Prior to my retirement I worked as an executive in more than one large American multinational and was personally involved in the preparation and evaluation of investment proposals in dozens of foreign countries, most of them in the Third World. In making those decisions my colleagues and I (and our counterparts in other multinationals) worked with checklists to evaluate opportunities and risks in the local market. We asked such questions as:
1. Can we own the business outright?
2. Can we hire and fire local nationals without restriction?
3. Will we be free to place American nationals in as managers? (In Cuba's case this would mean bringing in Cuban-Americans to run the company.)
4. As profits develop will we be permitted to repatriate dividends in U.S. dollars?
5. If we sell the business can we obtain and repatriate U.S. dollars?
6. Can we own land and buildings?
7. Can we freely import machinery and raw materials?
8. What sort of taxation will we face?
9. Is there sufficient local demand for our products. (Can our prospective local customers actually pay for whatever it is we want to sell?)
10. Do we trust the local government? (Will we face nationalization? Arbitrary changes in laws?)
For most industrialized countries (Western Europe, for example) responses to such questions (and many others) would encourage American investment. In others the answers would be overwhelmingly negative. There were no U.S. restrictions on investments in the Soviet Union or in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe but Western investments in those countries were minuscule-until the Soviet Union collapsed. Why not? Just reread the above questions and ask yourself what the answers would've been in, say, Brezhnev's Soviet Union.
Developing countries that wanted to attract American investments usually enacted a special comprehensive law spelling out the terms under which foreign companies could invest and operate. By specifying the terms, prospective investors were provided with most of the answers to the common sense questions they ask before they put shareholders' money at risk.
A sure sign that it is the Cuban unfriendly business climate and not the American embargo that keeps foreign investors out is to ask this question: Where are the investments by big non-American multinationals? Exxon-Mobil is American-controlled but Shell is British-Dutch. General Motors and Ford are American but Peugeot and Volkswagen are not. Wal-Mart is American but Carrefour is a huge French discounter that has stores in places like Argentina. None of the European countries have embargoed Cuba yet their corporate executives shy away from investing in Cuba.
One possible response is to say, "Okay, investing in communist Cuba is not likely but American farm goods, pharmaceuticals, cars, etc., could be exported into Cuba." Again, let's look at what non-American companies are doing. Why aren't European and Japanese companies shipping cars to Cuba? Why aren't Canada, Australia and France selling them wheat and meat? Because these countries must be paid for the goods they sell and they are not so stupid as to accept Cuban pesos; they demand convertible currency-and Cuba simply doesn't have enough. Cuba now exports cigars, sugar, nickel and perhaps some other goods and it sells them for hard currencies. It earns some additional foreign currency on tourism. But what they earn is insufficient to replace the ancient cars on Havana's streets...or to provide their citizens with European- or Japanese-manufactured basic consumer products. (Undoubtedly much of Cuba's meager resources of foreign currency is diverted into the hands of Castro and his pals.)
If the U.S. lifted the embargo before Cuba drastically revised its attitude and its laws pertaining to foreign investment (and did so convincingly) it might, with minimum changes, attract American tourists and even some hotel developers. But the dream of attracting significant investment or even a Major League baseball team (imagine Castro permitting free agents or even unsupervised road trips) while the communists remain in power is just that, a dream.
The communist control of Cuba is a great and ongoing tragedy. The Cubans I've known were hardworking and determined people who did not deserve to see their country controlled by an egomaniacal dictator. Sadly it will take more than lifting the U.S. embargo to make a significant change in the lives of his victims.[End]
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When it comes to freedom of speech, conditions could not be worse for Cubans wishing to exercise it. The yearly publication of Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2001-2002, which rated political rights and civil liberties in 142 countries reveals that Cuba ranked among the ten worst countries when evaluated in terms of the two previously mentioned variables.
After more than 40 years of penury and dictatorship, Cuba has nothing to show for it, except in the area of education and even there, education has been put at the service of indoctrination and political correctness. Students who are not "integrated" into the Revolution, i.e. willing to support it zealously, are barred from universities and advanced technical schools. However, in spite of having thousands of university graduates, the productive capacity of goods and services in Cuba is the second lowest in Latin America In this connection, Prof. Jorge Luis Romeu points out that "According to the 1953 census, the last before Castro, Cubans had the highest socioeconomic level and income per capita in all of Latin America. There was one physician per 1,000 inhabitants, more than 70 percent of the adult population could read and write, more than 50 percent of the population was urban, and radio, newspapers, roads and railroads covered the entire country." (The Syracuse Post Standard, May 21, 2002).
Costa Rica, without dictatorship and political indoctrination, compares more than favorably to Cuba in the field of literacy, education and health. Costa Rica's population literacy rate of 94.8% is almost identical to Cuba's of 94.5%, according to recent statistics. In Costa Rica.Only 2% of the those between 15 and 24 years of age are illiterate. (Znet, " A letter from Cuba, August 7, 2001; the World Development Indicators.World Bank, for 1998, gives an an average of 95% for both countries). Furthermore , Costa Rica throughout its recent history has invested more than 20%% of its national budget on primary and secondary education. (.In the case of Cuba the education budget has been sharply reduced. In 1989, it was 1,664 million pesos. Nine years later, it was down to 964 million pesos , according to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA). Taking population increases into account, this means the amount spent on educating each person in Cuba fell by nearly half - from 152 pesos to 87. Compare this figures with the amount of the education budget of Costa Rica for 1996: 99,631.00 million colones, or 22.8% of the total budget (Europa Yearbook, Year 2000).
In 1980-1981, when it was generously subsidized by the Soviet Union, Cuba's infant mortality rate, according to the World Bank, Unesco and WHO was 19/1000 live births; that of Costa Rica was even better, 18/1000 live births. More recent statistics show that Costa Rica now has 11.8/1000 live births, whereas Cuba a much higher infant mortality rate, 20/1000 live births (Statesman Yearbook, 2000). Chile, now a democracy, has 9.36 /1000 live births. Moreover, in a number of social indicators, Costa Rica, let me repeat it, without dictatorship and totalitarianism , excels Cuba. For example, with only a population of 4,188,000 inhabitants, Costa Rica surpasses Cuba (with a population of 11,800,000 inhabitants) in average annual income ($4,450 versus $1,700), and in GDP, if we consider that Costa Rica has a population of only 4 million: ($15.85 billion versus $18 billion, ( See Robert T. Buckman's Latin America 2000; Statesman Yearbook 2002; World Book Encyclopedia 2001; and World Almanac Book of Facts, 2002).One caveat is in order: the average salary of a working Cuban is 250 pesos per month (the current rate of exchange is 20 pesos to a dollar). This nominal income would have to be augmented somewhat given that food rations are sold at subsidized prices, and health care, however poor, and education, however doctrinaire, are added monetary values to the salary.
In spite of these adjustments, the average Cuban does not earn $1,700, per annum, but considerably less. Another caveat is that Cuban statistics are derived from many sources which are not subjected to critical scrutiny before or after they are released. Further, the extant Cuban poverty is aggravated by the presence of nutritional deficits in the diet of many Cubans, deficits that cannot be attributed to the embargo. According to the Report on Food Insecurity in the World, 2001, published by the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and Food (FAO), there were, during the period 1997-1999, 1.9 million malnourished persons in Cuba, or 17.0% of the country's population. This in a country that has a fertile soil and a climate allows for year round harvests, and has received millions of dollars from the United Nations to surmount the failures of Cuban agriculture.
The United Nations Human Development Index for 1999 gave Costa Rica one of the highest ratings of human resources among developing nations. Reporters Without Borders in its first worldwide press freedom index made public in 2002, reports that Costa is among the countries in the Western Hemisphere with most freedom of the press. It ranked 15, ranking higher than the United States of America. Only Canada surpassed it with a rank of 5.
With these facts I have enumerated in mind would anyone of sound mind, if given the choice of living in a democratic country like Costa Rica or a totalitarian, oppressive country like Cuba be mad enough to choose the latter? Can anyone with a straight face claim that the differences in overall social welfare in Costa Rica and Cuba are due to the American trade embargo? *** Seven bad reasons in support of the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo and how to refute them - Franz Eugen Wagner, Ph.D.
Ay Cuba! Finally, after years of curiosity, Havana came into sight under my plane's window. Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, a long extended claw that is home to Fidel Castro as well as about 11 million other Cubans. At 21-23 degrees north, Cuba lies on the same latitudes as Algeria, Egypt, India, Mauritania, Oman, Vietnam and Hawaii. My stated purpose-necessary for the US to grant me a general license to travel to Cuba--was to visit my mother's cousin whom no one from the Cuban side of my family had seen since the beginning of the Revolution (1959). But what I really wanted was to explore the land of Rum, Rumba and Revolution for the next three weeks.
While in Cuba, I would come to fall in love with the graciousness and humor of its people, the beauty of its land and climate and the charm of its architecture. But I would leave grieving over the poverty in the country, the grinding oppression, the lack of any semblance of human and civil rights, and the pervasive fear by Cubans of their own government. Though many Cubans would greet me with a smile, their disaffection and dwindling faith in the Revolution shocked me. I learned that the Revolution was for sale.***