"The government maintains that the canal would provide an economic boost to a country sorely in need of one, where many earn $1 a day."

What does this argument really mean? Earning less that $1/day in a country where basic needs are very cheap is not a bad life. But to us this sounds like poverty. Is life in Nicaragua really bad? I have been there - the people are simple, they live subsistence lives for the most part, but they seem happy and they have much more leisure time than I do here in the US.

There are so many good things to cherish in Nicaragua, so why is there a constant movement towards  "economic development"? And why do those "for" economic development usually win the arguments?