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Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by smcl on Thursday July 22, 2021 @05:10AM (#27916897)
Wait, who is eating the marshmallow ... and what is the marshmallow in this analogy?
Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by tw04 on Thursday July 22, 2021 @08:55AM (#27918276)
I presume marshmallow = taxes/wealth. Eating it = corrupt politicians pocketing it/corrupt usage of it.
Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by V-2 on Thursday July 22, 2021 @06:06AM (#27917193)
> what is the marshmallow in this analogy?

The surplus of resources, I guess. The disposable income of a nation.

Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by smcl on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:11AM (#27917539)
If Haiti had, say, vast oil wealth but wasted the proceeds and you compared it specifically to Norway (who have, all things considered, responsibly handled their oil wealth) then sure. But I cannot see what resources or wealth representing the "marshmallow" that they are supposed to have foolishly, greedily gobbled up.

It doesn't make sense, it's just someone painting the Haitians as a short-sighted and reckless people (which I believe is untrue) without giving any reasons why they believe this.

Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by tw04 on Thursday July 22, 2021 @09:57AM (#27918901)
>But I cannot see what resources or wealth representing the "marshmallow" that they are supposed to have foolishly, greedily gobbled up.

The entire reason they were a colony was due to having vast amounts of arable land where coffee and sugar cane was grown. That's ignoring the natural beauty of the country that would be ripe for tourism if they had corruption and crime under control.

It doesn't make sense to act as if Haiti is a barren wasteland with no possible way to generate wealth. The "marshmallow" is quite literally the wealth the country as a whole can generate. They are one of the worst countries in the entire world when it comes to corruption index:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by Tabular-Iceberg on Thursday July 22, 2021 @08:40AM (#27918156)
> It doesn't make sense, it's just someone painting the Haitians as a short-sighted and reckless people

Who did that?

Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by Tabular-Iceberg on Thursday July 22, 2021 @08:59AM (#27918307)
The public institutions are eating the marshmallow and the marshmallow is the public funding available to them, whether it's from taxes, foreign aid or bribes extracted from ordinary people. Eating it is taking the public funding for their own personal use, or offering tenders to friends who have no intention of actually doing the job.

Here's the first result that comes up when I do a web search for "how corruption works", it's pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with the concept: https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption

Re:Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic by ethbr0 on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:31AM (#27917670)
Thanks, HN. Now I'll have Sir Daniel Day-Lewis saying "I eat your marshmallow" in my head all day.