Thread: In Cuba, socialism's sugar-daddy shortage brings on heavy rationing

In Cuba, socialism's sugar-daddy shortage brings on heavy rationing

Cuba is about to go through another 'special period...

May 11, 2019
By Monica Showalter

Looks like socialist Cuba is in for another of what its communist officials will euphemistically call "a special period."

Here's the Associated Press report:

The Cuban government announced Friday that it is launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis.
Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods. She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidized fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market.

The Cuban regime is yelling again about a U.S. 'embargo,' which is complete nonsense, given that not only is there no embargo, even when there was one, it excluded food and medicine. A few communist officials engaged in acts such as dissident torture have earned themselves some U.S. sanctions of late. But that's hardly an embargo.
In reality, the problem is money. The Cuban socialist regime imports nearly all its sustanence, which takes money - $2 billion, according to the AP report. The communists in charge make all decisions about what is to be bought and brought into the country and somehow they can't buy anything now. That's a function of the fact that the regime used to get a lot of money from the international sugar-daddy nations it needed to prop itself up, such as Russia at one time, and then Venezuela, whose oil earnings up until recently did the job.
Not only has Cuba lost Russia as a big sponsor (there is reason to think they still help a little), they've lost Venezuela which used to ship 100,000 barrels of oil daily to the communist regime, something the Castro dictatorship would then sell at full price on international markets. You didn't think they'd use that oil to supply Cubans, did you?
They've also lost Algeria, as I noted here. And they've lost once-socialist Brazil, noted there, too. While Russia and Venezuela get all the press, plenty of other players have been on hand to help keep the regime afloat and Uncle Sam tweaked. They're gone now. They've either crashed out on their own, they've seen their dictatorships thrown out, or they don't want to annoy President Trump anymore.
Which is a big problem for the ruling Castro family dictatorship. With no sugar daddies, they are sunk. And it's obvious they know this, given their assurances to the press that it won't be all that bad. And one can hope that Cubans take inspiration from places such as Algeria and rise up to get rid of this failure.
After all, why should any country need sugar daddies at all? Normal countries don't, and pre-communism Cuba didn't, but these guys do. It points to an even more fundamental problem: Sustainability. The fact that under communism, Cuba produces virtually nothing of value itself. The AP piece has some excellent quotes from ordinary Cubans showing that they do know what's really wrong:

Manuel Ordoñez, 43, who identified himself as a small business owner, said the new measures would do nothing to resolve Cuban’s fundamental problems.
“What the country needs to do is produce. Sufficient merchandise is what will lead to shorter lines,” he said.

What did Cuba do to its small business owners once the Obama administration left power and there was no need to put on a Potemkin show of Havana Spring?
Trashed them, of course, with taxes, driving them out of business, blaming them as hoarders and wreckers, jailing a few, confiscating the earnings of others, shaking still others down. It's been a hard, nasty, little-reported slog for these tiny businesses, even as Cuba took great press for permitting them just a few years ago.
The Cuban quoted was trying to tell the AP that Castro's on-again, off-again permit of free enterprise, even in tiny amounts, is what might make Cuba a normal country and we all know that Cuba largely shut that down. Socialism wins, of course, but the people can't eat.
Don't expect anyone in the Bernie Sanders orbit to think that one through. But it's obvious enough to the rest of us that sugar-daddy-free socialism cannot provide anything like a standard of living for people on its own merits and now Cuba is going to get it. One can only hope that this leads to an Algeria-intensity revolt on an utterly failed regime and an utterly failed economic model as the well-deserved result

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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...rationing.html

TOO BAD...AND THEY CANNOT COME HERE!

GO THE HELL HOME AND FIGHT TO LIBERATE YOUR OWN COUNTRY OR WALLOW IN YOUR MESS FOR ANOTHER 70 YEARS!

FIGHT OR DO NOT EAT BECAUSE WE DO NOT WANT THEM EITHER!

NO MONEY, NO AID, NO OATMEAL!

THEY ARE THE BIGGEST CRIMINALS THAT COME HERE, STEAL OUR IDENTITIES, THEY HAVE RUINED MIAMI AND MOST OF FLORIDA WHERE THEY LIVE. THEY COMMIT CRIMES, THEFT, AND MEDICAID FRAUD. THE NEIGHBORHOODS ARE TRASHED.

GET THEM OUT TOO!


Start deporting the ones already here through Gitmo and send them out the front gate.

Crisis Begins: Cuba Begins Widespread Rationing Due To Shortages



"Our mission is to fracture all the measures the US government imposes, and today we are setting priorities."

Tue, 05/14/2019 - 01:00
3 SHARES

Last month, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, attempting to tighten the vice on Havana to end its support for Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro. As a result, Cuba launched widespread rationing of staple foods and hygiene products due to shortages triggered by US trade embargos, reported Al Jazeera.

After a month of shortages, Cuban authorities announced Friday the rationed sale of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap, and other essential items, "to avoid hoarding and ensure greater access."

Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz told the Cuban News Agency that rationing would be used to deal with shortages of staple foods. Díaz condemned the Trump administration for triggering the latest crisis developing throughout the country.

"Our mission is to fracture all the measures the US government imposes, and today we are setting priorities," Diaz said on a state-run media broadcast.

Cuba imports approximately two-thirds of its food and small shortages have been common throughout the years. In recent weeks, many products have been missing from store shelves for days, and long lines have sprung up with many waiting for scarce products like chicken and beans.

Amid the developing economic crisis on the Caribbean island, Cuban youth have flooded onto social media under the hashtag #lacolachallenge (queue challenge) to shed light on the shortage.

MaCC @MaCC60217774

#LaColaChallenge en la Casa Azul provincia de Las Tunas, cola perenne, inmortal, infinita...como el hambre y la desesperación de los cubanos.

41
5:43 PM - May 10, 2019

Chawy @Chawy1348

#LaColaChallenge aunque esta es la mejor cola, la de irse de una vez

64
9:31 AM - May 10, 2019

Yoani Sánchez
✔ @yoanisanchez

#LaColaChallenge: El único reto 100% cubano ha nacido y el desafío es inundar las redes con las largas filas para comprar en la Isla. http://ow.ly/Paxu30oHiri

124
10:53 AM - May 10, 2019

Many Cubans find themselves standing in line for hours, waiting for products to arrive, a problem the government has blamed on "hoarders."

"The country's going through a tough moment. This is the right response. Without this, there'll be hoarders. I just got out of work and I was able to buy hot dogs," said Lazara Garcia, a 56-year-old tobacco-factory worker.

Product rationing has already begun in many municipalities across the island, with government-run grocery stores currently limiting bottles of cooking oil.Cuban officials admitted that a liquidity crunch has hit the country after commercial debt hit $ 1.5 billion with suppliers late last year, as well as the renewed US sanctions, have complicated things for the centrally planned government.

"We depend on imports that come from the United States, and this has meant that we have had to look for alternatives to be able to secure the product in the market," Díaz told local media.

It seems that an economic crisis is unfolding in Cuba and the dangers are beginning to emerge with food shortages across the country.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...-due-shortages