“thanks to half a century of American embargo,”
Wrong. Other countries have no embargo with Cuba. Goods can come and go.
Cubans are poor and have no opportunities because the regime is communist and punishes effort and rewards conformity with communist goals.
When you’re at rock bottom, the only way to go is up.
“But Cubans, while still ostensibly stuck in a time warp thanks to half a century of American embargo...”
A statement of such massive stupidity that it defies reason.
What a crock! On the one hand liberalization has helped improve life and incomes, but only for whites. On the other hand, free markets will destroy Cuba. Talk a disconnect. Leftist pretzel logic leads to continent-sized distortions.
And the author worries that opening up Cuba will bring poverty? Is he kidding? The whole island is submerged in widespread poverty — after once have one of the highest standards of living before Fidel Castro.
Hope springs eternal!
The rapid recovery of West Germany following the discarding of price and production controls following WWII, is called the German Miracle. No. It’s wasn’t a miracle. That’s what you should expect.
A miracle would have been if East Germany, continuing with state control of the economy, would have enjoyed rapid recovery.
It’s not a miracle that water flows down. Oh, look, the miracle of the Mississippi River. It’s flowing from high to low altitudes. It would be a miracle if the Mississippi flowed uphill.
So, let’s look at the Dominican Republic. A roughly free market economy with a decent enough government. It’s economy is rapidly developing. Do progressive socialists organize field trips to this tropical island country? Of course not. They don’t want to see how capitalism can and actual does transform countries. They long for the socialist miracle.
Today, millions of Americans are choosing to retire in Costa Rico and in Panama. Countries that had gotten their act together. But, who would want to reture in Nicaragua?
Peru and Colombia are doing fine, in spite of the many challenges they face, including narco-terrorists and FALN. But, what about Venezuela? Is water flowing upstream in that socialist country?
Now, let me let you into a little secret about socialism. With socialism, the people are so poor, they will sell their boys and girls for ration coupons. Cheap access to boys and girls is one of the reasons the progressive socialists like to travel to the worker paradises of the world. Also, the prisons are full of slave workers. And, many of these slave workers are sold in international markets.
“But Cubans, while still ostensibly stuck in a time warp thanks to half a century of American embargo...”
And as usual, the left manufactures its own reality regarding Cuba because its a glaring example of the failure of Socialism/Communism right on our doorstep.
LIES are the hallmark of communism and its radical left.
Complete extortion ...
Every passenger on every cruise chip that just docks in Havana is extorted out of a one-time $80 visa fee, even if they never leave the ship.
For those of us that live in the Tampa area, this Cuba port has seen every reasonable cruise fares go sky high. THREE TIMES what it cost last year to sail anywhere in the Caribbean now.
In recent decades one could sail from any Florida or Gulf port to every single Caribbean port without even a passport. The one thorn in the side of Caribbean cruising this year is that the ships are hitting Cuba with almost 50% stopping there. You can go everywhere else with just a birth certificate, but not when the ship has Havana on the itinerary.
Cursed.
There are some nice cars but most are poorly done, 90% bondo, and blow more smoke than a mosquito fogger due to the fact that the engine came from a late 80’ Soviet Lada.
Consider the source. What would one expect from Al-Jizz?
Cuba is like most Arab countries with no oil, Cuba created its problems by rejecting Capitalism and now they can live with it
Ha ha ha ha go away lying muslim animal person. You are embarrassing yourself and all of lyingmuslimanimalkind.
Several years ago the biggest story out of Cuba was that Fidel had issued new rice cookers to everyone in the country.
That is how poor they are.
Iirc Cuba at the time of Batista had the sixth highest living standard in the world. Now? Way down the list. Except for Fidel and Raul.
Mark LeVine exhibits a trait that is common among progressives - he is unafraid to say or write things that reveal him to be an idiot, as long as he mistakenly believes that it advances the ugly, dystopian progressive agenda.
I have seen so many progressives willingly make such absolute fools of themselves in a similar manner that it’s clear that it’s not a “bug” of ‘progressivism’, rather it’s an inherent “feature” (a.k.a. ‘symptom’) of the pathology.
If you believe that move there today.