Are you as clueless as you seem? Cubans fled here in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and today. For every doctor who came to Miami in 1961 there's been 100 laborers since. If Cuba is paradise then why are Cubans STILL trying to enter the U.S.? You don't see Dominicans coming here. From today's Herald:
"Until Sept. 1, Lara, a retired Havana teacher, boosted her meager pension by reselling the four cigarette packs she bought each month with her government-subsidized ration card.
Lara, 73 and a non-smoker, bought them for 11 pesos and sold them on the street for 31, a 20-peso bump to
her 260-peso retirement income -- roughly $10.83 a month.
``It was a pittance, but critical to surviving,'' she said. ``But now they've removed the cigarettes from the ration card. What am I do? Go hungry! You can't live in Cuba on 260 pesos.''
Government officials concede it covers only half of a person's monthly food consumption, but most Cubans say it covers no more than one third. The rest must be bought, at much higher prices, at farmers' markets or the illegal black market.
In an island where the average monthly wage stands at 429 pesos and the average pension at 262 pesos -- about $20 and $10.50, respectively -- the rations' cuts have been hard felt.
``The ration card was barely enough to live on if I had a glass of sugared water for breakfast and a piece of bread for lunch ... ``If they keep cutting it, I'm going to starve to death,'' Lara said by phone from Havana. She asked that she not be further identified to avert government retaliation.
In the past year, potatoes and peas were taken off the card and their prices soared -- potatoes from about 30 cents to about two pesos a pound, and peas from 10-20 cents to 3.50 pesos per pound. Cigarettes, allocated to all those 54 and older, were removed from the card on Sept. 1.
Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/...ts-in-government-subsidies.html#ixzz11L6qjvmt
Quote from bigdavediode:
This may surprise you, but most residents of Miami have never been to Cuba and the ones who were there were from a distinct political upper class. Additionally, it's changed a lot since the 60's when they had tens of thousands of political prisoners in jail. Now it's actually more politically lenient, although still imho oppressive, despite them only having a few dozen political prisoners in jail and allowing limited private enterprise.
But that's really got nothing to do with the conversation which was that more laissez faire systems are not as strong in terms of quality of life measures than more mixed systems.
LOL
