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Article Artículo

Pressure Builds on UN to Take Responsibility as Cholera Still Far From “Under Control”

Port-au-Prince – The origin of Haiti’s deadly cholera outbreak is not much in doubt, at least not to anybody outside the U.N. A host of scientific studies have all pointed to UN troops whose waste made it in to the largest river in Haiti as the source. While the U.N. has yet to accept responsibility, it has announced an initiative to raise funds for a $2.2 billion 10-year cholera eradication plan. At this point however, no official plan even exists, at least not publicly. Meanwhile, pressure continues to build for the U.N. to do more, and put up its own funds rather than just relying on notoriously unreliable donor pledges. The U.N. said it would chip in $23 million for the plan, a mere 1 percent of what is needed. This compares to the nearly $1.9 billion that the U.N. has spent since the earthquake on the troops that brought cholera to Haiti.

As we have previously noted, Haitian President Martelly recently added his voice to the chorus, saying that “certainly” the U.N. should take responsibility and that “[t]he U.N. itself could bring money to the table.” Grassroots pressure both within Haiti and outside has also increased. More than 25,000 have signed an online petition created by Oliver Stone calling on the U.N. to take action and secure the needed funding. And while it has been over 14 months since over 5,000 Haitians demanded reparations for those affected and for the U.N. to invest in the needed infrastructure, as of yet there has been no formal response from the U.N.

Cholera Not “Under Control”

In the meantime, cholera continues to wreak havoc throughout the country. Although the number of cases and deaths has dropped this year, the epidemic still sickened over 110,000 and killed 900, making cholera more prevalent in Haiti than anywhere else in the world. Nevertheless, the Haitian Health Minister took to the radio a few days ago to talk about the “success” of the cholera response; the Prime Minister has previously declared the epidemic to be “under control”. The U.N. recently lauded the efforts of the government and humanitarian actors for managing “to contain the spread of cholera in 2012.”

Cholera Cases 2010 12 2

But despite the statements of success, the ability to respond to the epidemic continues to decrease. From August of 2011 to August of 2012 the number of cholera treatment centers has decreased from 38 to 20, while the number of treatment units has decreased from 205 to 71. Funding to respond to the outbreak is decreasing as NGOs struggle to get donors interested in an epidemic over two years old. While funding comes in fits and starts after a hurricane or devastating storm, the response needs consistent support so as to be prepared for those emergencies rather than just a response to them.

As one health expert who asked to remain anonymous noted, while the number of cases may slow slightly next year because of the natural progression of the disease, “2013 will be even worse than 2012.” With the number of health facilities dwindling and humanitarian actors pulling out, it is likely that the mortality rate could actually increase in 2013, according to the expert.

Jake Johnston / January 11, 2013

Article Artículo

Latin America and the Caribbean

Venezuela

World

What the Venezuelan Constitution Does, and Does Not, Say

The Venezuelan government announced Tuesday that President Hugo Chávez will miss his swearing in on Thursday, January 10, when his new term is set to begin. The Supreme Court ruled today that his swearing in tomorrow would not be necessary for “continuity” of his administration, and that he could be sworn in before the Court at a later date.

Returning from a meeting with Venezuelan Vice-President Nicolás Maduro, Brazilian Foreign Minister Marco Aurelio Garcia said Tuesday that Brazil regards as constitutional the extension of time needed to swear in Chávez as president for his new term, saying the current debate can be solved through "constitutional means,” as Venezuela’s El Universal newspaper reported. Several heads of state or other high level officials from Latin American governments will be present at events at the presidential palace in Caracas tomorrow.

Despite some confusion and deliberate distortions in the media and among Venezuela observers, the Venezuelan constitution (English PDF version here; Spanish version here) is clear on procedure regarding what is allowed if the president-elect is unable to be sworn in in Caracas.

For example, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R – FL), who has infamously called for Fidel Castro’s assassination in the past, issued a hyperbolic statement accusing Chávez of attempting to subvert the constitution:

The delay of his swearing-in is yet another example of the trampling of the constitution by this despot. The Venezuelan constitution states that the leader of Venezuela needs to take the oath of office on January 10 in front of the National Assembly or the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice.

But Article 231 states, in part, “If for any supervening reason, the person elected President of the Republic cannot be sworn in before the National Assembly, he shall take the oath of office before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.” No deadline is mentioned, contrary to what Ros-Lehtinen claims. Ros-Lehtinen also stated:

CEPR / January 09, 2013

Article Artículo

Haiti by the Numbers, Three Years Later
En français Number of people killed in the earthquake in 2010: over 217,300 Number of people killed by cholera epidemic caused by U.N. troops since October 19, 2010: over 7,912 [i] Number of cholera cases worldwide in 2010 and 2011: 906,632 Percent of

CEPR / January 09, 2013

Article Artículo

Economic Growth

Workers

Back to Full Employment

By the conventional “peak to trough” measure, the recession that began in December 2007 ended 18 months later, in June 2009. But you’d be hard-pressed to find much evidence of “recovery” in the labor market.  Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.  The marginal decline in the unemployment rate (from about 10 percent at its worst to just under 8 percent at the end of 2012) has been driven mostly by people dropping out of the labor force.  And long-term unemployment remains stubbornly high.

All of this begs a bigger question: What would real recovery look like?

The first and simplest measure (see graphic below) is simply to chart our progress towards regaining the jobs lost during the downturn.  This yields a flat threshold at the December 2007 employment levels, and a jobs deficit that pushed past 8 million in late 2009 and now sits at about 3 million.  

This “struggling back to the surface” measure has some utility, especially in comparing the recovery trajectories of different recessions.  But it becomes less useful the longer the downturn lasts, as population growth creates a new baseline for the labor force.  Getting back to December 2007 employment has little meaning after five years of immigration, retirements, and high school and college graduations.

CEPR and Colin Gordon / January 09, 2013

Article Artículo

Economic Growth

Workers

Having Your Minimum Wage and EITC, Too
Economic commentator Evan Soltas really missed the boat in his most recent Bloomberg column on the minimum wage. He gets some of the economics right —the best empirical evidence on the minimum wage, he notes, for example, "find[s] small, if any, impacts o

John Schmitt / January 08, 2013

Article Artículo

Latin America and the Caribbean

“A Natural Experiment”: William K. Black Compares the Latin American Left to the “Washington Consensus”

William K. Black, former deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement and now Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City takes on Alvaro Vargas Llosa and other “neoliberal” pundits in a long post today at Huffington Post. Noting how Vargas Llosa, P.J. O’Rourke and others have condemned the left-leaning heads of Latin American states as “idiots” and “stupid,” Black examines the track record of the neoliberal economic model versus the alternatives being pursued by countries such as Ecuador:

We have run what economists refer to as a "natural experiment." At the same time that Latin Americans were overwhelmingly rejecting key neo-liberal aspects of the Washington Consensus the Eurozone and the United States moved rapidly in the opposite direction by adopting ever more extreme neo-liberal dogmas. These dogmas created what criminologists refer to as a criminogenic environment -- an environment where the incentives are so perverse that they can produce epidemics of "control fraud." These fraud epidemics directly drove the financial crises in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Iceland and indirectly triggered crises by causing global systemic shocks. AVL does not wish to discuss the predation by the world's most elite bankers.

The loss of the young (through emigration), employment, output, income, and wealth and the growth of poverty and inequality that resulted from the most extreme neo-liberal policies are staggering. In the U.S., over 10 million Americans lost their jobs or could not obtain jobs that would have been produced by a healthy economy. Spanish unemployment is nearly 5 million. The crisis is so great that it is now common for Irish and Italian citizens to emigrate as soon as they earn their university degrees. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported that the loss of U.S. wealth in the household sector alone was estimated at over $12 trillion -- a trillion is a thousand billion.

And concluding:

CEPR / January 07, 2013

Article Artículo

Red Cross Progress Report Raises Some Questions
The American Red Cross has issued a new progress report on its work in Haiti since the earthquake, describing how it has used the $486 million USD that it has raised. The report, while brief, and still vague in some places, seems to be intended in part as

CEPR / January 07, 2013