Posted on 01/09/2012 7:05:07 AM PST by C19fan
HAITI wasn’t always the “poorest nation in the Western hemisphere,” though it’s almost impossible to read about the country today without coming across that phrase. In the two years since the earthquake that devastated it, Haiti has experienced political conflict and its first ever cholera epidemic; hundreds of thousands of the displaced are still living in makeshift tents strewn like dusty flags by the sides of highways. It is easy to forget that, for most of the 19th century, Haiti was a site of agricultural innovation, productivity and economic success.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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| Country | Population Density | GDP Per Capita |
| Dominican Republic | 501.5/sq mi | $5,855 |
| Haiti | 907.22/sq mi | $673 |
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OK, the horse might be dead, but one more stroke ought to make sure...
According to CIA FACTBOOK, via WikiPedia, the pop. density of Haiti is over 900 people per square mile.
The pop. density of Singapore is over 18 THOUSAND per square mile, or 20x that of Haiti.
Crowding is not the source of the problem.
When the western world fails in the next year or two, it will be very bad for Haiti.
When you are living solely off your rich uncle, and your rich uncle goes bankrupt, well, you’re gonna need to change your already poor lifestyle.
Interestingly, in the long run the place could actually improve, but I doubt it will before the Lord returns.
True, but I would adjust the DR numbers to factor out the money made by Major League Baseball players.
Not this year; maybe within 10 years. They will be making offerings to all kinds of pagan gods to keep an “inclusive nature”.
Baal will probably have a worship area somewhere.
—And lots and lots of foreign aid.—
An analogy could be made with the example of a zoo. The animals there survive solely through food, medicine and maintenance supplied from outside. What would happen to the animals in a zoo if one day humans stopped showing up? It would be disease, starvation, death and mayhem.
Even worse than it already is. It would be “The Road Warior”, only with more dense forests.
As a colony Haiti was perhaps the richest place on earth.
Not for the slaves, of course, for whom life was hell. The American South by comparison was Edenic for slaves.
I note numerous comments on this thread about how Haitians hate whitey. I’d like to point out that the French colonists fully earned that hatred.
Haiti is so eroded and deforested that as of today they can support 2 million tops, not 10 million like what they have today. You can grow fruit trees, nut and olive on denuded land....The Greeks proved this. Maybe the Haitians could become fruitarians (/sarc)
Singapore has 19x Haiti’s population density, and a per capita GDP that’s slightly higher (~$50K) than ours. In comparison to Singapore, Haiti is simultaneously under-developed and under-populated. I suspect Singaporeans would love to have Haiti’s relatively low population density.
Not all whites are French, and the Haitian colonial French have been gone for roughly 200 years.
Today’s Haitians are the sole authors of their misfortunes, just as America’s blacks have themselves to thank for their “problems”.
BTW, South Korea’s population density is 1.5x Haiti’s, and Japan’s is about the same. I suspect factors other than population density account for Haiti’s basket case status. It ain’t race, either, since the formerly British (and majority black) West Indian possessions are no great shakes, but nothing like Haiti.
Aye, do the math right and you find that Haiti has 29,665 sq feet for ever man, woman and child.
Geez, folks are really piling on, aren’t they?
Well, I for one, appreciate your effort, Hodar, even if it was off by a bit. It still spurred the discussion.
-——It will fall to African levels of poverty -——
I would think Hati fell below African poverty some time ago.
Still, the population is pretty high - but I blame the culture more than anything else. If you look at Africa, the Caribbean islands (ie Jamacia)and pretty much anywhere else, at almost any point in time; you will see the same thing. When you have a culture that promotes violence, demotes education and hard work - you will see this over and over again. There is no cure; it's a cultural issue, a bias that has “self-defeat” built-in.
The comparison with Japan says it all. Longshanks could sum up the problem with Haiti in ten words.
In another recent argument (re: “drain the Mediterranean for farmland”, just need to dump 10 cubic miles of dirt into the Strait of Gibraltar, then pump a quintillion gallons of water - but that’s another gedankenexperiment) I guestimated world agricultural GDP is $135,000 per square mile, or $210/acre and supporting 1 person per 2 acres. (Note the world median income is around $2/person/day.)
For Haiti, about 31% of land is usable (somehow) for agriculture, about 10,000 square miles or 6,400,000 acres. Per prior SWAG numbers, Haiti should be able to support 3.2 million people with an agricultural GDP of $1.35B. Actual agricultural GDP (at least before it got shaken up) was over twice that, divvying up among actual population to $295/person/year, about 70% of their world “fair share”. Ergo, the agricultural output is pretty good (twice the world average revenue per acre), but there are just too many people vying for a small pie.
Hate to say it, but the Sam Kinison solution applies.
It’s the aid that is killing Haiti.
If you send doctors down there, it puts Haitian doctors out of business.
If you send food down there, it puts Haitian farmers out of business.
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