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#1600: "The Phrase": Drive comments
From: Tom F. Driver <tfd3@columbia.edu>
Jean Jean-Pierre's well-founded suspicion about the accuracy of "the
Phrase" and Guy Antoine's reply to it remind me of something that Ron Voss
(Haiti Parish Twinning Program) is fond of saying: "There is no
unemployment in Haiti. The figures say it's high, but that's not true because
everybody in Haiti works all the time."
Voss's point, if it needs spelling out, is that the figures reflect only the formal
sector of the economy, not the informal sector which keeps most of the
population afloat. Not afloat in a good boat, I hasten to add, and not very
high above the lapping waves of disaster, but surviving anyhow through sheer
hard work and ingenuity.
-------------
Tom F. Driver
New York City
<tfd3@columbia.edu>