Posted on 10/15/2024 6:20:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Have you seen any economic news coming out of Cuba recently? With barely a couple of exceptions, if you read the U.S. Corporate Media, likely you have not. Searching for the most recent articles on Cuba’s economy from mainstream sources just now, I find nothing in the Washington Post about Cuba’s economy since May 2022; nothing from the New York Times since a piece in April rehashing the usual litany of Cuba’s long-known economic failures; silence at CBS since a piece in April quoting a Cuban official as “blam[ing] the U.S. for exodus of migrants, economic issues”; nothing from CNN since a March article discussing “power cuts and food shortages.” And so forth. OK, Cuba’s economy has performed poorly for decades, ever since Castro’s revolution 65 years ago. We already knew that. But are there any important new developments we should know about?
There are no meaningful official economic data coming out of the Cuban government itself. But we might try the World Bank data site as the next best option. There we will find data that is neither unusual nor alarming — although it is undoubtedly completely false. Per capita GDP is given as $9,499.60 as of 2020, with no explanation of why there has been no update in the last four years. The $9500 figure is not all that different from, for example, the World Bank’s 2023 estimate for China of $12,614. Also at the World Bank’s data site, we find that Cuba’s GDP grew (supposedly) by 1.8% in 2022; that its unemployment rate is a remarkably low 1.2% as of 2023; that its population experienced a small decline from about 11.4 million in 2018 to 11.2 million in 2023; and that it had net out-migration of about 6,000 people in 2023.
I last wrote about the economic situation in Cuba about a month ago. The news I could find then already made the World Bank “data” appear ridiculous. Since then, more facts have dribbled out to make Cuba look like a full-on disaster.
If you are inclined to believe that the World Bank might know what it is talking about, you might try this very brief (barely over 300 words) piece from Reuters on September 30. Suddenly, the headline and lede sentence describe Cuba’s economy as “devastated” and “bankrupt.” Excerpt:
Cuba is suffering an unprecedented economic crisis. In the last month, the government has said more than one million people - around 10% of its population - are without running water. The majority of the population endures several hours of blackouts each day. Food, fuel and medicine shortages are nearly universal. . . . More than one million Cubans have left the Caribbean island since 2020, a record-breaking exodus that has contributed to a crisis at the U.S. border.
Unprecedented economic crisis? More than 1 million Cubans have left since 2020? How did the World Bank miss that? Actually, the real numbers on emigration may be far worse than even Reuters reports. Mary Anastasia O’Grady had a piece in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago on October 6. Here’s an excerpt on the overall economic situation on the island:
Cuba is in a full-fledged meltdown, starting with its public infrastructure. Millions are without running water. Food rations are shrinking. Electricity blackout and brownouts are routine. The tourism industry, which was never robust, hasn’t recovered since the Covid-19 pandemic despite the construction of luxury hotels.
And as to the out-migration:
Cuban emigration in recent years has been huge. . . . In July Cuban demographer and economist Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos released data showing that Cuba’s population shrank by 18% between 2022 and 2023. He calculates that some 8.62 million remain on the island.
A loss of 18% of the population of a country over just two years is truly extraordinary. That would mean that the World Bank’s figure of net out-migration of 6000 in 2023 is off by a factor of between 100 and 200. I have never heard of such an extraordinary rate of out-migration for any other country ever. How is this not a gigantic news story? The link in O’Grady’s piece goes to this long July 23 article from the English language page of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which goes into detail on Albizu-Campos’s work and methodology. Some excerpts:
Although it’s clear that emigration in Cuba has taken off since 2021, official reports and government data describe a current population of just over 11 million who still live in the country. But that number is a figure from the past. Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos has announced that between 2022 and 2023, the island’s population fell by 18%, meaning that in reality, there are 8.62 million Cubans living there today. . . . Emigration now seems to be the only source of hope to many Cubans, who are selling everything, right down to their houses, to be able to pay for a one-way ticket. Their decisions have added up to a migratory wave that, between 2022 and 2023 alone, according to Albizu-Campos, accounted for the departure of 1.79 million people from the country. . . . So alarming is the situation that a few months ago, a Havana authority publicly recognized that the country is experiencing its largest exodus of all time.
Even more incredible, according to O’Grady, is that the exodus now includes high-ranking members of the ruling Cuban regime, although not those at the very top.
Eight days ago Juan Carlos Santana Novoa was a high-ranking official in the Cuban military dictatorship. . . . On Sept. 30 Mr. Santana Novoa presented himself to immigration authorities at the Nogales, Ariz., border using the CBP One app, which expedites entry for migrants making asylum claims. . . . The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba says it has identified more than 100 Cubans living in the U.S. who committed human-rights crimes while working for the regime. Mr. Pentón has written about a few in Marti Noticias.
O’Grady rightly interposes a caveat that in at least some cases the entry of 100+ Castro regime thugs into the U.S. might be for nefarious purposes. But a better guess in most instances is her second hypothesis: that this “may signal a loss in faith that the police state is sustainable.”
As just one indicator, demographer Albizu-Campos deduces from his data that 77% of the people who have recently left are between 15 and 59 years old. Doing a little simple arithmetic (my specialty), that would imply that over the course of just a couple of years Cuba has lost close to a third of its working-age population. Meanwhile those left behind are overweighted in the categories of elderly and children who do not contribute to the economy.
So what exactly is suddenly going wrong in Cuba? While Cuba’s economy craters, the world economy has its problems, but is basically chugging along. In the CBS video from April of Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister, he blames Cuba’s economic crisis and population exodus on what he calls the U.S. “economic blockade.” That’s rather lame. I thought that Cuba’s communist/socialist economic system was supposed to be superior to the U.S. system. For example, how exactly does the U.S. embargo explain millions of people without running water? Don’t they have plumbers there? More generally, why don’t they just produce for themselves whatever the U.S. won’t sell them? Perhaps capitalism has a few secrets of economic success that they haven’t figured out. Also, the U.S. embargo has been in place all the way back to the 1960s, so how does it explain the crisis now?
I don’t want to hazard a guess as to when the Cuban regime will finally collapse and give up power. After all, one would think that the North Korean disaster could not possibly have gone on as long as it has, but there it is.
An ex-colleague of mine is an immigrant from Cuba, and still has some relatives there. I asked her for any insights she could give me. She had no hard economic data to share. But she did say that her relatives there substantially depend on remittances from U.S. family members to survive. Also, her information is that the regime has greatly reduced its resistance to granting exit visas, with the result that everyone who can get out is leaving.
From the regime’s point of view, I suppose that allowing everyone who wants to to leave helps to minimize domestic opposition, and thus probably prolongs the regime’s survival, at least for a while. But if the productive citizens all leave, at some point there will be no economy left. On current trends, this can’t go on much longer.
With this going on just 90 miles from the U.S. shore, it is crazy how little about it is part of common public consciousness here. The Corporate Media deserve a large share of the blame.
The point of the article is how little media coverage there is of Cuba’s economic pain.
Why?
Because the media and others do not want to dispel the illusion that communism works in Cuba. They have spent years praising Cuba’s healthcare system and government. They cannot afford to let all those mind-washed college students suddenly see the brutality of communism in real life.
Six months ago I met a Cuban who emigrated here from Cuba. He is/was a degreed nurse in Cuba. He recently had to go to Puerto Rico to get credits so that he could practice nursing here. When he returned I asked him if he liked Puerto Rico. His response, verbatim: “Puerto Rico is Cuba.....with food!” His point was that there is not enough food in Cuba.
Last week I spoke with a young lady from Cuba. She was a lawyer in Cuba. She is now taking classes to have her credits converted to the U.S.A. She has twins aged 13. She is now working in Luby’s for $3/hour plus tips. Her husband is driving for Uber. She told me essentially the same thing. “There is no food in Cuba!” Additionally, she says that even with the lack of credits to get good jobs here, both she and her husband are more happy here than in Cuba.
This article does not mention that the Cuban government is being propped up by China and Venezuela. That is why they are able to barely hang on.
Cuba's present situation is certainly not unprecedented. As it happens, I was in Havana about six months after the Russians and the East Germans left, and it was much, much worse then. There was not a fresh coat of paint to be seen anywhere, and most windows were without glass. Electricity was sent only to places where foreign currency could be earned, like the Hotel Rivera; no one else has power ever. On the street $1 US could be traded for $200 Cuban dollars. Protein was scarce and everyone was skinny, including the dancers at the Tropicana. Gas was almost non-existent and my driver was a Cuban fighter pilot grounded for lack of fuel. Four or five families typically lived in one townhouse in the Miramar, with bedrooms divided into separate quarters by blankets hung from the ceiling. Upon entering someone's home, if you so much as glanced at anything, a family picture or an heirloom, the owner would pester you to buy it. Beautiful Cuban women with dark eyes would offer to prostitute themselves for a cheese sandwich on white bread.
From what I've seen on YouTube, it is nowhere nearly that bad now.
Yes, and things are really oppressive in Cuba too!
For alot of things
You guys can make fun of Cuba all you want but when the big EMP attack comes, they’ll have the only working vehicles in the Northern Hemisphere! 😏
Oh, really.
I'm sure the decades-old economic sanctions have nothing at all to do with this. Right??
You thunk that might be one reason they have applied to BRICS like so many of the global south countries are doing?
Oh, no. Not a chance. It is all about them commies.
Yep. Them sanctions work so good when we attack them littlebitty countries. Not so well with the big boys, though. They fight back. Actions have consequences.
Good ole USA just keep on throwing them econ/sanctions around like they was sand in a sandstorm and see where that leads us.
The only real export Cuba has these days is their expertise in setting up and maintaining a totalitarian state. As soon as Hugo Chavez obtained power the Cubans sent in their Secret Police to implement total control in exchange for $$$ and oil. If I remember correctly there were numerous questions regarding the legitimacy of the election, but then the Jimmy Carter group blessed it and the dictatorship was installed. Later, Chavez was impeached and removed in a legal manner. Where did he flee? Cuba, of course. The Obama administration applied enough pressure to insure his return and darkness descended on Venezuela. The Cuban marxist implementers are running all over Latin America trying to set up similar regimes.
Thanks!
Wow, get a load of that last paragraph.
No bias there, eh?
Cuba is the living, breathing ... walking, talking proof that Communism is a dead letter!
Well, they can always count on fat F!@$% like MMoore to wax poetic on places like that.
“Oh, really.
I’m sure the decades-old economic sanctions have nothing at all to do with this. Right??
You thunk that might be one reason they have applied to BRICS like so many of the global south countries are doing?
Oh, no. Not a chance. It is all about them commies.
Yep. Them sanctions work so good when we attack them littlebitty countries. Not so well with the big boys, though. They fight back. Actions have consequences.
Good ole USA just keep on throwing them econ/sanctions around like they was sand in a sandstorm and see where that leads us.”
You’re obviously against the US using sanctions against countries, especially communist countries, that oppose our capitalist, US constitution-based system of government. Thanks for the honesty. Duly noted.
👍
The US is the only country in the world to trade or do business with?
Hey, I thought big bad America was a bunch of greedy capitalist exploiters. That’s what the Cuban Commies claimed. Rather than whining like little bitches, shouldn’t they instead be celebrating? I mean because of the embargo, they haven’t been exploited by big bad America at all.
What’s the problem?
““The Cubans right now are in a position where they need charity, and they don’t have much to offer in return.””
Yeah, funny... how charity seems to always go away... when you willingly hand control of your country over to godless, anti-Christian heathens that care only about power... like communists. The people of Cuba were duped into believing that the tyrant they supported to lead their revolution...
was better than the tyrant they wanted to replace. Another cautionary tale if one were to dare to study history.
Who would write up the information and submit it for publication? “Journalists”.
What kind of journalist would be living in Cuba? A progressive, liberal, socialist, communist, Marxist journalist.
Since releasing the facts would harm the image of their socialist paradise, why would they want to report on Cuba’s economy?
““The Cubans right now are in a position where they need charity, and they don’t have much to offer in return.””
What about baseball players?
I wonder what entity is buying those houses?
Has Black Rock found a way into Cuba?
Is Black Rock doing the same as here, buying houses to make money with renting out?
If so, does somebody have info on events to happen in Cuba?
“What about baseball players?”
And Spanish teachers. I had a great Cuban Spanish teacher. Loved her! She freely admitted how she was also “duped” by Castro. She was imprisoned for distributing ‘pro-Castro’ leaflets. And then later... when she woke up... she was imprisoned for distributing ‘anti-Castro’ leaflets. Ah, the irony. She escaped to the US... but her sister, a doctor, was not so lucky. Her sister couldn’t even afford a new pair of shoes under the glorious reign of her new commie masters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.