....and again the economic model falls apart

[Dave Grubb]

Cuba has no sugar---not to mention Rum.

- 'We are paralyzed' -

Since the coronavirus pandemic, which hit its tourism sector hard, Cuba has experienced its worst economic crisis since the 1990s.

Structural weaknesses in the centralized economy have meant it has been unable to adapt, and limited economic opening in recent years has not done enough to create stability or raise foreign reserves.

Since March, Cuba has faced a fresh wave of power blackouts as the government is unable to import sufficient fuel or the equipment needed to repair the country's aging thermoelectric plants.

For producers, it has meant hardship and uncertainty.

"We must work with hoes... and with machetes because we have nothing else," said Leonardo Hernandez, 64, a co-manager at the Artemisa cooperative, whose irrigation and weeding machines sit unused without fuel.

And this from an article in AFP:

"It is the worst time in the history" of the industry, said Reinaldo Espinosa, the 54-year-old boss of a sugar cane-producing cooperative in the province of Artemisa, southwest of the capital Havana.

"Recovering our national sugar production will take years," Espinosa told AFP as he described preparing for the planting season "with zero resources."

He said his cooperative's output has fallen from 84 to 28 tons of cane per hectare in the past five years as he rattled off a long list of obstacles: "Zero fertilizer, zero herbicide," a dire shortage of fuel and power blackouts "quite often in the productive hours."

"It's really hard" to keep going, Espinosa said.

[Dave Grubb]

....and another..

The "listening" here--3 days ago---feel on deaf ears and the caps are now back on. The reality that economics will not accommodate being ignored----will bite you in the ass!

“They are always hunting us to see where they can catch us,” he said, speaking of the government. “And who are the ones solving the people’s hunger? The mipymes,” he said, using the Spanish shorthand word for these private companies. “If we don’t tell the truth, we will continue to be soaked in this big lie in which we are living,” he said. “Nobody here believes in anyone anymore, because it’s a lie. Nothing works well here.”

[UTAH]

...will bite you in the ass!

It's something to see these communist economies struggle while capitalistic economies thrive. Marx, Lenin and Stalin were dead wrong.

Hunter