-
Self-Proclaimed Economic Wizards
June 11, 2013 | 29 comments
-
Neighborhood Watch, Anyone?
May 14, 2013 | 19 comments
-
We’re Still Going Backward
April 18, 2013 | 30 comments
-
Street Level Anti-Capitalism
April 8, 2013 | 71 comments
-
Snazzy Sequestered Screeners
March 8, 2013 | 13 comments
At Large
Fidel’s Communist Spin
At least for a moment he sounded less collectivist that our president.
(Page 2 of 2)
In last Tuesday’s New York Times, John Kavulich, a senior advisor for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a private group that provides information to American businesses regarding Cuba’s commercial environment, asked a good question about Cuba’s shift from official anti-capitalism to a somewhat pro-entrepreneurship stance: “The Cuban government is going to allow and by definition encourage people to go into private sector opportunities. What happens when some people get rich?”
To make sure no one gets too rich except the Castro brothers (Forbes magazine in 2006 listed Fidel Castro among the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $900 million, up from $550 million in 2005), the Cuban regime has put a very tight lid on the amount of economic freedom that will be permitted in Cuba’s private sector.
Along with the plan to fire 500,000 public employees, and another 500,000 at a later date, another measure will order “the denationalization of beauty parlors and barber shops, if they have no more than three chairs,” explains George Will. “With four or more, they remain government enterprises.”
There in its purest form is a clear demonstration of the irrationality of central planning. A million people will be fired from their government make-work jobs and told to find real work in a private sector where it’s illegal to have four chairs in a barber shop.
About the Author
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Ralph R. Reiland
More Articles From At Large
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/09/20/fidels-communist-spin
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- A Panoply of Beauties
- Confessions of a Soft-Drinking Newspaperman
- A World Turned Right Side Up
The Spectacle Blog
Democrat Dan Maffei Blames Budget Cuts for Girl’s Rape, Mother’s Murder
Robert Stacy McCain | 6.18.13
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
saleboter| 9.20.10 @ 7:53AM
I'm trying to imagine a US labor union saying that something can't be afforded.
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 9:54AM
"Cuba was always nice to gays,"
Gee, no wonder Anita Bryant didn't like Castro.
JmsA| 9.20.10 @ 12:00PM
Brooks,
Ever heard of the UMAP camps?
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 12:58PM
I answered sarcasm with a joke.
JmsA| 9.20.10 @ 9:11PM
That's fine, but I doubt the ones in said camps, including but not limited to the gays, had many laughs.
Jim O'Brien| 9.20.10 @ 8:12AM
Let's send Obama to Cuba to succeed Castro.
Nunya| 9.20.10 @ 3:47PM
I'd hate to do that to the Cubans, they've never done anything to me. :-)
GavInTucson| 9.23.10 @ 2:08AM
Send him to Cuba? Haven't the Cubans suffered enough?
Louis Jenkins| 9.20.10 @ 9:18AM
Maybe Fidel has Alzhimers disease. Can't remember what he said five minutes ago. Cuba is a basket case, and Fidel ain't helping matters one bit.
"We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working."
I thought that was the USA, not Cuba.
Steve A| 9.20.10 @ 9:22AM
Obama / Castro 2012. Although Castro may now be a bit too right wing for Obama.
GavInTucson| 9.23.10 @ 2:16AM
Maybe, but Obama's base would still get fired up. Better yet, they should dig up Che's corpse and put him on the ticket. It would put a dead-lock on the 18-24 demographic. They're just dumb enough to vote for a corpse simply because most of them have a Che t-shirt crumpled up on the floor somewhere.
Anthony| 9.20.10 @ 9:36AM
When Obozo's mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, heads for the tall grass, perhaps Fidel can take over.
Otherwise, Steve A has it right, Obozo/Castro 2012, change we can believe in!!!
Si se puede!!!!
Reply in Kind| 9.20.10 @ 12:16PM
Castro said Reagan was a revolutionary and for that he should be commended. And he was, he took on the GOP establishment, Democrats, liberals, communists, unions, Russia, Cuba/Grenada, Carter, Mondale, Brown and vanquished them all.
GavInTucson| 9.23.10 @ 3:47AM
Vanquished? Hardly. Anyone who's spent a day or more in college knows otherwise. Liberals love to cocoon themselves in a federally funded environment, shielded from reality, and college professorships provide just that (and, perhaps, MSNBC).
It's a pretty sweet gig when you think about it. Think about what it takes these days to be a college professor: earning a tenured, 6-figure salary, while putting in "grueling" 4-6 hour days, "working" nine months out of the year, minus holidays, and producing mindless piles of mush that are only marginally dumber than they are from an academic standpoint.
It isn't exactly the resume of an over-achiever. In fact, I'd pit the average part-time laborer against a college professor any day. At the end of the day, the laborer actually produces something of value, whilst the average professor merely produces nothing more than a complete dumbing down of an entire generation (in order to secure his own job from them).
Sort of reminds me of that old saying... "Those who can... do." "Those who can't... teach."
Capitalism has risen far more people out of poverty than any other system yet devised, yet today's liberalism demands that everyone be reduced to an equal level of misery. So my question for the poor is simply this... would you like your living standard raised to theirs, or would you like theirs lowered to yours?
Eric Cartman| 9.20.10 @ 1:07PM
"We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where one can live without working."
Don't worry, Raul. With the help of the SEIU. America will now take the place of "the only country in the world where one can live without working."
sinanju| 9.20.10 @ 1:24PM
This is the beginning of the end. I had a look at the new regulations over at babalublog. It is ridiculously restrictive. There won't be any semi-private sector big enough to absorb these million fired state workers. Raul doesn't know what he's doing. The collapse is coming.
Nunya| 9.20.10 @ 3:51PM
I can't wait. Maybe I can then get some decent Cuban cigars without having to go to South America first.
After being told by someone about 12 years ago that Cuba doesn't make any good cigars anymore, I finally got to try one a few years later. I can tell you from experience that they are still some of the best made anywhere, and usually end up at the top of Cigar Afficianado's "Best of" lists.
RCV| 9.21.10 @ 7:05PM
Cuba is indeed a basket case, and the collapse would have come years ago if it weren't for the insane economic embargo that has given the Castros a whipping boy to blame their failures on. Now that the embargo is weakening a bit, and the daily flights are going in and out of Miami, Cubans are once again getting a taste of what they could have without The Bearded One.
PCP Smoker| 9.20.10 @ 6:21PM
"...expressed regret about trying to convince Khrushchev to nuke the United States"
Glad that "nuclear freeze" business never got anywhere.
Imagine if the loquacious Fidel had convinced of one of those paranoid old men in the Kremlin to act on his little request.
Thank God for the nuclear scientists and the American nuclear umbrella.