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Still Voting with Their Feet
The supposed reforms of Raul Castro aren't stemming the flow of
citizens attempting to flee the island, reports the London
Times. Cubans are still "voting with their feet, and those who
succeed in reaching Miami have raised serious doubts about Raul
Castro's intentions as he tries to defuse mounting public
criticism."
"It's just a big facade to impress the people," claimed Yhosvany Carmona, a popular young Cuban television actor who fled Havana via the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and arrived in Miami last week. "Who are these people who can now afford to buy computers, cellphones and DVDs? They are the same people who could afford to buy them on the black market before." In one sense, Castro, 77, has had little choice but to embark on a radical restructuring of a Caribbean economy that has been struggling to rebuild itself since the collapse of the Soviet Union robbed it of its principal banker.
[...]
Yet other analysts have noted that the reforms announced so far have been more about style than substance. Cuban citizens are now allowed to stay at beach hotels that were previously reserved for foreign tourists, but there has scarcely been a flood of local pleasure-seeking. The average salary of Cuba's 11.4m citizens is £8.70 a month, and hotel rooms cost up to £100 a night.
The government has also removed a ceiling on wages. Originally intended to prevent social inequalities from emerging, the low salaries paid to Cuban professionals have driven thousands of them from the island. While the Castros are proud of the reputation of Cuban doctors, who staff hospitals across South America, sources in Havana say many of the doctors are forced to work abroad because they can barely feed their families at home.
Full story.
I wrote about Obama's ever-shifting position on the embargo
here, the media's reaction to Castro's resignation
here, and a documentary recounting Cuba's shootdown of
two Brothers to the Rescue planes here.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 3:31PM|#
But isn't this all the fault of the USA? I swear I heard those enlightened folks tell me so. Some of them even post here.
|6.18.08 @ 3:35PM|#
They must not know about the terrible US health care system. Poor deluded fools, leaving a free health care paradise.
Marcvs|6.18.08 @ 3:36PM|#
Cuba's condition isn't the fault of the U.S., but our embargo certainly doesn't help their economy.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 3:42PM|#
Marcvs,
It is Cuba that prevents their hot chicks and baseball players from
coming here, not the USA.
Naga Sadow|6.18.08 @ 3:46PM|#
I'm not familiar with any hot Cuban women.
However, in the workers paradise, I'm sure many women can weld.
Surely some of them are hot.
Colin Clout|6.18.08 @ 3:46PM|#
Chris Potter,
Just as a point of information, a lot of people do go to Cuba to
seek medical care.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 3:49PM|#
I don't know, there was that well-publicized attempt by three men to emigrate to Cuba with a trillion dollar bill.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 3:49PM|#
However, in the workers paradise, I'm sure many women can
weld. Surely some of them are hot.
Naga, the welding skill in women makes them almost hot by
definition. Only some horrible deformity, like being unwilling to
wear 5" heels, or worse, could make a welding woman not hot.
Theoretically, the ability to weld an aluminum beer can would
overcome most appearance flaws.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 3:52PM|#
Just as a point of information, a lot of people do go to
Cuba to seek medical care.
You mean USAians? The Weatherman Underground members were not going
there to seek medical care, they were hiding from the US Marshalls
and FBI.
Perhaps you are thinking of Venezuelans?
Colin Clout|6.18.08 @ 3:55PM|#
Guy Montag,
Cuba - like a lot of countries - is involved in the whole "medical
tourism" industry - or so I have read.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 3:55PM|#
It's a two-tier system.
People go to Cuba to get the top tier health care and make
documentaries while 99% of Cubans get the one where the rats
outnumber doctors by 100:1.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 3:57PM|#
Cuba - like a lot of countries - is involved in the whole
"medical tourism" industry - or so I have read.
Oh yea, and TallDave is reminding me of that Michael Moore comedy
about it.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 4:01PM|#
Michael Moore makes documentaries not comedies.
You are thinking of "Canadian Bacon", his closest approach to
reality-based film making.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 4:01PM|#
Yeah, I was thrilled to learn that top-level Communist officials get wonderful free health care, which they are willing to loan out to foreigners for PR purposes while their own people suffer with doctors paid $15 a month.
thoreau|6.18.08 @ 4:02PM|#
Guy Montag | June 18, 2008, 3:31pm | #
But isn't this all the fault of the USA? I swear I heard those enlightened folks tell me so. Some of them even post here.
Hey, Guy Montag: Instead of burning straw and inhaling the fumes,
why not try a Cuban cigar? It will be a more pleasant experience
and your head will be clearer as a result.
Colin Clout|6.18.08 @ 4:06PM|#
TallDave,
Well, most healthcare around the world has tiers to it. So the
issue is more which ones on average create better outcomes - and
those are probably the ones which allow for or stress some sort of
choice, competition, etc.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 4:08PM|#
TallDave,
But with that $15/mo. they get a nice free apartment, free food,
free lunch and a '57 Bellaire.
They are not bound by the ratrace that our physicians must endure
that distracts them from their social duty.
Added bonus: the whole country has the ultimate evolution in zoning
standards! No urban sprawl and McMansion free paradise.
Reason Is Counter-Revolutionar|6.18.08 @ 4:09PM|#
Mr. Michael C. Moynihan,
Truly, you are the shill for the Big Running-Dog Capitalist Lackey
of United States.
|6.18.08 @ 4:10PM|#
In one sense, Castro, 77, has had little choice but to
embark on a radical restructuring of a Caribbean economy that has
been struggling to rebuild itself since the collapse of the Soviet
Union robbed it of its principal banker.
It's all just one big case of Raul's Jan, playing to Fidel's
Marcia. Sad, really.
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 4:10PM|#
Isn't Cuban medicine more holistic than ours? I have heard that holistic is good.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 4:13PM|#
Well, most healthcare around the world has tiers to
it.
Sure, the big difference is Cuba's opressive regime tries to
pretend there is only one tier of wonderful health care for
everyone, when in fact it's classic cronyist "classless"
Communism.
|6.18.08 @ 4:14PM|#
BREAKING NEWS ALERT!
Cuba still sucks.
Film at eleven.
I'm all for ending the embargo. Then after ten years of trade
between Cuba and the U.S. I can post
BREAKING NEWS ALERT!
Cuba still sucks.
Film at eleven.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 4:14PM|#
Isn't Cuban medicine more holistic than ours? I have heard
that holistic is good.
They're reportedly using acupuncture for anesthesia.
Doesn't that sound fun?
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 4:17PM|#
They're reportedly using acupuncture for anesthesia.
Doesn't that sound fun?
Wow! Just like China huh?
Is the 1970s trying to make a comeback or something?
Guy Montag|6.18.08 @ 4:23PM|#
Now I see why I am not getting the Angryrenter ad. Nobody has to pay rent in Cuba!
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 4:32PM|#
I'm getting:
Physician Jobs - VISTA
Short-Term, Long-Term, US, Int'l - Find Just What You Are Looking
For.
and
Study Abroad in Cuba
Find the perfect study abroad program to fit your
needs.
Packing my bags as we speak...
Colin Clout|6.18.08 @ 4:34PM|#
J sub D,
Is any Cuban leader making any statements like those made by Deng
Xiaoping?
|6.18.08 @ 4:51PM|#
Cuba - like a lot of countries - is involved in the whole "medical tourism" industry - or so I have read.
Cuba is also involved in the whole "sex tourism" industry - or so
I have read.
But unlike the "medical tourism" industry, it's not officially
sanctioned.
shecky|6.18.08 @ 5:03PM|#
Cuba is also involved in the whole "sex tourism" industry -
or so I have read.
But unlike the "medical tourism" industry, it's not officially
sanctioned.
Ah... America and Cuba are brothers at heart.
Ironic|6.18.08 @ 5:06PM|#
"You are thinking of "Canadian Bacon", his closest approach to
reality-based film making."
I honestly forgot that Canadian Bacon was a Michael Moore film. I
guess there actually is a Moore film I like. I like it because
Moore never claimed it to be anything other than a work of fiction,
which it is. It is very funny.
economist|6.18.08 @ 5:11PM|#
On a previous Cuba thread where someone (I think it was MNG) was arguing that Cuba did not suck so much, I pointed out that if your country doesn't suck, you don't have to actively restrict their emigration. Mexico sucks too, but at least they aren't reduced to actually trying to keep people from leaving.
|6.18.08 @ 5:37PM|#
There must be a lot of respect for elders in Cuba, that would
explain why neither of these Castro brothers has been tossed
through a window after all these years.
If there was one country that could use a couple of suicide
bombers, Cuba is it.
Kolohe|6.18.08 @ 6:16PM|#
I'm all for ending the embargo. Then after ten years of
trade between Cuba and the U.S. I can post
BREAKING NEWS ALERT!
Cuba still sucks.
Film at eleven.
As a sociopolitical experiment, I would love to replace our trade
policy with Cuba with our trade policy with China. And vice
versa.
|6.18.08 @ 6:41PM|#
R C Dean, Esq., I present to you--
The Pomegranate Patrón Mojito: Tangy pomegranate purée freshly
shaken with Patrón Silver Tequila and mint.
It is so choice, and it is, indeed, a strange blending of the
margarita and mojito. One can procure one at one of Roy Yamaguchi's
restaurants. There's one in Plano and one in Austin for you. Mine
is in Tampa.
|6.18.08 @ 8:15PM|#
Saying "You must be new here" to thoreau is, oddly enough, the least idiotic thing Guy Montag has written today.
TallDave|6.18.08 @ 9:06PM|#
As a sociopolitical experiment, I would love to replace our
trade policy with Cuba with our trade policy with China.
I would settle for Cuba adopting China's program of liberalizing
economic rights.
|6.18.08 @ 9:23PM|#
As a sociological expirement, I would like to replace ToolDave
with a bag of liposuction residue that repeats Tom Delay
quotes.
Think anyone would notice?
|6.19.08 @ 1:13AM|#
Hey, guys. There's no need for all this sniping over who has the best health care. I mean, you know, at least we don't throw female infants over a cliff like the Spartans' use to.
|6.19.08 @ 1:16AM|#
Snipe all you want. All I want to know is where am I most likely to be able to say, "Blood and guts all over the room and here I sit without my spoon."? Heh. Heh. Heh.
TallDave|6.19.08 @ 2:37AM|#
I mean, you know, at least we don't throw female infants
over a cliff like the Spartans' use to.
The Communists in Cuba are one up on the Spartans: they abort
hi-risk pregnancies. Makes the infant mortality stats look
better.
I wonder if that little factoid made it into Moore's film?
'Course, they still carry out those 90th triimester late-term
abortions too, if you speak out against them.
B|6.19.08 @ 10:10AM|#
"Well, most healthcare around the world has tiers to it. So the
issue is more which ones on average create better outcomes - and
those are probably the ones which allow for or stress some sort of
choice, competition, etc"
Yeah, and that is exactly what communism is known for, competition.
I swear, if anyone actually thinks Cuba has good health care, you
probably also think it is possible to eat your own head and
live.
|6.19.08 @ 10:17AM|#
Well, most healthcare around the world has tiers to it. So
the issue is more which ones on average create better
outcomes
That's the utilitarian issue. There's also a moral issue around
tiers based on politics versus tiers based on economics.
Guy Montag|6.19.08 @ 12:31PM|#
Cuba is also involved in the whole "sex tourism" industry -
or so I have read.
So that is where all the chicks who can weld are hiding! Raoul is
hoarding them.
Guy Montag|6.19.08 @ 12:33PM|#
Jamie Kelly,
I have heard that holistic is good.
You have been duped by dumbshits.
Well, I heard it from George and Kramer on Seinfeld in the
tonsils episode, so you might have a point.
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