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March 23, 2007
People before profits
Russell Roberts
Here is what happens when the government runs everything. Here is what happens when the people come before profits. You get a paradise. Reuters reports (HT: Drudge):
Almost half a century of communist rule has saved Havana's eclectic architecture from the urban developer's bulldozer, but a lack of repair has taken a ruinous toll on its neo-Baroque and Art Deco gems.
Dozens of colonial buildings and beautiful squares in Old Havana have been restored since the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO designated it a world heritage site in 1982. But the rest of the city of 2.2 million people is falling into decay.
It's pretty surreal:
Amidst the squalor and rubble, tourists brave darkly-lit streets to climb to the city's best-known private restaurant, La Guarida, perched on the top floor of a palatial town-house built by a sugar baron in 1913.
The building of marble staircases and statues today houses 30 families who built small two-floor apartments inside formerly high-ceilinged rooms, called "barbacoas" because of the way a new floor is inserted like a barbecue grill. A washing line with drying clothes hangs between elegant columns.
In the restaurant upstairs, where a main course costs the same as an average monthly wage in Cuba, photographs on the wall recall celebrity visitors, from Jack Nicholson to the Queen of Spain.
"This building would have collapsed without the restaurant. Its owner has helped a lot with money for repairs," said Enio Ochoa, a former naval engineer living on the second floor.
And this:
Iraelio Fernandez's building did collapse. He and his wife moved into an abandoned cinema across the street where he raises chickens and a pig in a roofed space that once housed a 1,000-seat theater called the Palace.
"We moved here until they build new houses," he said.
At least he's smart enough not to raise a cow. Here's an excerpt from a March 18, 2004 Chicago Tribune story by Gary Marx, recently thrown out of Cuba for "negative" reporting. (The whole story is reprinted here in this CubaNet news digest):
In communist Cuba, only the state is allowed to slaughter cattle and sell the meat. Citizens who kill a cow--even if they raised it themselves--can get a 10-year prison sentence. Anyone who transports or sells a poached animal can get locked up for 8 years.
"My brother-in-law got a 12-year prison sentence for killing 12 cows," said an accountant who lives in the cattle-raising region.
But it's not unheard of for Cubans to sneak into a pasture at night and butcher a cow on the spot. Residents have been known to descend on a cow struck by lightning, carving it up in minutes even though the meat often is charred and they risk a fine if caught by police.
The same thing can happen if a cow is hit by a car or dies of illness or malnutrition, in giving birth or of old age, even though residents admit the law requires them to leave the carcass alone and notify local officials.
Posted by Russell Roberts in Cuba | Permalink
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Comments
Oh, c'mon...somebody say it..."but they have free health care and education!" No discussion of Cuba is complete without someone arguing that all that compassionate socialism cancels out all the flaws.
Posted by: LisaMarie | Mar 23, 2007 5:02:37 PM
Hey now! I don't know how the Cuban and Soviet Russian "free health care" compares.
However, I CAN attest the fact that the Soviet health care was absolutely free...of any actual health care! I was hospitalized in Soviet Russia off an on for several years and barely escaped with my life. The psychological effect of torture chambers passing as hospitals was so profound, I still need a valium every time I enter a hospital - and I've lived in the US since the 70's!
It's the kind of free health care that I would gladly pay my life savings to avoid.
There's your discussion :)
Posted by: Methinks | Apr 4, 2007 11:59:06 AM
hugechoiceof
hugechoiceof
Posted by: account | Apr 22, 2007 3:38:11 PM The comments to this entry are closed.
