Cuba under the other Castro brother (RWC)

On a geo-politically related subject: 

The Castro brothers are lightening up in Cuba, in a miniscule, mundane way, though it is the small things that count, isn't it? 

Raul has decreed that Cuban citizens can now buy a cell phone, and they can now stay in a Cuban hotel, too. 

Before, for almost 50 years, they were barred from even entering a hotel, except to wait on tables or vacuum hallways.

A good hotel room in Cuba cost about $100 a night. A great hotel room, at a four-star joint, is about $175 a night, more than ten times the average Cuban’s monthly salary.  There won’t be too many Cuban citizens leaping in on Raul’s offer.

The average wage in Cuba is 375 Cuban Pesos.  The peso there is worth 25 to one US dollar.  That is exactly $15.  A month.  One bar of soap in Cuba cost about 80 cents US, 5% of a monthly wage. Not too many Cubans will be buying cell phones or staying in plush rented digs..

Castro apologists, and there are many in America, like to say “But, they have free universal health care!”  They won’t tell you how cruddy it is, the very reason that Fidel Castro’s doctors always fly in from Spain where they live and practice.

This is a country where the government controls almost all of the economy and worked to destroy it for four decades.

Recently, the AP reported that shelves in Cuban stores were as bare as always.

One shop in Havana had six motorcycle helmets, one thin blanket and one pair of boy’s underpants for sale.

Like the Castro’s model, the former Soviet Union, the great egalitarian movement in Cuba is a myth.

The elites, meaning high government officials, get to shop in special stores using a kind of convertible peso, called, appropriately a CUC (a “kook”).  And they can buy steaks and French perfume.

It will be a good day for the poor folks of Cuba when that the Castro brothers and their running-dogs are dead and buried.