Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Raulonomics

If you sift through the economic policy record of Raul Castro in the past three years, you see a tough diagnosis of problems, significant moves in agriculture, and partial actions at best in other areas. A long discussion of this is here (pdf) , and as always comments are welcome.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

fidel castro's only remaining interest in life is to sabotage as much as possible any losening of the stalinist straight jacket to which he has subjected his fiefdom until now.
only when he is dead and buried
will we see substantial movement on the island.

Unknown said...

What?

Anonymous said...

translation:

a.
f. castro over the last 50 years has proven to be a stubborn, heartless, but unfortunately highly intelligent sociopath whose only interest is his own personal power

b.
although physically (and quite possibly mentally) infirm, he turns out to be still the top dog

c.
until the top dog is gone, the underdogs will not do anything that could annoy the former.

therefore
d.
no change on the island as long as f. castro is alive and (reasonably) coherent

Anonymous said...

To the person above me: The people writing this blog are not interested in freedom for Cuba or in you calling Castro a dictator. They want to fall him an elected dictator and good friend.

Anonymous said...

To the person above me:
you are wrong with your description of the intentions of the contributors to this blog -
they just realize that the shortest way to first, better living conditions and second, more freedom for cubans is for the US to drop their immoral and counterproductive unilateral embargo. that is after all the position expressed by the vast majority of cuban dissidents on the island who are not on bacardi's payroll.
as i do you can call f. castro what he is, namely a sociopath with neither heart nor conscience, while also calling the 'cuban'-american exile hardliners what they are, namely an egotistic, self-centered, stubborn mafia which places their own economic (first) and political (second) interests above the objective to relieve the suffering and improve the lives of 11 million human beings on the island.
In as far as some of the toughest US policies came into being only because of the massive lobbying of the 'cuban'-american most obedient servants of bacardi in congress, with the expressed intention to aggravate the suffering on the island to the point where people would finally rise up and risk their lives to overthrow the castro dictatorship, you could call the 'cuban'-american extremists behavior criminal.

Anonymous said...

Sir, the living conditions of Cubans on the island is important, but more important and fundamental are the freedoms of individuals. I refuse to believe that Cuba remains so dependent on the U.S. that the embargo is responsible for all or even most of the economic woes of the island. Because of this, I refuse to believe that simply because Cuba will be allowed to purchase non-medical and non-food items from the U.S. that the living condition of Cubans will better somehow. The problem with people like you is that you demand too much of the U.S. and at the same time demand nothing of Cuba when it is the Cuban government and their ideology that keeps the people hungry and not the U.S. So quit arguing about Bacardi and Congress and inject some logic into your arguments. Perhaps you may come across as intelligent.