15477: Raber: Re: 15454: Dorce Re: 15436: Raber: 15423: Vishnusurf: (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P&M Raber <raber@valkyrie.net>

I am saying that Country needs to be put ahead of human desire to win at all
cost.  It does not matter which side compromises.  There is a time to
quit/compromise and make a country function.  Democracy does not appear
magically at the end of an election.  It flows out of a working economy
where people can work and feed their families.  The US has it faults.  I
would suspect however that most regular Corbetters live in the US or at
least can retreat back there at any moment.  If given the choice of living
in Haiti or the USA with no possibility of ever leaving again, I wonder
where they would choose to live? I am all for good wages for all workers
around the world.  However? While in Haiti Between 1995 and 2001, I
witnessed a boycott against Disney clothing made in Haiti and you know what
happened?  The Minimum wage in Haiti stayed the same and hundreds of workers
lost their jobs for good when the factory moved to a different country (I
believe it was Santo Domingo but I am not sure).  During that same time, a
businessman was investigating moving his factories from Asia into Haiti when
the Asian recession started.  He gave up after being asked insane bribes to
have the right to Teleco phone lines and other uch items they should have
provided with.  I also withness my nanny get married to a man who had an
excellent 12 year job by an American factory owner making metal crafts for
export.  The American eventually left the country as the bribes/loss he was
paying at the port were eating up his entire profit.  The new Haitian
manager's first move was to fire all long term employees (it's been almost 3
years and Affaire Sociales still has not forced the man to pay the employees
their dedomagement which by now has lost 75 % of its value) and rehire a
work force at minimum wage.  Since I left haiti soon after (tired of
shielding my children from seeing up to 5 chopped up bodies on the road at
once), this two income family fell back to the ranks of the poor.  If all
human feelings are taken out of the equation, wages are the result of supply
and demand.  Many horrors would disappear if our economy was encouraged to
develop:  tax credit/deductions for having to provide your own electricity,
duty free generators for big businesses that create more than a number of
jobs, duty free propane for all (making charcoal more expensive than
propane) and duty free small propane burners,  safety for business owners
etc....   If people had job choices, they would not accept the wages they
are paid and parents would not sell they little girls as restaveks because
they could feed them and hopefully the government would provide free quality
elementary edutation for them..

M Raber