Cuba's Economy in Shambles and Nears Collapse

Cuba eyes more self-employment as massive layoffs loom


Aug 1, 2010
AFP
 
 
President Raul Castro expanded self-employment fields on Sunday, ahead of looming government plans to slash as many as one million jobs -- 20 percent of communist Cuba's work force -- from state payrolls.


The economy, 95 percent of which is currently in state hands, does not have the ability to absorb such vast numbers of jobless. Castro's move aims to try to reduce the socioeconomic fallout, but it will be an uphill battle.

The Council of Ministers "agreed to expand the range of self-employment jobs, and their use as another alternative for workers who lose their jobs," Castro said as he gave a closing address at one of two annual sessions of the National Assembly.

After the crash of the former Soviet bloc, Cuba's cash-strapped government in the 1990s approved a wide range of self-employment. Positions such as beauticians, dog groomers, small restaurant owners and even lighter refillers were legalized as long as workers got licenses and paid taxes.

But social resentment emerged as an issue when some workers, particularly in small private restaurants, achieved dramatic levels of success.

The government began increasing taxation and regulation, and decreasing license-granting, until the self-employed sector was largely rendered paralyzed, like the rest of the economy.

Cuba has no regular access to international funding; it depends heavily on the cut-rate oil it gets from Venezuela in order to keep its fragile economy afloat. Tourism earnings and remittances from emigres also are key pillars of the Cuban economy.

Inefficiency is rampant and wages are woefully low.

Cubans' hopes had been running high that some change was coming to allow some economic opening in the Americas' only one-party communist regime.

By 2009, there were just 148,000 people out of a work force of five million who were legally self-employed.

Raul Castro, 79, said he would launch new wage and salary practices early next year. He did not give details.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
silly castros

Obama: We will decide how much you should get paid!

US government seeks to rein in executive pay


Democrats want to push administration on US corporate pay strategies


Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer
On Thursday June 11, 2009




WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is taking a half-step toward taming U.S. executive pay. Some lawmakers prefer a fuller stride.


Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee said Thursday the administration's efforts to hector the private sector into reining in executive pay might not go far enough.


The administration contends that excessive compensation contributed to the U.S. financial crisis, but rejects direct intervention in corporate pay decisions.


Instead, the administration plans to seek legislation that would try to rein in compensation at publicly traded companies through nonbinding shareholder votes and less management influence on pay decisions.





I don't know if we can survive another six months of the change this guy wants to enact - from government ownership of auto companies, health care, and now a beginning - telling the private sector how much is too much. The American people did not elect you Mr. Obama to turn our country socialist. In fact, this isn't even socialist - it is Marxist - socialist countries do not dictate what individuals may earn. Take control of what else?



















Obama

A Bang or a Whimper? US Becomes Marxist

We do need a change in this country and we need it very soon, before the changes made by Obama have so weakened our will, so undermined our foundations we sink into slavery as Pravda argues we are doing.


President Eisenhower was meeting with Khruschev in 1959. Khruschev wanted to meet and discuss with the US Secretary of Agriculture details of the US farming system and agriculture. In their private discussions, Ezra Taft Benson relates a conversation between he and Khruschev:

"Your children will live under communism." Khrushchev said."On the contrary," Secretary Benson replied, "My grandchildren will live in freedom as I hope that all people will."Khrushchev then retorted: "You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept Communism outright; but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you will finally wake up and find that you already have Communism. We won't have to fight you; we'll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands."








American capitalism gone with a whimper

27.04.2009
Source: Pravda.Ru

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.


True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.






Obama

North Korea: Void of Opportunity

N. Korean Defectors Staggered By South
Arrivals Find Physical, Psychic, Social Hurdles


By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A01


ANSEONG, South Korea -- To flee North Korea and arrive in the rich, wired, consuming culture of South Korea is to feel clueless, fearful and guilty.

Teenagers are particularly bewildered. As part of the newest wave in a decade-old flow of defectors from the North, they arrive stunted from malnutrition and struggling to read. At the movies for the first time, they panic when the lights go down, afraid someone might kidnap them. They find it incredible that money is stored in plastic credit cards. Pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers -- staples of South Korean teen cuisine -- give them indigestion. One gargled with liquid fabric softener, mistaking it for mouthwash.


In time, they wise up and their stomachs calm down. Their guilt, though, tends to fester.

"When I eat something that is really delicious, I can't help but feel guilty about my family back in North Korea," said Lee J.Y., who asked that her full name not be used because she is afraid that North Korean authorities will punish her family for her freedom. Now 20, Lee escaped five years ago from North Hamgyong province, where her little brother died of hunger and where she survived on cake made of pine-tree bark.


Defectors in the late 1990s were mostly young men without families. They could swim or sneak across the border into China. In recent years, though, about 80 percent of defectors have been middle-aged women, many with children in tow. Most of these women were traders -- and in many cases, cross-border smugglers -- for the private markets that have spread across North Korea. Often, they bribed their way across the border.

They filter into South Korea at the rate of about 35 a week, usually after months or years in China and an arduous detour through Vietnam, Burma or Thailand. About 15,000 defectors have settled in the South, with 4,000 arriving in the past two years.

Seoul does not encourage North Koreans to defect. But once they arrive, the South Korean government quietly grants them citizenship, gives them an apartment and tries to teach them how not to sink in an education-obsessed capitalist culture.




[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link]















Korea

Monday is RUSSIA Day: Yeltsin on Communism

From the Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1992

Boris Yeltsin, first democratically elected president of Russia
Comments made before the US Congress

The world can sigh in relief. The idol of communism, which spread everywhere social strife, animosity and unparalleed brutality, which instilled fear in humanity, has collapsed. I am here to assure you we shall not let it rise again in our land.

Liberty will not be fooled. There can be no coexistence between democracy and the totalitarian state system. there can be no coexistence between market economy and powers who control everything and everyone.

The experience of the past decades has taught us communism has no human face. Freedom and communism are incompatible.

Truer words have never been spoken by a Russian.







Russia

Biden and His Poor Judgment (Even though he met with many world leaders)

Charlie - you asked Palin about what world leaders she had met. She had not met any. You asked that question and your follow up statement with a great deal of dripping condescension or elitism - YOU haven't met any and YOU think you can be Vice-President!

What about a Senator who has been to many countries and met many leaders - would that make you feel better about the person? And what does meeting a world leader do Charlie?

Do you think had Palin met Mao, he would have said - I was the worst mass murderer in history and you must never trust China?

Do you think had Palin met Putin, he would have said - I cannot be trusted and I wish to re-establish the Soviet Empire?

Do you thinking meeting with Merkle would have made any difference for US positions on policy issues? Should it?

Does flying in to Afghanistan to see Karzai for a few hours constitute anything substantive for a political candidate? If so, Larry King is in a better position to be Vice President.

Of course your question was phrased with the public knowledge and remembrance of Obama's World Tour '08 just a few months ago.

What happens Charlie if the Senator who visits with the world leader has poor judgment? Would it have been preferable that he not met with the world leaders and been conned or never met with them to begin with? Which one Charlie.

What if a Senator was fundamentally wrong on the greatest issue of our times - what does that say about his judgment!

Biden Was Wrong On the Cold War
By PETER WEHNER
Wall Street Journal

September 4, 2008


The choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has electrified many conservatives and strengthened John McCain's claim that his administration would be far more reform-minded than Barack Obama's. At the same time, it has triggered accusations that Gov. Palin is far too inexperienced to be vice president, and has little knowledge of national security issues.


Mrs. Palin's lack of mastery of national security issues is often contrasted with Mr. Obama's vice presidential pick, Joseph Biden Jr. Mr. Biden has served in the Senate since 1973, is currently chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and is often described as a "statesman."


In fact, decade after decade and on important issue after important issue, Mr. Biden's judgment has been deeply flawed.


In the 1970s, Mr. Biden opposed giving aid to the South Vietnamese government in its war against the North. Congress's cut-off of funds contributed to the fall of an American ally, helped communism advance, and led to mass death throughout the region. Mr. Biden also advocated defense cuts so massive that both Edmund Muskie and Walter Mondale, both leading liberal Democrats at the time, opposed them.


In the early 1980s, the U.S. was engaged in a debate over funding the Contras, a group of Nicaraguan freedom fighters attempting to overthrow the Communist regime of Daniel Ortega. Mr. Biden was a leading opponent of President Ronald Reagan's efforts to fund the Contras. He also opposed Reagan's efforts to send military assistance to the pro-American government in El Salvador, which at the time was battling the FMLN, a Soviet-supported Marxist group.


Throughout his career, Mr. Biden has consistently opposed modernization of our strategic nuclear forces. He was a fierce opponent of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Mr. Biden voted against funding SDI, saying, "The president's continued adherence to [SDI] constitutes one of the most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft." Mr. Biden has remained a consistent critic of missile defense and even opposed the U.S. dropping out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty after the collapse of the Soviet Union (which was the co-signatory to the ABM Treaty) and the end of the Cold War.


In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and, we later learned, was much closer to attaining a nuclear weapon than we had believed. President George H.W. Bush sought war authorization from Congress. Mr. Biden voted against the first Gulf War, asking: "What vital interests of the United States justify sending Americans to their deaths in the sands of Saudi Arabia?"


In 2006, after having voted three years earlier to authorize President George W. Bush's war to liberate Iraq, Mr. Biden argued for the partition of Iraq, which would have led to its crack-up. Then in 2007, Mr. Biden opposed President Bush's troop surge in Iraq, calling it a "tragic mistake." It turned out to be quite the opposite. Without the surge, the Iraq war would have been lost, giving jihadists their most important victory ever.


On many of the most important and controversial issues of the last four decades, Mr. Biden has built a record based on bad assumptions, misguided analyses and flawed judgments. If he had his way, America would be significantly weaker, allies under siege would routinely be cut loose, and the enemies of the U.S. would be stronger.


There are few members of Congress whose record on national security matters can be judged, with the benefit of hindsight, to be as consistently bad as Joseph Biden's. It's true that Sarah Palin has precious little experience in national security affairs. But in this instance, no record beats a manifestly bad one.


Mr. Wehner, a former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.





















Biden









Obama