, Sergey Kuznetsov and Aleka Molokova.
Here are previous winners of Emergent Ventures. Here is Nabeel’s software for querying about EV winners.
Is El Salvador special?
But Bukele copycats and those who believe his model can be replicated far and wide overlook a key point: The conditions that allowed him to wipe out El Salvador’s gangs are unlikely to jointly appear elsewhere in Latin America.
El Salvador’s gangs were unique, and far from the most formidable criminal organizations in the entire region. For decades, a handful of gangs fought one another for control of territory and became socially and politically powerful. But, unlike cartels in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, El Salvador’s gangs weren’t big players in the global drug trade and focused more on extortion. Compared to these other groups, they were poorly financed and not as heavily armed.
Mr. Bukele started to deactivate the gangs by negotiating with their leaders, according to Salvadoran investigative journalists and a criminal investigation led by a former attorney general. (The government denies this.) When Mr. Bukele then arrested their foot soldiers in large sweeps that landed many innocent people in prison, the gangs collapsed.
It would not be such a simple story elsewhere in Latin America, where criminal organizations are wealthier, more internationally connected and much better armed than El Salvador’s gangs once were. When other governments in the region have tried to take down gang and cartel leaders, these groups haven’t simply crumbled. They have fought back, or new criminal groups have quickly filled the void, drawn by the drug trade’s huge profits. Pablo Escobar’s war on the state in 1980s-90s Colombia, the backlash by cartels to Mexican law enforcement activity since the mid-2000s, and the violent response to Ecuador’s government’s recent moves against gangs are just a few examples.
El Salvador also had more formidable and professional security forces, committed to crushing the gangs when Mr. Bukele called on them, than some of its neighbors. Take Honduras, where gang-sponsored corruption among security forces apparently runs deep. That helped doom Ms. Castro’s attempts to emulate Mr. Bukele from the start. In other countries, like Mexico, criminal groups have also reportedly managed to co-opt high-ranking members of the military and police. In Venezuela, it has been reported that military officials have run their own drug trafficking operation. Even if presidents send soldiers and police to do Bukele-style mass roundups, security forces may not be prepared, or may have incentives to undermine the task at hand.
Here is more from Will Freeman and (NYT), interesting throughout.
Is real estate in Roatan undervalued?
By a lot. I was briefly on the island, and also visited Próspera there (I thank my hosts for their time and efforts, and I believe Vitalia will be posting my session with them on-line, much of it covering life extension and crypto).
I have been to plenty of both Latin America and the Caribbean, and I was struck by how safe the island is. Most anything of significance is priced in dollars, and you can pay with dollars, even in small restaurants. The core language is English, although Spanish seems to be increasing rapidly, due to migration from the mainland, itself a good sign for Roatan. Population is about 100,000 on a small island, but I didn’t encounter any traffic problems. Electricity and water seemed to be reliable. The local seafood is of very high quality.
At the top end I found this home selling for over 3m. I was in Jonesville, an extremely charming small town right on the water with picture-perfect views. Here are some home and lot prices. Below 400k at the top end, something wonderfully placed for below 90k, and empty lots in the 70k range.
Much of the Caribbean I don’t find so attractive, as it can be too dry or scrubby, but Roatan is truly beautiful. The views from some parts of Próspera are among the best Caribbean views I have seen.
From conversation, I infer that better direct flight service and better facilities for private planes are holding back real estate prices in Roatan. Neither of those seem to be insurmountable problems. Maybe the Honduras label puts some people off?
For dining, by the way, eat the Garifuna offerings at Punta Gorda, such as Garifuna Living Foods.