Just wondering how such a scenario would end up.
Suppose this oilfield started producing (at 5 milion barrels/day)-that is a cool $500 million/day!Would it lift the Haitians out of poverty, and usher in a new Haiti (with a US/European standard of living?
Our would all the money be stolen by the crooks at the top-leaving the peasants worse off than before?
Immense oil wealth has done very little to develop Nigeria or any number of other countries. Commodities like oil, which generate huge amounts of cash that may not be easy to track, may actually be a detriment to a developing country by institutionalizing the power of corrupt elites.
More than anything else, Haiti’s problems stem from an utterly disfunctional political culture. No matter who’s in charge, left, right, pop singers, not much is ever accomplished due to fighting between political factions. Haiti’s poverty, IMO, is more a result of its political problems than a cause of it.