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Cuba Can't Keep the Lights On
- hoppyhoppy2 2y agoGift link to NYTimes coverage: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/world/americas/cuba-power-outage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Tk4.iPUe.YW9LNP5kuOhE&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/world/americas/cuba-power...
- kasey_junk 2y agoThis is a much better link than the one in the submission. The submitted story is an opinion piece from the editorial board of the WSJ that is very light on details and high in rhetoric.
- monero-xmr 2y agoWell it wasn’t real communism anyway
- mmoskal 2y agoEven the Germans didn’t make it work…
- felipeerias 2y agoCommunism must have been a truly extraordinary economic system, to be able to take a place full of Germans and turn it into a developing country...
- philosopher1234 2y agoIs it real communism? Do you actually know anything about communism or Cuba?
- skellington 2y agoHe was being sarcastic, obviously, because that's what the proponents of Marxism/Communism say about the hundreds of failed experiments with it. They "did it wrong" or it was "real communism."
- philosopher1234 2y agoAnd do you know what real communism is? And who tried and failed at it?
- Incipient 2y agoI realise arguing with people on the internet is pointless. If we've had a whole host of attempts at communism, real or not, and they've all basically trashed the country, it's probably time we put that theory on hold. Either no one knows what "real" is, or they can't get it in place. The residual risk is too high - likelihood high, consequence fairly catastrophic.
- philosopher1234 2y agoThis seems like an easy way to avoid actually having to learn anything about the subject. Perhaps there’s a reason you’d prefer to dismiss the entire subject out of hand, rather than spend a few minutes trying to learn something about it.
- richrichie 2y agoIt is a miracle they have survived with the US trying to destroy them over the last 60 years with sanctions, blockades, covert destabilisation, etc.
- skellington 2y agoDeflection. Cuba has an entire world they can trade with, and they do. Russia, China, countries in Europe, Canada, Mexico, etc.. Only US companies are mostly blocked (and there are exceptions there too). Nothing about the status of Cuba can be attributed to US sanctions unless you think their problems come from a shortage of Bourbon or monster trucks.
- clayhacks 2y agoThat’s not the whole truth. The sanctions ban any ship from stopping at Cuba then coming to America for 90 days. Yes technically you could go from wherever to Cuba and that’s it, but no company would miss out on the massive American market in exchange for a tiny island nation. They can’t import fuel to run their power plants, nor the solar panels to replace them.
- richrichie 2y agoI have worked in banking. You have no idea how difficult it is to do financial transactions if you are on sanctions list. It affects not just US companies or banks. Sanctions impact is sweeping. It is like async keyword. If you touch US dollar then you cant deal with sanctioned entities without risking criminal prosecution. Easier for narcos to do banking (big banks are guilty of it) than Cubans.
- felipeerias 2y agoBack in the day, people used to emigrate from Spain to Cuba (and Venezuela) in search of a better life. There is a widespread misconception of Cuba as a poor country that has not been allowed to get off its feet, when it was really a wealthy and successful place run down by a catastrophic ideology. In that sense, Cuba is not that different from Eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall: places that had been prosperous for a very long time and which should have remained prosperous if they hadn't been held under poverty and oppression by a terrible economic and political system.
- vivekv 2y agoWould anyone familiar with cuba know how much of household solar adoption and infrastructure exists in Cuba? While this won't solve a country level problem I am sure, I am thinking was there a natural adoption to such alternative sources and go off-grid and address their immediate power needs as the article says rolling blackouts have been happening for a while.
- politelemon 2y agoThis seems to be less about Cuba's problems and more about trying to one up their governance model (while, I'll point out, ignoring actual reasons).