The Real Cuba Is a Land of Extreme Deprivation. Families were overjoyed when my church group brought children’s Tylenol and cheap reading glasses.

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 28, 2020 | Andy Laperriere

[karpov]

...

Based on my observations and conversations with our translators, there are three classes of people in Cuba. The governmental elite live in gated communities and enjoy what Americans would regard as middle-class living standards. The average person who relies on his own income lives in desperate Third World conditions. In between are people with generous relatives in the U.S. They have more disposable income, but their living conditions are comparable to those of the poorest Americans.

Income inequality is so extreme that Cuba has two currencies, one for tourists and senior government officials—and one for everyone else. Ordinary Cubans use the national peso, valued at 25 to the U.S. dollar. Tourists and the elite use the convertible peso, which converts one-to-one with the dollar (after surcharges to the Cuban government). A soft drink or ice cream costs in convertible pesos what it would cost in small-town America. Given the average wage in Cuba, a trip to the equivalent of a 7-Eleven is a luxury most people can’t afford.

A group from my church returned from Cuba a couple of months ago. Little has changed. We’re still bringing the same basic necessities, and circumstances are still desperate. Conditions in Cuba may be deteriorating further thanks to the collapse of Venezuela, itself a socialist basket case where people are starving and go without basic medicine. Cuba used to receive oil and cash from Venezuela in exchange for what amounts to slave labor performed by Cuban physicians. But those flows have slowed.

One surprise was how many people in Cuba were openly critical of the government. Cuba is not as totalitarian as it was in the early days after the revolution, when the government sent critics of the regime (as well as pastors, priests, artists and others) to labor camps.

[1Old Pro]

then don’t vacation in a poverty stricken paradise

I generally don't, and would never go to Cuba. But Nashville isn't exactly poverty stricken.

[Hardastarboard]

How was I to know, she was with the Russians too.

[TheTimeOfMan]

Your buddy is a piece of shit. Most of those girls (in Cuba) wouldn’t sell themselves if they weren’t so desperate. If have seen it all over the world, including Cuba. Men like that should be shot.

[Lurker]

So letting them go hungry is the better choice.

Got it.

Thanks.

L

[Leep]

How about just buy them a meal and maybe give them $20?

[TBP]

The left either denies this or blames America.

[TheTimeOfMan]

Straw man argument.

Instead of stealing their souls and dignity why not just give them the $200 and take a cold shower?

You don’t give a damn about them - you just like the idea of cheap pussy.

Cheap and empty.

[Lurker]

You can’t steal something you paid for fair and square.

L

[TheTimeOfMan]

You tell that to God when you see Him. Let me know how that works out.