I dont know what I can learn from the situation in Haiti. There was an earthquake and the Haitian State collapsed. As in the New Orleans disaster, shops are being vandalized. There is no police nor security. Haiti is no different from Liberia, only that is very near to Miami. Possibly the Americans under the United Nations flag will occupy it and administer it. As they did it in the past.
9 comments:
I agree with you, I think it will become a UN protectorate for a while.
The Times of London exhibited a very cynical cartoon today, suggesting that after re-building it will still be a futile wreck like before the earthquake. I was surprised they published it, since there is no benign interpretation.
Large scale violence will probably break out very quickly and this will be very embarrassing for the Obama's of this world, so likely lots of US troops will be rapidly flown in there, even to the extent the planned surge in Afghanistan will be compromised.
All said and done, an awful and undeserved experience for these poorest of the poor; you would think fate would leave them alone, but it is "one damn thing after another" for them.
Work there for a good water engineer?
Anon.
Thank you, I am fully scheduled.
According to the wiki article on IQ and Global Inequality Haiti has an IQ of 67 - link
The previous estimate from IQ and the Wealth of Nations was in the mid 70's. Both estimates are displayed in the table in the article above.
This is not fixable, at least with current technology, and so the only alternative is a custodial kind of state in which their human rights would be protected (in fact, much better protected) than under "independence".
The question then becomes, who will be the custodian. Their own governments have a spectacular track record of failure and corruption, and I doubt the French would be willing to take it on.
The only option is to make Haiti a ward of the UN; but under conditions of guaranteed food security and suppression of violence, there will be population explosion, and pressure for the rest of us to accept large numbers of Haitian refugees, especially to the USA and Quebec, but also Israel will be pressured. This will make the World Government people (Obama, Gore, Hillary, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, the Copenhagen organisers, the EU President, etc) very excited indeed, since this is a certain way to undermine the self-reliance and strength of countries everywhere; to turn us all into supplicants, and tax slaves to these bureaucrat-dictators.
Just watch what happens, and decode the language.
Anon.
I believe Haiti has for the past few years already been administered largely by UN "peacekeeping" troops, so not much will change. The US will temporarily have a larger presence as the UN is not really sufficiently competent to deal with a situation of this magnitude. But as pointed out on another blog the problem with "taking" Haiti is that in the end you get Haiti and there is nothing there that anyone wants (anymore - Haiti was once the richest colony in the Americas, believe it or not).
The proper comparison in Haiti is not Liberia but Zimbabwe. Haiti once upon a time had a very wealthy agricultural economy owned and administered by whites. Then there was a rebellion and they killed or expelled the whites. The only problem was that the blacks that were left did not have the ability to run plantation style agriculture so they quickly retreated to subsistence farming. This was sort of OK but then "do gooders" introduced some modicum of Western medicine and the population began to increase rapidly -from less than 4M in 1960 to almost 10M (less 100K as of last week).
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:HTI&q=haiti+population
So now you have Haiti as N. Korea - dependent on aid to avoid starvation. I hate to say this but the problem with the earthquake last week was that it was not big enough. 100K is not enough of a dent in their population - the island can probably self support a couple of million at most, if that. Even instituting a "one child" policy as in China (and they are far from this) would take decades to correct the situation. I would suggest that aid recipients be required to undergo sterilization as a condition of aid receipt but of course this would not fly with leftists. So now you have what was already an inhumane situation made even more inhumane - what kind of existence is this to be trapped on a crowded island living from meager handouts? Even cattle deserve better.
K
Regarding IQ and Global Inequality, their methodology for determining IQ was less than rigorous. An IQ in the 60's seems unlikely - people with IQ in their 60's can barely function while the average Haitian, though no rocket scientist, is capable of basic tasks such as subsistence farming, participating in voodoo rituals, etc. The prior estimates of IQ in the 70s is probably more accurate. Of course this is nothing to brag about but other societies with similar IQ (e.g. Jamaica) still manage to maintain somewhat advanced economies at a level far higher than Haiti's, so IQ alone cannot account for the mess that is Haiti.
Their history accounts for a lot - if you compare S. Africa with Zimbabwe you can see that even a small white administrative class can usefully employ a large # of lower IQ workers but if you remove that minority then there is no hope. Of course there is the natural human tendency (as Orwell illustrated so well in Animal Farm) for the workers to envy and expel the bosses and only rarely can that tendency be restrained even if it is obvious that in the long run it will backfire badly.
Israel is another place that is achieving a perhaps higher than expected standard of living, again because a large Ashkenazi minority (as well as the more intelligent of the Sephardim) are able to again provide the framework for the employment of the less intelligent.
It is not necessary to have a uniformly intelligent population as long as you have a elite group who can occupy the top echelon. But again such societies tend to be somewhat unstable as the more numerous less intelligent groups can (either violently or at the ballot box) push to achieve "equality" with their betters.
K
Sorry for the multiple comments...
Regarding the cartoon (if it is the one I think it is) it is wrong...it shows pre-earthquake (and post reconstruction) Haitians as living in tin roofed shacks weighted down by stones. In fact, after such roofs were blown off repeatedly by hurricanes, Haitians were encouraged to rebuild their shacks with poured concrete slab roofs which would withstand winds. Of course these heavy roofs falling on people during the earthquake only increased casualties. I'm sure Haiti will be rebuilt in a more earthquake (but probably less hurricane resistant) way but there may not be another earthquake for 200 years but the next hurricane will be in a few years at best.
K
Related to this, but the US Coast Guard has apparently been assigned the task of patrolling the Caribbean as if it were another USN fleet. I remember seeing a list of USCG ship classes that stated one of the newer classes was only built for two week cruises, but was being forced to endure 90 day cruises in the Caribbean patrolling off the shores of many destitute, dysfunctional islands.
Dante's Inferno
Anon
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