Roger Noriega has provided a very one-sided commentary of the causes of Haiti's troubles.

Alternative analysis paints a different scenario as a backdrop to ongoing Haitian poverty.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/97/32135.html

Hiati is another example of the human misery that the development agencies create!

Have a look at Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate . The mass destruction of precious environments is being committed int he areas where the population is doubling, trippling or even quadroupling every generation.

Runaway population growth is THE PRIMARY CAUSE of poverty and environmental destruction, both are the result of un-sustainable birthrates.

Australians are having only 1.8 children for every 2 adults - we are slowly suiciding. But the environment is suffering most where there are 6 or even 8 children for every two adults.

To save people from poverty, and to save the environment, we need to promote free contraception, marriage and sexual equality - not in Australia, but in the poor world.

Meanwhile I know several lovely older Australians watching their families die out because their children have missed out on having children.

We need to provide more carrots for middle/professional class adults to become parents.

In Australia, the baby-bonus works very well for welfare and drug-dependent women to become mothers. $6000 is a lot of money to a drug addict. But not for middle-class families. CHILDREN SHOULD BE TAX-DEDUCTABLE !

Most women WANT to have a family, but tragically fail because few men are willing to commit to them. This is a tragedy.

But men are not commitment-phobic, they are just AFRAID. Every man knows the long-years of long hours most dads put in at the office, and the seemingly in-evitable divorce, that will rob them of their most loved children and everything else.

MAKE Families tax-deductable. Wipe out the stupid Family Tax A, B, baby bonus, maternity leave, childcare benefit and rebate, single mums pension, and all means-tested payments... wipe them all out and instead two-parent FAMILIES should be tax deductible! Income splitting between patenrs and kids!

This will have the wonderful effect of encouraging fatherhood, reducing divorce and allowing the middle/proferssional class to have the families they want, while releaving the financial pressure on welfare-dependant and migrant women to become beby-factories - children they struggle to manage and look after.

PartTimeParent@pobox.com

It is not just pop increase that creates poverty in Haiti.Mostly it is the debt created by our Global Banksters.They give money to corrupt regiemes who enslave their own populace in debt.The international finance system is a fraud.They create money from nothing and don't allow sovereign countries to do like wise.

If Haiti was to create it's own currency then the international cartels will not then trade with them or allow them to buy the goods and machinery needed for development.The Marfia have nothing on this lot.

*If Haiti was to create it's own currency then the international cartels will not then trade with them or allow them to buy the goods*

Nonsense Arjay. Any third world country can print whatever it likes.
What confidence others have in what is behind that paper, that is
the question, not about cartels.

After all, its a free world, people can name their terms, when they
buy and sell. I would personally trust Haitian currency no more then
I would trust Zimbabwean currency. But you of course, are free to
trade with those countries and accept their banknotes. Go for it
Arjay!

Witht he population doubling every 25 years, Hiati needs twice as many schools, hospitals, roads and, somehow, farmland... each generation...

This is impossible. As real estate agents say about land, "God's not making any more of it". Just think how hard it it is for our wealthy, relatively in-corrupt, governments to pay for our existing roads, schools and hospitals!

Countries with rapidly growing populations have to build infastructure not only for the existing people, but has to keep duplicating it for the population growth! A double burden!

What about the poor kids, whos parents are unable to give their kids enough food, let alone education... These people DON'T WANT to have 5 kids... but without FREE, VOLUNTARY long-acting contraception, they can't control their fertility, and continue to suffer.

China's rapidly growing wealth is due to it's wise (but im-morally imposed) one-child policy. Thailand and Iraq have both similar success, and are seeing the beginnings for rapid wealth increase (and poverty reduction)

How? they have simply given fee, contraceptive implants that last for several years, promoted this service and let people choose a happy small family, over a large, starving one.

But somehow, population management is strangely an 'evil' in the professional culture of aid organisations

ptP,

It's not how much land, but what you do with it. Look at Singapore and Hong Kong, with far less land than Haiti but far more prosperous. In fact, most of Europe is much more populated than Haiti. In the optimal circumstances, more population means more skilled and healthy people, using less area/person, contributing and not taking from the national economy.

I enthusiastically urge all those who want to tell developing countries to stop their population growth, to put their money where their mouth (and fingers) are, and get snipped.

Joe