Now before anyone says anything about how it's impossible, let me just state outright that the proposal I'm making is in no way serious nor probably going to happen anytime soon.
What if we step in and makes Haiti an unincorporated territory of the United States?
We have a long, long history of intervention in the Western Hemisphere, and Haiti is no exception. If we're going to keep Puerto Rico, why don't we also take in Haiti? It would open up the way for considerable American economic investment, which would stimulate economic growth both here and in Haiti, and it would guarantee Haitians economic and political stability in light of the recent earthquake. It is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, but it has potential.
It is far easier to manage a black Haitian population of 9 million a few hundred miles away from the shore than Iraq, which is half a world away and comprises over 30 million people who are completely different in culture and religion. It would not so much be a foreign occupation (as with Iraq) than a civilian administration dedicated to improving the economic conditions of the area.
If we're not going to do anything about it, who will?
1. The US is in massive debt and will struggle to support itself financially in the near future. What it definitely doesn't need at the moment (or at all, mind you) is to be accepting responsibility for the poorest nation in the Americas.
2. To claim that economic benefits could be made for the US is simply absurd. America produces more in the first eight hours of January the first than Haiti does in an entire year. The only people that might benefit is the Haitians, which is super cool and everything, but the US can really not afford to be putting itself in this sort of position (nor do they do they have any responsibility to do so).
this is not to say I support the Iraq war or anything of a similar nature currently engaged in by the US
The only good mike brown is a dead mike brown.
At 1/15/10 02:06 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: 1. The US is in massive debt and will struggle to support itself financially in the near future. What it definitely doesn't need at the moment (or at all, mind you) is to be accepting responsibility for the poorest nation in the Americas.
I'm well aware of this. I'm ignoring it for the present moment because we seem to be able to be supporting two countries already (and if we can do that, we can almost certainly manage Haiti).
Also, there is a more realistic return on investment for American companies in Haiti than in Iraq, provided there was a stable economic and political environment.
2. To claim that economic benefits could be made for the US is simply absurd. America produces more in the first eight hours of January the first than Haiti does in an entire year.
If Haiti was turned into a thriving economy, its GDP would be multiplied by several times. It would be similar to creating the 51st state.
At 1/15/10 02:15 AM, chairmankem wrote: I'm well aware of this. I'm ignoring it for the present moment because we seem to be able to be supporting two countries already (and if we can do that, we can almost certainly manage Haiti).
We aren't supporting them well and basically we're throwing money into a black hole as we don't really seem to be getting any return on the investment. Haiti is the poorest nation in the world because Haiti doesn't make or import anything anybody wants. The only thing I can think of them having that anybody might want, and I am actually being serious when I say this, is that damn zombie powder the boukars (spelling?) make. Imagine having a drugged out work force that don't demand pay? You'd most likely never get away with it, but that's about the only thing I could see anybody wanting.
Also, there is a more realistic return on investment for American companies in Haiti than in Iraq, provided there was a stable economic and political environment.
But there isn't, especially now. You'd have to pump mad money into rebuilding it before you could try it, and really we've already got enough companies out sourcing jobs so why would we want them doing it any more? Not to mention we'd basically have to annex Haiti right this second I figure and that isn't happening without them agreeing to it or the international community will have a fit. They'd certainly have even more of a fit I'd think if they put any money for aid in and then we after the fact take a rebuilt Haiti and try to reap all the benefit.
If Haiti was turned into a thriving economy, its GDP would be multiplied by several times. It would be similar to creating the 51st state.
If if if. You have a lot of if's but I don't see an actual plan. Not to mention there's some very real stumbling blocks so as to make the enterprise pretty well worthless to us or anybody else.
You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the senate. --Mark Pryor, Senator
The Endless Crew: Comics and general wackiness. Join us or die.
PM me about forum abuse.
At 1/15/10 02:15 AM, chairmankem wrote: I'm well aware of this. I'm ignoring it for the present moment because we seem to be able to be supporting two countries already (and if we can do that, we can almost certainly manage Haiti).
um no. That's two countries too many, but I really don't get your logic. "Well we're wasting millions of dollars already, what can some more hurt".
Also, there is a more realistic return on investment for American companies in Haiti than in Iraq, provided there was a stable economic and political environment.
I said I'm opposed to US involvement in Iraq
If Haiti was turned into a thriving economy, its GDP would be multiplied by several times. It would be similar to creating the 51st state.
lol yeah, IF. Do you have anything to suggest it would be? What would inevitably happen is the US government will throw billions of dollars at the country, things won't really pick up, and someone/something will be blamed in place of government incompetency/foolishness.
The only good mike brown is a dead mike brown.
At 1/15/10 02:43 AM, aviewaskewed wrote: We aren't supporting them well and basically we're throwing money into a black hole as we don't really seem to be getting any return on the investment.
That's actually what I was saying in another thread, but yeah.
Haiti is the poorest nation in the world because Haiti doesn't make or import anything anybody wants.
Haiti currently imports much more than they export, but a lot of that is due to economic mismanagement. I suppose that Haiti could export coffee or sugarcane or whatnot if there was sufficient investment. And it would be able to give some people jobs.
But there isn't, especially now. You'd have to pump mad money into rebuilding it before you could try it, and really we've already got enough companies out sourcing jobs so why would we want them doing it any more?
First off, we're going to spend a lot of money to help rebuild it right now. After relief and recovery, I don't see why we won't be able to send companies there. And you really can't outsource raw industry and agriculture as readily as you can manufacturing and service jobs.
Not to mention we'd basically have to annex Haiti right this second I figure and that isn't happening without them agreeing to it or the international community will have a fit.
Yeah, which is why I don't think it's really that feasible, as stated in the original post. If Haitians agreed to it, then it wouldn't be a problem. I would imagine that if it was a realistic option that both the US and Haiti were considering, then some, if not most of them, would not be totally against it.
If if if. You have a lot of if's but I don't see an actual plan. Not to mention there's some very real stumbling blocks so as to make the enterprise pretty well worthless to us or anybody else.
There are a lot of stumbling blocks on the way to economic prosperity. I think it'd be possible, if (there are the ifs again) it was a politically considerable option.
At 1/15/10 02:54 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: um no. That's two countries too many, but I really don't get your logic. "Well we're wasting millions of dollars already, what can some more hurt".
Again, this is why it's only a hypothetical, but I honestly see more of a return on investment from that rather than going all the way to Iraq or Afghanistan.
lol yeah, IF. Do you have anything to suggest it would be? What would inevitably happen is the US government will throw billions of dollars at the country, things won't really pick up, and someone/something will be blamed in place of government incompetency/foolishness.
The effort should be, for the most part, privately driven. The government should be responsible for keeping order and managing corruption, and offer subsidies to investing companies as an incentive. If it doesn't pick up, companies will leave and the US can just give up and restore Haiti's independence.
To be a cold bastard: you don't "annex" a country that just got rocked by an earthquake which has buried, amputated, and killed thousands of people already. Secondly, It's one of the poorest countries in the West--Jamaica is doing better than Haiti by only a few billion dollars. And even though disaster is a golden door of opportunity, there is nothing to capitalize on at the moment, there is only rescue and clean-up. Nevertheless, this is reason to be very concerned with what could happen to the rest of the Caribbean given this natural disaster.
It would be better to cut off funding, at this point. 14 major disasters in 9 years? I think it'd be better if everyone just left the island and gave up on it as uninhabitable.
At 1/15/10 08:30 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: It would be better to cut off funding, at this point. 14 major disasters in 9 years? I think it'd be better if everyone just left the island and gave up on it as uninhabitable.
If that were to come the D.R. would take control of the western half of the island.
Well we were dumb enough to think it was gonna happen.
At 1/15/10 12:35 PM, ToddM wrote:At 1/15/10 08:30 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: It would be better to cut off funding, at this point. 14 major disasters in 9 years? I think it'd be better if everyone just left the island and gave up on it as uninhabitable.If that were to come the D.R. would take control of the western half of the island.
Looks good to me:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/dr.html
I think Haiti would be doing a lot better if they stopped using such stupid building practices. They need to start using earth-sheltered homes (on high ground, obviously) and earthquake-resistant design methods (this isn't super-expensive or anything, you can make quake-resistant walls with bamboo and rammed earth).
It would also be good for them if they planted trees and didn't immediately cut them down.
At 1/15/10 02:06 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: 1. The US is in massive debt and will struggle to support itself financially in the near future. What it definitely doesn't need at the moment (or at all, mind you) is to be accepting responsibility for the poorest nation in the Americas.
2. To claim that economic benefits could be made for the US is simply absurd. America produces more in the first eight hours of January the first than Haiti does in an entire year. The only people that might benefit is the Haitians, which is super cool and everything, but the US can really not afford to be putting itself in this sort of position (nor do they do they have any responsibility to do so).
this is not to say I support the Iraq war or anything of a similar nature currently engaged in by the US
I dunno if you're looking at this the right way. The Haitans wouldn't be able to pay very much in taxes but they also probably wouldn't use as much federal money as other states. Annexing Haiti would hurt the lower middle class and would benefit the upper class (which would acquire cheap labor).
"The mountain is a quarry of rock, the trees are a forest of timber, the rivers are water in the dam, the wind is wind-in-the-sails"
-Martin Heidegger
Make no mistake, this disaster will be exploited by the United States government and multinational corporations.
Don't be fooled by their gestures of generiosity, they have no interest in the people of Haiti; they want the land. These are not acts of caring, but acts of dominance.
We pretty much ARE annexing Haiti, but these days we just call it "projecting power".
"We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves."-Errico Malatesta
At 1/15/10 06:33 AM, chairmankem wrote: That's actually what I was saying in another thread, but yeah.
I had noticed that and agreed with pretty much everything you were saying in that thread so that's why it was even more of a "wait what?" to come over here and see you advocating dumping money into the poorest nation in the world and being "we're already throwing shit tons at two other poor countries". I mean, you yourself don't think that's a good use of personnel or funds, so why should we take on something even more screwed?
Haiti currently imports much more than they export, but a lot of that is due to economic mismanagement. I suppose that Haiti could export coffee or sugarcane or whatnot if there was sufficient investment. And it would be able to give some people jobs.
But we can already get that stuff, as can most countries. Again it goes back to what does Haiti uniquely have that anybody would want? Again the answer appears to be nothing. If Haiti say was sitting on a huge untapped oil well or gold repository it would probably be worth dumping in all the money and effort to develop the country because the rewards would be huge. But that isn't the case, so hey, I'm all for helping them out after this horrible disaster they've suffered...but that's it. There's no reason for any one country to flush money down a toilet and know that's what they're doing and they'll never get it back. It'd take the efforts of several nations to build Haiti into a viable economic and world player and that just won't happen unless said nations see something they really badly want.
First off, we're going to spend a lot of money to help rebuild it right now.
It's not going to approach what it would cost to make it functional. What is going to be donated is a capped amount from us, a capped amount from China, some military support, and then private donors and charities will get involved. Even then what's going to happen is it's only going to become less of a shit hole. Have you payed attention to anything missionaries or other people have said about it? They flat out call Haiti hell, and not just because of the quake. The qoute I heard today was Haiti was Hell before, but now with the quake Hell just got worse. So yeah, we're not going to build it bigger and better, we're going to help with clean up, and then when the news and the world has moved on to the next celebutard scandal or whatever we're going to pull out and let Haiti continue to rot because they can't fix their fucking country.
After relief and recovery, I don't see why we won't be able to send companies there.
I can, and it's very simple why: PEOPLE THERE HAVE NO FUCKING MONEY!!!! Almost the entire population is below the poverty line, they have nothing. You don't send companies to a place where people don't have money. You can't run a successful business when you don't have any customers. That's why there's so many charities there, because they aren't really able to buy things. Missionaries and shit tend to not go to thriving areas. That is why companies don't set up over there.
And you really can't outsource raw industry and agriculture as readily as you can manufacturing and service jobs.
True, but as I said, why would companies go over there unless it's to set up some kind of manufacturing sweat shop where you're going to pay people in pennies? Service jobs you can forget because again, the country is dirt poor and nobody has money really for services to make that feasible.
Yeah, which is why I don't think it's really that feasible, as stated in the original post. If Haitians agreed to it, then it wouldn't be a problem. I would imagine that if it was a realistic option that both the US and Haiti were considering, then some, if not most of them, would not be totally against it.
I don't think they would be. Why is Puerto Rico not a state? Because Puerto Ricans vote against it every time it's on the ballet, they are letting their little island go to hell to maintain the illusion of independence and it seems to me Haitians are either perfectly happy to do the same to have actual independence, or they just don't know any better.
There are a lot of stumbling blocks on the way to economic prosperity. I think it'd be possible, if (there are the ifs again) it was a politically considerable option.
But once again you don't really give us any solid reasons as to why you think it's feasible. That's my whole issue, it's a pie in the sky kind of thought process that seems to be built on misplaced humanitarian principles.
You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the senate. --Mark Pryor, Senator
The Endless Crew: Comics and general wackiness. Join us or die.
PM me about forum abuse.
Why are we paying to help them, Let his brothers Zeus and Poseidon help out Haitis
haha. I know it a shity joke but i had to say it.
But seriously why are we helping them. We are broke, they hate us, We dont have the money to go around helping everyone....
At 1/15/10 09:23 PM, darkrchaos wrote:
We dont have the money to go around helping everyone....
But we certainly have the money to sustain an unprecedented military, the "American Way" at it's finest.
Well we pretty much did this when the CIA overthrew the democratic Haiti and replaced it with a Pro-West dictatorship, so I assume its a puppet government at this point, this is the reason the US is caring so much for it, I mean I don't remember sending all that money to the Tsunami vistims in Southwest Asia. I assume this spending on Haiti is to gain the people's support of the West, because honestly I doubt that Obama would be that stupid to fund the repair of Haiti when we're in a recession and there's no gain out of it, just leave the support to fundraisers like Hurricane Katrina, that way they get the relief they need, without getting us deeper in a recession.
Why not annex it? Why not just go take over Cuba goddamnit? That sure would solve alot of problems with that nation, instead of just leaving it to some Cuban exiles force which failed miserably. The point is, is that you don't solve the problem when you annex it, the Federal Government doesn't do that much to support States, as the States should be able to do this on there own, which not many are, hell in the South some area's are pretty much 3rd world country equivalents, one town got phone service finally about a year ago.
"If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.
" - Barry Goldwater.
For one, the United States is in a serious economical mess, annexing Haiti would prove only to rid the US of resources that would be used to stabilize the US economy, and later annex it without problems.
Two, the Haitians speak a variety of French called Patua (or something along those lines), an odd blend of French mixed in with African languages. Along with speaking a rare dialect of French, Haiti is a country that fits in more with African culture than American (North and South, calling only US citizens Americans is a common mistake)
For three, if the US annexed Haiti, thr illicit drug trade in the US would worsen. RIght now, we in Puerto Rico are experiencing terrible drug problems which the US government doesn't take seriously. An example of these effects is that in the capital, San Juan, you see hundreds of homeless people, and you have teenagers (from ghettos, which we call Caserios) killing other people. Upon my vacation in New York city I saw maybe three homeless people. I'm not saying that it would be so bad for the US, I am saying that the fact that it will be easier to travel to Haiti will make organized crime spread more easily.
For four, Haiti is a country poor in soil. From what I understand, the reason that most buildings were decimated was because they ussed Haitian soil in the mixture.
The best COA would be to help Haiti as much as possible. Rebuild, give food, etc. In doing so, it'll ensure that Haiti stays friendly towards the US.
"I am the devil, and I have come to do the devil's work."
-V
Haiti needs to declare war on the U.S.,then the U.S. invades,leaves an occupying force,keeps the peace,and rebuilds.
The only way Haiti would ever become part of the states is if they were so great full for our aid that they wanted to join us.
Focus: It will never happen.
At 1/16/10 10:04 AM, JSMaTT wrote: The only way Haiti would ever become part of the states is if they were so great full for our aid that they wanted to join us.
;;;
Greatful ! ! ! !
WTF...I personally think the US has done enough already !
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n08/paul-farmer /who-removed-aristide
Canada's got nothing to be proud of either !
http://www.matthewgood.org/2010/01/finis hing-the-job/
Those who have only the religious opinions of others in their head & worship them. Have no room for their own thoughts & no room to contemplate anyone elses ideas either-More
At 1/15/10 09:10 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: I mean, you yourself don't think that's a good use of personnel or funds, so why should we take on something even more screwed?
Well, clearly I don't consider it more than a fancy, but if I were to argue for it, I'd say it's closer to home, it's more culturally pliable, and a potential location for American investment.
But we can already get that stuff, as can most countries. Again it goes back to what does Haiti uniquely have that anybody would want?
Nothing in particular, but it could be opened up to private interests. Tourism. Large-scale agriculture. Maybe some mining and industry. The government wouldn't need to do much more than maintain order, if anything.
I can, and it's very simple why: PEOPLE THERE HAVE NO FUCKING MONEY!!!! Almost the entire population is below the poverty line, they have nothing. You don't send companies to a place where people don't have money.
The most valuable asset that they have is cheap labor, which is for the most part unexploited. Much of the labor force is unemployed, and if they were offered jobs they'd probably work for next to nothing.
True, but as I said, why would companies go over there unless it's to set up some kind of manufacturing sweat shop where you're going to pay people in pennies?
Actually, that was kind of what I was suggesting. Sweatshops at least keep the labor force occupied and give them some money, which is a lot better than none at all. Then it would be able to bring service industries into the country.
I don't think they would be. Why is Puerto Rico not a state? Because Puerto Ricans vote against it every time it's on the ballet, they are letting their little island go to hell to maintain the illusion of independence and it seems to me Haitians are either perfectly happy to do the same to have actual independence, or they just don't know any better.
Nationalism would be a big issue, but then again, Puerto Rico isn't in the same state of destitution as Haiti. As with Puerto Rico, we could maintain an illusion of independence in a similar fashion.
But once again you don't really give us any solid reasons as to why you think it's feasible.
Aside from the pool of cheap labor? There must be some economic or strategic value in it if we've seen fit to interfere in its politics even after the Cold War.
At 1/16/10 09:46 AM, Gortag wrote: Haiti needs to declare war on the U.S.,then the U.S. invades,leaves an occupying force,keeps the peace,and rebuilds.
US already occupied Haiti in 1915-1937 and people say that it was better when they left then when they got there.
"If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.
" - Barry Goldwater.
Select between 5 monster racers, upgrade your monster skill and win the competition!
4.18 / 5.00 3,534 Views
Build most powerful forces, unleash hordes of monster and control your soldiers!
3.80 / 5.00 4,200 Views
© Copyright 1995-2014 Newgrounds, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
newgrounds.com — Your #1 online entertainment & artist community! All your base are belong to us.
