GDP per capita (World Bank, 2008):<p><pre><code>  $24,742 Trinidad and Tobago (28th)
   $1,177 Haiti (146th)
</code></pre>
What's possible in a rich country isn't much of an example of what's possible in a dirt poor country -- the poorest in the western hemisphere. (What other expenditures should Haitians have forgone to afford in-advance disaster preparations and rich-country building standards, for an earthquake that might never come?)<p>Poverty is the ultimate killer here. An event like the earthquake just sets the time-of-death. Blame the poverty, and the policies which perpetuate it, sure. Blaming the Haitian government for not buying insurance -- building standards and disaster preparedness -- they couldn't have afforded anyway is silly.