{"id":385671,"date":"2010-03-04T11:59:50","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T16:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011248636_chiliearthquakecomparisonwithhaiti.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-03-04T11:59:50","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T16:59:50","slug":"chile-earthquake-comparison-with-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/385671","title":{"rendered":"Chile earthquake comparison with Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Address demand, not supply side of problem<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n<p>There is a glaring omission from Richard Stearns op-ed [\u201cHaiti: 9.0 on the Poverty Scale,\u201d Opinion, Mar. 3]. In light of the fact that poverty comes from a lack of access to resources \u2014 that are extremely limited in Haiti\u2019s case \u2014 and the fact that Haiti has the highest population density and birthrate in the Western Hemisphere, trying to increase the supply side while ignoring the demand side is pure folly.<\/p>\n<p>Most Christian organizations decry any family planning avenues to the poverty problem but history has proved them wrong since the time of Thomas Malthus \u2014more than 200 years ago. Stearns\u2019 suggestions will not grow trees or build up a viable infrastructure. Nor will it make the Haitians self-sustaining. They will continue to need outside aid and that need will only increase if the increasing demand is not addressed.<\/p>\n<p>With more Chileans arriving on a seemingly regular basis, the sources of aid will be stretched and the problems will continue. However, the Stearnses of the world will continue to feel good about their shortsighted and narrow-minded attempts to help despite the unrelenting pain and suffering.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, conventional wisdom says it is the thought that counts and intentions are more important than results; If it feels right it must be so.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 Parvin Baharloo, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Address demand, not supply side of problem Editor, The Times: There is a glaring omission from Richard Stearns op-ed [\u201cHaiti: 9.0 on the Poverty Scale,\u201d Opinion, Mar. 3]. In light of the fact that poverty comes from a lack of access to resources \u2014 that are extremely limited in Haiti\u2019s case \u2014 and the fact [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}