#4287: Morse/Poincy (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: oloffsonram <oloffsonram@globelsud.net>


To Poincy:
You're right. I'm not an economist. And by the looks of things in 
Haiti, no one else around here, including the present Lavalas 
government, is either. This place is a mess and its not getting any 
better. 
The strangest thing happened while I was reading your "cotton economy 
and build the rock roads by hand" piece. I projected Aristide into your 
comments as though he himself were writing them and I thought, "this is 
like the twilight zone". If we go to cotton picking, we probably don't 
need much education for the folks which will save a lot of money on 
education and training. Those people don't need phones and electricity 
anyway. If they get sick there's always the General Hospital in Port-au-
Prince. Government officials get flown to Cuba and the elites get medi-
vacced to Miami when they have emergencies. A few hand built roads to 
get the cotton to where ever its going to be processed might truly work 
etc etc. 

I always thought Haitians could do better than that, but maybe I was 
mistaken. I've watched about four months of Jean Claude, CNG, Manigat, 
Avril, Troulliot, Aristide, Cedras, Honorat, The old drunk guy, Bazin, 
Jonassaint, Aristide 2, Preval and all the little ones in between and 
its really not a very impressive list of politicians, economists, 
social and moral leaders. And if I may add, no advancement for the 
Haitian people, although a few did get rich along the way. Isn't that 
really what its all about? A few getting rich? If you feel that picking 
cotton is the way to go, by all means do your best and go plant cotton 
seeds. Who am I to tell you its a bad idea. And if you can employ a few 
people and help out a few families along the way, more power to you.

Richard Morse