00:00Hawaii's population must earn at least twice the average salary in the rest of the United States to live comfortably.
00:13Those who are not ready to spend five dollars for a gallon of milk have to look for happiness elsewhere,
00:19and year after year, the state finds itself at the head of the ranking of population losses.
00:25While the local middle class is leaving, Hawaii becomes a paradise for billionaires.
00:3337 of them already own 11% of all private land in the state of Aloha.
00:38Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, bought 98% of the island of Lanai, including the grocery store, the only gas station and the community newspaper.
00:48All for the coquettish sum of 300 million dollars.
00:51It makes him the boss and owner of everyone on the island.
00:56Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, built a huge complex in Kauai with more than a dozen buildings,
01:04at least 30 rooms and a bathroom, a tunnel leading to an underground bunker of 464 square meters,
01:11and 11 houses in the trees connected by complex rope bridges.
01:15The local residents, who have ancestral rights on this land, lost it in court and had to put it up for auction.
01:22Malaysian magnate Kek Leng Chan owns a third of the island of Molokai thanks to his commercial empire.
01:28Of course, he and some of the other billionaires in the world create new jobs and invest in development projects on the islands.
01:36However, nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants believe that their state is run for tourists, at the expense of the residents.
01:46Many famous people like to live in Wailea and Makena in Maui because it is peaceful and offers them the intimacy they desire.
01:53Oprah Winfrey has a big house in the local hills.
01:56Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, would have bought a huge house near the Peruvian Bay for 78 million dollars.
02:05Among the other famous personalities who live in Maui, there are Clint Eastwood, Mick Fleetwood, Jim Carrey and Alice Cooper.
02:13When you visit Maui, you can see a special All of Fame exhibition at the airport showing these celebrities.
02:20It is supposed to celebrate their link with the island.
02:23But the inhabitants feel as if they were only emphasizing the huge gap between the new super-rich residents and the local residents, who have barely the means to live there.
02:34As the rich and famous continue to buy properties through Hawaii, house prices continue to rise.
02:40Is it more expensive to buy a house here than in Washington, D.C. or California?
02:46Part of the reason for these high prices lies in the very formation of the land.
02:50Hawaii is larger than most people think, but it is made up of many separate islands that are far apart from each other.
02:58Although the islands are large, all the land cannot be used to build houses or neighborhoods.
03:05Unlike most of the United States, which has a lot of flat land and soft hills, a large part of Hawaii is made up of steep mountains and rugged terrain.
03:16This type of terrain is very difficult to build or inhabit.
03:20As a result, most of the inhabitants of Hawaii, about a million of them, live on an island called Oahu.
03:28The other islands, like the big island, have far fewer people.
03:32There is not enough land for everyone, and this makes it difficult for people who have lived in Hawaii all their lives to afford a place to live.
03:41Tourism represents 21% of the state's economy.
03:45Most visitors come from the United States and Japan.
03:48Tourists bring a lot of money, but there is a problem.
03:52Depending too much on tourism can be risky for Hawaii.
03:56In recent years, due to what we all know, a sanitary rule called the Order of Conditional Navigation has stopped cruise ships from docking in Hawaii for health reasons.
04:08Many other tourist activities, such as beach visits or events, have also been closed.
04:15With fewer visitors, Hawaii has made a lot less money, which has harmed the economy.
04:20To avoid this problem in the future, Hawaii has tried to generate income through other means than tourism.
04:26One of the ideas is to invest more in fishing, but it was not easy.
04:32At one point, fishing was excessive here.
04:34And now, Hawaii must import 63% of its seafood from other regions, instead of fishing nearby.
04:41There are farms here that grow pineapples, macadamia nuts, coffee, and produce milk.
04:47But today, agriculture is no longer as important as it was 100 years ago.
04:52One of the reasons is probably that it is more profitable to sell the land for houses or hotels than to use it for agriculture.
04:59This change has made Hawaii even more dependent on tourism and has made life in the state of Aloha very expensive.
05:11It is reported that Honolulu is the 7th most expensive city in the United States in terms of cost of living.
05:16A family of four spends about $8,000 a month here, and an adult alone will have to pay an average of $2,500.
05:24Food alone costs about $500 per person for a month.
05:29Most of the food in Hawaii, about 85 to 90%, comes from remote places.
05:35Since they have to travel more than 4,000 km to get there, about a third of all food is wasted on the road, especially because Hawaii is hot and humid.
05:46This waste makes things more expensive, because stores know that they will lose part of their products and increase their prices to compensate for their losses.
05:54There are not as many stores competing with each other.
05:57If the stores do not compete, they have no reason to lower their prices.
06:02In addition, they have to pay a lot for things like rent and electricity, so they increase their prices to compensate for these costs.
06:10Speaking of electricity, an average bill is close to $200, which is almost 90% higher than the national average.
06:18Yes, the state of Aloha has the highest energy costs in the country.
06:23And this may be why the people of Hawaii consume less electricity than other states, but their bills are still much higher.
06:32The main reason is the price per unit of electricity, called kilowatt hours.
06:37A unit of electricity costs almost 40 cents.
06:40For comparison, Utah offers the lowest price at only 10.91 cents.
06:46It is so expensive in Hawaii because most of the electricity comes from oil.
06:50And this oil must be shipped by boat to the islands.
06:54Since Hawaii depends a lot on oil, energy costs fluctuate with oil prices.
07:00In addition to all this, income tax is among the highest in the country.
07:08A quarter of all households in Hawaii spent more than their income in 2024.
07:13To survive, people used their savings and credit cards and reduced their expenses.
07:18They also had to work more hours or find an additional job.
07:22They were forced to sell their property and borrow money from their relatives, banks or other lenders.
07:28Almost half of the residents are in the category called Alice.
07:33And this has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland.
07:36This means limited assets, constrained budgets, employees.
07:41More than one resident out of three lives below the annual income threshold Alice.
07:45And then there is also the legislation, the law on the merchant navy, which complicates things for Hawaii.
07:52It stipulates that all goods shipped between places in the United States must be transported on ships
07:58which are held, built and operated by Americans.
08:02This makes the expedition much more expensive because ships and American crews cost much more than ships from other countries.
08:09Most ships in the world do not follow these rules because they are registered in countries like Panama.
08:16Because of this, Hawaii can still receive regional goods such as East Asia, using cheaper ships.
08:23But if they come from the United States, it costs much more.
08:28In fact, this law costs Hawaii more than a billion dollars each year.
08:32This law also makes it very difficult for companies to develop in Hawaii because everything is very expensive.
08:38The cost of insurance also increases.
08:40This is due to the fact that the islands are affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes and storms more frequently.
08:47All this contributes to making life in Hawaii even more expensive.
08:51But despite all this, the state regularly occupies a high place in studies on well-being.
08:56Even people who can barely meet their needs are for the most part happier or at least less unhappy in Hawaii than in other states.
09:05I suppose that strong community support, a clean and wonderfully beautiful environment
09:10as well as the possibility of organizing parties on the beach all year round compensate for many difficulties.
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