From our Bureau of Socialist Social Justice
No justice, no peace…No free market, no food…. This is what socialists never admit.
Their so-called “social justice” is nothing more than repression and destitution. The only genuine peace socialism can promise is death, either by slow starvation or frustration, or torture in prison, or a firing squad.
Dollar-currency stores are now being hit hard by the economic collapse of Castrogonia’s economy. Once a shopping safe haven of sorts for Cubans with Dollars in their pockets, these stores are now dealing with empty shelves, long lines, and sky-high prices.
And even the black market seems to offer no real solution to anyone, including the savvy re-sellers …. Vamos bien!
Loosely translated from 14y medio
Not a year has passed since its opening and the stores that sell food and cleaning products in foreign currency are already going through a crisis. Little supply and very long queues mark the days in the most criticized shops in the country, the only ones, however, that still have more than a dozen products on their shelves.
“It is not worth coming here, among the resellers and the shortage of supplies and this looks like a warehouse” of the rationed market, a client who was waiting on the outskirts of the market in freely convertible currency (MLC) on San Rafael Street this Monday told 14ymedio. In the Habana. “I arrived at 5:15 in the morning and the queue was turning. Where did so many people leave if the curfew is until five?”
The markets in MLC have become the new modus vivendi of thousands of Cubans who have a magnetic card with foreign currency. They buy grains, meat products, dairy products and preserves that they then resell in the informal market. Eager customers pay for not waiting in long lines, to avoid contagion by covid-19 and also for not having access to currency.
“They are out of stock, but if you compare them with the stores in Cuban pesos, they seem luxurious,” a client reflects on the outskirts of the Boyeros and Camagüey markets. “Everyone who has gone out today the only thing he has is peas and malt, but I’m here because I need to buy yogurt and flour,” she says. “A few years ago I didn’t even make this queue for beef, but now you have to make it even for soup squares.”
The resellers do not use the official exchange rate for the dollar, set at 1 in 24, but instead are guided by the price of the fulas in the informal market. “People complain that the merchandise is expensive but I’m selling this large can of concentrated tomato puree for 800 pesos because it costs me about 18 dollars, plus one morning. I put the dollar at 47 CUP so I’m almost giving away the merchandise”.
Continue reading HERE in Spanish
I keep telling you people but you won’t listen: even if there’s mass starvation, it’s fine as long as there’s “free” health care. Don’t blame the usual suspects for being ambiguous–that’s been clear for ages.