Is America Broken?
And what does this mean for Haiti?
In Haiti, about 1.1 million adults receive remittances an average of about 10 times a year, at about $150 each time. This money is usually used for the most basic necessities, and is most often the largest single source of income responsible for keeping many families afloat. With the current financial mess that America is in, many Haitian-Americans are forced to re-prioritize their expenditures. They are sending less and less money to Haiti, and in many instances nothing at all. Non-governmental organizations are also forced to cut back on the amount of aid they are able to send to Haiti.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that the United States is currently in a financial mess. During the week of September 15th, Lehman Brothers holdings filed the largest bankruptcy in history, the Dow Jones plummeted over 500 points, and the American government bailed out AIG one of the world’s largest suppliers of insurance services. Sub-prime lending practices, a series of hurricanes and natural disasters, and a sharp increase in the price of food and oil, has had Americans sitting on the edge of their seats, worrying about their finances. People have recently seen their life savings and portfolios diminish by truly horrific amounts. Unemployment is at the highest it has been in years, and the number of people who have been laid off, or will be laid off in the coming weeks and months is keeping consumer confidence at an all-time low.
Haiti has kept barely afloat all these years because of remittances. The money sent to Haiti by Haitians living abroad via Western Union, C.A.M. and other money transfer services, totalled 1.83 billion dollars in 2007, equivalent to more than one third of Haiti’s gross national product. Over 70% of this is sent from the more than 1.5 million Haitian-Americans living in the U.S. and doesn’t even count pocket money informally given to friends and family by visiting Diaspora. If most of this money stops coming in, the situation in Haiti will become even worse than it currently is, especially after a series of hurricanes has further weakened the Haitian economy.
Some think America is broken, and is in an unrecoverable tailspin. At the same time, most are optimistic and believe that the current fiasco will soon pass. But all agree that even though America may not be broken, it is definitely broke!
Where does this leave Haiti?
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Pascal Antoine - HaitiXchange
