20824: Jepiem: Re: 20810: Munsell: RE: 20802: Dollars Plummets in Haiti in one day? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jepiem@aol.com

Please let us in on the various theories you have heard for this drastic drop
in the rate of the dollar vs the haitian gourde. There are a few posts
related to this subject which leave me a bit puzzled and confused. The rate hasn't
been that low for many years. I believe it went to its highest during the
embargo, somewhere around fifty gourdes. Questions are being asked as to what it
means in Haiti. Let's suppose you are a rich cousin in the US and send me fifty
US dollars a week ago. I would convert that into gourdes and gotten about 2000
gourdes. Today with the new rate I would get only 1250 gourdes. Would I be
richer a week ago? It depends. If I shop in the supermarket, the prices are in
US dollar anyway so it doesn't matter. If I go to the street market, I will
have fewer gourdes in my pocket to buy what I need. However prices of things also
fluctuate as rapidly as the dollar rate itself. They tend to go up instead of
down. I suspect that articles and services that do not touch the foreign
market at all ( and there are really few of those) shouldn't be affected. However
since the source of money in Haiti remains import of dollars from abroad we
are back to the same predicament, which is fewer gourdes in the pocket.Remember
that a heavy percentage of the economy is based on import from the US and you
need US dollars to bring things in. You need US dollars to buy the gasoline to
run the trucks and the tap taps that bring people to the market. There is
indeed a clear winner in all this I think and it won't be the poor peasant or the
poor daily wage earner, it's the people that amass US dollars in Haiti to buy
things on the foreign market whether for personal use or for commerce. It's
also those that gather those dollars and come hoarding them in US banks or buy
property in the US as many haitians with money do. At least that's the way I
see it.
By the way send me seventy five dollars this time instead of fifty. Things
have gotten tougher.
Math Jay