Just A Reminder
Please Don't Forget
To Donate To FR
Posted on 07/09/2011 5:11:40 PM PDT by billflax
In Haiti, a lack of markets means little profit and virtually no wealth, no progress, no resilience against uncertainty, and thus no hope.
Haiti is the second oldest autonomous state in the Western Hemisphere. It was a French colony, her richest, but the Haitians overthrew the French in a bloody revolution. In the 1790′s, led by such fascinating characters as Toussaint L’Ouverture, a free black slave owner, Haiti seized independence. Then Toussaint’s successors systematically slaughtered the French minority in what today would be termed genocide.
Haiti’s wealth was quickly squandered as a national slave state. She remains mired in hopelessness to this day.
I was in Cap Haitian and it was startling. You’d see massive cathedrals and other buildings left by the French and virtually nothing built of any substance since. The glass was gone and the pews long since burned for firewood. Once ornate churches, these now sit as hollow tombs underscoring Haiti’s funereal dearth of finance.
Without the rule of law or respect for private property, Haitians suffer under the arbitrary whim of depraved men. Hernando de Soto’s indispensible book, The Mystery of Capital, highlights Haiti’s dysfunctional economy plagued by corrupt officials and “dead capital.” This is land, buildings and the like without clear title, which inhibits the owners’ ability to leverage their property or sell with confidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.forbes.com ...
Compare Katrina to other disasters elsewhere in the USA.
There was no rioting in Joplin or Minot.
Compare Katrina to other disasters elsewhere in the USA.
___________________________
Compare the recovery of Mississippi from Katrina with the recovery of New Orleans.
Great points. Must be because W was president for Katrina, ha ha.
The article said “the Japanese understand that in labor there is profit and in savings there is wealth”.
Just like Katrina the Haitians will never get on their feet. They have had their hand out for to long. When do they get off the bottle?
It’s true, they do not have the rule of law or respect for private property
We are being given a taste of this by the mob rule that is going on in cities across this country.
Haiti is victim, along with the entire Caribbean and Central American region, of the US tariffs and quotas on sugar causing the price to be 10x higher in the US. These quotas facilitated a dramatic change in US diet from cain sugar to high fructose corn syrup, esp. in soft drinks and virtually everything we eat and drink. This gov’t engineered diet change is responsible for the obesity epidemic.
Just another ruinous, life-killing US gov’t diktat. US senators bought and paid for.
Some people create, while others can only destroy and Yet they want Respect for that???!
Interesting read, thanks.
I always wondered why the “Haiti” earthquake knew to stop at the border of the Dominican Republic...
Its all about culture.
In the Nineties, it required 111 steps and 4,112 days of bureaucratic nonsense to obtain a simple sales contract.
4,112 days of bureaucratic nonsense - and almost as many hands to be greased...
The problem in Haiti is the continuing effects of the Voodoo religion. It’s as bad as Islam in it’s fatalism, which keeps its people poor, ignorant, and unwilling to change, because they think that their ‘God’ wants them to be that way.
it depends on the level of organization in a society. The Japanese almost have a hive mind. This is good as in the case of how they are coping and reconstructing after the earthquake, but it also lead to the atrocities during WWII.
interesting points
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.