“Money is worth nothing right now; water is the currency,” one foreign aid worker told Reuters.
The story is here.
Sentences to ponder, Haiti edition
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Some US Coast Guard members are also reporting in: http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/index.php/2010/01/guardians-report-in-from-haiti/
The one quote that really got me was:
“As a corpsman, I am trained to stabilize people until they can get to the next highest level of care. I have never had to be the highest level of care someone was likely to see.† – HS1 Larry Berman
I love this blog, but I don’t like clicking the links that give me pop-up messages and gated content.
My thought was rh’s: impossible. Water, to be a currency, has to be conserved rather than consumed. Not consuming water (provided it is potable) in a situation like Haiti’s is nuts.
On the other hand, that money is worth very little I can well believe.
‘You don’t see how someone could get a hold of more water than they want to drink?’
In normal circumstances, of course. In Haiti’s? I think it’s unlikely that people are going to have more drinking water than they know what to do with. Perhaps that’s a failure of my imagination.
Philip Walker,
You are a poster child for why “academics” and the overly “educated” should never, ever, be allowed to do anything but stay in their fantasy land gated communities of the mind and never, ever, be allowed to actually run anything of import.
You see, reality is a harsh mistress and doesn’t suffer fools lightly. If you can not understand why water is a currency in this situation then you are a fool.
In a situation like what is occurring in Haiti you would learn first hand all about “natural selection”.
No, what they discovered is that the currency they were using wasn’t money after all.
A fiat debt based currency loses all value during a crisis because a) It’s value rests on the need to pay taxes to the government. A need that just collapsed. b) Depends on the productive capacity of taxed populous. c) Is not in and of itself a store of value.
Were they using gold as money it would still be worth something even in a disaster. Prices would rise (as they should) but the money wouldn’t drop to zero in value.
As we saw during Katrina bottled water will become a medium of exchange, Mr. Walker. Right now 1.2 million bottles of water are on the way from Lipsey. These are specifically designed for disaster. (Nestles is sending about the same in it’s retail product).
Hey PW, I don’t know if you were trying to explain yourself or not, but you did a better job of proving Nahanni’s point.
While technically your right, it did make you seem like you completely missed the quoted persons meaning.
IF there are thirsty folks, and you have water, your the richest of that group, consumable or not.
Hey PW, I don’t know if you were trying to explain yourself or not, but you did a better job of proving Nahanni’s point.
While technically your right, it did make you seem like you completely missed the quoted persons meaning.
IF there are thirsty folks, and you have water, your the richest of that group, consumable or not.
I’m with Philip here. Water is not a great candidate for currency, no matter how valuable it is. However, in the very short term I can see bottled water being used.
No, I’m not being deliberately obtuse. I think you’re confusing a barter system with money. How many times must I repeat that I can well understand water being highly valuable in Haiti, and I can even see that people may well barter for it? What I can’t see is them using water as money: in Haiti’s present situation, its use value is too high for a currency.
I heard a report on the radio this morning saying that people in Port-au-Prince are still trying to earn money to buy things. So at least one report suggests money is still currency in Haiti.
You’re right! This is a catastrophe, so we must stop all economic discussion.
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