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Only if you believe in the Cuban government’s numbers. Do you really believe that a country whose population lives on rations and $30/month salaries is a rich o

Only if you believe in the Cuban government’s numbers. Do you really believe that a country whose population lives on rations and $30/month salaries is a rich one? https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article195681589.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas...

anoncake 8y ago
I never said Cuba was rich. It's merely less poor than many free market countries.
- andrenth 8y ago
  What are those “free market countries”? Or do you use this term to refer to countries which are not dictatorships?
  - anoncake 8y ago
    > Or do you use this term to refer to countries which are not dictatorships? No, that would be absurd, considering free markets have as little to do with democracy as with freedom.
    - andrenth 8y ago
      Then please do list those free market countries who are poorer than Cuba. I'm really curious.
      - anoncake 8y ago
        According to CIA numbers[1], there are 101 economies poorer than Cuba. Do you really think they're all "communist"? Including American Samoa? Somalia isn't known for its "big government" either.
        andrenth 8y ago
        You didn't paste the link. Is it this one? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/211rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... So when you say free market, it seems you really mean "not-communist", correct? Because I never said they were all communist. It would seem fair to me to remove from that list those countries below Cuba which are in fact communist or which have a history of being destroyed by communism, those who are kept poor by brutal dictators, like many from Africa, and those recently affected by war. It seems to me those countries wouldn't qualify as free markets. Then I invite you to check the Index of Economic Freedom[1] to see if the remaining ones are really "free market" countries.. Note that this is all based on per capita GDP numbers provided by the Cuban government and therefore highly unreliable. [1] https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
        anoncake 8y ago
        > It would seem fair to me to remove from that list those countries below Cuba which are in fact communist That would be kind of a no-op. But I guess you mean planned economies, which should of course be removed from that list. > those who are kept poor by brutal dictators, like many from Africa Absolutely not. To the contrary, it makes sense to remove democracies from the list. After all, we're comparing planned economies and free market economies, not democracies and dictatorships. Since I hardly think Cuba qualifies as a democracy yet, comparing it to free-market dictatorships is a more useful comparison. > and those recently affected by war. Sure, if we also exclude those countries affected by economic warfare waged by the USA. But you've got a point here: A country's welfare is influenced by a lot of factors, not just its economic policies. We aren't exactly running laboratory experiments here. You can look at two countries, see which one does better, but that doesn't really tell you why. > Then I invite you to check the Index of Economic Freedom[1] to see if the remaining ones are really "free market" countries.. I'm not interested in an index that shows how much a conservative think tank likes a country's policies. But if you insist: almost all countries with a higher GDP rank higher than Cuba on that index. > Note that this is all based on per capita GDP numbers provided by the Cuban government and therefore highly unreliable. I don't think the CIA would just parrot Cuban propaganda. If all it did was mindlessly reproducing each country's official numbers, North Korea would be #1.

anoncake 8y ago

I never said Cuba was rich. It's merely less poor than many free market countries.

andrenth 8y ago
What are those “free market countries”? Or do you use this term to refer to countries which are not dictatorships?
- anoncake 8y ago
  > Or do you use this term to refer to countries which are not dictatorships? No, that would be absurd, considering free markets have as little to do with democracy as with freedom.
  - andrenth 8y ago
    Then please do list those free market countries who are poorer than Cuba. I'm really curious.
    - anoncake 8y ago
      According to CIA numbers[1], there are 101 economies poorer than Cuba. Do you really think they're all "communist"? Including American Samoa? Somalia isn't known for its "big government" either.
      - andrenth 8y ago
        You didn't paste the link. Is it this one? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/211rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... So when you say free market, it seems you really mean "not-communist", correct? Because I never said they were all communist. It would seem fair to me to remove from that list those countries below Cuba which are in fact communist or which have a history of being destroyed by communism, those who are kept poor by brutal dictators, like many from Africa, and those recently affected by war. It seems to me those countries wouldn't qualify as free markets. Then I invite you to check the Index of Economic Freedom[1] to see if the remaining ones are really "free market" countries.. Note that this is all based on per capita GDP numbers provided by the Cuban government and therefore highly unreliable. [1] https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
        anoncake 8y ago
        > It would seem fair to me to remove from that list those countries below Cuba which are in fact communist That would be kind of a no-op. But I guess you mean planned economies, which should of course be removed from that list. > those who are kept poor by brutal dictators, like many from Africa Absolutely not. To the contrary, it makes sense to remove democracies from the list. After all, we're comparing planned economies and free market economies, not democracies and dictatorships. Since I hardly think Cuba qualifies as a democracy yet, comparing it to free-market dictatorships is a more useful comparison. > and those recently affected by war. Sure, if we also exclude those countries affected by economic warfare waged by the USA. But you've got a point here: A country's welfare is influenced by a lot of factors, not just its economic policies. We aren't exactly running laboratory experiments here. You can look at two countries, see which one does better, but that doesn't really tell you why. > Then I invite you to check the Index of Economic Freedom[1] to see if the remaining ones are really "free market" countries.. I'm not interested in an index that shows how much a conservative think tank likes a country's policies. But if you insist: almost all countries with a higher GDP rank higher than Cuba on that index. > Note that this is all based on per capita GDP numbers provided by the Cuban government and therefore highly unreliable. I don't think the CIA would just parrot Cuban propaganda. If all it did was mindlessly reproducing each country's official numbers, North Korea would be #1.