I saw an news blurb on TV the other day about how all this committed foreign aid to Haiti has not gotten there yet and I’m thinking to myself “well if we were to give Haiti a billion dollars all at once, how much would actually end up helping the Haitian people and how much would line the pockets of the people in power?”. What if instead of giving aid to countries in the form of cash we give them aid in the form of bulldozers, tractors, trucks, buses, equipment to build roads and pre-manufactured homes equipped with solar panels to generate electricity and hot water? Yes food and water are important, medical help too, but after all this time, the Haitian people are still out of work, living in shanty towns, rubble is still all over the place and there’s really no end in sight to when things are actually going to get better.
So let’s start shipping! Here’s some bulldozers and trucks, get busy. US workers, build some more bulldozers and trucks. Here’s some tractors, get farming. US workers, build some more tractors. Here’s some trucks, take the produce to market. US workers, build even more trucks. Where’s the market that you take the food to? Build some towns with solar homes manufactured in the US by US workers. Lets start building homes even if they’re being shipped overseas! Get some guys together and show them how to build roads, if they don’t know already. Maybe they just need the equipment. Let’s give them road building equipment. US workers, make some more road building equipment. So we’re not just giving them cash. We’re giving them the means to make their lives better.
So, the US government pays our companies the cash for the goods we’re shipping out. Our workers in the US are put to work. Everybody is making money here. Even the government gets some of the money back in the form of taxes! We give the products to Haiti, or whatever country needs them at the moment. The people in those countries get busy with jobs to do the things that need to be done. Everybody wins!
