Cafe Hayek

People before profits

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.

Balanced Reporting

Cuba is really poor. True, they've got that high literacy rate and the free health care (though I wonder how many MRI's they have—you don't jsut care about the price), but they're really poor. The Washington Post reports:

Tiny flames jump and sputter in the night here, suspended above the roadbed as if held by an invisible wand.

The uninitiated must pull up close on these unlighted roads to realize that the flames are leaping from small buckets that dangle from wires on the backside of horse-drawn buggies. In the near absence of passenger cars, these buggies serve as taxis and local buses in rural areas of Cuba, and the flaming buckets function as homemade taillights.

Countless chroniclers of Cuba have observed that the vintage American cars in Havana -- the fabulous, hulking Buicks and finned Chryslers -- make the capital feel like a city frozen in the 1950s. But outside Havana, in the vast expanse of the Caribbean's largest island, the ambiance often leans more toward the 1850s.

The roads are there. It's just that the cars aren't.

But the thug who runs the country makes sure he can still collect his share of the national output:

Transportation is a huge problem throughout the island, even in Havana, where many of the vehicles still on the road are connected to state-run tourism or government activities. Hitchhikers are everywhere, and people wait hours to ride oversize buses that seem to break down as often as they run.

It's an excellent article. Read it. But the reporter, Manuel Roig-Franzia, felt compelled to add an explanation for Cuba's plight. And being a good reporter, he felt obliged to offer divergent viewpoints to explain why Cuba is so poor:

Supporters of Castro blame the U.S. trade embargo for the transportation woes and especially for the dearth of personal cars. Cuba makes no cars of its own. Non-U.S. automakers that might normally be eager to ship vehicles and replacement parts to the island are hampered because of U.S. trade rules. Ships are prohibited from entering U.S. ports for six months after making deliveries to Cuba, effectively blocking access for those companies to the world's largest market.

Castro's critics view the situation differently, blaming the failings of Cuba's economic policies after years of communist rule. The government's weak financial position makes it impossible for it to place large enough orders to overcome the limitations created by the trade embargo.

We report, you decide. Two opposing viewpoints. Of course they could both be right. Both could be contributing to the problem. But is there equal logic and empirical support for both claims?

Call a car manufacturer. Is the six month delay a real cost? Is it enforced? If you go to the US first and then to Cuba, is the six month delay relevant? Are there other countries with similar embargoes? Do they have anyone sell them cars?

But more importantly, why is there virtually no meat in Cuba? And why is everything else in such short supply? Is that because non-American exporters are afraid of the costs?

Here's a tragicomic story (scroll down to the middle where it talks about cattle) on the effects of tyranny on human beings:

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.

...

Cubans have not always been hard up for                                       beef. Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba was                                       said to have as many cattle as people--about                                       5 million--and one of the region's highest                                       per-capita consumption of beef, experts                                       said.

But Fidel Castro's revolutionary government                                       nationalized the large land holdings of                                       U.S. and other ranchers and slaughtered                                       many of the cattle to make up for falling                                       food production in other areas.

The beef industry never recovered, but                                       dairy herds were built back up through huge                                       investments and imported animal feed, experts                                       said. Years later, when the Soviet Union                                       collapsed and ended $5 billion in annual                                       subsidies, Cuba lacked the money for feed,                                       and much of the dairy herd also was lost.                                     

Today beef is found almost exclusively                                       in state-run restaurants catering to tourists                                       and dollar-only markets beyond the reach                                       of most citizens.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

This article on the cattle industry also presents the debate on whether the beef situation is due to mismanagement due to Communism or the US trade embargo even though the trade embargo doesn't apply to agricultural products! Read it if can handle it.

Power to the People

The Cuban economic miracle leads to some creative homemaking. The Wall Street Journal ($) reports:

As homemaking gurus go, 72-year-old Margarita Gálvez is no Martha Stewart.

Mrs. Gálvez writes articles, churns out recipes and hosts coffee klatches for the Roman Catholic bishop's office in the western Cuban city of Pinar del Rio. But her skillet skills can't get too fancy in a socialist economy where monthly meat rations roughly equal two hamburger patties. Beauty tips must be simple enough for a country where even soap and hot water are scarce -- and where the average monthly wage is $17.

Because of such obstacles, Mrs. Gálvez may be the only homemaking authority whose salad-dressing recipe is useful to hairdressers as well as to cooks.

Mrs. Gálvez's vinegar topping can serve, in a pinch, as a hair conditioner. Her advice: save the water used to rinse dried rice rations and add two spoonfuls of dark sugar. After letting the mixture marinate for 45 days, you'll have a vinegary liquid that will perk up lettuce greens at the dinner table -- or add sheen to hair after shampooing.

This would be funny if it weren't so tragic. Elian Gonzalez sure is lucky to be growing up in such a non-materialistic society.

One more reason to root for the Red Sox

Mike Lowell has lived long enough in the tolerant culture of the United States so that he's a little uneasy about saying so, but he's rooting for Castro to die. (HT: Zev Fredman)

Waiting for Snow in Havana is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. It's a memoir about growing up in Havana in the early days of Castro's rule. It's a good week to read it.

Friend of Elian

I missed the interview with Elian Gonzalez on Sixty Minutes.  Jeff Jacoby did not and writes eloquently of the moral bankruptcy of CBS:

''60 Minutes" made much of the fact that Castro came to Elian's elementary school graduation and pronounced himself Elian's friend. ''That's quite something, isn't it," Simon gushed, ''for the president of a country to say he's honored to have a kid as a friend?"

Elian: Yes, and it's also very moving to me. And I also believe I am his friend.

Simon: Do you think of him as a friend?

Elian: Not only as a friend, but also as a father.

Simon: If you had a problem, would you call him up and tell him about it?

Elian: I could.

Well, it is good to know that Elian thinks so highly of Castro. And one must admire the restraint shown by ''60 Minutes," which somehow managed to avoid mentioning that Elian's friend and surrogate ''father" is also the world's longest-ruling tyrant, a sadist who has killed or imprisoned tens of thousands of dissidents, and, not incidentally, the Stalinist thug who drove Elizabet Brotons -- Elian's mother -- to her death in the Florida Straits.

Jacoby's condemnation of CBS reminded me of how CNN coddled Saddam Hussein.  We only know about that because Eason Jordan of CNN confessed on the pages of the New York Times.  His remarkable mea culpa is here if you missed it.  It will cost you $3.95 but it's worth it.  Or you can google around and find it.

If you have any romance left in your heart for Castro, read Against All Hope or Waiting for Snow in Havana.  The former is chilling and deserved to be read to honor the courage of its author and his prison mates.  The latter is a magical book about growing up that also tells of what Castro was really about as almost an afterthought. It is one of the finest books I have read in the last ten years.

Chavez and Other Beasts

Marshall Stocker, an investment manager in Ithaca, New York, wrote this very nice op-ed appearing in yesterday's Ithaca Journal. In it, he compares Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez with Cuba’s chief hombre Fidel Castro – concluding, sadly but correctly, that Chavez has all the markings of his elder thug-in-chief.

Reading Mr. Stocker’s account of the goings-on in Venezuela makes me sad and angry.

The age-old question, of course, is why. Why do people tolerate arbitrary power exercised by other people – and endure the barbarism that the exercise of such power inevitably unleashes?

I have no answer, just this thought: Castro, Chavez, Mugabe, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini – you name the head-of-state thug – derive much of their power from childish sentiments.

We in the west today romanticize childhood. We think of young children as innocent, frank, and cute. Of course, they are these things to a large degree, especially when being raised in protective middle-class homes. But children naturally, even more than most adults, hold simplistic notions of reality.

Their first instinct is to seize whatever it is that they want. If little Bobby has a toy car that catches little Tommy’s eye, little Tommy reaches out and grabs it from little Bobby. Little Bobby naturally resists. A fight breaks out, with whining always and sometimes even flailing limbs on both sides, until an adult intervenes or until one or the other demonstrates decisive physical dominance.

When Bobby and Tommy are a tad older, say 11 or 12, one of them – usually the one who is most popular with other classmates or playground mates – will taunt and harass the other. Mostly this bullying is done with words, but often it involves pushing, shoving, grotesque practical ‘jokes,’ and even sometimes blood-letting violence. The bully feels important and powerful, having lorded himself over another and receiving in return the praise and admiration of other children who join in the general schoolyard contempt for the bullied child.

What is government, especially of the sort headed by Chavez and Castro, but institutionalized grabbing and glorified, high-intensity bullying? "Party A has stuff that I want, either for myself of for my friends. I have the army. I’ll just grab it" – so he does. And if anyone dares resist, well too bad: black-eyes for them (if ‘them’ are so lucky as to suffer only black-eyes).

It’s the easiest thing in the world to imagine problems (real and fantasy problems) solved by brute force. Even children can imagine such a solution.  B is poorer than A, force A to give some of what he has to B.  Problem solved. C doesn’t live like you think she ought to live – she smokes too much dope, she worships the wrong god, her sexual practices aren’t to your taste – no problem; unsheathe your sword, point it at her throat, and order her to change.  Problem solved.  D dares challenge your political power – now that’s really bad; shoot him in the name of protecting society.  Problem solved.

If children were never civilized by their families – if we all grew up into our hormone-suffused bodies untamed - we’d be hairy and breasted children. Actually, no. We’d be worse. Children as we understand them are uncivilized only temporarily. Parents and families civilize them; there’s hope for children. There’s no hope that bastards such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe will ever grow up. They’re big and murderous and will be that way for as long as they breathe.

And Mao was a world-class swimmer

When reports came out of China that Mao was ailing, the Chinese responded by claiming that Mao had just swam the Yangtze in world-record time. They even produced a photograph of Mao's head just above the water. This was pre-photoshop days and it looked as cheesy as one of those old movies where the couple is driving and the background out the window is clearly filmed.

Now comes news that Castro can live to 140:

Fidel Castro's doctor denied rumours that the president's health was ailing, saying today the 77-year-old leader is in excellent health and claiming he can live at least 140 years.

Dr Eugenio Selman Housein said Mr Castro continues to run and swim and pointed to the president's participation in a massive protest march on Friday.

Castro led the march past the US diplomatic mission in Havana to protest US policy against the island's communist government for about 800 metres, walking slowly and with some difficulty.

"He is formidably well," Mr Housein told reporters at a conference on "satisfactory longevity" in the capital city. The press "is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem."

But Mr Castro is healthy enough to live at least 140 years, said Mr Selman, who heads a "120-years Club" that promotes wholesome habits for the elderly.

Those Communist leaders are awfully fit. Must come from living well at the people's expense.

Here's a pretty entertaining article on Mao's formidable achievement.

Castro-free Cuba

Here's the AP report on a Commission report to hasten the end of the Castro regime. The main recommendation is to cut off dollar flows to the island.

But that is the strategy that has been failing for decades. I'd try the opposite. Deal with him constantly. Trade with him constantly. Send tourists. Send American products. Send American engineers. This is what we have been doing in China and China is a more liberal society today than it was ten years ago.

The only thing I can see good about the Commission is the due date Bush gave for the report: May 1. Very cute.

I know the political realities of Cuba. But if Bush is re-elected he should announce a new pro-trade policy with Cuba on the first day of his second term. And he can tell the Cuban-American community to judge him by the results not rhetoric. OK, it's a fantasy. But it's a nice fantasy.

Cuban Cars

Just when you thought it was OK to have a little fun, Cuba has decided to confiscate the cars of the occasional capitalist. From now on, the managers of Cuban state run enterprises will have to go back to Ladas, one of the worse cars in the world. So reports Reuters:

Managers of Cuba's state enterprises have been told to hand over their expensive cars like Toyotas and Mitsubishis and stick to the more proletarian Russian-made Ladas or smaller vehicles.

I am amazed that Ladas are still being made. Who is buying them? And if the indignity of swapping your Toyota for a Lada weren't bad enough:

Nor can they drive cars with decorations or air-conditioning, which has set them apart from ordinary Cubans in the sweltering heat of tropical summer.

What a delightful country.

Meanwhile, Oliver Stone profiles El Commandante on HBO. Allesandra Stanley's review is here.