Industrial Layoff

The Industriales have cut their top pitcher and best hitter.

There will be no other topic of conversation in Havana this weekend but this baseball intrigue.

[Update--This happened last week.]

Land Reform Redux

The hurricanes have delayed but not terminated the redistribution of idle or inefficiently used state lands to small farmers and private cooperatives that will have usufruct rights to cultivate for decade-long stints.

Eighty thousand applicants have requested land thus far in a program that could be the largest redistribution of land since the 1960s.

Prior to this reform Cuba had a quarter million family farms and over a thousand private cooperatives.

Sectoral Hypoglycemia

The island formerly ruled by sugar barons continues to diverge from its roots as an azucracia. Much land controlled by the Ministry of Sugar is being transferred to the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture. At the risk of sacrificing a source of foreign currency, this move likely intends to bolster Cuba's drive toward food security.

I Am (Uncle) Sam meets Yo Sí Puedo

A great gringo actor does mediocre journalism with Hugo Chávez & Raul Castro--but gets inadvertent scoop that Cuban president considers Guantanamo Bay a "neutral place".

Why would Raul Castro propose Guantanamo Bay as a neutral locale to meet with Obama?

Doesnt Cuba maintain claims of full legal possession of the entire island?

It seems to me that implying Guantanamo as neutral is tantamount to conceding Cuba's sovereign right to the area and saying its OK for the US military to continue to occupy it.

Explanation eludes.

Grassroots call for single currency

An apolitical criollo group has gone to the trouble of collecting and presenting 20,000 signatures to the National Assembley in favor of adopting one unified currency--something everybody & their mothers & all the most elite communist officials had already said would be a nice occurrence.

Trouble is its not that easy.

The peso is worth little and not traded outside the island. It is the backbone of the socialist aspects of the Cuban economy. The convertible is backed by foreign currency reserves and worth 24 times more than the peso. It is the money of the tourism, remittance, and certain industrial sectors.

The dual currency system was established during the special period to both partially engage with the global market and to retain the socialist morals and incentives achieved up to that point. It has always been known to be irritating--but deemed the least worse option available.

This interview in English with a Spanish economist explains very well the current duality, how it came to be, and the prospects of going to a single currency.

Here are simple critiques of the wild calls for economic reform that do not take basic economic consequences into account.

Birth rates up 9%

In a nation whose population had actually been decreasing in recent years, almost 9% more babies arrived this year than last.

Those babies were conceived and passed the first trimester while Cuba's economy was looking up, before the hurricanes destroyed the food and housing situations. So I would guess that people have put the breaks on bringing more mouths to the table--which we would see evidence of next year.

From the Department of Scorpion Farming

Down on the scorpion farm, Cubans are boosting the yield of the blue variety that fights cancer.

Somehow that is a true statement.

Deflated Exultation

Were it not for the flurry of forceful hurricanes that wiped out $10 billion (around a quarter of GDP) in housing, infrastructure, agriculture and other economic activity, Cuba might have been sitting rather pretty (at no less than 6% growth in GDP) during this moment in world history that sees capitalism catch a critical case of cyclical comeuppance.

Alas--due to natural forces wholly unrelated to socialist political economy--Cuba is not in a position to feel schadenfreude; it cannot freely shout that it told you so, let alone offer up its model as an alternative to the creatively destructive capitalists.

So the Cuban political leadership wryly watches the market states run around with their heads cut off (capital punishment?)--yet cannot speak, on the world stage, from a position of objective solvency.

Undaunted defenders of capitalism should be thankful that violent weather muted what otherwise might have stood as a formidable alternative for a world searching for a path forward.

Socialized Rewards

The mode of incentives in revolutionary Cuba has tended to center around benefiting groups rather than individuals; from rewarding productive workplaces with communal bonuses (shop-wide vacation and recreation subsidies) to rewarding entire provinces that perform well (medically or economically speaking) with special events (such as the 26th of July festivities).

In keeping with this socialist tradition, Cuban airport authorities celebrated the arrival of the year's two millionth tourist--not by singling out one lucky winner--but by flagging the entire plane and letting all passengers partake in the prizes.

The revolutionary ethic has been extended to the visiting capitalists.

Constituent outreach

Raul Castro speaks to people evacuated and effected by Hurricane Paloma. During his visit he recalled that a hurricane killed three thousand people around the same town of Santa Cruz del Sure, circa 1932.

For this third major tropical cyclone this season, the Cuban authorities evacuated 1.2 million people and not one person died.

Fired!

This ministerial replacement demonstrates the general civics point that the Council of State executes proposals advanced by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. That is, a small cohort drawn from the top echelon of the broad-based party makes recommendations, which are carried out by the select executive group elected from the hundreds of national legislators. This, my friends, is an institutionalized revolution.

The narrower point of this case, is that somebody just got fired. The habanero elite are probably all gossiping incessantly about this.

[[UPDATE--Apparently the Foreign Investment Minister was let go because of premature praise for Obama's victory. Of course, all of Cuba had been rooting for Obama for months. And its not like she gaffed by rhetorically intruding on the sovereignty of another country's internal affairs--the election results had been determined, which in fact was the subject of her comment...When I said the Havana chattering classes would be all aflutter, it may have been more accurate to mention Miami's nattering chismosos.]]

Track suits and bling!

What?!?!?!?!?!?!!

Cultural typologies of Cuban youth

Starring (the easy cognates) roqueros and friquis, miquis and punkie, reguetoneros and reparteros.

This cultural distillation is a must read for anyone wanting to identify style types in their natural habitats of house parties, apartment stoops, matinee discos, and the malecon.

Mex med students just became most popular on campus

Thanks to advocacy by Mexico's workers party, DF will now give $300/month to every Mexican student in Cuba.

Hurricanes blow reforms off the table

With the passing of yet a third disastrous hurricane this season, priorities now focus wholly on recovery efforts. Any economic and political changes that might have seemed possible during last spring's moment of leadership transition are now firmly on the back burner.