Fidel Castro passed away at age of 90

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:I have always been a little confused by the actual conditions of Cuba before the Revolution.  I would like people's responses about this, if Cuba was so prosperous why was there a revolution? Is this propaganda from the Miami Exiles?  This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the economic conditions from History of Cuba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly;[95] according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France.[95][96] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era,[97] with 56% of the population living in cities.[98]

In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of contemporary Italy, and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although Cuba's GDP per capita was still only a sixth as large as that of the United States.[95][99] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure [was] a large middle class".[99] Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[100]

Cuba also had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios during this period.[96][100][101]:186 Cuba had the fifth-highest number of televisions per capita in the world, and the world's eighth-highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, 58 different daily newspapers operated in Cuba during the late 1950s, more than any Latin American country save Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[102] Havana was the world's fourth-most-expensive city at the time,[90] and had more cinemas than New York.[97] Cuba furthermore had the highest level of telephone penetration in Latin America, although many telephone users were still unconnected to switchboards.[98]

Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. By the late 1950s, it had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[96][103][104] Additionally, Cuba's education spending in the 1950s was the highest in Latin America, relative to GDP.[96] Cuba had the fourth-highest literacy rate in the region, at almost 80% according to the United Nations – higher than that of Spain at the time.

I regularly see this quote on different websites criticizing Castro and that he ruined Cuba.  How poor was Cuba and what is the truth?

I know Communism contributed to the decline of the country since the economic system didn't have a price system to sell goods and a respect for property rights.  

There's a lot of bullshit in that Wikipedia Article.

1° Cuba benefitted from a huge fucking boom in Sugar output, growing tenfolds Cuban exports. This happened from 1939 to 1947, and while Fulgencio Battista was indeed president from 40 to 44, he was elected by a large fraction on the Island's Communists. Fun fact, they pretty much contributed to most of the working electorate.

However the issue of social expenditure and progress didn't happen because of Batista, but thanks to the very uneven presidency of Grau Sa'martin. Grau was basically a Peronist which expanded State control and involvement in Cuban Society, with more state Control over the economy (Grau would re-invest the Sugar boom into state sponsored joint ventures). This went very bad in the long term as the US thought the Grau Sa'martin gig was a cover up for commies and the Mob (Havana Conference).

2. Out Grau, in Socarras which ironically was the guy who would start the real political violence, killing liberals and jailing communists. Socarras basically played cash for silence. While he was in charge (48/52) Cuba was renamed Corruption. You wanted to build a business, pay the piper. You wanted to study, pay the piper, you want to run for politics, pay the piper and play for the piper.

3. Most of the sources listed are NOT trustworthy and skewed. For instance Cuba had similar GDP per capita as Italy in the 50's is BS (actually it's the similar GDP in late 1940's while italy had both Hyperinflation and was basically a country ruined by 23 year dictatorship and 11 years of war and mobilization). However the GDP per capita in the early 40's (40-42) was two times the one of Cuba (which is already a huge gap for country like Italy).

We can pick up a lot of skewered data that compare a booming mono-income economy like Cuba with the likes of a post WW2 Japan (which like wtf was probably worse at that time than my own Albania). Basically Battista was going to the wall fast because he had nothing more to sell to the US, sugar fell to the ground (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/x4988e/x4988e13.pdf) and Battista was stuck between the State expansion in the economy and the fact that meanwhile the US was finding better places to invest (Dat Marshall Plan) like the places it had bombed to the ground just a couple of years earlier.

In the end what killed the Cuban economy was its mono-income, big brother from across the Columbus Bay and most importantly the fact that no one had the vista to see how the WW2 boom was detrimental to the Cuban economy as it was done, mainly through US brokers (which owned a hefty part of the Sugar business).

Sadly when you talk like this people at 'Neoliberalism.com' fags, suddenly become dumb and deaf. Dindu Nuffins. Basically the US propped Cuba, the US killed it off by investing in Europe (this is equal for MOST LatAm).

What about the living standards being better than the rest of Latin America at the time? Was it health services that were so good available to the poor whites and poor blacks? What about the information about is literacy rate and education spending? The Miami Cubans love to point that out.

Once again, you can't speak about living standards in Cuba being better than in LatAm. Let me explain you how living standards in Cuba are impossible to quantify even in a "good year".

I will take 1956 as a benchmark, because Cuban fugitives and Battista goats love that year, the best year of pre-revolution.

Tourism industry in Cuba: 30 million dollars revenue.
Sugar industry in Cuba: 324 million dollars revenue.
People living through the tourist industry: 24 thousand and some.
People living through the Sugar cane industry 280 thousand Cubans (although that number usually towered over 350 thousand because of "helping hands not paid - kids of workers joining on the fields). Out of a 2.5 million active population roughly 25 percent were working with the sugar cane, 3-4 months a year and then it was subsistence agriculture for 8 months.
But here comes the hit:

Brothels: 270.
Employed personnel in these establishments: 11 600 people. Yes half the tourist staff worth of hookers in Cuba. That's some living standard right there.

Now what else do you want to talk? I've been cursed upon many times when discussing these with Cubans from the Free world and most of the time it ends up with "chinge tu madre rojo de mierda", because they can't argue with numbers and facts as hard as these. For instance so you can understand this, one woman out of 15 in Havana was a whore.

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:I have always been a little confused by the actual conditions of Cuba before the Revolution.  I would like people's responses about this, if Cuba was so prosperous why was there a revolution? Is this propaganda from the Miami Exiles?  This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the economic conditions from History of Cuba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly;[95] according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France.[95][96] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era,[97] with 56% of the population living in cities.[98]

In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of contemporary Italy, and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although Cuba's GDP per capita was still only a sixth as large as that of the United States.[95][99] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure [was] a large middle class".[99] Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[100]

Cuba also had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios during this period.[96][100][101]:186 Cuba had the fifth-highest number of televisions per capita in the world, and the world's eighth-highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, 58 different daily newspapers operated in Cuba during the late 1950s, more than any Latin American country save Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[102] Havana was the world's fourth-most-expensive city at the time,[90] and had more cinemas than New York.[97] Cuba furthermore had the highest level of telephone penetration in Latin America, although many telephone users were still unconnected to switchboards.[98]

Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. By the late 1950s, it had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[96][103][104] Additionally, Cuba's education spending in the 1950s was the highest in Latin America, relative to GDP.[96] Cuba had the fourth-highest literacy rate in the region, at almost 80% according to the United Nations – higher than that of Spain at the time.

I regularly see this quote on different websites criticizing Castro and that he ruined Cuba.  How poor was Cuba and what is the truth?

I know Communism contributed to the decline of the country since the economic system didn't have a price system to sell goods and a respect for property rights.  

There's a lot of bullshit in that Wikipedia Article.

1° Cuba benefitted from a huge fucking boom in Sugar output, growing tenfolds Cuban exports. This happened from 1939 to 1947, and while Fulgencio Battista was indeed president from 40 to 44, he was elected by a large fraction on the Island's Communists. Fun fact, they pretty much contributed to most of the working electorate.

However the issue of social expenditure and progress didn't happen because of Batista, but thanks to the very uneven presidency of Grau Sa'martin. Grau was basically a Peronist which expanded State control and involvement in Cuban Society, with more state Control over the economy (Grau would re-invest the Sugar boom into state sponsored joint ventures). This went very bad in the long term as the US thought the Grau Sa'martin gig was a cover up for commies and the Mob (Havana Conference).

2. Out Grau, in Socarras which ironically was the guy who would start the real political violence, killing liberals and jailing communists. Socarras basically played cash for silence. While he was in charge (48/52) Cuba was renamed Corruption. You wanted to build a business, pay the piper. You wanted to study, pay the piper, you want to run for politics, pay the piper and play for the piper.

3. Most of the sources listed are NOT trustworthy and skewed. For instance Cuba had similar GDP per capita as Italy in the 50's is BS (actually it's the similar GDP in late 1940's while italy had both Hyperinflation and was basically a country ruined by 23 year dictatorship and 11 years of war and mobilization). However the GDP per capita in the early 40's (40-42) was two times the one of Cuba (which is already a huge gap for country like Italy).

We can pick up a lot of skewered data that compare a booming mono-income economy like Cuba with the likes of a post WW2 Japan (which like wtf was probably worse at that time than my own Albania). Basically Battista was going to the wall fast because he had nothing more to sell to the US, sugar fell to the ground (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/x4988e/x4988e13.pdf) and Battista was stuck between the State expansion in the economy and the fact that meanwhile the US was finding better places to invest (Dat Marshall Plan) like the places it had bombed to the ground just a couple of years earlier.

In the end what killed the Cuban economy was its mono-income, big brother from across the Columbus Bay and most importantly the fact that no one had the vista to see how the WW2 boom was detrimental to the Cuban economy as it was done, mainly through US brokers (which owned a hefty part of the Sugar business).

Sadly when you talk like this people at 'Neoliberalism.com' fags, suddenly become dumb and deaf. Dindu Nuffins. Basically the US propped Cuba, the US killed it off by investing in Europe (this is equal for MOST LatAm).

What about the living standards being better than the rest of Latin America at the time? Was it health services that were so good available to the poor whites and poor blacks? What about the information about is literacy rate and education spending? The Miami Cubans love to point that out.

Once again, you can't speak about living standards in Cuba being better than in LatAm. Let me explain you how living standards in Cuba are impossible to quantify even in a "good year".

I will take 1956 as a benchmark, because Cuban fugitives and Battista goats love that year, the best year of pre-revolution.

Tourism industry in Cuba: 30 million dollars revenue.
Sugar industry in Cuba: 324 million dollars revenue.
People living through the tourist industry: 24 thousand and some.
People living through the Sugar cane industry 280 thousand Cubans (although that number usually towered over 350 thousand because of "helping hands not paid - kids of workers joining on the fields). Out of a 2.5 million active population roughly 25 percent were working with the sugar cane, 3-4 months a year and then it was subsistence agriculture for 8 months.
But here comes the hit:

Brothels: 270.
Employed personnel in these establishments: 11 600 people. Yes half the tourist staff worth of hookers in Cuba. That's some living standard right there.

Now what else do you want to talk? I've been cursed upon many times when discussing these with Cubans from the Free world and most of the time it ends up with "chinge tu madre rojo de mierda", because they can't argue with numbers and facts as hard as these. For instance so you can understand this, one woman out of 15 in Havana was a whore.

Thank you. I would like you and others to take a look at this: http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=286

is this propaganda or some truth?

kvs wrote:Compared to the rest of Latin America from the 1950s to the 1990s, there is nothing that would indicate Cuba was worse.   Cuba's "gulag"
is an abuse of the term.   It has zero similarity to the Soviet gulag in both the scale of people processed through it and how many
died (you an adjust the figures to scale with the Cuban total population).  

Today the incarceration rate is 510 per capita, which is less than the USA and similar to El Salvador:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

I would suggest that a significant part of this prison population is thanks to Uncle Scumbag (USA).   He has been actively
fomenting dissent in Cuba since the 1950s.  There are always useful idiots who swallow the bait and serve the role.  I would
estimate that 50% of Cuba's prison population is likely such "political prisoners".  

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:I have always been a little confused by the actual conditions of Cuba before the Revolution.  I would like people's responses about this, if Cuba was so prosperous why was there a revolution? Is this propaganda from the Miami Exiles?  This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the economic conditions from History of Cuba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly;[95] according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France.[95][96] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era,[97] with 56% of the population living in cities.[98]

In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of contemporary Italy, and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although Cuba's GDP per capita was still only a sixth as large as that of the United States.[95][99] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure [was] a large middle class".[99] Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[100]

Cuba also had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios during this period.[96][100][101]:186 Cuba had the fifth-highest number of televisions per capita in the world, and the world's eighth-highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, 58 different daily newspapers operated in Cuba during the late 1950s, more than any Latin American country save Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[102] Havana was the world's fourth-most-expensive city at the time,[90] and had more cinemas than New York.[97] Cuba furthermore had the highest level of telephone penetration in Latin America, although many telephone users were still unconnected to switchboards.[98]

Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. By the late 1950s, it had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[96][103][104] Additionally, Cuba's education spending in the 1950s was the highest in Latin America, relative to GDP.[96] Cuba had the fourth-highest literacy rate in the region, at almost 80% according to the United Nations – higher than that of Spain at the time.

I regularly see this quote on different websites criticizing Castro and that he ruined Cuba.  How poor was Cuba and what is the truth?

I know Communism contributed to the decline of the country since the economic system didn't have a price system to sell goods and a respect for property rights.  

There's a lot of bullshit in that Wikipedia Article.

1° Cuba benefitted from a huge fucking boom in Sugar output, growing tenfolds Cuban exports. This happened from 1939 to 1947, and while Fulgencio Battista was indeed president from 40 to 44, he was elected by a large fraction on the Island's Communists. Fun fact, they pretty much contributed to most of the working electorate.

However the issue of social expenditure and progress didn't happen because of Batista, but thanks to the very uneven presidency of Grau Sa'martin. Grau was basically a Peronist which expanded State control and involvement in Cuban Society, with more state Control over the economy (Grau would re-invest the Sugar boom into state sponsored joint ventures). This went very bad in the long term as the US thought the Grau Sa'martin gig was a cover up for commies and the Mob (Havana Conference).

2. Out Grau, in Socarras which ironically was the guy who would start the real political violence, killing liberals and jailing communists. Socarras basically played cash for silence. While he was in charge (48/52) Cuba was renamed Corruption. You wanted to build a business, pay the piper. You wanted to study, pay the piper, you want to run for politics, pay the piper and play for the piper.

3. Most of the sources listed are NOT trustworthy and skewed. For instance Cuba had similar GDP per capita as Italy in the 50's is BS (actually it's the similar GDP in late 1940's while italy had both Hyperinflation and was basically a country ruined by 23 year dictatorship and 11 years of war and mobilization). However the GDP per capita in the early 40's (40-42) was two times the one of Cuba (which is already a huge gap for country like Italy).

We can pick up a lot of skewered data that compare a booming mono-income economy like Cuba with the likes of a post WW2 Japan (which like wtf was probably worse at that time than my own Albania). Basically Battista was going to the wall fast because he had nothing more to sell to the US, sugar fell to the ground (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/x4988e/x4988e13.pdf) and Battista was stuck between the State expansion in the economy and the fact that meanwhile the US was finding better places to invest (Dat Marshall Plan) like the places it had bombed to the ground just a couple of years earlier.

In the end what killed the Cuban economy was its mono-income, big brother from across the Columbus Bay and most importantly the fact that no one had the vista to see how the WW2 boom was detrimental to the Cuban economy as it was done, mainly through US brokers (which owned a hefty part of the Sugar business).

Sadly when you talk like this people at 'Neoliberalism.com' fags, suddenly become dumb and deaf. Dindu Nuffins. Basically the US propped Cuba, the US killed it off by investing in Europe (this is equal for MOST LatAm).

What about the living standards being better than the rest of Latin America at the time? Was it health services that were so good available to the poor whites and poor blacks? What about the information about is literacy rate and education spending? The Miami Cubans love to point that out.

Once again, you can't speak about living standards in Cuba being better than in LatAm. Let me explain you how living standards in Cuba are impossible to quantify even in a "good year".

I will take 1956 as a benchmark, because Cuban fugitives and Battista goats love that year, the best year of pre-revolution.

Tourism industry in Cuba: 30 million dollars revenue.
Sugar industry in Cuba: 324 million dollars revenue.
People living through the tourist industry: 24 thousand and some.
People living through the Sugar cane industry 280 thousand Cubans (although that number usually towered over 350 thousand because of "helping hands not paid - kids of workers joining on the fields). Out of a 2.5 million active population roughly 25 percent were working with the sugar cane, 3-4 months a year and then it was subsistence agriculture for 8 months.
But here comes the hit:

Brothels: 270.
Employed personnel in these establishments: 11 600 people. Yes half the tourist staff worth of hookers in Cuba. That's some living standard right there.

Now what else do you want to talk? I've been cursed upon many times when discussing these with Cubans from the Free world and most of the time it ends up with "chinge tu madre rojo de mierda", because they can't argue with numbers and facts as hard as these. For instance so you can understand this, one woman out of 15 in Havana was a whore.

Thank you. I would like you and others to take a look at this: http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=286

is this propaganda or some truth?

I don't understand the question?

What do those select picture show from the barrios? It's the same thing everywhere. You could show Afghanistan pictures in the 60's, Chechen pictures in the 80's. Albanian pictures in the 80's. Those are snapshots of "nice" things although I'd wager that there are only handful of cars and that you can see most infrastructure being rather poor (one tunnel, couple of avenues). The building boom and the Malecon being built mostly as tourist attractions.

But we can speak about Cubans being forced to run a "bolita" because they couldn't participate in their own frigging national Lottery (given the threshold in betting), we can speak about the fact Battista sold the damn Capital to the Mob (most Waterfront was being owned by the Tampa and Chicago outfits), we can talk about how the rest of the country was shit and how the very ways of Battista were getting nowhere fast. So fast the US tried to take him away to give the pro-US "opposition" a fighting chance.

Just a funny anecdote, among many things that were looted and destroyed in Havana one thing was literally outstanding, people were taking out parking meters. They were destroying what they saw as undue taxation, which actually was a show of wealth as not every one could afford a car and to park it.

This is exactly as the French revolutionaries who sought the stable tax listing in 1789, as not every one could afford horses. That's not a "booming Cuba" my friend.

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:I have always been a little confused by the actual conditions of Cuba before the Revolution.  I would like people's responses about this, if Cuba was so prosperous why was there a revolution? Is this propaganda from the Miami Exiles?  This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the economic conditions from History of Cuba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly;[95] according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France.[95][96] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era,[97] with 56% of the population living in cities.[98]

In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of contemporary Italy, and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although Cuba's GDP per capita was still only a sixth as large as that of the United States.[95][99] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure [was] a large middle class".[99] Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[100]

Cuba also had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios during this period.[96][100][101]:186 Cuba had the fifth-highest number of televisions per capita in the world, and the world's eighth-highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, 58 different daily newspapers operated in Cuba during the late 1950s, more than any Latin American country save Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[102] Havana was the world's fourth-most-expensive city at the time,[90] and had more cinemas than New York.[97] Cuba furthermore had the highest level of telephone penetration in Latin America, although many telephone users were still unconnected to switchboards.[98]

Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. By the late 1950s, it had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[96][103][104] Additionally, Cuba's education spending in the 1950s was the highest in Latin America, relative to GDP.[96] Cuba had the fourth-highest literacy rate in the region, at almost 80% according to the United Nations – higher than that of Spain at the time.

I regularly see this quote on different websites criticizing Castro and that he ruined Cuba.  How poor was Cuba and what is the truth?

I know Communism contributed to the decline of the country since the economic system didn't have a price system to sell goods and a respect for property rights.  

There's a lot of bullshit in that Wikipedia Article.

1° Cuba benefitted from a huge fucking boom in Sugar output, growing tenfolds Cuban exports. This happened from 1939 to 1947, and while Fulgencio Battista was indeed president from 40 to 44, he was elected by a large fraction on the Island's Communists. Fun fact, they pretty much contributed to most of the working electorate.

However the issue of social expenditure and progress didn't happen because of Batista, but thanks to the very uneven presidency of Grau Sa'martin. Grau was basically a Peronist which expanded State control and involvement in Cuban Society, with more state Control over the economy (Grau would re-invest the Sugar boom into state sponsored joint ventures). This went very bad in the long term as the US thought the Grau Sa'martin gig was a cover up for commies and the Mob (Havana Conference).

2. Out Grau, in Socarras which ironically was the guy who would start the real political violence, killing liberals and jailing communists. Socarras basically played cash for silence. While he was in charge (48/52) Cuba was renamed Corruption. You wanted to build a business, pay the piper. You wanted to study, pay the piper, you want to run for politics, pay the piper and play for the piper.

3. Most of the sources listed are NOT trustworthy and skewed. For instance Cuba had similar GDP per capita as Italy in the 50's is BS (actually it's the similar GDP in late 1940's while italy had both Hyperinflation and was basically a country ruined by 23 year dictatorship and 11 years of war and mobilization). However the GDP per capita in the early 40's (40-42) was two times the one of Cuba (which is already a huge gap for country like Italy).

We can pick up a lot of skewered data that compare a booming mono-income economy like Cuba with the likes of a post WW2 Japan (which like wtf was probably worse at that time than my own Albania). Basically Battista was going to the wall fast because he had nothing more to sell to the US, sugar fell to the ground (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/x4988e/x4988e13.pdf) and Battista was stuck between the State expansion in the economy and the fact that meanwhile the US was finding better places to invest (Dat Marshall Plan) like the places it had bombed to the ground just a couple of years earlier.

In the end what killed the Cuban economy was its mono-income, big brother from across the Columbus Bay and most importantly the fact that no one had the vista to see how the WW2 boom was detrimental to the Cuban economy as it was done, mainly through US brokers (which owned a hefty part of the Sugar business).

Sadly when you talk like this people at 'Neoliberalism.com' fags, suddenly become dumb and deaf. Dindu Nuffins. Basically the US propped Cuba, the US killed it off by investing in Europe (this is equal for MOST LatAm).

What about the living standards being better than the rest of Latin America at the time? Was it health services that were so good available to the poor whites and poor blacks? What about the information about is literacy rate and education spending? The Miami Cubans love to point that out.

Once again, you can't speak about living standards in Cuba being better than in LatAm. Let me explain you how living standards in Cuba are impossible to quantify even in a "good year".

I will take 1956 as a benchmark, because Cuban fugitives and Battista goats love that year, the best year of pre-revolution.

Tourism industry in Cuba: 30 million dollars revenue.
Sugar industry in Cuba: 324 million dollars revenue.
People living through the tourist industry: 24 thousand and some.
People living through the Sugar cane industry 280 thousand Cubans (although that number usually towered over 350 thousand because of "helping hands not paid - kids of workers joining on the fields). Out of a 2.5 million active population roughly 25 percent were working with the sugar cane, 3-4 months a year and then it was subsistence agriculture for 8 months.
But here comes the hit:

Brothels: 270.
Employed personnel in these establishments: 11 600 people. Yes half the tourist staff worth of hookers in Cuba. That's some living standard right there.

Now what else do you want to talk? I've been cursed upon many times when discussing these with Cubans from the Free world and most of the time it ends up with "chinge tu madre rojo de mierda", because they can't argue with numbers and facts as hard as these. For instance so you can understand this, one woman out of 15 in Havana was a whore.

Thank you. I would like you and others to take a look at this: http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=286

is this propaganda or some truth?

I don't understand the question?

What do those select picture show from the barrios? It's the same thing everywhere. You could show Afghanistan pictures in the 60's, Chechen pictures in the 80's. Albanian pictures in the 80's. Those are snapshots of "nice" things although I'd wager that there are only handful of cars and that you can see most infrastructure being rather poor (one tunnel, couple of avenues). The building boom and the Malecon being built mostly as tourist attractions.

But we can speak about Cubans being forced to run a "bolita" because they couldn't participate in their own frigging national Lottery (given the threshold in betting), we can speak about the fact Battista sold the damn Capital to the Mob (most Waterfront was being owned by the Tampa and Chicago outfits), we can talk about how the rest of the country was shit and how the very ways of Battista were getting nowhere fast. So fast the US tried to take him away to give the pro-US "opposition" a fighting chance.

Just a funny anecdote, among many things that were looted and destroyed in Havana one thing was literally outstanding, people were taking out parking meters. They were destroying what they saw as undue taxation, which actually was a show of wealth as not every one could afford a car and to park it.

This is exactly as the French revolutionaries who sought the stable tax listing in 1789, as not every one could afford horses. That's not a "booming Cuba" my friend.

You make good points; however, do you think Communist economic planning contributed to the bad economic output of the country? I know you will say the embargo but I think the Communist economic planning contributed as well.  I like that Castro liberated the country from the American financial imperialism but I also think that Communist as an economic system doesn't work.  This does not mean that he wasn't justified in overthrowing Baptista.  I wish Cuba could embrace a sensibly regulated free market with a government elected by the Cuban people that isn't afraid to bend over to US imperialism.  

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

andalusia wrote:I have always been a little confused by the actual conditions of Cuba before the Revolution.  I would like people's responses about this, if Cuba was so prosperous why was there a revolution? Is this propaganda from the Miami Exiles?  This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the economic conditions from History of Cuba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Although corruption was rife under Batista, Cuba did flourish economically during his regime. Wages rose significantly;[95] according to the International Labour Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's eighth-highest in 1958, and the average agricultural wage was higher than in developed nations such as Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, and France.[95][96] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America by the end of the Batista era,[97] with 56% of the population living in cities.[98]

In the 1950s, Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was roughly equal to that of contemporary Italy, and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although Cuba's GDP per capita was still only a sixth as large as that of the United States.[95][99] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure [was] a large middle class".[99] Labour rights were also favourable – an eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before most other countries, and Cuban workers were entitled to a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, and six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[100]

Cuba also had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios during this period.[96][100][101]:186 Cuba had the fifth-highest number of televisions per capita in the world, and the world's eighth-highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, 58 different daily newspapers operated in Cuba during the late 1950s, more than any Latin American country save Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[102] Havana was the world's fourth-most-expensive city at the time,[90] and had more cinemas than New York.[97] Cuba furthermore had the highest level of telephone penetration in Latin America, although many telephone users were still unconnected to switchboards.[98]

Moreover, Cuba's health service was remarkably developed. By the late 1950s, it had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita – more than in the United Kingdom at that time – and the third-lowest adult mortality rate in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America, and the 13th-lowest in the world – better than in contemporary France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[96][103][104] Additionally, Cuba's education spending in the 1950s was the highest in Latin America, relative to GDP.[96] Cuba had the fourth-highest literacy rate in the region, at almost 80% according to the United Nations – higher than that of Spain at the time.

I regularly see this quote on different websites criticizing Castro and that he ruined Cuba.  How poor was Cuba and what is the truth?

I know Communism contributed to the decline of the country since the economic system didn't have a price system to sell goods and a respect for property rights.  

There's a lot of bullshit in that Wikipedia Article.

1° Cuba benefitted from a huge fucking boom in Sugar output, growing tenfolds Cuban exports. This happened from 1939 to 1947, and while Fulgencio Battista was indeed president from 40 to 44, he was elected by a large fraction on the Island's Communists. Fun fact, they pretty much contributed to most of the working electorate.

However the issue of social expenditure and progress didn't happen because of Batista, but thanks to the very uneven presidency of Grau Sa'martin. Grau was basically a Peronist which expanded State control and involvement in Cuban Society, with more state Control over the economy (Grau would re-invest the Sugar boom into state sponsored joint ventures). This went very bad in the long term as the US thought the Grau Sa'martin gig was a cover up for commies and the Mob (Havana Conference).

2. Out Grau, in Socarras which ironically was the guy who would start the real political violence, killing liberals and jailing communists. Socarras basically played cash for silence. While he was in charge (48/52) Cuba was renamed Corruption. You wanted to build a business, pay the piper. You wanted to study, pay the piper, you want to run for politics, pay the piper and play for the piper.

3. Most of the sources listed are NOT trustworthy and skewed. For instance Cuba had similar GDP per capita as Italy in the 50's is BS (actually it's the similar GDP in late 1940's while italy had both Hyperinflation and was basically a country ruined by 23 year dictatorship and 11 years of war and mobilization). However the GDP per capita in the early 40's (40-42) was two times the one of Cuba (which is already a huge gap for country like Italy).

We can pick up a lot of skewered data that compare a booming mono-income economy like Cuba with the likes of a post WW2 Japan (which like wtf was probably worse at that time than my own Albania). Basically Battista was going to the wall fast because he had nothing more to sell to the US, sugar fell to the ground (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/x4988e/x4988e13.pdf) and Battista was stuck between the State expansion in the economy and the fact that meanwhile the US was finding better places to invest (Dat Marshall Plan) like the places it had bombed to the ground just a couple of years earlier.

In the end what killed the Cuban economy was its mono-income, big brother from across the Columbus Bay and most importantly the fact that no one had the vista to see how the WW2 boom was detrimental to the Cuban economy as it was done, mainly through US brokers (which owned a hefty part of the Sugar business).

Sadly when you talk like this people at 'Neoliberalism.com' fags, suddenly become dumb and deaf. Dindu Nuffins. Basically the US propped Cuba, the US killed it off by investing in Europe (this is equal for MOST LatAm).

What about the living standards being better than the rest of Latin America at the time? Was it health services that were so good available to the poor whites and poor blacks? What about the information about is literacy rate and education spending? The Miami Cubans love to point that out.

Once again, you can't speak about living standards in Cuba being better than in LatAm. Let me explain you how living standards in Cuba are impossible to quantify even in a "good year".

I will take 1956 as a benchmark, because Cuban fugitives and Battista goats love that year, the best year of pre-revolution.

Tourism industry in Cuba: 30 million dollars revenue.
Sugar industry in Cuba: 324 million dollars revenue.
People living through the tourist industry: 24 thousand and some.
People living through the Sugar cane industry 280 thousand Cubans (although that number usually towered over 350 thousand because of "helping hands not paid - kids of workers joining on the fields). Out of a 2.5 million active population roughly 25 percent were working with the sugar cane, 3-4 months a year and then it was subsistence agriculture for 8 months.
But here comes the hit:

Brothels: 270.
Employed personnel in these establishments: 11 600 people. Yes half the tourist staff worth of hookers in Cuba. That's some living standard right there.

Now what else do you want to talk? I've been cursed upon many times when discussing these with Cubans from the Free world and most of the time it ends up with "chinge tu madre rojo de mierda", because they can't argue with numbers and facts as hard as these. For instance so you can understand this, one woman out of 15 in Havana was a whore.

Thank you. I would like you and others to take a look at this: http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=286

is this propaganda or some truth?

I don't understand the question?

What do those select picture show from the barrios? It's the same thing everywhere. You could show Afghanistan pictures in the 60's, Chechen pictures in the 80's. Albanian pictures in the 80's. Those are snapshots of "nice" things although I'd wager that there are only handful of cars and that you can see most infrastructure being rather poor (one tunnel, couple of avenues). The building boom and the Malecon being built mostly as tourist attractions.

But we can speak about Cubans being forced to run a "bolita" because they couldn't participate in their own frigging national Lottery (given the threshold in betting), we can speak about the fact Battista sold the damn Capital to the Mob (most Waterfront was being owned by the Tampa and Chicago outfits), we can talk about how the rest of the country was shit and how the very ways of Battista were getting nowhere fast. So fast the US tried to take him away to give the pro-US "opposition" a fighting chance.

Just a funny anecdote, among many things that were looted and destroyed in Havana one thing was literally outstanding, people were taking out parking meters. They were destroying what they saw as undue taxation, which actually was a show of wealth as not every one could afford a car and to park it.

This is exactly as the French revolutionaries who sought the stable tax listing in 1789, as not every one could afford horses. That's not a "booming Cuba" my friend.

You make good points; however, do you think Communist economic planning contributed to the bad economic output of the country? I know you will say the embargo but I think the Communist economic planning contributed as well.  I like that Castro liberated the country from the American financial imperialism but I also think that Communist as an economic system doesn't work.  This does not mean that he wasn't justified in overthrowing Baptista.  I wish Cuba could embrace a sensibly regulated free market with a government elected by the Cuban people that isn't afraid to bend over to US imperialism.  

miketheterrible wrote:If countries like Cuba and Venezuela could adopt an autarky economic system similar to South Africa of 75, then they could have done well and survive. Ultimately, there isn't exactly super geniuses in government of Cuba in economic terms. Although, communism in its true form for Cuba is long gone since USSR decline, it still is a lot better than it was under Batista and his US whores.

There needs to be a change. But not one that ends up licking boots of anyone (neither Russia or US).

miketheterrible wrote:It was just poor central planning of economic development.

KiloGolf wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:It was just poor central planning of economic development.

Not that enhanced central planning in a Economy is ever expected to do wonders.

KiloGolf wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:It was just poor central planning of economic development.

Not that enhanced central planning in a Economy is ever expected to do wonders.