Cuba’s humane policy

[Billy Burnett]

Cuba’s humane policy
http://www.workers.org/2009/world/cuba_1231/

Where in the world today is unemployment only 1.8 percent, and every 2009 student graduate found a job? “In Cuba,” reported Raymundo Navarro of the International Department of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (Central Trabajadores de Cuba) at a labor conference in Tijuana, Mexico, on Dec. 5.

Yet Cuba’s socialist economy is not isolated from the effects of the global capitalist economic crisis. The price of Cuba’s main exports, sugar and nickel, plummeted disastrously while the price of food imports spiked.

Sugar production for export became so impractical when the international price of sugar dropped to two-tenths of a cent per pound that most of the sugar mills were closed, ending 150,000 jobs. A workers’ study program originally proposed by former president Fidel Castro continues to offer displaced workers 100 percent of their current pay rate while they train for another trade or even decide to enroll in the university, Navarro explained.

In 2009, 186,000 students graduated. Navarro commented, “We openly challenge the bootlickers and imperialists to find one of those students who didn’t get a job — not one could they find. The unemployment level in Cuba is 1.8 percent despite the economy.”

Moreover, not one of those Cuban graduates is weighed down with student loan debt either as all education in Cuba is free.

In a capitalist economy, the only investment worth making is the investment that will bring the highest profit. Investing in human development — especially in the era of a “jobless” capitalist economic recovery — is a liability for the corporations, not an asset.

In socialist Cuba where gains and losses are shared by all, the development of human potential benefits all of society and is valued as an asset no matter the cost. That’s how and why the Cubans do it.

[Political Heretic]

1. But Cuba is evil.

:shrug:

:)

[Billy Burnett]

2. Of course they are. Any nation that pays 100% salary during retraining is evil as hell.

Corporate masters will not take that shit here in the USofA, where unemployment is good for WallStreet.

[Political Heretic]

3. But there's tons of poverty, and cuban refugees flee to the US in droves!

It must be a hell hole there!

I also heard that they are required by law to eat their own young

[Billy Burnett]

4. That's why you don't see starving Cubans in Cuba.

[DFW]

5. Like Eric Burdon sang, "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good"

The system was set up to be just, but it is still uneven. While medical care is supposed to be equal for all,
when some diabetics get better insulin sent by relatives in the States, Cuban customs seizes and confiscates it.
While very few private citizens have cars, party functionaries still get driven around in chauffeur-driven cars,
and eat in the best (hard currency only, please) restaurants. I've talked with the diabetics, and I've driven
around in those limousines with the party functionaries, and eaten with them at those restaurants, so don't think
I'm making this up, or giving a second-hand report. Their government invited me, I didn't ask to go. They are also
so incredibly paranoid that any foreigner who is not a tourist gets followed every step. Like every place else,
there's the bad with the good.

One funny story: one day back in the Soviet days, I was in the hard currency shop of the hotel I was at to buy a
few post cards (I don't smoke, and cigar smoke makes me ill, to the horror of my Cuban hosts! LOL). In front of
me were some arrogant Soviet Aeroflot personnel trying to buy some electronic device or other, and spoke little
to no Spanish. The poor woman at the cashier spoke no Russian, so it was taking forever, and I was getting impatient
to pay for my ten post cards and get back up to the room to write them. So, I offered to interpret for them. The
Russians thought I must have been a local who spoke Russian, and the woman at the cashier must have thought I was
a Russian assigned to Cuba. The Russians left, and I got to pay for my post cards. Foreigners have to show their
passports when they shop at these shops, and when, after speaking both Spanish and Russian, I presented my U.S.
passport, you could see the letters "C.I.A." lit up in her eyes (I'm not, obviously, and never was). The low end
party functionaries are still very Soviet-like--grim and no humor at all, suspicious of everything and everyone.
The higher-ups are more sociable (again, just like the Soviet Union).

[Mika]

6. Right.

Love the noir-ish 'everyone not a tourist gets followed by gubmint spooks' enhancement. :crazy:





edit - FYI, I've lived in Cuba, and have spent a great deal of time there over my lifetime. Seen none of the swill you're peddling. I did see Fidel Castro driving himself around Havana in an open jeep a long time ago.


http://www.corbisimages.com:80/images/U1908188.jpg?size=67&uid=DD301346-58DB-4BFC-8775-9E80450C07A1

[DFW]

7. That's what it was like when I was there. Maybe you had a different experience when you were there

Maybe it depends on whether or not you were there as a guest of the government, as I was.

[Mika]

8. I've been there many times.

On surgical conferences/exchanges/training. Also as a teacher and a student. I married a wonderful Cuban woman and lived there too.

Your high quality insulin being confiscated story reeks of Cubanet embargo garbage. I have never seen nor heard of such behavior there since the US legalized drug exports to Cuba.

[DFW]

9. My insulin story was from the mouth of a Cuban diabetic

I'm not diabetic, so it's not like I even know enough to make up something like that. The Cuban I was talking to
didn't know anything at all about "embargo garbage," besides which he made no comment at all about the trade embargo.
He was just some guy at a bus stop who was a diabetic, saw I was a foreigner, and asked if I spoke Spanish. My hosts
knew all about the embargo, of course, but we never discussed pharmaceuticals. I obviously don't follow US drug exports
to Cuba. If you know when that was legalized, you have one up on me. I'm not involved in the drug industry, and have no
clue as to what we authorize to be exported where, or when.