With skyrocketing inflation combined with the inherent inefficiencies and corruption of a socialist economy, the ubiquitous egg has become a luxury food item for Cubans. This is socialism in action.
Eating eggs: another ‘luxury’ Cubans cannot enjoy
Inflation in Cuba continues its upward spiral, raising the price of all basic products. If eating beef was once a privilege for the few, now eating eggs, one of the two proteins distributed monthly to the people of Havana through the ration book, is also a privilege.
The quantity of eggs reaching consumers through regulated sales has been decreasing until finally settling at five per person, barely enough for two moderately decent breakfasts in the thirty days of the month. Those aspiring to something better must wander around Havana and, with luck, pay 2,000 pesos for a carton that contains 30 eggs.
Occasionally, some small businesses will sell them for 1,550 pesos, but they vanish quickly due to the skillful management of resellers who buy them in bulk to make a minimum profit of 450 pesos per carton.
While the regime in Havana rediscovers the obvious, claiming the only way to overcome the economic crisis is by “increasing production,” online platforms like Supermarket 23 or Katapulk sell national and imported eggs at high prices, and in foreign currency.
The market segmentation between those who handle foreign currency and those who only have access to the national currency has become the most abusive and discriminatory practice implemented by the Cuban government since the Special Period.
The population considers what they are experiencing on the Island is much worse. Never in the country’s history have basic foods been so expensive, and the worst part is that the price escalation seems to be determined by the increase in the value of the dollar on the black market. Seeing and acknowledging that the currency of the “enemy” knows no limits, Cubans anxiously ask themselves what will become of them.
Behind the visits of Prime Minister Manuel Marrero to “investment projects” or the ideas that come up in the National Assembly, there is a terrible reality in which tens of thousands of people whom the government labels as “vulnerable” – but who are, in fact, impoverished by the Economic Reordering Task – have no access to one of the most essential and humble proteins.
In Cuba right now, a carton of eggs equals the monthly minimum wage of 2,100 pesos. Below that critical line are thousands of retirees whose pensions are just over 1,500 pesos.
Remember, the savages must be humiliated at every turn to keep them in their place. Move along.