How come nobody hit the ceiling when we didn't close our embassy with China today?
Cuba is third world poor. A country where the average person earns $300 to $500 per month, is a slave pen. State sponsored slavery is the only way you can repress people to such an extreme extent as to hold their standard of living that low for 50 years.
Given there has never been an economically successful Socialist nation in world history, it makes perfect sense that Cuba would be a failure just like all the rest.
The mortality rates for children under five in 2007 were as follows (World Bank): Cuba, 6.5; Latin America and Caribbean, 26.37; United States, 7.60;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba#Comparison_...
You are right, Cuba is third world poor and they still beat their capitalist neighbors and even the wealthy and powerful US in life expectancy and infant mortality.
Cuba does so much with so little because of the radical idea that we are all in this together. Cuba spends $300 per citizen on health care, the US spends $7000. I spent $5000 personally just this year on health care and I'm young and healthy.
Those in capitalist countries are getting fleeced, and Cuba shows us that. If Cuban socialism didn't exist I couldn't point out these facts, and that is why Cuban socialism was such a threat and why the US has acted so insecure towards the tiny island's revolution.
I don't want the US to adopt the Cuban system, I just believe we had no right to violate their sovereignty, and having different political systems out there lets us have a sort of A/B test for politics. I don't believe a global political and economic monoculture is healthy.
As an American I wouldn't want to trade places at birth with a Cuban, but if I had the choice between being born to asset-less parents in Jamaica or asset-less parents in Cuba, I know I would be healthier, more materially secure and far safer from violent crime in Cuba. I also would have a much greater chance of not dying during my birth.
Honestly, I'm not into communism and am very surprised that their figures are as good as they are. It's dumbfounding.'
I guess it's more a statement of how hard it is to come up from the bottom whatever your system is. Russia and China both showed great results in their first couple 5-year plans before communism petered out and didn't deliver further gains.
