Out-of-Work Coal Miners and Hillary's Caracol, Haiti Project

Hillary Clinton lost West Virginia because she blurted out that she was going to put a lot of coal miners out of work.  Then she tried to soften it by saying that she had a plan to budget $30 billion to create small businesses and retrain the unemployed of Appalachia and elsewhere.  At the same time, she would use that money to protect the coal miners pensions and health benefits.  That's asking a lot from just $30 billion. To be fair though, this sounds better than what President Obama promised.  In his case, he simply told them to "take welfare".

But, if you're a soon-to-be-unemployed coal worker, I wouldn't count on Hillary to do much about it and I would certainly take Obama's advice.  One only needs to look at Hillary's failed Caracol, Haiti project for an example of her incompetence at job creation.

Following the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, around 40% of that nation's 4+ million workers became unemployed.  That's about 1.7 million. Then, Secretary of State Clinton toured the rubble as she and her team put together a plan to spend millions in U.S. aid to build a nice new industrial park just north of a remote, tin-roofed fishing village called Caracol.  The target was to create a total of 65,000 jobs in a country where 1.7 million were unemployed.  Again, we can already see the lack of competence.

In order to build the park, 640 acres were needed and hundreds of subsistence farmers were "coaxed" off the their land in order to provide the required acreage.  The park was also too remote for access to the power grid, so a power plant was built.  Today, 95 percent of the vacated land is still vacant.

By 2015, Caracol had been open for 3 years.  Only 11,300 of the promised 65,000 jobs were created.  A $70 million expansion of the park by 2018 may add another 6,800 jobs.   Oh, and Bill Clinton and the Clinton foundation managed the project for which it and he were well compensated. Of course, Bill Clinton is the person who Hillary claims she will put in charge of jobs and the economy, if she is elected President. God help us all!  Of course, this is also an obvious admission that the economy has been horrible under Obama's watch.

The sad and simple truth is that Hillary is inept and has little knowledge of how jobs are created.  Nor does she understand the coal business, and how entire towns exist only because of coal. No amount of job training or small business creation is going to put those towns back on their feet.  Again, she has no idea what she was doing; just as in Caracol, Haiti.  

References:

Fact Check: Hillary Clinton And Coal Jobs: http://www.npr.org/2016/05/03/476485650/fact-check-hillary-clinton-and-coal-jobs

Obama Costs Miners Their Job — Tells Them Take Welfare: http://www.libertynewsnow.com/obama-costs-miners-their-job-tells-them-take-welfare/article1446

A glittering industrial park in Haiti falls short: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/10/a-glittering-industrialparkfallsshortinhaiti.html

Hillary’s Half-Baked Haiti Project: https://www.google.com/search?q=Hillary%E2%80%99s+Half-Baked+Haiti+Project&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Hillary Clinton says she'll put Bill 'in charge' of fixing economy: http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/16/news/economy/hillary-bill-clinton-economic-job-growth/

Caracol, Haiti and Why Hillary Can't Create Jobs

Following the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, the country needed some serious help in rebuilding itself and creating jobs.  Enter Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with the promise of a new industrial park in Caracol that would create 65,000 new jobs and boost their economy.  Hundreds of small farmers were forced to give up 600 acres of land in order to build a $300 million industrial park.

The only problem is that, when the park opened in 2012, it only employed one-tenth of the promised workforce at a cost of about $50,000 per person.  Given that the minimum wage is $5-a-day in Haiti, $50,000 could have been used to give each of those 6000 workers a guaranteed equivalent salary for 31 years.

In order to employ even more workers at that site, millions more would be needed to build an additional 12 buildings that could employ a total of 20,000 workers.  Still well short of the 60,000 that Hillary promised.   Basically, Caracol is now looking to be the proverbial money pit and it has Hillary's fingerprints all over it.

Finally, it is interesting to me that the Clinton Foundation is still touting Caracol as a success on their web page.  Note this from that site:

"In collaboration with the Government of Haiti, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the U.S. State Department, the Clinton Foundation assisted with the development of the Caracol Industrial Park, which could ultimately create up 60,000 jobs and help to decentralize the Haitian economy. In October 2012, President Bill Clinton joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Martelly, Prime Minister Lamothe, and President Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for the opening of Caracol Northern Industrial Park. Today, the Korean apparel manufacturer Sae-A is the anchor tenant and will create 20,000 jobs alone."

Sounds like a miracle of job creation, doesn't it?  Too bad it's just another Clinton lie.

References:

Hillary Clinton-backed post-quake Haiti project ‘a work in progress’: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article20129688.html

Hillary’s Half-Baked Haiti Project: https://www.google.com/search?q=Hillary%E2%80%99s+Half-Baked+Haiti+Project+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

A glittering industrial park in Haiti falls short: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/10/a-glittering-industrialparkfallsshortinhaiti.html

The Clinton Foundation: Creating up to 60,000 jobs in northern Haiti: https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-foundation-haiti/programs/caracol-industrial-park

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