Haiti: Leading Indicator?

NPR again. This time an essay that really makes you wonder. Since the earthquake in Haiti (hear much about Haiti lately?) attention has been directed to their overpopulation, the deforestation of their mountains, the political corruption that leads to a very rich class and a very poor class and other problems like lack of health care, crumbling infrastructure, fiscal disaster and no regulation of anything. The natural reaction to this portrait is “poor Haiti, they are Sooo (1) backward”. But are they really? It looked to the writer of the essay, and to me, that Haiti may just be a leading indicator of where the rest of the world is headed. If you read back to the second sentence and think about it a minute you will find some frightening parallels to much of the rest of the world. Combined, these and other problems that are all manifest in Haiti are plaguing the world (and the U.S. too).
Is Haiti backward or a leading indicator? Scary to contemplate.
1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sooo
Image: http://www.nasaimages.org (Haiti left, Dominican Republic right)