Article about "the other side of Cuba", in paper today

[canadianbeaver]

National Post, Toronto, Cuba

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/06/06/michael-j-totten-an-eyewitness-account-of-cubas-shocking-wretchedness&pubdate=2014-06-06

... Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble dont get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havanas hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8$10 an hour. But Meliá doesnt pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the workers but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The workers dont get $8$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day a childs allowance...

[bradbrennan]

It's sad and hard to even imagine while many of us complain about our simple problems in comparison in the U.S.

[Philski]

Good grief. My one and only visit to Cuba was nearly 15 years ago, and I recognise much of what is described in this article. Havana definitely had a facade of 'things are fairly OK', but a bus trip to Trinidad through some absolute sh*thole towns and communities was more like a trip back to 1850, not 1950.

My personal, growing conviction on reading through was that Cuba is badly in need of another revolution to rid itself of the old guard. It's hard to see it happening under current circumstances, where Cuba's authorities are able to limp on with the life-blood of foreign cash. And then a Damascene moment: extend the Cuban Embargo, globally. We buy their products and go there on holiday, and implicitly support the continuing misery of the Cubans. Cutting off the cashflow into Cuba must surely result in an uprising or overwhelming restructuring of the political landscape.

I've had a couple, so I'm not certain whether I'm recycling something I have read before. If so, apologies. But right now, the lightbulb is shining bright. However, it's hard to see how this might actually be implemented - it would be very brutal policy to wield, even if the rest of the (non-US) world got together and bought in. China could probably support Cuba on its own, purely on ideological grounds.

[Troels]

Sure they live on too little in Cuba, and the government seems ineffective. They do have a fair level of Education and Heath Care tho - and it seems to me better lives than most in central America. Hope for them theyll have a gentle transition to normallity!

[PaulP]

Sure they live on too little in Cuba, and the government seems ineffective. They do have a fair level of Education and Heath Care tho - and it seems to me better lives than most in central America. Hope for them theyll have a gentle transition to normallity!

Suppose that depends on your definition of a fair level. From the article:

At Cuba’s much-touted hospitals, patients have to bring their own medicine, their own bed sheets, and even their own iodine.