Why are there so many buildings that are still in the exact same condition 8 months after the quake?
You see video, you see people all over, but none seem organized to do anything…
Why is this?
Maybe they’re waiting for Wyclef Jean to tell them how.
seriously…
they seem to have plenty of labor…walking around…I’m really stumped as to why the labor isn’t being utilized?
not enough capital?
ZERO private property rights.
The previous responder has it. Hatians fail to rebuild much of the destroyed things because the Hatians themselves do not own anything. So they have no incentive to help rebuild their places and those of their neighbors because they will not get any of the gain from the rebuilding. It is actually sick how large numbers of people want to help Hati by taking over their airports, building roads and other stuff and by providing direct care for the people there but fail to see the obvious issues of having no ownership of property and capital.
There are no trees left to farm.
They don’t have a president… or do they?
There was a short piece on Xinhua (a Chinese government media) about this. One of the problems highlighted is the “need to foster the sense of ownership among common Haitians” a most curious phrase coming from the State media of a self-proclaimed Communist country.
One the basic issues is that Haiti before the earthquake lacked “capital goods” which could have been useful to rebuild the country: trucks, dozers, excavators, engineering capabilities… people have literally little more than their own bare hands to rebuild their own homes. They even lacked picks and spades! How can you build when you don’t even have an axe to fell a tree?
The second basic issue is that the United Nations Development Program has been put in charge of ALL reconstruction efforts. Insert your own jokes here, no need for old kakugo to do it for you. It would have made much more sense to put, say, some foreign military in charge: as wasteful and inefficient as they could be at least they would have built some harbor facilities, a few airstrips and some roads more quickly and could also have started cleared up the rubble instead of wasting millions to hire “visionaries” to come up with some European style urban abortion.
The third basic issue has been putting Bill Clinton in charge of the operations. Former President Clinton has so far been tireless… promoting himself and his personal agenda. You would have expected a former US president to be a good choice to bark orders and force bureaucrats to deliver some results but so far he’s been as ineffective as he’s ever been. All he’s done is to give lots of speeches and moan for more money while visiting the poor country as little as possible. A bit like Hitler commanding his armies from his bunker and never visiting the troops in the field… ops, I let that one slip!