If you’re going to do something, might as well be the best at it.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1525099.php/Latvian-recession-worst-in-history-says-economist

Andrejs

As a friend said yesterday—compare Haiti or even Katrina to get some perspective.

At least we have something to suffer such tribulations in?

Vysu lobu,
/P

We are indeed the best at suffering. This should be part of our national anthem:

Woe to me because of my injury!
    My wound is incurable!
    Yet I said to myself,
    “This is my sickness, and I must endure it.”

PS By the way, the guy’s credentials are being discussed here.

Thanks Aleks. I knew I had seen that name before and something about him just didn’t quite jibe. Almost felt subliminaly that there was some axe being ground there, but not being that familiar with economics didn’t know which.

Andrejs

Veidenbaums vainīgs.

/P

PC states:

As a friend said yesterday—compare Haiti or even Katrina to get some perspective.
At least we have something to suffer such tribulations in?

I will for now, assume that PC is not mocking “our” current/past sufferings.

But both Aleksejs and Andrejs with sureness, direct their attentions towards this mock…

And then PC concludes: “Veidenbaums vainīgs.”

But to remain in focus towards Haiti (and definitely not with Katrina—- as this was really an example of the state/local political party blatantly and hatefully at odds with another political party), one has to wonder why so many Haiti deaths.
Was there then some more destructive tsunami afterwards? Or for years, did some “green” movement prevent the use of wood in building houses for the “poor“, favoring instead “cinder blocks” in this very obviously known earthquake prone area.

So just for whom then are we trying to save this planet for? If it’s not for the humans ...

Mikus E.

P.S. And do not get me wrong here, as I think humans should indeed recycle their paper, their plastics, their etc. (Hey, we even now have a “green” Pope!) But let’s not ever forget our intellect, our common sense ...nor our learned experiences!

Miku,

What wood?

Vysu lobu,
/P

PC, the term wood (or perhaps as you [pc] might now had rightly noted should be embraced by quotes—- hmmm, but did I only leave the quotes off simply because you [pc] have before taken severe offense to my excessive use of quotes—- should still be embraced by quotes), is my reference to “true green” and not the contemporary, typical emotionally driven “green“.

To me, wood is “real green”. Hey, even those reserves of oil that we now consume, resulted from “real green”! (But isn’t real green not only of trees, but by any other plant?—- even the sunlight that allows all this to be? Then a gift of the sun?) I find it amazing that a God would have given his later multitudes of “in his likeness” a gift such as that. Yes, while we were very busily chopping down as many trees we once did easily come across, we still although stumbled upon oil—- way before we “ran out of wood“. Hmmm, it seems that we will never run out of energy for we are “meant” to still “stumble” upon finding additional sources.

Personally, I think that man/women should have had developed nuclear energy much more by now.—-Perhaps even considering a two-tier pricing for oil; one for dynamic use (such as cars/heating) and another for static uses (such as extensive construction of “plastic” houses—- again personally, really a blend between metal and plastic).

But more specifically as to PC’s “what wood”...

Yes, the global warm-ists will complain that the Haitians had burned much of the hillside “forests”  for winter warmth, and for later populating those very same lands where the trees once stood.—- but has this not this fact really only compounded their prevalent (global-ists) emotional grief towards Haiti?

So let’s keep in mind that the winters in Haiti are mild and it is usually the hurricanes that had merely stress wood structures and her people (only resulting in very few deaths)—- as earthquakes simply do not cause that many deaths upon a society based upon wood. —- But what did actually happen in between her major earthquakes?

Is “rock” the sure answer? Okay, while the US embassy in Haiti may had withstood her recent earthquake—- but at what costs.

Mikus E.

P.S. And let’s not dwell too much upon the inherent hazards of “wood“, such as fire, as these can now be
successfully addressed by any modern human.

So don’t bring up the past fire storms that literally overtook 1871 Chicago, 1755 Lisbon, 1666 London. Talk to me instead of the contrast with 2005 New Orleans. (For most wooden cities had been rebuilt—- except for this modern, political New Orleans.)

P.P.S. It would seem that a marriage between plastics and metal can become “reliability” immune to both earthquakes and hurricanes.

Miku et al.,

You seriously believe that environmental devastation doesn’t harm Haitians as much as it harms environmentalists?

The list of ills that made Haiti hopeless long before this latest tragedy is a lengthy one, and many of those ills were imposed from without. Here is a disturbing but enlightening survey of some of the principal ones—

“Why is Haiti so poor?”

See also Jared Diamond’s “One island, two worlds.”

Madison Smartt Bell’s All Souls’ Rising is one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read; someone should make a TV series out of it before everybody again forgets that Haiti exists. In French, perhaps, as part of a campaign to get that country (the darling of some on the left) to pay reparations for the crimes it committed, returning the “debts” it forced Haiti to pay with interest.

As it is, the exploitation of this tragedy by demagogues on both the left and the right, commencing as soon as the news of the earthquake came, is unbearably revolting. So is the pablum coming out of the White House.

I don’t think there’s any hope on the horizon for Haiti at all. There wasn’t any before the earthquake, and the current efforts that lead to such self-congratulation are no more than a drop in a bucket without a bottom.

Vysu lobu,
/P

PC steers way to the left…

You seriously believe that environmental devastation doesn’t harm Haitians as much as it harms environmentalists?

The list of ills that made Haiti hopeless long before this latest tragedy is a lengthy one, and many of those ills were imposed from without. Here is a disturbing but enlightening survey of some of the principal ones—

“Why is Haiti so poor?”

The question is not why Haiti is so poor, but what have these “new” global-do-gooders done to Haiti?
Yes, some will blame the US for its negative role in Haiti’s rice crop. But is the US to be blamed for the decline of Volvo and Saab as well? (No PC, these were deliberately designed by the EU itself ... whether the results were intentional, is [I guess] up always up to debate.)

Mikus E.

P.S. And let us not also ignore her climate…

PC should had been very aware that I usually do not agree with Jared.

Oh, while he may have a good command for facts, he lacks much in connecting the dots.

Mikus E.

Miku,

Consider the fact that part of Latvia’s foundation is the result of what you would apparently call “steering to the left,” something that seems to escape most self-proclaimed “rightists” in this forum. Besides coming up with a Constitution, the principal challenge before the Constituent Assembly in 1920 was land reform. The right wanted to pay the Baltic Germans for the land we expropriated. The Social Democrats blocked that.

What happened in Haiti was that the French basically forced former slaves to pay for their past enslavement. As Bob Corbett writes at the link I gave: “But France would not recognize Haiti unless indemnities were paid for lands of former slave owners taken over after the revolution. Finally, in 1838 President Boyer of Haiti accepted a 150 million franc debt to pay this indemnity. This debt plagued the economy of Haiti for over 80 years and was not finally paid until 1922. In the meantime Haiti paid many times over 150 million francs in interest on this debt. It is difficult to measure the incredible harm which this did to the Haitian economy, but by the most conservative measures it was extremely significant.”

The US refused to recognize Haiti for over half a century—because the US practiced and defended slavery, resenting and fearing Haiti’s revolution. The US and France began an embargo of Haiti, and the US intervened repeatedly to force Haiti into taking massive loans and to prop up pro-American tyrants. Robert Parry: “By [the time the US recognized Haitian independence] Haiti’s destructive patterns of political violence and economic chaos had been long established—continuing up to the present time. Personal and political connections between Haiti’s light-skinned elite and power centers of Washington also have lasted through today.”

Vysu lobu,
/P

Aren’t we talking of the many “years past”?

What of the recent hurricanes and earthquakes? Do they really play an importance to “what was”?

Mikus E.

P.S. Haiti has been independent since 1957?
No if I were Jerorld, I would dare claim that it was the climate that caused any “decline” of Haiti.

Miku,

Haiti declared its independence in 1804. The question—as relevant to Latvia as it is to any state—is what does independence mean?

Talking of years past—aren’t we always? Don’t you think, for instance, that the level of Latvia’s development owes quite a bit to the past, both positive and negative?

Vysu lobu,
/P

Eurostat released figures on poverty levels this afternoon. “The highest at-risk-of-poverty rates in 2008 were found in Latvia (26%), Romania (23%), Bulgaria (21%), Greece, Spain and Lithuania (all 20%), and the lowest in the Czech Republic (9%), the Netherlands and Slovakia (both 11%), Denmark, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden (all 12%).

“It should be noted that the at-risk-of-poverty rate is a relative measure of poverty, and that the poverty threshold varies greatly between Member States.”

...

“In 20 of the 27 Member States, child at-risk-of-poverty rates were higher than for the total population. In 2008, the at-risk-of-poverty rate for those aged up to 17 years was 20% in the EU27. The highest rates were recorded in Romania (33%), Bulgaria (26%), Italy and Latvia (both 25%), and the lowest in Denmark (9%), Slovenia and Finland (both 12%).

“Elderly people also face a higher risk of poverty than the total population. In 2008, the at-risk-of-poverty rate for those aged 65 years and over was 19% in the EU27. The highest rates were observed in Latvia (51%), Cyprus (49%), Estonia (39%) and Bulgaria (34%), and the lowest in Hungary (4%), Luxembourg (5%) and the Czech Republic (7%).”

It seems Latvia is on the top of the list in all possible categories…

“Haiti has been independent since 1957”  (I only mentioned 1957 as this was the start of anything “significant” in Haiti.)

Still, consider this: Haiti was occupied until 1934 by the US military.—-To me, when you are occupied, you are no longer independent. So PC, are we both “wrong”?

But PC dares to maintain:

The question—as relevant to Latvia as it is to any state—is what does independence mean?

Yes, while Haiti did originally achieve independence from France in 1804…
But still PC, tell us what had aspired between 1934 and 1957? (Hmmm, many will claim that from 1957, most of Haiti’s wealthy and educated population fled.—-And then in 1994, the US invaded Haiti!)
So tell us what like aspirations occurred between Latvia and Moscow!

Mikus E.

P.S. No, PC. It seems that the non-western (and much to my dislike in every considering in saying something like this—- non-Moscow-ern) influences have negatively steered Haiti.
P.P.S. I recently read where some do-gooders in the environment, took some farmer of at least 30 years to their dedicated “task“. His fault was that he had never provided artificial lighting for his cows. (—-And he hadn’t had any electrical service for that same length!) While we should indeed temporarily feel relieved that they failed to prosecute this farmer, they nevertheless later ominously remarked something like: “how long can this inequality yet go on”.
P.P.P.S. And I recently read of the plight of the Los Angeles, Calif. residents (especially the ones directly living under the past fire de-nuded hills.) So I ask, why weren’t these once fire-ravaged hills re-seeded right away?—-Hey, everyone knows that any subsequent rains can cause bare hillsides to slide! And then the follow-up question: And why do these residents of the same area, refuse then to vacate their houses until danger is not eminently known to “themselves”?—-To merely then selfishly put their expectant rescuers at peril?