I had the opportunity to visit Cuba. I flew via Southwest
Airlines from Tampa International Airport to the José Martí International
Airport in Havana, Cuba on June 4th and returned on June 9th, 2017.
After my short visit to Cuba I now fully understand why I spent
my entire 23 years in the U.S. Army fighting against Communism.
Billboard at the José Martí International
Airport
Cuba is the poster child for Communism (i.e. socialism). It is a
country with full control of its people by their government. Arriving was like
an episode of the Twilight Zone where I was transported back to the 1950s. The
26th of July Movement began in July 1953 and ended when rebels finally ousted
Cuban President Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959. Not much has improved
for the Cuban people since then.
The graffiti, in the featured image above, reads, “Cuba,
socialism or death!” I saw this graffiti along with pictures of Fidel Castro
and Che Guevara throughout the country. On highway billboards, on the walls of
buildings, in government museums and in the public square. It is a constant
reminder to the Cuban people of where their loyalty lies – to defend Communism
at all cost, and the cost is high, very high.
The greatest threat to the survival of the Cuban people is
“socialismo.”
ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID!
As former Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy stupid!” For the
Cuban people it truly is the economy, stupid.
Perhaps a few of my first hand experiences in Cuba will help
those who favor big government understand where “socialismo” leads.
One of the things some people, many of whom have never visited
Cuba, tout is their “excellent” healthcare system. Let me explain about the
Cuban single payer government healthcare system.
First, every visitor to Cuba
must purchase health insurance from the Cuban government. For example, the cost
of my health insurance was automatically included in the price of my plane
ticket. So how much does the Cuban government pay its doctors to provide
universal healthcare? The salary of a doctor is $30 a month.
In 2013 Brazil hired 4,000 doctors from Cuba to “work in areas
where medical services and physicians are scarce.” These Cuban doctors were to
be paid approximately $30,000 a year to provide medical services to remote
areas of Brazil. According to U.S. News & World Report, “Analysts say the export of
medical services adds about $6 billion a year to Cuba’s economy.”
How does this work? Brazil paid the Cuban government the $30,000
annual salaries of the Cuban doctors and the Cuban government then paid the
doctors $30 a month or $360 a year. This equates to an 83% profit for the Cuban
government. Not surprisingly many of these Cuban doctors sought asylum in
Brazil to be paid what they actually earned, $30,000.
In socialist governments the “minimum wage” inextricably becomes
the prevailing wage.
It’s the economy stupid.
WORKING IN THE CUBAN TOURISM INDUSTRY
In 1991, after the fall of the former Soviet Union, the Cuban
economy collapsed because economic aid provided by the Russians ended.
More
recently Cuba’s main international commercial partners—Venezuela, Brazil,
China—have lost their appetites for subsidizing the anemic Cuban economy,
lending a new urgency to grow perennially lethargic exports, and forcing the
Cuban authorities to look for new sources of foreign exchange – tourism.
As U.S. News & World Report noted, “[T]ourism, the
official No. 1 source of incoming cash, brought in $2.5 billion in 2011,
according to the most recent statistics available.”
With the opening of tourism to U.S. citizens this incoming cash
has increased. According to the Brookings Institute,
“In the wake of the December 2014 rapprochement, the United States
significantly relaxed restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, and
prospective tourists in other nations saw Cuba in a new light. As a result,
tourist arrivals jumped by over 16 percent in 2015 to 3.5 million. U.S.
travelers, including those from the Cuban diaspora, now amount to roughly 14
percent of new arrivals, and are expected to nearly double in 2016.”
Our party was nine individuals, all U.S. citizens. We stayed in
a large villa, owned by a Spanish citizen, located near embassy row in Havana.
The villa could accommodate up to 14 people and came with a staff of five. The
cost, including breakfast, for the villa was $10,000. We also hired two drivers
with vans to take our party to various sites within Cuba. The cost to hire the
two drivers amounted to an additional $2,000.
The manager of the villa was paid $15 a month, with individual
staff members paid less. The manager went to Havana University and became a
statistician. The manager for a number of years was a professor but decided to
work in the tourism industry because the pay was better.
During our stay I went on a one-hour carriage ride through the
heart of Havana. I paid the driver of the carriage $30 for two people to ride
in his horse drawn carriage. The driver made $30 in one hour. This one carriage
driver made as much in one hour as does a doctor working in a
Havana hospital who earns $30 a month.
Given the price our party paid to rent the villa and the clear disparity
between the wages of those in the tourism industry and the prevailing
wage, in Communist Cuba it truly is the economy, stupid.
WORKING IN THE FARMING INDUSTRY
To meet the Cuban people we decided to travel outside of Havana.
Our group visited a tobacco rancho (farm) about 200 kilometers west of
Havana located in the Vinales Valley, the heart of tobacco growing in
Cuba. It is in Vinales Valley that Cuban farmers grow what is considered the
finest cigar tobacco in the world.
The farm we visited has been owned by a Cuban family for
generations. We went into a tobacco curing barn and we received a talk about
how the tobacco seeds were planted, how the plants were cultivated and how the
tobacco was grown, harvested and then cured for a full year or more. We then
went to another gazebo type structure to see how cigars are rolled.
The tobacco farmer told us that every year he must send 90% of
his tobacco crop to the government where it is processed and made into Cuban
cigars for sale and export.
So how does the farmer survive with just 10% of his crop as his
reward for all of his and his families' hard work?
He produces his own cigars and sells them to tourists. This is a
limited form of capitalism in a repressive socialist society. The farmer partnered
with a local tour guide to bring foreign visitors to his farm to see his work,
try and buy his cigars. His cigars do not have a label like the government
brand Cohiba. The government forbids him from branding his cigars and putting
them into boxes. This farmer sells his cigars in packets made from palm leaves
holding 14 or 20 cigars.
A Cohiba cigar sold in Cuban government stores costs from $20 to
$30 per cigar. This farmer sells his cigars for $3 each. His cigars are no
different than those made in government factories, except his are better. His
cigars are cured longer, he removes the stem of the tobacco leaf, which
contains all of the nicotine, and wraps them in paper for five days to further
age them.
This one farmer selling one pack of 20 cigars makes $60 or twice
the monthly salary of a doctor. While there our party alone bought 6 packs of
20 cigars or $360 worth of cigars. There were a dozen other tourists at the
farm when we arrived. Many of them also bought his cigars. Capitalism works,
even in a socialist society.
It’s the economy stupid.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Cuban people I spoke with were friendly toward us Americans.
Those who provided us with personal services whether in local restaurants,
while on tours, our drivers and those who took care of us where we stayed were
professional, hard working and kind.
But Cuba’s desire to be a tourist attraction is
waning. MarketWatch’s Kari Paul reports:
A flash of excitement about travel to Cuba after the country opened its borders to
the U.S. in 2016 for the first time in decades may have lost some of its
shine.
Americans are less interested in travel to Cuba this year than
they were in 2016, a survey from insurance provider Allianz Global Assistance
found. Some 76% of the 1,514 respondents said they were not likely to plan a
trip to Cuba in 2017 compared to 70% in 2016. Only 2% of those surveyed
planned to visit Cuba in the next six months or by the end of 2017, the
same as 2016 despite a projected increase in travelers from the country’s
ministry of tourism. It also found that 60% of Americans said “would not like
to travel to Cuba” compared to just 58% in 2016.
[ … ]
Indeed, the initial excitement about the formerly closed off
country gave way to moral dilemmas over food shortages and other problems caused
by tourism, as well as disappointment over limited working internet, lower hotel
standards, and lack of running water there. The Allianz study found lack of
travel infrastructure was a major cause of anxiety about traveling to Cuba for
13% of Americans.
The slide in demand has led a number of airlines to reduce or
completely eliminate flights to the country, including Silver Airways, a
Florida-headquartered domestic airline that dropped all nine of its planned routes to Cuba. Frontier
is dropping its Miami-Havana route by June 4, after costs in Havana
“significantly exceeded our initial assumptions,” a spokesman told
MarketWatch. Spirit Airlines will drop its last flight to Cuba by June 1:
“The costs of serving Havana continue to outweigh the demand for service,”
Spirit Airlines president and chief executive officer of Bob Fornaro said in April.
Sumers suggested confusion over the approved
reasons to go to Cuba is keeping the average American visitor away still. As of May 2017, visitors to the country have
to select one of 12 categories for their visit, which include religious
activities, humanitarian projects, “support for the Cuban people,” and
journalistic activities. “You can’t go to Cuba to sit on the beach and have
fun and that’s what Americans like to do on vacation,” he said. “Cuba is a
bit of an outlier still — it is not easy to visit and for a lot of people it’s
still a pain. You have to really want to go there.”
What I observed is that the Cuban people have great potential if
they are unleashed and allowed to earn what they are truly worth. Socialismo is
slowly but surely killing their lives and doing them great harm. I noticed on
the ride West of Havana through the rural areas of Cuba hundreds of people
waiting along the road trying to get a ride. Some were nurses in their white
uniforms thumbing rides to the hospital where they are needed. I saw horse
drawn carriages along the major highway carrying people because the public
transportation system cannot keep up with the demand. The horses and cattle we
saw were emaciated. The roads were in poor shape including the national highway
system.
As one Cuban man put it, “the people have no love for their
work.” They have no love for their work because Cuba needs a change in
direction. Raul Castro has announced that he will step down as President of
Cuba in February 2018. This is a chance for Cuba to change direction. To move
to a capitalistic society where the individual benefits from what he or she
produces, not the government. However, the Selous Foundation
for Public Policy Research reports:
The Cuban media has been emphasizing that Raul Castro is
leaving power. He announced in 2016 that he would be stepping down as President
in 2018. Yet, he was reelected for five years as Secretary General of Cuba’s
Communist Party and will remain as head of Cuba’s Armed Forces. The position of
President, which will become mostly ceremonial, will be held by Miguel Diaz
Canel, a low-level Communist Party bureaucrat with little military or
public support.
In Cuba, power resides in the military and the
Politburo of the Communist Party, both of which will continue to be controlled
by Raul and his military comrades.
We shall see what happens in February 2018. The great fear among
those to whom I spoke with is the new leadership will keep the ways of the old
regime.
Socialismo o Muerte (socialism or death) must be replaced with Liberar
al pueblo cubano (free the Cuban people).
_______________
A
Reader’s Comments:
Bob
Heller says: Perhaps Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should move to Cuba. They should take the Mayor of NY and most of their Hollywood friends. …Thanks for the information…..
