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Cuba Runs Out of Sugar
Powerline ^ | December 26, 2024 | John Hinderaker

Posted on 12/26/2024 6:17:59 PM PST by chickenlips

This is like Libya running out of sand: Cuba is now an importer of sugar:

The Cuban government acknowledged that it is “shameful” for the island, traditionally one of the leading sugar producers in Latin America, to be forced to import this product.

I think it is shameful that Cuba still has a Communist government after all these years of unremitting impoverishment and enslavement of the Cuban people.

Over the years, the crisis in the industry has been severe. During the last harvest season, the failures were evident, resulting in a drop in production that has impacted both the domestic market and exports, a sector that was previously one of the main sources of income for the country. As a consequence, Cuba has ceased exporting sugar and is facing challenges in supplying this essential product in the local market.

Agricultural production has exploded around the world, but not in poor, benighted Cuba.

(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Cuba; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: communism; cuba; marxisttyranny; sugar
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Doesn't AOC have a degree in economics? How's her Spanish?

She should move there to help her comrades out of a bind. /s

1 posted on 12/26/2024 6:17:59 PM PST by chickenlips
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To: chickenlips

This sounds like something from the Bee.


2 posted on 12/26/2024 6:20:27 PM PST by jeffersondem
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To: jeffersondem

I remember reading the “Weekly Reader” sometime in the early 1960’s; included in an article about Cuba was the need to ration sugar to ordinary Cuban citizens.


3 posted on 12/26/2024 6:25:47 PM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: chickenlips

But...socialism...? The workers paradise.... this must be capitalist propaganda


4 posted on 12/26/2024 6:26:20 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: chickenlips

Leftists will idiotically blame this on the US embargo, like everything else wrong within Cuba.


5 posted on 12/26/2024 6:36:24 PM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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To: EnderWiggin1970
Leftists will idiotically blame this on the US embargo, like everything else wrong within Cuba.

They can still trade with Russia and China. We are not stopping them from doing that.

6 posted on 12/26/2024 6:39:02 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican
In order to trade you need to produce something of value, and that's where the Cuban government cannot figure anything out. About the only thing they can think of to "trade" is to send thousands of medical workers (from the medical education system they inherited from pre-Castro days) as literal slave labor to 3rd world countries in return for a modest payout.

I've been to Cuba a couple times. The populace literally sits on its hands, sitting on the curbs and slowly starving, rather than try to do anything to improve their lot. Because under leftist ideology, government is the solution to all problems, and therefore any act of private initiative is an act of resistance against the utopian central government, to be punished and stamped out. So they sit, and starve.

7 posted on 12/26/2024 6:46:56 PM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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To: jeffersondem

Yes. Like Cuban workers assigned to take the little “Made in China” labels off the crates of cigars and pretend they’re from Cuba.

Wonder if as in The Coffee Song they still have coffee in Brazil.

No tea or tomato juice,
You’ll see no potato juice,
The planters down in Santos all say “No, no, no!”

The politician’s daughter,
Was accused of drinking water,
And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill.
They’ve got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.


8 posted on 12/26/2024 6:48:55 PM PST by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: jeffersondem

I know, right? How is this even possible? Like the OP said, this is like Libya running out of sand!


9 posted on 12/26/2024 6:51:22 PM PST by Windcatcher
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To: EnderWiggin1970
I've been to Cuba a couple times. The populace literally sits on its hands, sitting on the curbs and slowly starving, rather than try to do anything to improve their lot. Because under leftist ideology, government is the solution to all problems, and therefore any act of private initiative is an act of resistance against the utopian central government, to be punished and stamped out. So they sit, and starve.

After the end of WWII, the Germans and the Japanese went to work and cleaned up the destruction in their countries and managed to rebuild rather quickly.

10 posted on 12/26/2024 6:53:04 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

Marshall plan


11 posted on 12/26/2024 6:58:17 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: chickenlips
The article is void of details describing the sugar shortage cause(s). Other sources indicate the number of sugar mills has declined from 161 in 1959 (when Fidel Castro overthrew Batista) to just 20 active sugar mills today.

Cuban sugar exports were heavily dependent on Russia. The global price of sugar decreased during the 1990s.

Sugar production in Cuba has declined precipitously over several decades. Herbicide shortages have led to overgrowth of weeds and trees, choking the sugar cane fields. Gasoline and diesel shortages hamper harvest of sugar cane. Mechanical replacement parts for sugar mills are difficult to obtain.

Not so long ago, sugar was ubiquitous in Cuba. Today, it is so strictly rationed that it has become a black market good, with grocers discreetly whispering the word to lucky passersby.

12 posted on 12/26/2024 7:03:19 PM PST by NautiNurse (With a cough and a sputter, the original lying dog-faced pony soldier is led out to pasture. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

Not just Russia and China.

European and Canadian companies have been doing business in Cuba for decades, unaffected by the embargo.

Cuba also leveraged its human capital, sending medical professionals and engineers to work in the developing world, in exchange for cold hard cash.

All of that money has only served to enrich the Castro clan and the nomenklatura, the Cuban people be dammed.


13 posted on 12/26/2024 7:05:51 PM PST by RonaldusMagnus-DonaldusMagnus
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To: chickenlips; Maine Mariner; EnderWiggin1970

I remember the time the IRS took over a whore house in Las Vegas and drove it into bankruptcy. This event demonstrates to me our government bureaucracies are as efficient as a dedicated communist society.


14 posted on 12/26/2024 7:09:32 PM PST by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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To: chickenlips

DJT, Cuba is low hanging fruit. Tell the communist government they have to be gone by Jan 20th and bring freedom to that island. The people are ready to rise up for freedom and this would put you right next to Reagan and his work to destroy European communism. Your mark would be destroying it in the Caribbean.


15 posted on 12/26/2024 7:10:00 PM PST by Midwesterner53
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To: All

Looks like Coca Cola was right.


16 posted on 12/26/2024 7:10:48 PM PST by PeaRidge
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To: chickenlips

Communists would run out of ice in Alaska in the winter is allowed to operate as they wanted.


17 posted on 12/26/2024 7:12:08 PM PST by vpintheak (Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. )
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To: vpintheak

Communists/Demorats same thing


18 posted on 12/26/2024 7:14:03 PM PST by Hammerhead
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To: Midwesterner53

**DJT, Cuba is low hanging fruit. Tell the communist government they have to be gone by Jan 20th and bring freedom to that island. The people are ready to rise up for freedom and this would put you right next to Reagan and his work to destroy European communism. Your mark would be destroying it in the Caribbean.**
Marco can do it in Spanish.

**Marshall plan**
Give them the oil from the SPR in increments. Then give them all the old Ford Fiestas and Rangers sitting in our junkyards. Lock them into American autos.


19 posted on 12/26/2024 7:20:30 PM PST by DIRTYSECRET
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To: DIRTYSECRET

We have aour own sugar problem.-high prices due to restriction on imports.


20 posted on 12/26/2024 7:21:44 PM PST by DIRTYSECRET
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