Paul Shirley...Long write up about Haiti...(I'm speechless)

[-Red-]

Everything that needs to be said in refutation of the author of this article has already been said.

As for those agreeing, with even a minuscule part of Shirley's "arguments" y'all should really check yourselves.  Every one of his "arguments" rests on a false premise- pure ignorance of or utter disregard for the truth.

This man is directly advocating for the genocide of the Haitian people (and seemingly all impoverished populations worldwide)...

 

[prostaffer]

Originally Posted by Hazeleyed Honey

JT,

Well, that is my concern, there is not much we can do since those international financial institutions (IFIs) are the ones with the money and power to keep these countries improverished like they are. All we can do is donate, give aid, and bring awareness to their cause. The majority of the people in the world are poor. So, you really think most are not fighting everyday obstacles and struggles to get out of poverty? Some of them do make it out of that cycle, but most do not because they can't. They probably work harder than a lot of us taking any job they can, but will only make 25 cents an hour for all that they do.

For example, let's take Haiti's agrarian sector. Their agricultural sector is a huge important segment for their economy. A lot of farmers used to make a decent standard of living, and their families and themselves depended on their jobs. Then you have the IMF and WB who came in the 80s and tell Haiti how to run the economy. They tell them, Ok, you want us to help you out, well then you have to abide by these comditions and accept the structural adjustment program. If you do not, you will be blacklisted. These IFIs tell them to completely open up their economy and buy U.S. imports (ie. rice). What does this do to the agrarian system of Haiti? Opens up all this competititon and completely destabilizes it and now you have all these farmers out of jobs and who are now even more improverished. This is just one aspect of the whole picture and how their economy is completely downtrodden to become more improverished due to these global IFIs. What about the fact that also their purchasing power parity is so low compared to ours, added on with inflation, and how their goods and services are raised to levels of the global price? It is completely out of their hands and they become even more poor and fall deeper in the trap of cycle of poverty.

How the hell are these people supposed to get out of poverty when the system has imprisoned them into poverty? You can fight the big man and the system, and some do make it (the lucky ones), but most cannot because the system is made to make them stay this way. The big guys on top feed on global poverty to stay on top.

This happens many times in trade agreements between nations. How many times has a trade agreement looked one-sided in the beginning and turned out to go the other way? (Look at Clinton opening up trade with China circa '9 Trade surpluses turn into trade deficits. The saddest part is the the institution took from Haiti, made it worse, the worlds population donates trying to help (and its not enough, not for haiti or the worlds other poor), the institution runs away laughing, we all feel guilty.

I'm an econ/marketing major. Doing my MBA in marketing and find some hope in this new era or corporate social responsibility. I also have most enjoyed marketing focused on the bottom of the pyramid, this is the people who live in the majority of the worlds population who live on less than 2,000USD a year. Hopefully through understanding and bringing some form of business to these populations we can turn them around or at least improve their quality of life.

Btw, I'm working on getting a paper published in the next few months on BOP marketing if anyones interested in reading it and critiquing it.

 

[dapper d]

Originally Posted by Method Man

Hopefully, my essay did not go to waste. It was actually not that long to write either since I had the research/source as a back-up and it is mixed in with knowledge I acquired from my undergrad/grad courses in development economics.

Your efforts were anything but a waste. Quite the contrary: your posts were like a window in an otherwise dark, airless room. (There have been some other posts of value, of course, but none demonstrating the same grasp of Haiti's past and present.) Though I'm sure there will be some doubters out there who'll prefer to believe that you spent three hours writing an essay exclusively for NT, it really doesn't take very long to create a post of that sort if you actually know what you're talking about - and it's clear that, unlike the Paul Shirleys of the world, you do.

Thank you for introducing some reality to this discussion.

Paul Shirley and those like him simply don't get it. As Dirty and others have pointed out, his position is not only couched in privilege - it exemplifies privilege.

1. His is clearly a narrow, sheltered worldview - yet he presumes his experience to be universal.
2. As such, he places what he ignorantly perceives as the plight of others into the terms of his own experience.
3. In the process, he acts as though he understands someone else's situation better than they understand it themselves. (Why ask a Haitian mother what her family life is like when you can ask Paul Shirley?)

You see this all the time. By failing to account for the unearned advantage to which they've fallen heir (whether we're talking about race, class, gender, sexuality, or otherwise,) it never seems to dawn on them that "there but for the lack of privilege go I."

Thus, a pot-smoking suburbanite can think the 18 year old man in federal prison on a mandatory minimum sentence for possessing 5 grams of crack got what he had coming to him and has no one to blame but himself - ignoring the fact that if they were subject to the same police scrutiny they could count themselves among the jailed and thereafter unemployable. Promiscuous, affluent young men heap scorn and blame on poor families for daring to procreate sans privilege. Whether they're for or against reproductive rights, no one short of eugenicists believes that a woman should be FORCED to abort her pregnancy - and how dare anyone claim that the poor aren't entitled to one of the most basic and fundamental human rights: the right to reproduce.

I don't know enough about Paul Shirley to claim that he's similarly hypocritical, but someone who grew up so close to San Francisco really has no right to claim that Haitians should "avoid putting themselves into a situation that might result in such catastrophic loss of life." Perhaps when you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth, moving is a simple matter. When you're poor and living on an island, it's not quite as simple as ringing up your friendly neighborhood Realtor. His whole article, and others like it, demonstrate an abject lack of perspective.

Some of these opinions are so painfully out of touch, so laughably grounded in privilege and generalized/idealized theory as opposed to reality, they'd make Marie Antoinette cringe.

Jesus… I really wish I could articulate my ideas like this…bravo


  

 

[steven42lh]

Didn't see it posted yet, my apologies if it was:

Paul Shirley: Not a Fan of Haiti

from SLAM Online by Marcel Mutoni

The former (marginal) NBAer turned scribe expressed some interesting thoughts on the devastated country. And our man Dave Zirin took him to task (thanks for the tip, @thefarmerjones): “I had plans to write a political response to this excrement. I was going to wonder why someone would write something so hurtful while people are still digging their own family members out from the rubble. I was going to marvel at Paul Shirley’s ignorance of Haiti’s history. I was going to ask if he knew anything about the crushing debt Haiti has lived under for two centuries. I was going to point out the U.S. occupation of the island from 1915-1934, which left behind a 98 percent illiteracy rate, a broken economy, and a U.S.-trained military schooled in the art of repression. I was going to ask if he had any knowledge of the unspeakable brutality of the Duvalier dictatorships. I was going to write that before he talks about ‘history as a guide’, he should dare read some history like The Uses of Haiti by Paul Farmer or The Rainy Season by Amy Wilentz. I was also going to suggest that he actually try to live on a dollar a day or care for someone H.I.V. positive who has no access to medicine. I wanted to dare him to work for ONE DAY in a garment industry sweatshop. I was going to write all of these things. But instead I think I’m just going to write my own open letter: Dear Paul Shirley, I only wish your father had taken your own advice and worn a condom. Go to hell. Sincerely, Dave Zirin.

 

[rexanglorum]

Originally Posted by Method Man



Thus, a pot-smoking suburbanite can think the 18 year old man in federal prison on a mandatory minimum sentence for possessing 5 grams of crack got what he had coming to him and has no one to blame but himself - ignoring the fact that if they were subject to the same police scrutiny they could count themselves among the jailed and thereafter unemployable.

The hundred to one rule and the fact that prisons are crowded with black and brown young men, who were had drugs for person use or who were selling a little bt of drugs, are just a few of the many reason why the war on drugs is bad policy. Peopel who are for the war on drugs and who take drugs themselves are hypocrits. The students at the University of Maryland or the young people in the DC area sound like some terrible bad people based on some of the posts you have made. When I was in college, the students, who were from the suburbs and who took drugs were not so hypocritical or so dumb as to support the drug war even though every knows that peopel in low income nieghborhoods get much more police scrutiny.

I mostly see this type of hypocracy among people who drink and who want people who smoke pot arrested, the same is true for a lot of gun owners who believe that rights only apply to what they want to do although that is not so much about privilege and more about myopia. Most American, regrdaless of social class or race or religion or sexual orientation only want or care about righ tfor what they want and most people are not advanced enough to want things that they themselves do not like to be legal.


Promiscuous, affluent young men heap scorn and blame on poor families for daring to procreate sans privilege. Whether they're for or against reproductive rights, no one short of eugenicists believes that a woman should be FORCED to abort her pregnancy - and how dare anyone claim that the poor aren't entitled to one of the most basic and fundamental human rights: the right to reproduce.

There are some who are more or less neo-eugenists and want all poor, non white and otherwise "undesirables" to not be allowed to reproduce. Please do not confuse and conflate those vile people with those who point out the simple fact that those tend to have smaller families and who have children when they are older rather than younger are better able to provide for themselves and for their children. Walt E. Williams pointed out that if you graduate high school, get married after the age of 20 and have children after the age of 25, there is less than one percent chance that yo uwill live in poverty, as defined by the poverty line (not the best measure because it set too low but nonetheless a decent tool for measurement).

It is not uneasonable to wonder why teenage mothers, who live where birth control and contraceptives are available, do not use it to delay having children until after they have at least graduated high school and maybe got married. Considering how many things a person, especiall ya poor person cannot control, having children is usually the one thing over which they have the most contro land when they do not excercise it makes a lot of people, not just wealthy, white males, ask some questions and conlude that it is pointless to help poor people if they cannot take care of that one thing over which they usually do have control. It is true that some low income mother have families that will not allow them to get an abortion or to get access to birth control but that is not case with all teenage mothers.

Teenage mothers who get welfare are also criticized by members of the middle class not just because their tax dollars pay for welfare payments (yes some politicians have used racial animus when they use phrases like "welfare queens" when the biggest share of tax dollars that are for welafre are for corporate welfare and agro subisdies and now bank bailouts); however, it is a fact that people who pay Federal income taxes are helping to fund welfare programs for single mothers) but because most middle class families with young adults stress the importance of delaying satisfaction for the sake of getting educated and/or getting enough experience at work so you make enough to support yourself and the children when you finall ydo have one.

Most people would agree that everyone should have the right to reproduce even if they are not "privileged" but people who defer satisafaction, especially the emotional satisfaction of having childrenm until they can afford to raise them do not like having to pay taxes to subsidize those who do not defer reproduction until they have the maturity and means to raise a child. Simce we live in a relatively empathetic society, we do not want to see a mother and child go hungry so we will pay for young people who have kids before they can afford them but nothing should be regarded as a right if it involves willfully imposing costs on tax payers, even if there is a moral obligation to pay for it once it does happen.   

The people who are hypocritical are those who are against abortion of access to contraceptives for minors and then get angry at their being teenage parents and/or getting their own daughter an abortionm which has happened to more then a few conservative families.

 

[Methodical Management]

The hundred to one rule and the fact that prisons are crowded with black and brown young men, who were had drugs for person use or who were selling a little bt of drugs, are just a few of the many reason why the war on drugs is bad policy. Peopel who are for the war on drugs and who take drugs themselves are hypocrits. The students at the University of Maryland or the young people in the DC area sound like some terrible bad people based on some of the posts you have made. When I was in college, the students, who were from the suburbs and who took drugs were not so hypocritical or so dumb as to support the drug war even though every knows that peopel in low income nieghborhoods get much more police scrutiny.

Hah, believe it or not I get out a little bit and not everything I write can be attributed to the, what, five or ten things you think you know about me.  Shhh.... don't tell anyone, but once or twice I've managed to slip past the perimeter and escape from DC.  Also, I learnt me how to read awhile back.  A few of us folk here in DC don't just rely on the ol' grapevine. 

As it happens, I've also been exposed to more than one university community (as hard as it may be to imagine, I've even graduated from more than one institution of higher learning, and, no, I'm not referring to Lincoln Tech, Hollywood Upstairs Medical College, or the University of the United States.)  Making assumptions from a limited body of information... now where have I seen that before?  Oh, right, that's what you just attempted to accuse me of doing.  Funny how that works.

It's a little unsettling that you can "agree" with me in such a disagreeable way, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do, I suppose.  You certainly made one of us look a little silly, if that's what you set out to accomplish.  I'll just chalk it up as misguided anger and let it slide.  Life's too short to do otherwise and it would be selfish to derail a thread that is and should remain about something of the utmost importance over a personal tiff.  The issues should maintain center stage.  Like statistically 100% of what takes place in the universe, this isn't about me.  With that in mind:


As far as the whole child-rearing issue is concerned... I'd suggest reading Lisa Dodson's "Don't Call Us Out of Name" or David Zucchino's "The Myth of the Welfare Queen."  Both deal with actual human beings in exactly the sorts of situations you've described.  Dodson's book in particular deals with the issue of delayed childbearing. 

These are only irrational decisions if you approach it like Paul Shirley and frame the choice from a middle/upper income perspective.  You can't just look at outcomes and assume that a poor single mother passed up a college scholarship in favor of unprotected sex.  It's one thing to "wonder why" someone would choose to have children at 17, but it's not like this is an impenetrable mystery.  If you want to know... find out.  Don't just throw the question out there like Paul Shirley and assume that doing so is in any way a neutral or even well-meaning act.  I'm reminded of the oft-lampooned use of rhetorical questions on cable news networks.  "Do women choose unprotected sex over college because they want to live a life of luxury on the government's dime?"  "Was Barack Obama born in Lebanon?"  "Is Martha Stewart pregnant with Tiger Woods' lovechild?"  In Shirley's case, the question is a product of cluelessness, but not in the way one might suspect.  The inquiry is an allegation. 

Most people who've grown up poor, spent time around poor families, or even those who've simply seen or read ACCOUNTS of poor families are familiar with testimony to the effect that "we didn't always have enough to eat and we didn't often get what we wanted for the holidays, but we had each other."  How many people have sincerely decided to have children because they've reasoned that, if worst comes to worst, the government will take care of them?  Families tend to find a way to survive and even if life is defined by struggle and hardship, the act of struggling together and sharing hardship can imbue even the most painful and difficult of lives with joy and meaning. 

Straight to the point, childbearing as a choice means exactly that: it should be a choice, not a foregone conclusion.  If someone chooses to believe that there is no more noble or valuable role in life than that of a father or mother, far be it from me to disagree with them.  We're better served examining the life circumstances that have led many young people to believe that there is no alternative to childbearing or no point to its deferral rather than vilifying those who've chosen to start families at a young age.  With respect to unprotected sex, you'll have to forgive me if "let them wear condoms" reminds me, at least a little, of "let them eat cake."  OF COURSE wearing a condom seems obvious to you.  That it isn't the obvious choice for someone in an impoverished community does not make them ignorant, stubborn, or irrational.  It can mean, instead, that their situation is different in a way that you haven't bothered to consider or become aware of. 

 

[rexanglorum]

I know that you are probably short on sleep but you should not be so on edge, I am not angry, at least not at you, and I did not mean to offend you. It am just saying that it is very strange and illogical for someone, who takes illegal drugs, to co-sign the war on drugs in general and to have a gung ho, lock 'em up and throw away the key attitude when it comes to mandatory minimums. I mentioned UMD to be friendly, to add a personal touch while agreeing with you, at least I got that fact right, you once confused me for being a Norcal resident

 

 smh. That is the West Coast version of saying that someone who is a UMD fan is a UNC fan, it is serious business. If you did not meet those pot smoking Nancy Reagan conservatives as an undergrad at UMD then where ever you did meet them you met some pretty terrible people who would knowingly endorse a policy because they want to see young black men locked up for years for doing the same thing that they do.


Regarding early reproduction and a high fertility rate there really are two separate situations, one involving the poor in the US and other in industrialized countries and the other situation involves those living in poverty or dire poverty in the the very poorest countries, like Haiti.

In the case of the latter, it is rational to have many children starting at an early age and to have a large family because, with the exception of situations like this Earthquake's aftermath where food and other essentials are in extraordinarily short supply. In more normal times, people in poor countries have many children because there is no social security, no government provided pensions and their children are their best hope of having some semblance of care in their old age. Also, women in those countries, in many cases, have no choice because they live in a patriarchal society, cannot afford birth control, do not know much about it and would not be allowed to use it if they are aware of it.

It is a very different story in the case of the poor in industrialized countries. While there are pockets of deep poverty in the US and in other industrialized nations, it is no where near the one or two dollar a day reality that is common place in poor countries. There are welfare benefits, foodstamps, there is medicare, there is social security, how ever small the benefits are relative to the median income here, there is free public education up through the secondary level, it is a totally different situation as the one the developing countries. It is irrational, it is counterproductive to have child at 15 or 16 or even at 20 or 21 in our society. It drastically diminishes your chances of escaping poverty

Yes there is emotional satisfaction that comes from having a child but it comes at a huge cost and when you are already poor it makes sense to avoid that cost because it greatly increases your chances that you will remain poor. In situations where the children having the baby had access to birth control and abortion and they were not stopped by their parents or the state, that is an example of a poor person doing something that is a bad idea. People who are poor have many things either partially or totally beyond their control and it is self destructive to mess up that one thing that you probably have the most control over. Middle class and affluent teenage females also want to have have children because that is how humanity perpetuates itself, by young adult females wanting to be mothers but they tend to avoid doing so even though their families are better equipped to help them care for that child, they still tend to avoid it. Our genetic makeup pushes us to do many things that are self destructive if they are done at the wrong time. It is about having control over our instincts when our instincts are not compatible with our, urbanized, electronic, post industrial world.
  
The cost of providing welfare to poor mothers and their children is a very small part of the Federal Budget. The biggest cost for poor teens having children is that they make it very difficult for themselves to ever realize their potential, to get a higher eduction or even a high school diploma and have an opportunity to operate in the world without the burdens of caring for a child. Teenagers from families with much higher income avoid pregnancy and teenage motherhood for that very same reason and since it is the case that some low income communities actually encourage their teens to reproduce, it shows that the causes of poverty can sometimes be a mix of internal and external factors because having children prematurely causes poverty or in the case of poor people it perpetuates it.

 

[prostaffer]

Originally Posted by Rexanglorum


Yes there is emotional satisfaction that comes from having a child but it comes at a huge cost and when you are already poor it makes sense to avoid that cost because it greatly increases your chances that you will remain poor. In situations where the children having the baby had access to birth control and abortion and they were not stopped by their parents or the state, that is an example of a poor person doing something that is a bad idea. People who are poor have many things either partially or totally beyond their control and it is self destructive to mess up that one thing that you probably have the most control over. Middle class and affluent teenage females also want to have have children because that is how humanity perpetuates itself, by young adult females wanting to be mothers but they tend to avoid doing so even though their families are better equipped to help them care for that child, they still tend to avoid it. Our genetic makeup pushes us to do many things that are self destructive if they are done at the wrong time. It is about having control over our instincts when our instincts are not compatible with our, urbanized, electronic, post industrial world.
  
The cost of providing welfare to poor mothers and their children is a very small part of the Federal Budget. The biggest cost for poor teens having children is that they make it very difficult for themselves to ever realize their potential, to get a higher eduction or even a high school diploma and have an opportunity to operate in the world without the burdens of caring for a child. Teenagers from families with much higher income avoid pregnancy and teenage motherhood for that very same reason and since it is the case that some low income communities actually encourage their teens to reproduce, it shows that the causes of poverty can sometimes be a mix of internal and external factors because having children prematurely causes poverty or in the case of poor people it perpetuates it.

I'm starting to sway on this issue. I thought that children brought up in poverty can be solely blamed on the parents who created them. In the united states we take for granted the availability of birth control, condoms, e.t.c. Ask many devout catholics how reliable the "rhythm" method is.

We also see a country that relies heavily on foreign aid and assume that money should be used to cure all. What would you rather give a country full of hungry kids, YAZ or Bread?

A sad issue of the economics of this was pointed out by Hazel eyed Honey. When Haiti's agricultural sector was destroyed through trade. A country with a large uneducated population can put such people to use in agriculture rather than having them live in condensed urban pockets.

The one good thing about a country with so many kids is that they are cheap labor. Before the industrial revolution kids were seen as production goods. Farmers had large families because children could be raised/trained to keep the family business going and could do work at a relatively young age; milk cows, gather eggs, e.t.c. (I'm not talking sweat shop labor)

Americans, particularly middle-class and up, see children as investment properties. People have one or two and invest in them via time and education. They hope that more investment brings about a better child that earns more and in turn can take care of them.

In the case of people with lower incomes more children means more people to take care of you as you grow older. Disease takes more people of lower income so a greater number of children ensures your family has a better chance of continuing. Also, if you cannot afford to go to movies, sit at home and rent netflix you have less opportunity to enjoy life. (This can be argued) The greatest joy in life is children so everyone has that right.

I don't mean to take such a business like approach to human life, but I feel this view better explains the views at discussion.

Cliff notes:

Shirley and middle class americans view kids as investments.
They only have as many as they can afford to bring up "properly"
Poor people can't afford to control their reproduction sometimes.
Since their life has less joy, more kids can mean more enjoyment.
Also more kids, even if they are poor can take care of you as you grow older.

 

[twig1026]

He has a point...no way for us to know if 100% of the money they're donating is actually going toward relief programs...but don't generalize and say all of them don't deserve help

 

[theta]

wow what a good article. posting for reference

 

[mr kuter]

Originally Posted by Theta

wow what a good article. posting for reference

Good article?

 

[tree4twenty]

This is my take on the whole situation:

Whenever something like this happens, the help that we give is just a band-aid.

We rebuild a city/country, but we don't rebuild it to it's needed standards. We feed a starving country, but they will always need food because there is no money because there are no jobs.

Sure, I donated $20 to Haiti even though I know they are just going to rebuild it just as it was and this same exact thing is eventually going to happen again. If it was set in stone that we were going to rebuild it the way it NEEDS to be built, I would have donated $100. Honestly.

Instead, they are going to band-aid it up and $18 of my dollars will probably go into someones pocket...

It's actually really sad that it takes something of this magnitude to get people to help a starving country. Humans as a whole need a reality check. We all need to realize that life is a gift and some people in the world are not able to enjoy it. Not by decision, but by bad luck - Where they are born...

Next time anybody reading this is driving their nice car down the road, or shoving a cheeseburger into their mouth needs to stop and think about how somewhere in the world at that very moment, mass amounts of fellow HUMANS are sleeping/sitting on the ground, no shoes, feet bleeding, ribs sticking out, feces all over and sickness all around them.

I have gone through a bunch of stuff in my almost 29 years on this planet and I have never dropped the "I'm blessed and have it good compared to others" attitude. Our big problems (Or at least what we THINK are big problems) are nothing. We are so blessed, what do we see on our news everyday? BS about Diddy stepping in a pile of dog crap or Tiger Woods cheating on his wife....Pitiful. It makes me mad and sick whenever I turn on the news and they are talking about some gossip about some rich actor...Who cares?

I really wish that there was a world wide, mandatory, donation for needy countries to rebuild and feed their families. $1 minimum out of every single working persons check to help rebuild, create jobs and feed the needy all over the earth. IMO, a lot of countries would be fixed quick. I would have $10 taken out of every check...

Why not just donate $10 out of every check anyways, you ask?

1) It's apparent that most of donation money doesn't go where it is supposed to go.
2) I don't have the money, time or means to go to these places on a regular basis to make sure it gets where it needs to be..

Basically, it makes me sick that we, HUMANS, do not find it absolutely necessary to rally together to help other HUMANS in dire need unless we feel obligated to do so...

 

[philly5fan]

Most ignorant article Ive ever read... anyone who agrees with this is just as ignorant

 

[kimahrioftheronsotribe]

General Johnson wrote:

I'm black. By definition, I can't be racist because I have no power to use my prejudice to hold anyone down.

 

[genius44]

Ignorance is bliss.

 

[jthagreat]

Late or not (not sure if someone else has upped this, was linked in a recent thread) this article is extremely hard for me to comment on. So ignorant, so distasteful...the position/pedestal in which he speaks from is absolutely sickening. Really has me upset.Late or not (not sure if someone else has upped this, was linked in a recent thread) this article is extremely hard for me to comment on. So ignorant, so distasteful...the position/pedestal in which he speaks from is absolutely sickening. Really has me upset.

 

[Deleted member 37754]

[color= rgb(255, 0, 0)]Listen..... he has good points. Ones i have said over and over and over again, which no one seem to listen to. And the is perfectly fine with me. Is he even hiding his not-so-subtle racism or backlandish "you're an idiot and i'm intelligent" comments... not at all. And i'm going to disregard that because in all truth it doesn't help at all. pure ignorance. But inside that rant IS logic. He just isn't brilliant enough to realize and rise above to get it out.[/color]

Imagine that I’m a caveman. Imagine that I’ve chosen to build my house out of balsa wood, and that I’m building it next to a roaring river because I’ve decided it will make harvesting fish that much easier. Then, imagine that my hut is destroyed by a flood. Imagining what would happen next is easier than imagining me carrying a caveman’s club. If I were lucky enough to survive the roaring waters that took my hut, my tribesmen would say, “Building next to the river was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?.