Cuba and the Free Market

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Castro has hailed Obama as a wonderful addition to the United States family of politics. Perhaps it is because Castro and Obama has so much in common.

A Cuban exile that attends my Constitution Study Group on Thursdays told me that what amazes her is that Obama has done in two years what it took Fidel Castro five years to accomplish.

Now that the Financial Reform Bill is passed, health care is under the government's thumb, Obama is using public-private corporatism to add a little more government control over the private sector, and he has devalued the currency drastically by pumping fiat money into the system, all that is left are the mandates that eliminate our remaining liberties.

I am sure Obama, and his Democrat Party minions, are hard at work at that aspect of the takeover of America as we speak.

We are well on our way to becoming the next Cuba, Venezuela, and European socialist nation - which will eventually also lead us down the path to be the next failed society, like Greece.

Castro's iron hand, and propaganda machine, has the leftists fooled. Hollywood actors just love the old dictator. Michael Moore has proclaimed the Cuban health system to be far superior. And besides, they argue, there is no unemployed in Cuba! Everyone has a job!

But pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that "the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work."

Cuba, surprise, surprise, is facing a huge budget deficit. The governmental system is collapsing under the weight of a weak economy, and no private sector to speak of for manufacturing or production. Cuba is facing a hard decision. Either completely collapse, or start changing some of their communist system into a not-so-communist system - which may begin with trimming the bloated public employment ranks.

Brother Raul Castro has stated that the writing is on the wall. He has said, "We know that there are hundreds of thousands of unnecessary workers on the budget and labor books, and some analysts calculate that the excess of jobs has surpassed 1 million."

Raul replaced Fidel as el presidente four years ago, and may perhaps not be as stubborn as his brother economically, though just as brutal otherwise.

In his nationally televised speech in April, Castro also had harsh words for those who do little to deserve their salaries.

"Without people feeling the need to work to make a living, sheltered by state regulations that are excessively paternalistic and irrational, we will never stimulate a love for work," he said.

Imagine that! No personal incentive, and nor individual opportunity, leads people to not work! Hmmm, do you think the liberal left has heard of that concept?

And the process of reforming labor in Cuba has begun - slowly.

Furloughs in lean months have been initiated, while other workers have often been reassigned to jobs where they may be needed more.

Rumors have spread that as many as a fourth of all government workers in some industries could lose their jobs or be moved to farming or construction.

As the system adjusts, Cuba is actually beginning to embrace small free-market reforms. Even the communists in Cuba are realizing that the way to save economies, employment problems, and in the end an entire nation, is to seek out capitalism. One of the ways of accomplishing this is giving some businesses, like those in the service industry (barber shops for example) to the employees, letting them set prices, and letting them run the day to day operations as entrepreneurs.

It worked well in China.

The state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average. Like in the United States, the real unemployment number is nothing near what they tell us.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Jobless in Cuba? Communism faces the unthinkable - Yahoo News, Associated Press

Three Million Imaginary Jobs - Wall Street Journal