Wyclef Jean running for President of Haiti

I read that whole paragraph thinking that it was about wyclef and why he should be the president
 
Originally Posted by TeamJordan79

Originally Posted by damnTHOSEjs

for someone who stole money from his own foundation this is straight up hypocritical. he'll turn Haiti into Liberia to the 3rd degree.
Click to expand...
thats how i see it
Click to expand...


Yeah, but he fills a prerequisite to be President after laundering money for himself.
 
Originally Posted by TeamJordan79

Originally Posted by damnTHOSEjs

for someone who stole money from his own foundation this is straight up hypocritical. he'll turn Haiti into Liberia to the 3rd degree.
Click to expand...
thats how i see it
Click to expand...


Yeah, but he fills a prerequisite to be President after laundering money for himself.
 
The country is corrupt and broken as is...

..lets see what ol' Clef can do.

My-T.
 
The country is corrupt and broken as is...

..lets see what ol' Clef can do.

My-T.
 
If that Earthquake didn't happen, he'd still going the whole charity fraud route w. Yele.....most politicians are crooked to begin with, but why elect someone with NO experience? I understand his popularity and passion for Haiti, but I think this is a big mistake. Get someone in there who is qualified for the position.
 
If that Earthquake didn't happen, he'd still going the whole charity fraud route w. Yele.....most politicians are crooked to begin with, but why elect someone with NO experience? I understand his popularity and passion for Haiti, but I think this is a big mistake. Get someone in there who is qualified for the position.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...
Rex for Pres!!
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...
Rex for Pres!!
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...


Very interesting post, I would love to see Haitis benefit to the US if it could be reformed.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...


Very interesting post, I would love to see Haitis benefit to the US if it could be reformed.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...


Very interesting post, I would love to see Haitis benefit to the US if it could be reformed.
 
Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


No, there would be no chance of the Fugees having a reunion tour if he is busy being the president of Haiti.

In all seriousness, I think that if he were actually president of Haiti, the lives of ordinary people would get better. Haiti has many problems such as disease, poor infrastructure, very little education, thin and over farmed soil, a lack of trees that cause even more top soil to be washed away and an economy that is at the mercy of global sugar price fluctuations. All of those problems stem from two things, a lack of property rights and rampant corruption.

The corruption means that bribes must be given for almost every singe economic activity. The administrative fees in Haiti cost more than twice the average Haitian's annual income and when bribes are taken into account the number could be a multiple of that so the cost, in dollars in terms of red tape would be the equivalent of, in the US, having to pay fees of $80,000 to 800,000 just to get the bureaucratic green light. That same process also takes time, over a year on average. After you have paid that money and waited, you now have to pay bribes to get access to infrastructure, to have equipment delivered (and you have to wait a while as well).

If your business grows in the face of those obstacles your are subject to more demands for bribes and the lack of property rights, the weakest in the Americas, puts your business at risk of partial or full confiscation. If you obtained the millions of dollars needed to start and run a business that is profitable but it is taken over and/or bled white by demands for bribes you are out of luck, your work was for nothing. In addition, if your business was financed by foreign investors (and in all likelihood it would have to be because there is almost no money, let alone extra money that could be invested, in Haiti) and that return on investment is wiped out by government confiscation, the next round of potential foreign investment would be at much higher interest rates and higher interest rates combined with the same high levels of corruption and threat of confiscation by Haitian officials makes entrepreneurial spirit and the life giving economic growth, that it can foster, even less likely to occur.

Some overlook the lack property rights and the menace of corruption and focus on the problems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. What is important to remember is that corruption and poor property rights have either cause and/or intensified the health and environmental problems in Haiti as well as its very poor public sector and its sugar based economy. The lack of property rights means that for the Haitian farmer he has to avoid crops or farming practices that would create long term improvements in his land, he would never want to have orchards or leave his fields fallow or plant trees that would help to reduce top soil destroying flooding because he would have to forgo income today for the promise of more income tomorrow but the problem is that if he succeeds he attracts the attention of the government which will take his gains through bribes and/or confiscation. The result is what economists call, the "tragedy of the commons," a poor property rights arrangement causes rational individuals to undermine their own ability to make a living because they had no incentive to let their renewable resources ever have time to off in order to recover.

The consequence of a monoculture farming economy is that there is little incentive to plant and maintain trees and that causes stagnant pools to form which are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria and more health is going to cause further damage to any economy. Having a sugar based economy is also very problematic because if there is a spike in sugar prices, the extra revenues are taken as bribes and in years with low sugar prices there is more poverty than usual and the family has to take the children out of school so they might start a new crop of sugar. In addition, the unstable flow of tax revenues along with the the graft by public officials means that very little money gets into class rooms and the children (when they are actually there and not needed for emergency plantings when the price of sugar is low) end up as adults who are illiterate or semi illiterate and that obviously is another huge obstacle in the road to economic growth.

Some consider the ability to look at real life connections between incentives and outcomes to be at best, unrealistic theorizing, and more often as reciting the contents of a textbook. Unfortunately for the very real people of Haiti, their country has been a text book case of how poor governance makes it so that people of a country stay poor. They have created every incentive for environmental degradation, for categorically choosing the short run over the long run and for even the least risk averse foreign investors to stay away from investing in that country.

The only way for Haiti to have a chance at escaping poverty is to try to reduce corruption as much as possible and to strengthen property rights as much as possible. If Haiti's government were substantially purged of corruption and if property rights were allowed to reign in Haiti, Haiti could escape poverty in time.

That process could be, I believe, hastened by an infusion of foreign aid and/or charity from abroad. Providing decent schooling, taking antimalarial measures, guaranteeing that all the children will have enough calories and nutrients and basic health care would, against a back drop of property rights and transparency, provide immediate relief in the suffering there and with 20 years very serious gains would begin to show because children who did not suffer from malnutrition and serious illness are smarter, stronger and could perhaps be the generation that would lead the way and help Haiti be on the road to one day being able to be place that creates enough wealth so that its masses can no longer live in squalor and might become place that when the next large Earthquake strikes the country will have wealthy enough citizens that the buildings will be earthquake resist and enough money in the treasury that it will have the means to provide emergency assistance to the few areas with noticeable damage, in other words, may Haiti's next earthquake be like California or Japan most recent large quake.

All of this hinges on the country's governance, nothing else will fundamentally change things there. Our charity dollars can provide emergency aid and we, the Americans, could provide a boost to their economy by not charging import tariff and quotas in their sugar because it would mutually benefit American consumers as well as help Haitian sugar farmers (it would also me an act of atonement for this country's cruel and tragic history of our government repeatedly meddling in Haiti's political affairs) but the only long term fix is for Haitians to drain their own political swamp.

A Haitian who is already wealthy, who lives aboard and who seems altruistic enough towards his countrymen to be president, to refuse to accept bribes and to fire those who do and to guarantee the property rights of Haitians and of those who try to do business in Haiti is the ideal president. So going by those specifications, Wyclef Jean is ideal and would likely be the best president in Haiti's sorry political history of American backed stooges and homegrown dictators and if he actually did become president of that country it would be real cause for hope for that Caribbean nation.







 
Click to expand...


Very interesting post, I would love to see Haitis benefit to the US if it could be reformed.
 
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