1). Tax breaks, tax breaks, tax breaks. Also, funding major projects = image. Finally, AIDS in Africa is going to create a social and demographic problem on an unprecedented scale. I don’t think we’ll be in time to stop it unless a vaccine is discovered soon and distributed freely. While the world is generally safely isolated from Africa (few economic or social ties), the disaster that may unfold will be horrific in scale and affect everyone.
2). This is going to sound a little callous but I don’t mean it this way. Improving Haiti’s health would give something for people to live for and make them think more of the future, but would likely exacerbate the overpopulation problem and strain resources even more.
3). Thanks for agreeing. I know that’s a controversial argument but time and again I see it at the personal level. People simply don’t treasure what they haven’t worked hard for.
Jakub - if you donate $1000 to charity, your tax break will be worth between $0 and $500 or so, depending on your marginal tax rates.
If you donate appreciated stock, you can achieve effectively somewhat higher tax breaks (vs. selling the stock and paying taxes on the cap gains), but still well under the value of what you’ve donated.
Yes, funding major projects CAN be image-enhancing, and for some folks (and countries), that’s part of the equation or even most or all of it, but I don’t think that’s anywhere near a full explanation.
Yes, in the long term, many of the ills of the third world may negatively affect the first world in some way, but again, I don’t think that’s the primary driver.
And yes, improving health and longevity does contribute to population growth. But I don’t see that as overwhelming other concerns. See that starving 7 year old? Is it better for him to die, so that he doesn’t keep eating food and consuming other resources for the next ~40-70 years? Personally, I don’t think so.
BTW, I don’t think concerns about dependency are particularly controversial among those who are really paying attention (though yes, some folks do downplay them too much). Dependency is an issue, that must be weighed against other issues, and thought through as aid programs are designed and prioritized. It’s a major concern of mine, and is one reason I focus my charitable giving on combating/eradicating diseases, where I think the dependency issue is less of a concern. Again, look into The Carter Center if you’re interested - as regular P&R readers know, I am not particularly aligned with Carter’s politics*, but the work this group does in combating disease seems like a very good approach to me. I’m not saying they’re the only ones out there, or even the best, but I like what I’ve seen/read.
- Though I have considerable respect for him and Rosalyn personally - I hope that when I am his age (should I live so long), I have half his energy and enthusiasm for trying to make the world a better place. Heck, I think at my current age, I might like some of his energy.
The Dominican military used to kidnap kids from Haiti and force them to work in cane fields in the west part of the country. They’re the guys who smuggle the coke into the US the last few decades. I have a family member who was a military doctor. The guys would bring in interrogated corpses and he’d have to certify cause of death (falling down the stairs.)
Shared island, but the Dominican Republic has demonized and hated Haiti for a long time. It probably started with the War of Independence from Haiti (1844-1849) Many Dominicans would resent and hate your characterization of a “similar histories … and ethnical backgrounds.” To this day, to call someone a “black guy” in the D.R. does not refer to the color of their skin, but rather it means they are stupid. They’ve got the whole thing that lighter skin and straight hair means better blood. Having an external enemy to hate lets dictators rule easier. Read these comments. Dominicans are not gonna help Haiti and won’t blink at having to shoot them down.
Dominican Republic makes about 3.5 Billion a year in tourism (remittances, coffee, sugar, and some industry make up the rest)
Haiti tourism is minimal and somehow I don’t think we’ll get Americans and Germans to start visiting pleasant Haiti.
Haiti has a similar population but half the GDP. The bulk is agriculture. Sugarcane. Get rid of the Florida sugar subsidies and tariffs. It will help the Everglades and please Adam Smith. Maybe coca cola will start using real sugar instead of High-fructose syrup. That pleases the hipsters.
Happy:
Free marketers
Poor farmers
People who won’t get shot by an occupation
Unhappy:
Sugar and corn producers.
Congressmen from those states (Iowa + Florida?)
Corn Ethanol.
… and so ends reasonable discussion.
Extar, you may resume linking pravda.
Cool.
I haven’t the slightest idea. Relative development of obscure small Caribbean nations is what professional research is for.
There was a pretty lengthy comparison of Haiti and the D.R. and how they ended up in such different positions in something I read not too long ago. I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of something in Jared Diamond’s Collapse.
An entire chapter of Collapse is devoted to this exact subject. The cliff notes version, from what I remember:
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Different environmental situations. The eastern part of Hispaniola receives more rain, has better soil and less rocky terrain than the west. The eastern portion in general has better natural resources.
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Different colonial heritages. The French elite that controlled Haiti lived in mansions in the highlands and squeezed every ounce of value they could out of the land, using almost all of it (and their slave laborers) for cash crops. Haiti didn’t even grow it’s own food. The DR developed more organically and was sustainable, not just a cash cow for Spain.
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Brutal, effective dictators vs. brutal, incompetent dictators. Haiti’s primary ruler was bat-shit insane, whereas the DR dictators enacted a variety of regulations (for example protection of national resources) and built up industries that put the DR in a better position in the long term.
Sold.
Yeah I vaguely remember that the dictator on the DR side was pretty brutal in cracking down on logging, so that he could enjoy a monopoly or something. Was that tied in Collapse to german nobles protecting their forests out of narrow self-interest? It’s been a while since I read that book so I might be getting it backwards, but I have the impression that it was fortuitous circumstance that the interests of the powers that be aligned with preservation.
Appreciated stock, huh, what’s that?
If you donate $1000 in cash to a properly recognized charity, you can generally deduct $1000 from your federal and state taxes. Let’s say your combined state and federal tax bracket is 35%. The value of the deduction is probably worth around $350, so donating that $1000 really only “cost” you about $650, after tax.
By donating appreciated stock (if you have some), you can effectively give at a somewhat lower cost.
Let’s say you have 20 shares of stock in XYZ, which you bought for $20/share. Let’s say that that stock has gone up (appreciated), and is now trading at $50/share.
If you sold the stock, you’d get ~$1000. But you’d owe taxes on the capital gain. On a $600 capital gain, you’d probably owe 15% federal and, in my state, 6% state taxes. Taking into account the cross deduction for state taxes on federal tax returns, let’s call that a 20% net tax burden. So you’d owe $120 in taxes, meaning that from your original shares, you’d clear $880 after taxes.
Now, if instead of selling the shares, you donated them to charity, you’d get the following:
The charity would sell the stock and realize ~$1000 (probably a shade less with commissions, but anyways…). You’d get a tax deduction on the value of the stock ($1000), worth about $350. And you’d also avoid paying capital gains tax on the stock. So basically, you’re giving something worth $880 to you (after tax), and getting a full $1000 deduction, which is worth about $350. So your after tax cost to give that ~$1000 worth of stock to the charity is about (880 - 350 = ) ~$530.
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Disclaimer: I am not an accountant. The above information may be inaccurate in general, or inaccurate for you specifically. IIUC, there are lots of caveats, special cases, and limitations for tax-related stuff. Etc, etc…
Grifman said:
Appreciated stock, huh, what’s that?
Phil, Phil, Phil . . . my apologies, I guess my humor was far to subtle for you . . . I’m sorry you typed that factual and serious response to what was my attempt to make a joke about the current economic situation :)
I’m sorry too - I guess my humor detection meter was disengaged this morning.
Carry on…
Sometimes we do good things. [PBS Nov 2022](U.S. to detain Dominican sugar import amid accusations of forced labor | PBS NewsHour
The U.S. government announced Wednesday that it will detain all imports of sugar and related products made in the Dominican Republic by Central Romana Corporation, Ltd. amid allegations that it uses forced labor.
One of Central Romana’s owners is the Florida-based Fanjul Corp.
Remember that name… that sugar ends up in your bag of Domino Sugar. These are some of those bitter Cubans that keeps wanting to get rid of Castro’s little revolution so they can reclaim their plantations. They have extensive fields in Florida and other places.
Worldwide the Fanjul companies at the time (2010) included four raw sugar mills and 10 refineries in six countries, making them the world’s largest refiner of cane sugar, producing 6 million tons of sugar annually
Some important context. La Romana is in the Dominican Republic. For a long, long time they’ve used modern slave labor. Military and other brokers get paid to kidnap or otherwise provide labor, often children. The last couple of decades there’s been a few documentaries so I guess someone listened.
I’m still kind of amazed we did this.