Today, at around 3:40PT, a 7.2 earthquake struck Mexicali, which is right on the border of California. I felt the earthquake here in San Diego, and the tremors were felt as far away as Nevada. This earthquake is a bit larger than the one that struck Haiti, but did much less damage. Yes, the United States government does enforce certain building codes, but the Mexican government is certainly less strict about enforcing any building codes they may have. Yet, the earthquake killed one person who’s house collapsed, while Mexicali remains standing. While Mexico is hardly a free economy, and neither does even come near to being a free economy, they are nevertheless relatively freer than Haiti and one can certainly see the benefits of capitalism.
Not that any Haitian or American politicians would like to see the connection, though.
You’ve got it all wrong my friend. The benevolent governments of the USA and Mexico are responsible. Haiti’s problem is a lack of regulation. If only they had the good fortune to have a caring government to make sure all buildings were built better this wouldn’t have happened.
..as long as we support the government with enough funds we will have clean water (it’s almost a threat). I guess that’s why we keep propping up these dictatorial regimes. If they just get a little more power I’m sure the people will get clean water the next time…
This issue is already settled. The difference between Haiti and Chile was government regulations. Haiti has had a dysfunctional corrupt government while Chile did not. The problem was therefore not enough [competent] government intervention in the free economy to enforce and oversee building code regulations. I kid you not, there is almost a unanimous consensus on this issue by both Liberals and Conservatives.
An interesting note is that Zimbabwe had/has the largest supply of water on the continent, yet experienced water shortages - I’m talking about reservoir water for agriculture, though.
If you define freedom as the absence of official government, Haiti is among the freest places in the world. Supposedly the local slang for the U.N. ‘peacekeepers’ is “tourists,” because they don’t do anything. They certainly don’t enforce building codes.
Haiti officially has a government, but even before the quake, they didn’t really control much outside of Port au Prince. They haven’t had much legitimacy either since the U.S. backed coup against the previous administration.
It’s interesting to note that people in Cuba never get malaria, for example, but people in Haiti do regularly, because no one in Haiti bothers to clear the malaria swamps.
Haiti is basically under a do-nothing foreign occupation.