Or maybe not.
Our friend down under, Luis M. Garcia, who has a knack of cutting to the quick in a way that any outside observer can easily understand, ponders what the lifting of the ban on certain products in Cuba means:
According to media reports, Cubans will now be able to purchase computers and DVD and video players without first requiring written permission from the government.
Of course, the equipment will be available only from State-owned shops.
And to buy say, a new computer, Cubans will need to pay for them with convertible pesos rather than with ordinary pesos – the currency the State uses to pay wages.
Given that a covertible peso is worth 25 of the ordinary pesos, and that the average monthly wage in Cuba is about US$15.00 … well, there is unlikely to be a stampede.
What I love best about the reporting on this latest development is how the government justifies the previous ban by blaming it on electricity shortages. Well let’s see when government has to restrict consumer purchases of electronic goods because of shortages in electricity provided by the state-owned utility, then perhaps its time to change the government.
I am always amazed at the imagination of the regime to invent excuses. I remember when they restituted Christmas Holidays they said they had banned it before because those were busy days for “la zafra azucarera”. When Fidel inaugurated the John Lennon monument, he said The Beattles were banned in Cuba before because he was too busy at the time to understand them.
Henry, can I post this on another site..Free Republic?
Henry-
Just a question. Are Cuban Citizens equired to get government permission to buy, say a Rice Cooker or a Refrigerator? Or, is it just censorship. Please advise. -S-
of course.
The “of course: was for RROD.
Shalit, I think rice cookers and refrigerators have been being sold to Cubans by the Cuban state. In many cases the state cam in and took the old pre-castro refrigerators out of the houses and required the citizen who owned it to buy a new “energy efficient” model. Of course the price of those items is out of range for most Cubans so the state “finances” their purchase for them. So Cubans make a miserable wage and it goes toward making monthly payments on a piece of equipment they maybe didn’t even want to buy in the first place. Gotta love communism.
Yeah Henry, But you see the Cuban Satrapas that misgovern Cuba are counting on the CA Community to send dollars so that their sons, grandsons, nephews can have computers.
They know cubans earning $15 a month can’t afford PCs.
This article mentions that the memo on lifting the electronic ban is unsigned, unsourced, and that it has not been released in Cuba. Now this is Anita Snow were talking about, but did anyone see or hear anything from Cuba about the lifting? Are the media whores so anxious to announce reforms that they jumped the gun? Fools.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080314/cuba_great_expectations.html?.v=1
I did a search on Cuba’s official toilet paper, aka Granma, and couldn’t find any article referring to the lifting of the prohibitions.
I don’t see the editorial mentioned on that yahoo article either, but maybe not everything is published on the web.
We overheard a FoxNews’ commentator explain that now Cubans can buy computers and mirowave ovens. Simultaneously my husband I replied, “What is there to cook in Cuba?”
Sadly only tourists and “those with connections” have decent foodstuffs to cook.
And those power spikes caused by the restoration of electricity will ruin all those new electronics. Thus, the electronic revolution is an illusion like everything else in Cuba, except for the tyranny…