Castro: Cuban model doesn't work?

[ArlJim78]

Now he tells us (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5).

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer Paul Haven, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 8, 3:18 pm ETHAVANA – Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Oliver Stone hardest hit.

The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about $20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transportation and housing. At least a portion of every citizen's food needs are sold to them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.
I'm sure many of our domestic Marxists read this and consider it a paradise, a great success compared to the US. No wealthy people and misery and equality for all!

[boxcar]

Now he tells us (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5).



Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Oliver Stone hardest hit.


I'm sure many of our domestic Marxists read this and consider it a paradise, a great success compared to the US. No wealthy people and misery and equality for all!

Leveling that playing field, chasing after "equal outcomes" and pursuing that all elusive goal of "social justice" ain't all peaches and cream, is it? Pretty much like chasing after the wind on a good day and on a bad one spitting into a hurricane-force wind's face. All this describes the extreme folly of liberals to a tee.

Boxcar

[JustRalph]

If you want a glimpse into cuba this show is pretty good

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Lost-Son-of-Havana/70117052?personid=30053450&strackid=632db81a7572f2f7_0_srl&strkid=1690199230_0_0&trkid=438381

Not sure that link works for everybody........it is called

Lost Son of Havana

if you are a Red Sox fan you might find it very interesting

Luis Tiant the famous Red Sox Pitcher goes back to Cuba to see his family

A comment from the Netflix site is on target

I think this is a great film to see after having watched the Gift of the game, and the bill lee documentary. These other 2 films romanticize the baseball culture in Cuba. This film really brings home the daily struggle with poverty these folks deal with, and the fragmented families that resulted from the revolution. Its very well done and is very poignant.

[46zilzal]

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/review_summer_02/677cuba.html

from the Harvard School of Public Health

This National Health System, as it's called, is an international success story and, for the last three years, a small group from the School has made its way down to this sunny island nation to learn more about what makes it tick. "It's good for people to see another system," says Richard Cash, senior lecturer in the School's Department of Population and International Health. "Seeing for yourself is far more important and to see what Cuba does with limited resources and to contrast it with our system and other systems is valuable. Everyone that has gone to Cuba has come away clearly educated by the process."

Socio-economic development is typically measured by health indicators such as infant mortality and life expectancy at birth. However, in Cuba, a nation beset by severely limited resources and political tensions both internal and external, these health markers are essentially the same as those in the United States and other parts of the industrialized world. Cuba also boasts the highest rate of public health service in Latin America and has one of the highest physician-to-population ratios in the world. Alone remarkable for a developing country, these feats are even more extraordinary considering the context of a US embargo that's been in effect since 1961.

They are doing many things right with the limited resources they have.

[slewis]

Leveling that playing field, chasing after "equal outcomes" and pursuing that all elusive goal of "social justice" ain't all peaches and cream, is it? Pretty much like chasing after the wind on a good day and on a bad one spitting into a hurricane-force wind's face. All this describes the extreme folly of liberals to a tee.

Boxcar


Yeah, since you know BOXCAR, my friend, that the key to a successful society is a DEMOCRATIC capitalistic society with MINIMAL Gov't intervention and a constitution and laws based on JUDEO-CHRISTIAN beliefs.

Let me buy you and ARLJIM a one way plane ticket to PAPUA NEW GUINEA...

See how you like that free enterprise democracy that's 96% christian.

Hey, boxcar, you can block the spears chucked at your head with your well used and holy bible:lol:

You guys are not true gentleman by comparing CUBA to the US.... So I thought I'd just level the sh..it out.

[PaceAdvantage]

Yeah, since you know BOXCRAP that the key to a successful society is a DEMOCRATIC capitalistic society with MINIMAL Gov't intervention and a constitution and laws based on JUDEO-CHRISTIAN beliefs.

Let me buy you and ARLJIM a one way plane ticket to PAPUA NEW GUINEA...

See how you like that free enterprise democracy that's 96% christian.

Hey, boxcrap, you can block the spears chucked at your head with your F'in bible:lol:

You guys are jerk offs by comparing CUBA to the US.... So I thought I'd just level sh..it out.I can do without the name calling...Boxcar may be a lot of things, but calling people jerk offs I don't think is one of his shortcomings.

I know you can get your point across without taking it to the gutter every single time.

[slewis]

I can do without the name calling...Boxcar may be a lot of things, but calling people jerk offs I don't think is one of his shortcomings.

I know you can get your point across without taking it to the gutter every single time.


OK PA,

I've seen the errors of my ways...and corrected them.....

I will now say 15 hail marys..:ThmbUp:

[JustRalph]

OK PA,

I've seen the errors of my ways...and corrected them.....

I will now say 15 hail marys..:ThmbUp:

reminds me of another late night poster who would go off the rails after midnight :lol:

[slewis]

IT"S THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE COUNTRY GREAT....NOT THE IDEOLOGY.

The GOvt can either HELP....or HURT.

For many years our Gov't Helped....

For the last decade or so, it's not only hurt, but is killing us. It's not much different then failed Gov'ts in indigenous places or dictatorships like Cuba.


Lobbying, partisanship, greed, is bringing down the great empire.

Not to mention out sourcing of jobs and a destuction of the backbone of our nation...our middle class.

[PaceAdvantage]

OK PA,

I've seen the errors of my ways...and corrected them.....

I will now say 15 hail marys..:ThmbUp:If I can't count on you, who can I count on?

[slewis]

If I can't count on you, who can I count on?


TLG ?:confused:

[PaceAdvantage]

He never ventures into off-topic...good thing too...I don't think he'd ever talk to me again if he did... :lol:

[Dave Schwartz]

For the last decade or so, it's not only hurt, but is killing us. It's not much different then failed Gov'ts in indigenous places or dictatorships like Cuba.

You know, guys, he has a point here.

But you know, that stuff about Cuba not having rich people? That is an absolute load of manure as well. Of course they have rich people. Every society does!

I actually find it amazingly funny - perhaps ironically so (though I don't think it really fits the definition) - that "the little people" are so in favor of "leveling the playing field."

They always seem to think that the rich folk are going to give up their money and spread it among the "little" people so that everyone will be average.

The only thing that happens is that you wind up with a two-class system: them and us. The "them" group is made up of the people so far up the ladder that no change is going to effect them. Who is "us?" Why, that would be the rest... everyone else; you and me.

In a Marxist/socialized society the only money and property that gets shared belongs to the people who were less than rich to begin with.


A close friend of mine went to Cuba on a mission trip. He brought back a story about "two hospitals in one." It seems that a local needed treatment for a cut in his arm and they went to the emergency room at a country hospital. It seems that the emergency room was so under-equipped that they had no gauze bandages and could only find a single, broken needle to sew the arm up with. (They actually used fishing line provided by someone in the party to close the wound.)

Then, two days later, my friend took him back to the hospital because the wound was opened up. This time he made his presence and his U.S. passport known. Suddenly they had all the equipment, needles and staff they could possibly need.

I can only assume that a wealthy person would have seen this side of the hospital rather than the poor side.

[bigmack]

You guys are not true gentleman by comparing CUBA to the US....
Every Cuban I know is a cool cat. I want to sit on the shores of Havana, ala Ry Cooder and play the guitar while a soft wind blows and the sound of Wynn-owned jackhammers start construction on a Mega-casino. Keep the 50's cars, break out the congas and have a ball.

Enough of Castro doom & gloom. We'll make him pit boss at the honorary Fidlels Cantina & Poker Room.

The Cuban people deserve betta.

http://www.everynation.org/assets/images/churches/restricted%20nations/cuba.jpg

[TJDave]

I can only assume that a wealthy person would have seen this side of the hospital rather than the poor side.

I've never seen the inside of a Cuban hospital but have traveled regularly to the island for a number of years. This year I'm told that purchasing a medical insurance policy will be mandatory. Apparently, the socialized medical services on which the government prides itself only works if you happen to be a Cuban socialist. :rolleyes:

[slewis]

Every Cuban I know is a cool cat. I want to sit on the shores of Havana, ala Ry Cooder and play the guitar while a soft wind blows and the sound of Wynn-owned jackhammers start construction on a Mega-casino. Keep the 50's cars, break out the congas and have a ball.

Enough of Castro doom & gloom. We'll make him pit boss at the honorary Fidlels Cantina & Poker Room.

The Cuban people deserve betta.

http://www.everynation.org/assets/images/churches/restricted%20nations/cuba.jpg

It's probably the only island in the carribean I haven't been to...but some of my Canadian friends tell me the resorts are beautiful.

Hard to understand why Castro and family are so stubborn....

The people do deserve better.

[Dave Schwartz]

Apparently, the socialized medical services on which the government prides itself only works if you happen to be a Cuban socialist.

...with money.

Remember the two economies, right?

[Greyfox]

Castro may be a lune but anyway you carve it, how the heck would we know whether his ideas would work or not?
They haven't been given a chance from the "get go."
My Gawd, the guy and his ideas have been under the restraint of an embargo for ages.
But, Castro, stubborn, stupid or just plain believing in his aims ,as he may well be, he hasn't budged an inch.
The friends that I've known who've gone there as tourists from other countries have loved the place and their trips.
Castro overthrew a crooked Batista regime propped up by the big Oil Companies and the U.S. Government.
His jungle warfare and rise to power in the '50's was in many ways an admirable accomplishment.
I will look forward to the final biography and movie of this man.
But who knows what principles of "Socialism" he truly understood?
The fact is that he never truly had a long chance to put them into practice before the gates were closed from most of the world, and in particular America.
That he has remained there as a Dictator ever since, seems to fly in the face of the principles he advocated in the first place.
Two years ago I thought he was on his death bed.
I suspect many Cubans wished he was.
Like Freddy from Elm Street he's still around.
Whoever makes the movie: CASTRO
will make box office millions, if they do a good top quality in depth production of it.

[PhantomOnTour]

Levantate Cubano!