gaffo wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 1:19 am
I've never been to Cuba myself. You have! so tell me of your observations of that land.
Well, what you notice immediately is that everybody essentially lives at a similar level...a very low level. Not starvation, but not a lot better. Everything's dirty and run-down...even Havana itself. All the cars are old and cobbled together. The cement is falling off the buildings. The beaches are beautiful. But just about nothing else really is. But the people think they're doing about as well as they could, because the government does all it can to keep them from realizing otherwise.
And there's no real industry, since the sugar plantations closed. You're not allowed to own a boat, unless you are tied closely to the government, because they know you're likely to take it about 90 miles north, one way, and jump off in Key West. You're not allowed to start many businesses, so there's a large black market...but most of the available goods are not what North Americans would call worth having. Running a business there is nearly impossible, because the government interference will get you, if the sense of entitlement of the workers doesn't kill your business, in itself.
There's no beef to be had, at all. In fact, it's a criminal offence to slaughter a cow. There's a little pork, and some chicken...not of great quality. A dozen eggs...very hard to come by. The cooking is low on spices and flavour. There are two brands of beer in the whole island, both from the same brewery. And, of course, there's rum. Theft is a serious issue. The justice system is horrible, and jails are wretched.
And you notice that people are desperate for a job in the tourist industry, where many work 36 hour shifts, with no sleep...because people who work in that industry get some scraps of crappy food left over from the tourists, and a little more access to money than people who don't work near tourists. So you can't afford to lose a job in the tourist zones, and the government can make you work as long and hard as they want, and you can do absolutely nothing about it.
There are no supplies of basic things. Medicine is in short supply. Equipment is poor or unavailable. Refrigerators, tractors, cars, air conditioners...all very hard to get, with waiting lists years long. Nothing is in abundance.
Nowadays, they have a gasoline shortage, since they relied on Venezuela, another badly mismanaged socialist economy that has collapsed. So you can imagine how many problems that causes...no generator fuel, nothing to power cars or motorbikes, and so on.
I've been in quite a few worse countries, where poverty is really grinding and miserable. But Cuba, at its best, is one level above that, and several levels below the poverty level in North America. There's misery, but in Cuba, it's pretty equally distributed in the general rural population. In other poor countries, it's more unequal -- some people in poverty and misery, and some richer. But then, many of those countries have a base poverty level well above the normal living level of Cuba. And in Cuba, there's very little evidence of any wealth at all.
. you can buy their cigars too!