From our friend Michael J. Totten, at World Affairs:
Vietnam’s communists are a hell of a lot smarter than Cuba’s.
Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, thunders with economic productivity and bristles with new construction while most of Cuba’s capital Havana resembles a post-apocalyptic ruinscape.
While civilized countries have a minimum wage, Cuba has a maximum wage of twenty dollars per month for almost every job in the country. A beer costs an entire week’s salary and a meal out in a restaurants costs a month’s, so drinking and dining establishments are almost strictly for foreigners. In Hanoi, though, you can’t walk a block without passing restaurants, bars, cafes, and food stalls packed from one wall to its opposite with local patrons.
Vietnam’s middle class travels on motorbikes for the most part rather than in cars, but in the 1970s almost everyone got around on a bicycle. Cuba hasn’t even reached the bicycle stage yet. Its streets and highways are more bereft of traffic than anywhere in the world except North Korea.