Responsibility to Central America.

I live in DR and have been to both Nicaragua and Honduras, and like one fellow inmate pointed out, DR is a very different case, not only is way more stable (free elections since 1961) but it's clearly more prosperous than those countries (Nicaragua is the continent's second poorest country after Haiti, Honduras the third), my point being that the income the governments get from exports (like cigars or tourism) can indeed improve the life conditions of the people if they are used right, and the difference in poverty and quality of infrastructure between DR and Central America is a proof of that.
Clearly, the dollars from your cigars and tourism have contributed in some way to slash the level of poverty in this country by half in the last 50 years (according to the UN), and not only that, if you've been to any cigar factory in DR, you'll see that the conditions they work in are more than satisfactory and no comparison with Chinese workers can be made, their salaries are twice as high as their peers in Central America but that obviously doesn't mean Dominican cigars cost double, so yes progress can be done if the government invest in its people even a little of the hard earned money you guys indirectly give them when you buy a stogie, and no, an improvement in their quality of life doesn't have to mean you'll end up paying more.
Well that was my first post in the Asylum, gracias amigos!