"Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well." That's David Brooks, going out on a crazy limb. (He goes out on some others, which we're not even going to address. This one is maddening enough.) For starters. Barbados has a population well under 300,000, and Haiti has a population of over 10 million? Haiti is almost 11,000 square miles and Barbados is 167? This is a question of manageability. More importantly, Barbados has been stunningly smart in occupying the middle ground between neighboring tax haven islands and the highly-regulated (and/or more greatly taxed) larger neighbors in the Americas.
At least 240 U.S.- and Canada-based insurance companies operate in Barbados' international business sector. (Meanwhile, AIG has outposts in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago-and Goldman Sachs has a troubled office in Cayman.) While definitely not a tax haven, so that they can provide companies with a clean bill-Barbados has extensive agreements with the U.S. and Canada, China and Venezuela alike-Barbados still has extremely favorable financial arrangements for corporations.
And while tourism accounts for about half the country's economy, Barbados had $240 million in tax income in 2009 from their "international business sector"-a bit more than half of the $412 million in 2009 corporate tax income in the country.
That sort of income is Barbados having a severe downturn, in both tourism and corporate taxes, from 2008, by the way. In fact, the U.S.-led financial crisis very nearly took down much of the Caribbean over the last year. Barbados is entrenched enough to survive.
That and the whole devil-pact thing, of course.
... I've responded more viscerally to the noxious shit that some people have said about this catastrophe than the catastrophe itself, and I'm pretty sure this reflects very poorly on me.
Me too. I've been on edge all week. And kind of a dick, to be honest.
it's why I internet love you and this place.
Ditto. I adore all iterations of Choire, but DickChoire is one of my favorite personalities.
I hadn't even noticed.
I also love this site!!
Aw, I found you eminently pleasant!
Except for that whole refusing-to-terrorist-fist-bump thing... That made me :(.
You being a dick is nicer than most commenters at their pleasantest. Just another reason to love this place...
Do yourself a favor and don't read The Daily Beast.
Ha! Yeah, okay. I will try that.
This is good advice for any occasion or event.
The vitriol their commenters spew is unreal.
Commenter vitriol + EVERY WEEK IS FASHION WEEK OMG! = I am so done with this website.
It's such an e-rag.
I would just repeat--and I refer back to, I now recall, an Eric Foner class some xx years (I mean decades) ago as my source--that Haiti was severely economically isolated by everyone for a long time because of the fact that it arose as an independent country via a slave rebellion. I'm not saying it's as simple as that, that modern history doesn't count for anything, etc, but that that history is relevant.
FONER. MOANING. YES.
Also, in 1825 France extorted 150 million francs (which in today's currency would be in billions of euros) from Haiti as "compensation" for its loss of a slave colony. This crippled Haiti's economy -- it didn't pay off the debt until 1947, 10 years before Duvalier et al helped finish it off.
Why does that happen every time I mention Foner to the ladies???
"Also, in 1825 France extorted 150 million francs (which in today's currency would be in billions of euros) from Haiti as "compensation" for its loss of a slave colony. This crippled Haiti's economy - it didn't pay off the debt until 1947, 10 years before Duvalier et al helped finish it off."
this.
really.
so robertson was obviously referring to the french as the devil. how has this point not seen more traction? Haiti had TO PAY THE FUCKING FRENCH FOR BEING THEIR SLAVES.
i don't remember- did we pay the British off for the right to be free of their rule?
DCS: I didn't even know that part: probably learned it back in the day but somehow* forgot it.
*I got old.
So if France is the devil, where does it get off criticizing U.S. relief efforts again?
Oh yeah, it's France.
This is really interesting and useful and something I didn't know. Thank you.
Also: the World Bank.
Good comment. Editorial boards should really get some historians in their rolodexes so they can FACT CHECK THIS SHIT.
Please to read (and weep)
http://books.google.com/books?id=QyzHKSCYSmsC&pg=RA1-PA548&dq=collapse+book+haiti&ots=Svw6V9dokZ&sig=neVOy8dAaojbd-TDBX6wfo0EJ9E&hl=en&ei=Z9ZQS5e4DIO1tgf14YmqCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=haiti&f=false
starting with the page 329 part
Moving into that middle ground between the tax-shelter islands and the Americas was a very smart move for Barbados. Its original position in the South Atlantic made it useful as a way-station for the Royal Mail, and as a penal colony, but little else.
Also, Barbados, unlike Haiti and Jamaica didn't have an early, bloody revolution, but a much later, nearly bloodless revolution so consequently were not cut off from aid/trade with their former colonial powers abruptly. A local in Barbados told me last year that the number of people who died in their one "uprising" was very small. Thus it has never felt 'unsafe' to tourists, investors, etc. The infrastructure in Barbados is a marvel in contrast to most of the other islands in that area.
Thank you. I was typing but you nailed it. He neglects to mention a giant difference between Haiti and really I guess everywhere else in the world, a successful slave revolt. I would say this led to a downward spiral of non-support and apathy from the rest of the western world for obvious reasons...
WORD.
a/k/a a "deal with the devil"
Our receptionist in my office has family there and she can't reach them. It's really sad.
I feel I've learned something today, thanks guys!
Try not to let it happen again.
shan't.
Learning, or feeling?
I was really hoping that David Brooks would not last into the 2k10s -- he was so wrong about so much in the last decade (e.g., 'aren't the exurbs great?') -- but like earthquakes and poverty, he seems to be a permanent fixture in the history of civilization.
Someone was bitching about David Brooks to me yesterday.
his Brand of expertise is common at panel talks here in D.C. and sometimes it's part of my Job to listen to this kind of lofty bookish bullshit that is detached from the economics of real life or the shit smell of historical fact about the western world.
And let's not even talk about Tom Friedman. Ugh.
Agreed. It's so much easier to get your wisdom directly from the cab drivers, cuts out the middleman.
He is especially insufferable when he puts on his "sociologist" hat.
When Gawker covers World News, it makes me want to shoot myself and weep for America. When you guys do, I learn new things. Yay.
That column was an air-brushed version of what Limbaugh said earlier and echoed what many of my conservative friends have been saying, cloaking their comments in "of course we'll pray for Haiti, but we really can't give them any money."
Yes, there are problems with providing aid to needy countries. But that's not what this column was about.
It's hard to pick the most offensive part, but I will say I almost fell off my chair when Brooks started talking about the Harlem Children's Zone and No Excuses schools. He's suggesting that a program used for CHILDREN in the US could be a model for fixing an entire country that has just been flattened. It took me a few seconds to figure out the connection between Haiti and a program for schools. Then it struck me.
David Brooks thinks this is a black thing and all black people are all the same.
It doesn't matter that Haiti has no potable water, electricity, shelter, food or government. It doesn't matter that the stench of rotting corpses can be smelled for miles and families have been torn apart (and does he even know what that smells like? I do...and it doesn't leave you). It doesn't matter that there are no jobs, no infrastructure, nothing there we take for granted every single day.
Nope...everything will be fixed in Haiti if we just treat them like 3rd graders.
Because they're black.
Well, black 3rd graders, because white ones don't have those problems.
Brooks is worse than Limbaugh because at least Limbaugh doesn't hide it. Brooks pretties his ugly thoughts with historical references, selective facts and hiding behind the New York Times masthead.
This is a vile, vile column.
Sorry this is so long. I'm pissed.
Understandably so! This Rachel Maddow segment might make you feel a little better (i.e. people in power are not listening to these dumbasses): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34870828
And rightly so.
Well some of the issue was born of a very black thing... but this article is Horrible for all the reasons you've stated, But there are some very distinct parallels between Haiti's situation and the situations in communities that are populated predominantly by the ancestors of slaves. the Favelas etc. in Brazil, The projects and Beyond here in America and I could keep going, the bottom line is the conversation is too deep for the likes of Brooks or Limbaugh.
While I agree with everything you've said, there is a teensy grain of trouth in the "its a black thing". Obviously, not because these people are the same color, but from a development standpoint, Haiti has a lot more in common with parts of sub-Saharan Africa than it does with its neighbors - everything from development indicators to langauge. At my job, which deals with international foreign aid, the Haiti programs are monitored and administered by people in the Africa program - mostly because of the language, but also because of a greater familiarity with challenges specific to that development level.
or truth, even. I'm an idiot.
Brooks is willing to bear the White Man's Burden. Racist douchebag.
David Brooks always draws the wrong-est conclusion about damn near everything. "Why, Barbados is just like Haiti!" "Why, the Senator who felt me up at dinner is simply emotionally needy!" Yeah, that's it.
If you want to split hairs, David, the United States also has a history of oppression, slavery, and colonialism.
That's the stupidest comparison I've seen since this mess started. It's like when we straights set up the two gay people we know because we assume they are so much alike just because they both favor penis.
Right, when we should be converting them to "straight," as per god's instructions.
Don't stress about it. Dudes who are into dudes are so used to this that we have reflex mechanisms to deal with it.
I did one gay setup (it worked out ok! They went out a few times and probably fooled around! But then one of them moved very suddenly.), and had to begin the pitch to both parties with, "I am not doing this just because you are both gay. I have lots of gay friends that I don't try to fix up. I am saying this because I actually think you two would enjoy each other..." There's definitely a disclaimer involved, or the reflex mechanism will go into motion immediately.
But hey, CHIN UP Haiti! Clinton AND Aristide are back, baby!
I wonder if Brooks has ever been to Haiti. I went once and was amazed at how, in the midst of poverty, so many kids were going to school. It struck me that, contrary to what Brooks was positing, there was a highly developed need for excellence, which unfortunately had no place to go.
Now that I've read Brooks I realize that the people in Haiti are black, so I guess I was wrong.
Wait people in Haiti ARE BLACK!?
Well, I just gave the Brooks article a quick read and I didn't find it offensive, maddening or get any emotional response as enjoyable as those. It was just boring.
The column in bullet points:
- The scale of tragedy is primarily the result of the poverty in Haiti
- Most efforts to reduce poverty in the developing world have not enjoyed success
- If we developed effective anti-poverty programs we could greatly reduce the scale of such disasters in the future
- the things that most stand in the way of reducing poverty in Haiti are those elements of its culture which are not conducive to economic development
- anti-poverty initiatives which directly oppose those aspects of Haitian culture and attempt to alter them have the best chance of reducing poverty
Of these points the first three are not open to much debate and the last two, are to say the least, speculative. Even so, I cant really find much in the article to get pissed about and I really looked. As with most there are few things I enjoy more than castigating people I disagree with for being my moral and intellectual inferiors. I just found Brooks blaise barbados comparison too incidental for that purpose.
The article is not primarily concernedInternational anti-poverty initiatives do have a horrendous record at reducing poverty and the best thing we could do in order to avert future Haiti's would be to figure out how to make them effective. I don't see how people can get worked up about
WTF? how am I supposed to look half intelligent when there is no edit?
god bless Haiti people
good...up///up/// To create the perfect image, shape fashion. NIKE AIR MAX JORDAN SHOES,$32,COACH,GUCCI,LV,DG,ED HARDY HANDBAGS,$35,POLO,LACOSTE,ED HARDY ,AF,TSHIRTS,$16,ECT...{ http://www.allbyer.com } THANKS...