That’s the bottom line in a paper on Cuba’s recent hurricane damages (pdf) by William A. Messina, Jr., Frederick S. Royce and Thomas H. Spreen, three scholars from the
Thursday, October 2, 2008
"Nothing short of catastrophic"
That’s the bottom line in a paper on Cuba’s recent hurricane damages (pdf) by William A. Messina, Jr., Frederick S. Royce and Thomas H. Spreen, three scholars from the
There is no doubt this is an disaster of staggering proportions. Stabilizing the food supply is going to be a herculean task for the athorities. A delicate mixture of assistance and market incentives will have to be provided to assure no one goes hungry - a promise the Government has made. I see that they increased the price paid to rice producers Phil... Watch for the Government to reassert central control over the entire food supply in the short term, and enact policy changes that will spur production in the long term.
ReplyDeleteyes leftside tell us again how lucky the Cuban people are to have a government that cares so much about them.
ReplyDelete"Stabilizing the food supply is going to be a herculean task... A delicate mixture of assistance and market incentives will have to be provided..."
ReplyDelete"MARKET INCENTIVES??" Lefty, you are showing alarming deviationist tendencies, just like young Eliecer Avila (see blogger Yohandry's comments.) If you were in Havana right now, the appropriate Organ would haul you off to Villa Marista for some electro-shock therapy, the kind they like to apply without anesthetic.
Why they did not provide these so called market incentives before, Leftside? Obviously what you are saying is that market incentives encourage people to produce, isn't that so?
ReplyDeleteMan, you discovered the Mediterranean Sea, didn't you?
Lefty, you are showing alarming deviationist tendencies...
ReplyDeleteWhy they did not provide these so called market incentives before, Leftside?
Umm, there has always been some market incentives in the Revolution's agricultural/food policy - and more explicitly so for the last 15 years. But any supply and demand systems have to serve the people and principles of the Revolution first. Increased efficiency or production for the sake of it is not good enough if all the food goes to the richest 10% in Havana, for example, because it becomes too expensive for anyone else.
There is a worthwhile article in Granma today, which states that the amount of food in the supply and demand markets decreased by 500% from August to September (from 5 million "quintales" to 1). This is all before the price controls were instituted. It is a dramatic figure, until you read that only 5.4% of the total food in the country is bought at supply and demand markets.
Markets are terribly immoral, unfair, as well as highly unstable and prone to crashing altogether, forcing Governments to bail them out. Controls and planning help cushion the blow. But controls and planning can also get in the way in an emergency. It is a tight rope in any country, but more so in a country under an embargo and destabilization campaigns.
Earth to Planet Leftside...Earth to Planet Leftside...central planning and price controls are no longer advocated by anyone with a straight face...
ReplyDeletecentral planning and price controls are no longer advocated by anyone with a straight face...
ReplyDeleteLets put aside the unprecedented collapse of capitalism we are witnessing before our eyes here in its homeland - and moves to socialism. Where have you been the last 10 years? Haven't you noticed that nearly every country in Latin America is headed in the direction of socialism, not capitalism? Even conservatives like Calderon in Mexico have instituted price controls. The free market dogmas have been exposed in America for the disaster they are - but Latin Americans learned from their disasters and melt-downs over the last 15 years.