[NALs]

Nals, I always thought there was a trade off here. In return for being allowed to exploit the country...the government (wealthy) agree to take care of the poor at a bare minimum standard.

Not really, the country is developing and moving forward in leaps and bounds.

What's happening is that people want the DR to become a little USA over night. Must I say that it took the US 164 years to consider implementing social programs to help its own poor, around 144 years to let its own women vote, close to 100 years to let its African citizens live free and around 184 years to allow its African citizens to be able to live without obvious and racist restrictions.

Must I also say that the 1920s (so called roaring) was a phenomenon among the rich in the USA. With half the population living below the poverty line, a third unemployed, and a meager existence for the remainder who were not part of the American elite, the 1920s still set the first step in ensuring pro-business government after the lessons of the Great Depression were learned. Give the DR some time, we have only been "free" for only 40 or so years. Before the 1960s, the Trujillo years were the quietest and that's taking into account all the fears and before that all the way to the colonial era it was guerilla fighting and when such fighting was over, it was repelling Haitian forces back to their side of the island. Not much energy left over to build up an economy, but now that we have stop that nonesense of fighting, now our economy has been booming. The DR is way ahead today that it was in 1966. Not every country in the world can say that and be accurate at the same time, and yet the DR can. Give it some time.

As for the Haitians...they would not be here if the rich did not want them here.

Actually, nobody wants them here, that's why they are treated badly on a day to day basis. The only reasons Haitians are here is because the Haitians will work for meager wages. It's capitalistic forces at work, period. Whoever offers the cheapest production costs wins the jobs, that's what's behind the Free Trade Zones also, after all, many of the American and European companies could pay more than 1,000 dollars a year to the thousands of Dominicans working in the Free Trade Zone. But wait, that means no more cheap stuff for the American masses and lowering of standards of living in the US, I guess the cheaper the better.

Nobody ever gets forced to do anything, in the end people decide for themselves whether they want to do something or not. Afterall, Haitians don't have to work for such meager wages, they could ask to be paid at rates Dominicans would be paid, but then Dominicans will be the one's hired and Haitians will lose their jobs because Dominicans prefer Dominicans if the price was the same between a Haitian and Dominican doing the same job.

You can't have people laying around dying for lack of health care.

Public health care in the DR was meant for Dominican citizens. Today, because of international pressure from NGOs in particular, Dominican hospitals have to attend everybody, legal or not. No wonder there are no medicines left since we are taking care of Dominicans and illegal Haitians. There is only enough money to take decent care of Dominicans, adding the Haitians and even the Cubans coming illegally to the system simply would strain the resources. The government could always increase funding to public health, but then that means increasing taxes and nobody wants that.

The middle class, caught in the middle, pay their taxes and probably give up the most. But I doubt it has that much to do with being nice.

Being nice is not part of Capitalism. Being economically rational is and the rules of capitalism and clean and clear. If there is an over supply to the demand, the price will drop. Too many unskilled Dominicans already maintain their own meager wages at such level by their sheer number of people. Adding unskilled Haitians to the mix makes it even worst. Since Dominicans will not work for the wages made worst by the Haitian presence, the Haitians will do it. They are not forced to do it, because even if a gun is pointed in someone's head, in the end, that person will decide if he or she will do it or not. The consequences of each is a different story, but in the end the decision was always in his/her hands, not in the hands of the gun holder. This is just an example.

It's too easy to sit around and simply say "it's the rich peoples fault" and/or "people there are just evil", etc without acknowledging the market forces at work. Ever wonder why the first world don't allow everybody to move there? It has something to do with keeping labor scarce to the point that wages remain decent. It's all a matter of supply and demand, period.

Let's not forget that the Haitian government also has some fault in any of this. After all, a country that has continually declined from the day they got their independence to today should have had developed a government that at least cares a tiny bit. The Haitian government is not doing that, only whinning and complaining about how the rest of the world treat their people, but nothing is being done so their people can have a better living in their land. A few months ago the prime minister or president of Haiti came to Santo Domingo asking Dominicans to help Haitians overcome their economic problem they themselves brought upon themselves. Dominicans in general are struggling with ourselves, what makes this guy think that we are going to take care of his problems? And before that (around Sept of last year) he even suggested opening the border and letting people cross freely. Watch wages collapse even further if such thing happens.

Supply and demand, nothing else is at work here. This is capitalism at its best, if anybody don't like it, then plan a revolution for socialism. After all, the huge inequities in Cuba and the American presence there is what inspired Castro to revolt, of course being "good" has done few things for the growth of Cuba as we know it.