Focus on Fidel

Cuba PobreWhile we pulled together some background on the Elian post, we came across some interesting tidbits about life in the "Worker's Paradise," Cuba, not to be confused with the "Sportsman's Paradise,"  Louisiana.  Both, it appears, rely heavily  on the tourist industry for revenue, but fortunately for Louisiana, that's where similarities end.  In our previous post we learned that Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian's father, still works as a waiter at a resort near Cardenas.  While discussing this with the other Quidniki we wondered why then could he live in one of the more comfortable houses in Cardenas.  Ah, we are so silly.  In the first place, in the "workers paradise", every job is equally important and worthy, so a waiter and a surgeon and a ditch digger all make the same amount in monthly wages (US$20), at least in theory.  But this led to other questions: if that is true, how can there be a minimum wage, which Castro has announced will be doubled?

Labourers earning about 100 Cuban pesos ($4.10; £2.13) a month will see their wages rise to 225 pesos from 1 May. The move will benefit 1.6 million workers, including farmhands, plumbers and undertakers, who survive on the lowest wages in communist Cuba.

OK, wrap your gray cells around these facts: There are 11.3 million people in Cuba, of which 80% or 8.8 million are between the ages of 15 and 65.  Twenty percent (20%), 1.6 million of these, are subsisting on $4.10 per month.  Now, they do get rations for food and necessities:

Basic necessities are rationed and available at affordable prices; however, the ration amounts generally last just two weeks. People are forced to pay exorbitant free-market dollar prices to survive the rest of the month. Food rations have become the norm since Cuba does not produce enough food to feed the nation and importing food is complex due to costs and the embargo.

But also remember that no one pays any rent and health care is free.  Paradise.

Are you getting the picture?

The truth is that everything is state controlled.  So Juan Miguel is living in one of the more comfortable houses in Cardenas (we got this from the BBC, so we will translate: more comfortable = less ramshackle) thanks to the decision of El Jefe.  He works in the tourist industry, meaning he has access to hard currency tips (although this is about to come to a grinding halt) and anyway, he's not a "farmhand, plumber, or undertaker," so he isn't working for the minimum wage.

Over the next week, Quid Nimis will explore what is really going on in the worker's paradise.  We see the need: at every turn in looking up background material, we encountered sugar coating and whitewash. We will look at :

• The sex tourism industry
• Economic controls, rationing and healthcare
• Forced labor, human trafficking and dissent
  
• Why the Left, especially Hollywood, glorifies and idealizes La Revolucion and Fidel
• How the Elian Gonzalez tragedy was manipulated by liberal politicians and the media

Sources for this post:
Global Policy Forum
Humberto Fontova
BBC News
CIA: The World Factbook

Comments

[The Outlaw Michael Cosyns]

Looking forward to the series. If you intend to make it a series, that is.

[Val Prieto]

I would love to read the series also.

[Howarde]

fidelito's CUBA A TOTAL FLOP, MR. COSTNER.
What's interesting is that you're doing this in an exploratory manner, seemingly (?) a novice about Cuba and what's going on there, and you're really printing the unvarnished truth that Liberals (ie Kevin Costner), even after they visit Cuba, simply cannot seem to comprehend, much less admit that the system is a total flop. They did the same in Russia during the 30s. I have books published in Moscow, in the 40s, in English...all pie-in-the-sky silliness.

Even when fidelito was getting $6 billion a year from Russia, what happened to it? Where did it go? Now, why don't you try to dig into that?

I have suggested tourists taking throw-away cameras along and asking tourist workers to take pictures in their homes of the deteriorating conditions, and that they smuggle them out.

If Cubans want freedom, they're going to have to take it, as the Polish workers did. They've got to do it as was done in Albania, then put fidelito against the wall as he did to so many. Paredon. Paredon.