anyone know why? healthcare is free and they're all literate. makes no sense

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/...-cuba-n1273664

I like how NBC parrots communistic propaganda from a communist.

The underlying reasons are complex, Cuba isn’t particularly well run, what little income there was has dried up post Covid-19 when tourism went poof, and the current regime is far less supported than Fidel and Raul Castro where.

But the direct cause? Food, or rather the lack of it.

Hey all:

I sincerely hope that better days are ahead for the people of Cuba!

I've said it before, and I'll ask again...

If Cuba is such a good place, why isn't their standard of living MUCH higher than what it is?

Also, why is the USA embargo such a big deal? Of course, that will certainly have some effect on them...BUT they are a great society and can do wonders for their people!

Can't Cuba get around the USA by simply working with S. Korea, Japan, England, Germany. No Chevy cars? OK, buy Mercedes, Kia, Toyota, or some Chinese stuff.

No American cheddar cheese? Get it from France or England.

What about consumer electronics? Surely they can get all they want from China, Japan, Korea?

Oh wait? Maybe it is that their economy is a basket case and their government is corrupt and "developmentally disabled"?

You just can't win. If you do trade with third-world nations, then you are accused of ruthlessly exploiting them and engaging in economic colonialism. If you don't, then this is some evil, catastrophic event which rationalizes the inevitable failure of a command economy and dictatorship of the proletariat.

It was corrupt as hell, initially, but I I'm pretty sure Cuba would have been Las Vegas, if not for communism.

In a sense, Cuba was Las Vegas in the 1940's and 1950's. Havana was one of the world's largest gambling destinations.

There is no such thing as "getting around US sanctions". That is like swimming from Amsterdam to Havana to get around ticket prices.

Case study

What you can do is to make the US not bother with you in the first place, which generally happens when the US too busy navel-gazing (2016-2020 was a happy place for international economic crime), but it is many decades too late to do that for Cuba.

Communism doesn't help economic prospects, for sure.

Corruption is a concern, and Cuba is typically seen as having plenty. But exactly what corruption does to an economy is a weirdly complicated issue. Cuba ranks far better than Mexico on the Corruption Perceptions index and is somewhat comparable to Italy on the same index. While those are certainly countries with political issues to sort out, they have been historically good on economic growth.

Man, he's so close to answering his own question.

They restrict trade themselves, bro.

Almost correct. If "not for the embargo" would have been the likely been the case.

the Opportunity in Cuba would have been massive. it almost certainly would have remained a winter playground for much of the US with all the wealth that comes from that.

The big question is how greedy and how despotic or not the leadership would have been???

Could they temper their short term greed enough, like China does, to allow the country to enjoy enough of the fruits of that wealth to actually build a middle class and grow the economy??

Or would they be more like Russian leadership, trying to divert every cent into the pockets of party officials, who then have to hide away more money than they can ever spend and depressing the county and making it weaker?



What the US feared was the former. They feared the less greedy or better form of Cuban gov't that might allow the country to get stronger, less dependant and developed as they did not want a model of "communist" success on their doorstep.

The US would have little issue with a more despotic dictatorship type in Cuba raping all the wealth from the nation as long as they played ball with the US and parroted the right message.

Castro shut down the casinos almost as soon as he took power, and trade was heavily restricted, and it's been like that ever since, i.e. government is primary seller of goods.

The problem with the people who rail against the embargoes is, they don't understand the extent of the corruption when it comes to goods. I saw this first hand in Afghanistan. Government aid and US aid was hoarded by warlords, only x amount of each dollar actually got to the people. You compare that with Walmart who essentially puts $0.97 of every dollar back into the economy. Not to mention, the Cuban government stole US petroleum factories.

It would have been interesting to see if Cuba could have transformed itself, similar to Las Vegas. Probably not, because there was no real rule of law, similar to the FBI, just shut down local corruption.

This dude complains about corruption and then cites ****ing Las Vegas as a viable business model.

To be clear I am not arguing about the 'las Vegas of the Caribbean' angle specifically. I am arguing that due to the proximity, Cuba even with Castro (and not being Las vegas like) could well have been a model of success.

There were many paths to success with such abundant wealth next door wanting to visit and not only for Las Vegas light.

I am not claiming the Castro regime would have navigated that in a way more similar to Xi and China's current path as opposed to Putin's and Russia. We do not know.

Xi is taking the long term greedy path. Collect all the power, but ensure enough Fruits spread to the middle class and invest heavily so your country can grow bigger and stronger. He gets richer via all ships rising and everyone in his country (in that singular area) is better off for it.

Putin's path is to take as much out as possible thus destroying long term value and viability of the nation but maximizing his short term gains. A Russia with a Xi in charge would have focused on making Russia, post reformation the most vital country in Europe and Asia. The literal EurAsia bridge. And they had the work force eager to work hard to achieve that if given an open system to do so.

So again, my point is not to say which way Castro might have went given so much wealth flowing into the island?? Maybe he just wants it all, despite never being able to spend it. Or maybe he sees he will have 'enough' even if he invests heavily in the middle class and choses that.

What the US feared was the latter. A communist state that succeeded in building a good economy and middle class on their doorstep. They would much rather interfere and deliberately make it more akin to Venezuela and then when citizens flee as refuges to refuse them while pointing fingers at the big bad communists!!!

(and again I am not saying communists are good or the system would produce some good, but pointing out the US would not allow that question to be answered out of fear it might)

For instance, Castro could have rid the country of all the Las Vegas type economy aspects and yet still have pushed high education for all and Cuba could have found purposely or by accident that they became the default US alternative health care escape destination for the under insured.

That alone could have become a major leg in the stool of building a robust economy.

A jurisdiction that could blend cutting edge US and International health care delivery and have top US and International doctors participating (traveling back and forth without restriction) but delivered at a fraction of the cost or in case where the US system has given up on the patient (you have 6 months to live) but will not give them access to experimental medicines or procedures for compassionate use, or when they do the individual has no ability to afford it could be very lucrative in a jurisdiction like Cuba with its highly educated populace.

A quasi form of this formed between the US and Mexico with Mexican hospitals serving US citizens and sent to them quietly by US doctors. I had a cousin who was dealing with a death sentence due to Cancer and unable to get certain very promising drugs that were not yet approved who was told she could get access in a neighbouring Mexican hospital. Because her and husband were enormously wealthy they took advantage of that bouncing back and forth between the Cali and Mexican hospitals with their main doctors in the US giving a tacit nod to them doing so.

As I think I've made clear, I'm no apologist for Castro, but this argument is silly. There is no way that a relatively small island nation would not be severely hurt by an embargo from an geographically proximate economic superpower.

My main problem with these types of embargoes is that they rarely, if ever, lead to meaningful reform or regime change. Most of the time, they just encourage a siege mentality and lead to more repression.

Cuban dissidents in Miami ask US to intervene on the island after massive protests

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...?ocid=msedgntp

Yeah, that never ends badly.

Looking forward to Victor's take on this.

Point of Information: Has the United States ever intervened in another country that ended up actually benefiting that county?

Sure.

Kewl. When and where?

France, cicra 1944.