[Sherman Logan]

Not too many are aware of it, but at the time of the American Revolution Haiti was the wealthiest place on earth. Kind of the Abu Dhabi of the time.

Of course, the wealth was really concentrated at the top of society, but if they'd had GDP rankings at the time, Haiti would have been at the top.

BTW, if you ever would like to be really confused by a book, try reading about the Haitian Revolution. Utterly confused FUBAR.

[ctdonath2]

Interesting. I’ve long puzzled over why such tropical paradises are not home to great wealth. Seems over-wealth of a location collapses into long-term rank poverty.

Now would be a great time for a developer to buy up a large swath of the area and build, in finest capitalistic form, a planned town (possibly as a software development / web services hotspot). Built with hurricane- and earthquake-withstanding quality in mind, one could build a fantastic hotspot for information services.