Factories for Haiti 2009
2009-12-21 04:32:00
What marketable skills do the people of Haiti have? What marketable skills do the people of Africa have? What type of factory could be built in Haiti?
I think the formula is this:
PROPER:
Raw Materials + Natural Ability + Labor Cost + Shipping Cost
= A good location for a factory.
---------------------------------
Port-au-Prince, Haiti --- Monday, December 21, 2009
By Andy Graham of HoboTraveler.com
Travel Gear
---------------------------------
What are Haitian people naturally good at? This is the million-dollar question of economic development. Maybe we can say,
1. Fighting with each other, maybe
2. Sports… I do not think so.
3. Music…. I do not think so.
4. Service Industries like Tourism: I do not think so.
5. Farming: Sadly, the whole world is good at this, however being a farmer is considered out of fashion, not cool, not the think to be.
6. Sitting on butt, looking at street. - Yes
7. Languages: Yes
8. Repetitious Work: Yes
Maybe I can say this for the Middle East, I am not sure they have a lot of oil, this is not really a good skill set, and maybe they are good at herding goats. I suspect when the oil runs out, the goats will be happy.
Factory Work
It is 2009; I would suspect that all the citizens of the USA who work in factories are saying.
“I wish I did not work in a factory, I would still have a job.”
Well, we truly screwed up the planet, by making subsistence farming unfashionable. This is happening by discouraging farming, by promoting mass production of food crops. We grow a lot of food; however, the people do not have the money to purchase it. I am not sure, urbanization has happened because of Televisions, Music and the Telephone. Everyone knows there is somebody having fun in the city, why would we want to hang out on the farm.
I believe the Haiti people have a natural desire to hand sand furniture, it somehow makes them happy. I do not feel that people like to learn or change, it is in many ways unnatural, and they do have a natural desire to be famous or fashionable.
The Encyclopedia Encarta says that 55 percent of the population of Haiti is literate, I would say closer to 20 percent, maybe less. I try to learn Creole here, a difficult task when I can never find a person to write down a word. Taxi directions are a disaster, they cannot read the signs.
They are good at sanding furniture, maybe those factories in the USA could send the wood down here to be processed, then send back furniture.
I enjoy watching people apply varnish or lacquer along side a busy road.
Haiti is a Caribbean style Island; by normal ways of thinking, it should have an active tourist industry. I cannot see this happening until about 10 years after the United Nations peacekeeping force leaves, it ever, and they do not naturally say please and thank you. Then again, none of the other Caribbean Island are service minded.
Fun stuff, interesting and an intriguing problem, and sadly, the brain drain is a problem. The minute a person can wrap himself around anyway to go to the USA, the leave. The rich, the smart, the educated try to go to the USA, anywhere but here.
I wish the world would stop focusing on feeding Haiti, there is a lot of food here, and the world needs jobs that make sense, not the fairy tale world crap, but jobs. It will get a lot worst, the world has pulled out of most countries since the end of colonization. They say to the country, do it on your own, you are free, the timeline started at about 1960.
Factories for Haiti