Baja Infotheque Network

About six weeks ago, a large earthquake devastated Haiti and killed over 200,000 people. Saturday, a huge earthquake releasing 500 times more energy, devastated Chile and killed hundreds.
So why did the smaller earthquake kill so many more people? And why the sudden spate of disastrous earthquakes in the Americas? No, the apocalypse is not coming. No, the two earthquakes are not linked in any way. And no, Pat Robertson, you can’t blame the Devil or the French. The real answers, for those comfortable with science and the Enlightenment, are tectonics and poverty.
Of the many revolutions of the 1960s, the one that really mattered to geologists was the revolution of plate tectonics. Tectonics is the word geologists use to describe the process by which mountains move and rocks squeeze and crunch. In the sixties, new data from research cruises and from earthquake seismometers led to the realization that tectonics makes mountains slide sideways long distances. Earth scientists discovered that the Earth has a patchy skin of mobile plates a hundred miles thick and thousands of miles across, and that they move horizontally at a slow but irresistible pace. It’s where they collide that our problems begin.
South America is a prime example of this process, one that geologists call “subduction.” It’s why we have the long chain of mountains called the Andes and it’s why countries like Chile and Peru suffer giant, destructive earthquakes every few decades. Read the rest of this entry →

This is all about the US economy – what’s the connection to Baja and Mexico?? Well, is their not the saying: “If the American economy coughs the Mexican economy has a flu” or such?? Woth all the positive thinking and hopes: does not look so good at all to the editor. Look at the whole picture…. Does a 20% occupation around xmas at one of the main resort areas in Mexico, Loscabos ring a bell?? How long will the living in self denial within the Baja business people continue until they think of plan “B” ??? One is wondering when observing some of the actions that are going on within some industry. Noticeable in the so called ‘luxury” real estate industry…
The US Commerce Department said Thursday durable goods orders, excluding transportation, slipped 0.6 percent last month, but overall orders jumped as civilian aircraft bookings surged 126 percent. Separately, the number of people filing initial claims for jobless aid rose for a second straight week last week, topping analysts’ expectations, although the figures were likely affected by snowstorms that blanketed parts of the country. Read the rest of this entry →

Interesting reading, in particular when considering the blown out of proportion “lifestyle” area around Loscabos. We all see how the recession did affect that area and the people living and working there. (Yeah, the editor does know: we just see things NOT the right way and without having a vision….. sure…!!) Luxury hotels with $1,000-a-night room rates and extravagant resorts may face a tougher recovery than the rest of the industry. “The most over-the-top excesses will probably be a long time — if ever– coming back,” Marriott President Arne Sorenson told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit. He drew a distinction between these hotels and the typical Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels the company operates. Marriott’s other brands include its namesake properties and Courtyards. Sorenson added that some projects in the Caribbean, which tend to be smaller and partly rely on residences, “may never come back” because they rely on the kind of lavish spending that has gone out of vogue with travelers. Read the rest of this entry →