Odds and ends
- The archbishop in charge of the Vatican’s communications council visited Cuba with the request that the Church have “normal access to the great means of communication that the new technologies offer us today…I am thinking of radio, television and the Internet.”
- AP: Cuba drops potatoes and peas from the list of products available on the ration book that provides monthly supplies of staples at highly subsidized prices (and in recent years, in quantities that last only part of the month). It looks like a trial run to me.
- AFP: Medical, educational, and investment projects between Cuba and Venezuela cost 1.5 billion this year.
- Herald: A Miami sports agent who spent 13 years in jail in Cuba for allegedly assisting in spiriting ballplayers out of Cuba is on his way home.
"Cuba drops potatoes and peas from the list of products available on the ration book that provides monthly supplies of staples at highly subsidized prices (and in recent years, in quantities that last only part of the month). It looks like a trial run to me."
ReplyDeleteIt looks like desperate economic straits to me. If by peas, it is meant dry peas, this looks like the prelude to famine. The dry pea was introduced to the Cuba diet in the 1960s as a substitute for the more traditional black and red beans. Cubans were perplexed what to do with them. The joke went that a boy did not like to eat his pea soup so his father explained that they were black beans in olive green uniforms (true revolutionary beans those were!) When there is not even chícharos (dry peas), the proverbial just hit the fan.
Vecino de NF
The Church asked for access to the Cuban media ten years ago when the Pope visited. Maybe they'll get around to it in the next decade or so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Church should ask for divine intervention! They should have a little faith on the power of prayer to turn men's hearts and minds.
ReplyDeleteVecino de NF
Al Agnte que salio de la carcel, manos a la obra aconseguir mas peloteros. lo invito aqui a Pr a que venga a reclutar posibles desertores en los Centroamericanos 2010
ReplyDeleteI thought the AP ration piece was pretty interesting. They could not find anyone in Cuba to praise the proposed changes.
ReplyDelete"This is crazy. They should be adding products to the ration book, not taking away from it," said Roberto Rodriguez, a 55-year-old delivery man... He said he worried that Cubans with access to money sent by relatives abroad would buy up all the potatoes and peas they could, leaving ordinary people in the lurch if there are shortages.
Even the notion of a ration book is mocked by any good capitalist. But how does a capitalist respond to the common sense point being made?
I basically agree this is a trial run for a wider agricultural reform. I think the reason potatoes are being tested is that the price is not that different in CUCs vs pesos. And peas because people don't really mind losing them.
We may be headed towards a much trimmed down ration book, which, when added to the decrease of State purchasing of food for workplace lunches, is a lot of food no longer under State (price) control. Yes Vecino, this is not a rich Government in Havana (who is right now?), but it is also a fairly confident one. Quitting any subsidy is unpopular, and they must not be too worried about hunger.
Vecino, I think you (like most) chose the desperation analysis because the alternative is admitting that the Cuban Government is trying a reform they approve of.
Leftside,
ReplyDeleteI did not choose the desperation analysis. The facts merit it. Peas (chicharos) were added to the Cuban diet because the government could not afford black and red beans in the 1960s. If they become a luxury item, a basic reluctantly adopted staple would be put out reach for most of the population. I would venture a guess that the peas were imported. Potatoes are not necesarilly imported but their seed (other potatoes) must be imported. This indicates serious foreign exchange crunch. It remains to be seen if two other imported staples, rice and bread, disappear as well.
The repression of the blogers this last Friday, and the siege of Vladimiro Roca's home may be signs of how seriously the Cuban government is taking popular discontent.
Vecino de NF
Leftside,
ReplyDelete"confident" regimes don't beat up Cuban women in the street.
chingon
It seems clear to me that the Cuban government, by taking certain foods off the libreta, is moving towards liberalization of the economy of some sort, which to the poor will mean more dire poverty.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone dispute this?
As for the baseball agent story, it is funny how these agents admit the whole thing, yet are still referred to as "alleged" perpetrators.
Anonymous November 10, 2009 4:44 PM,
ReplyDelete"It seems clear to me that the Cuban government, by taking certain foods off the libreta, is moving towards liberalization of the economy of some sort"
This is not liberalization of the economy but the Cuban government's renouncement of responsibility for the nutritional needs of the Cuban population. Liberalization of the economy would involve not preventing people from working and profiting from their labor and their capital. How in heavens this is implemented is way above my pay grade, and it appears beyond the will and ability of the current Cuban government.
No argument on the fact that these measures will result in "more direc poverty" for the Cuban poor (60% to 80% of the Cuban population).
Vecino de NF