Posted on 08/03/2022 4:30:41 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Years ago, my mother got a letter from her sister in Cuba complaining about the lack of food and specially seafood. So my mother said to her Cuban friend:
Can you believe that? No fish in Cuba.
And her friend said:
How can that be? It's an island. I remember going fishing and catching everything.
And my mother responded:
Yes, I remember that, too. But this is "Cuba comunista" and the fish have all gone to Miami.
Wonder what my late mother would say about the shortage of sugar in Cuba? Yes, there is not enough sugar in Cuba today.
This is the report via my friends at Babalu Blog:
The production of the 2021-2022 sugar harvest was the lowest in the last 150 years: only 480,000 tons of sugar, not even covering the average annual consumption on the island, which is around 600,000 tons. Of the 35 sugar mills that participated in the harvest, which ended on May 20, only three fulfilled their production plan.
"We don't even have sugar at the bodegas," says Alexis, the manager of one in El Cerro. Once upon a time, Cuba had no problems growing sugar cane, turning it into sugar for domestic consumption or exports. It was a forgone conclusion that every Cuban would sweeten his strong coffee and light up a cigar, something I saw my father do often. I can still smell my mother’s Cuban coffee and my father’s cigar!
SNIP
So what went wrong? The answer is that these sugar mills were once privately run and incredibly efficient. Today, they are state-run and incredibly inefficient.
It's as simple as that! Welcome to socialism!
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Because the right people have not implemented it yet?
Coal to Newcastle?
Reading the article, I started wondering.
With all the current ‘shortages’ in stores and inflation, I cannot help but wonder when the PINO Biden regime will impost “Wage & Price controls”. Then, which industry will be the first to be nationalized.
That’s seems as insane as saying there’s an oil shortage in the US.
and no air conditioning in hell
Private run sugar mills ended decades ago tho. So, I’m equally curious as to why production is especially bad this year.
I’d like to see the data over the last 15 years or so to see if there’s been a steady decline or if it dropped drastically this year.
No sugar tonight in my coffee
No sugar tonight in my tea
No sugar to stand beside me
No sugar to run with me
And it’s going to get worse :
“ had 150 (sugar) mills then, now I have 56. Fifty-four of those were active, and of those 54 only 35 contributed to the harvest.”
In 2002, authorities closed half of the island’s 150 mills, and in the subsequent years others were dismantled amid falling sugar prices. Many of the old facilities dated from before the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. Sugar cane fields were reduced and thousands of people lost their jobs.
Pérez said higher production is not expected next year since the same problems will exist and authorities plan to reduce the number of sugar mills used to 26. Authorities will hold a sugar and cane derivatives conference in the coming week.
Pérez said this season’s production will cover internal demand of about 500,000 tons but not the 400,000 tons per year contracted with China.
“We will have to renegotiate,” he said.
https://www.foodmanufacturing.com/ingredients/news/22276067/cubas-sugar-industry-in-crisis
That's right. The People need to have a real voice in choosing their socialist leaders, i.e. central planners.
Consider how efficient sugar production would be if the Cuban people had the freedom to elect wise and capable central planners like Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer.
LOL!
Maybe Socialism destroys incentives, it destroys everything else.
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Milton Friedman
Doubly so if the government were a socialist Marxist state.
Man I really miss the wet sugar from privately operated (!) local sugar mills in Jamaica. The last time I was there I brought some of it back to Georgia and then made the best pecan pie ever made in the history of pecan pies.
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