Posted on 01/15/2010 7:33:18 AM PST by tobyhill
Haiti has received billions of dollars in taxpayer and private aid from the United States and others, yet is so poor that few homes had safe drinking water, sewage disposal or electricity even before the earthquake. With sympathetic donors around the world sending money, making sure that aid is spent properly will be a challenge.
Corruption, theft and other crime and Haiti's sheer shortage of fundamentals — reliable roads, telephone and power lines and a sound financial system — add to the difficulty as foreign governments and charities try not only to help Haiti recover from the disaster but pull itself out of abject poverty.
It is one of the poorest places on Earth. Most basic public services are lacking, people typically live on less than $2 a day, nearly half the population is illiterate and the government has a history of instability. The public has little opportunity to be sure that aid to the government is used honestly and well. Nor is following the money easy for donors, including the United States, 700 miles away and one of the country's biggest helpers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Before the earthquake, Haiti had a GDP of about $7 billion, which is half that of North Dakota. By some estimates, 20% of the country’s GDP was comprised of aid of one kind or another.
O’Reilly spoke of this last night, and he is right, we have thrown away $3billion dollars there since Bill Clinton and it is still a rat hole! The people continue to suffer, meanwhile the president lives in a house bigger than our White House!
No money should go to the government in Haiti. It will be stolen and not get to the people. Basically, the world community should take over, temporarily, the whole country and attempt to put it back together. Then turn it back to the Haiti government.
Haiti is not very diverse. Diversity is America’s strength, so after the triage is applied to this disaster situation then needless to say that Haiti should seek to become “diverse” and open its borders to immigrants from all corners of the globe, and they should implement affirmative action for those very same people, and most of all praise tolerance like they would praise god then Haiti would be “Strong.”
Not any more.
The Presidential Palace collapsed in the quake as did many government buildings.
Watch how quickly the Presidential Palace gets rebuilt, and it will all be with our deficit dollars.
Putting the UN in charge would not be an improvement.
I worked with two guys from Haiti. They said the rich went to France. The Middle Class went to America and the rest are best avoided. One of them went back only to get a nephew who was the sole survivor of an attack by a gang that seized the six unit apartment building he owned. They machine gunned the other five. The nephew wasn’t home. He gave the title to the local government and said the hell with it. NEVER, let your children go to Haiti for anything! In the meantime I have 70 people out on the streets after the largest fire in my city’s history.
Oh yeah, that'll be the first place that gets rebuilt, more luxurious than before.
I’m doing my part to make Haiti “diverse” I am encouraging the Obama voters I know to emigrate to Haiti, and to make Haiti “strong.”
I'll bet the Congressional Black Caucus has a pretty good idea....
Right, but the waste in a building that size is ridiculous for a country living off the rest of the world, especially the US!
Ask Charles Rangel and Bill Ciinton and Jesse Jackson.
2. Also, is DR a "free market" govt vs. Haiti's cesspool of socialism?
That’s actually a good idea.
Ditto!
Every lib knows “diversity” is a stupid and hateful idea, so if you ask them to live up to their “ideals” they will get very mad. You should see the Obama voters I know when I tell them in sincerity that moving to Haiti to add to the diversity of that country, and that would be the ultimate act for their “ideals.”
It is time to bulldoze what is left of Haiti and start over.
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