Cuba and what thenews is not covering. The cancer of Communism has devoured the island

May 21, 2024

Anybody hear about how bad the socialist failure has gotten in Cuba?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/anybody_hear_about_how_bad_the_socialist_failure_has_gotten_in_cuba.html

By Monica ShowalterSince the advent of Castro socialism, Cuba has always been an economic failure, but does anyone know how bad it's really gotten?

Pedro Burelli, who has sources inside Cuba, provides a useful tweet report of how bad it's gotten, describing shortages, blackouts and public riots, much of which are affecting the party's wealthy elites, which have, up until now, been shielded from the deprivations ordinary Cubans endure:

 

Here's a Google Translate:

AGONY CUBA All the reports coming from Cuba confirm that the island is going through its worst moment. The terrible economic and public services management has left Cubans in the dark and with sky-high prices. Blackouts and inflation. In fact, there are blackouts in Havana, even in neighborhoods like Vedado, where the 'heavies' live. The Military Hospital and the clinics attended by the nomenclature have closed due to lack of electricity. It is said that in the capital district of Alamar, in protest against the blackouts, they stoned a parking lot of official vehicles, damaging dozens of them. Inside, the situation is even more dramatic. The 13 provinces spend most of the day without electricity. A carton of eggs costs around 3,500 Cuban pesos, a price not far from the average salary. The lines for gas are once again endless. What is generating more frustration and anger is the inability of the regime.

Without any charisma @DiazCanel returned from Moscow empty-handed. Putin's economic team refuses to lend him money without a commitment to economic reforms. Russian businessmen, who months ago were excited about the possibility of alleviating the multiple shortcomings of the Cuban population, are throwing in the towel when they see zero willingness to reform the thousand-fold failed Castro economic model. To top it all off, a few days ago, the very gray Díaz-Canel gave an extensive interview to Ignacio Ramonet, where he did not assume responsibility for anything and blamed the 'blockade' for everything. The eternal excuse that no one buys - or accepts - in Cuba anymore. An insult to a people tired of hearing it so much. He talked about things getting better…by 2030 and spent a large portion of the interview talking about what was done during the pandemic. Cubans are not interested in COVID-19. They want to eat today. They want to live today. They want to be free now. The solution for many is to think about how to flee the island, as almost 500,000 people have already done in the last 18 months. With 40° heat without being summer, without electricity for hours a day, cornered by inflation, with zero expectations of change and without respect or fear of the political leadership, anything could light the fuse that will put an end to a ruinous revolution.

So the blackouts are hitting the elites now, even the hospitals and vaunted Castrocare for the elites, where rich Cubans don't have to bring their own bedsheets and Band-aids, and so are the shortages, while the countryside and hinterlands are even worse off, and not even Putin wants to bail them out for the umpteenth time, not without economic reforms. 

As this hellish situation goes on, that of a Cuba without a sugar-daddy and even Cuba's elites feeling the pinch, within the cities, locals are starting to attack nomenklatura vehicles with stones. Any spark, Burelli says, could set off a revolution and an end to the monstrous system that has impoverished the once-industrious and prosperous island nation.

One hopes he is correct given the many false alarms that have sounded. But if Cuba is a spoils system, which exists mainly to serve party elites, and the spoils aren't coming anymore, what possibly could happen? What happens when your party elites are as enraged about shortages as the locals on the streets?

The newspapers have reported very little of this miserable decline, however, quite possibly because the Castroites harass them if they have reporteers on the ground and they do.

But the Associated Press had a report a couple weeks ago, saying that the shortages are extending to money itself now, not just goods, and it's bad with the banks because they're constantly running out of money. The small entrepreneurs who have been allowed by Cuban authorities require cash and bring in cash, but they mainly stand in line to take cash out and they don't bring back their earnings from their operations because they don't trust banks   .continue reading