This is just one of many health care indices that establishes that Cuba has the highest standard of living in Latin America and Caribbean if one accepts health care, education, housing, and nutrition as the chief indicators of living standards. Some other countries in the region have a higher level of industrial and agricultural development than Cuba, but their superiority in development does not translate into a higher standard of living for the people because the national income goes only to imperialists and the local bourgeoisie.

We concede that Cuba's lead over the region in nutrition and housing is more modest that its spectacular lead in health care and education. But the people of Cuba leads the people of Latin America and Caribbean in housing and food consumption, too.

The people of Cuba do not lead the Latin American and Caribbean bourgeoisie and middle classes in housing and food. But the Cuban people leads or matches the region's rich in health and education.

To many US reactionaries and other imperialist zealots that idea of a higher standard of living for the people of Latin America and Caribbean appears as an evil idea because the national income earmarked for peoples' education, health care, nutrition, and housing to lift their living standards could be better spent on the payment of the foreign debt to the US imperialist creditors and for profit distributions as dividends or for the exaggerated salaries of bourgeois corporate executives.

Why should the region's people have a higher living standard if this means that the US imperialists and local bourgeoisie have to make do with less of the national income?

This is why the US imperialist-dominated IMF and World Bank often order countries of the region to close hospital and schools so that more people will die, suffer, and remain illiterate.

IMF oftens says let the people of the region starve and live in shantytowns where the houses are made out newspapers.

Deny. Deny.

In the shantytowns of the region of Latin America and Caribbean, cardboard is the construction material of choice. But if a shanty dweller can't get his hands on the precious cardboard, then back to newspapers ... although newspaper are a slight fire hazard.

Cuba doesn't have a shantytown problem, it demolished them in the 1960's.

Cuba has a problem with the deterioration and dilapidation of the existing inventory of housing or, in other words, poor maintenance.

US bourgeois media portray the Cuban problem of dilapidation as the shantytown problem that plagues the rest of the region, including its most developed countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

This is how the US imperialists chiefly hide Cuba's lead over the region in housing for the people [rather than for the privileged]. So, the US and local reactionaries can pretend that the Cuban people do not have the highest standard of living in the region.

Socialism has outperformed capitalism in the region.

US reactionaries say "Please, don't compare the living standards of the Cuban people to the living standards of the DR people. That's not right. Compare, instead, the living standards of the USA people to the people of the former USSR or, better still, the living standards of the Cuban people to those of the USA people. See? "

But the Cuban people don't live USA, why should they care about this foreign living standards, alien to their circumstances?

Nor do the DR people care about the number new cars, vibrators, toasters, the USA people have per 1000 persons.

Cuba and DR and other Latin American and Caribbean countries belong to the same region, so their intra-regional living standards should be comparable.

But US reactionaries want to hide that capitalism is an enormous failure in the region and, in contrast, socialism is a beacon of progress.

In many respects, the DR has a higher level of agricultural development than Cuba. But the DR superiority in development does not translate into superior nutrition indices for the DR people. The DR exports to the USA about 75 percent of the its prime production to pay the unjust foreign debt and to make the IMF happy. Indeed, in 2007, the DR food consumption indices fell in response to price hikes, but, at the same time, Cuba's daily per capita intake of calories and proteins rose.

The point is that there is a difference between mere development and improvement in living standards of the people.

And US reactionaries are only concern with development, the results of their investments. The depressed living standards of the people seem "quaint" to many of these reactionaries.

You have laid it on a little too thick this time, Belial.
What you say went from the rediculous to the unbelievable by virtue of your repeating yourself so many times in the above posts.
When will you learn to just state your position the let it go at that? You seem to really like what you are writing and that's well and godd, but you repeat yourself over and over again andagain and again like a broken record.
Can't you get your thoughts together? Most people who allude to intellectualistic rhetoric do so. Why not you??

TB

"You have laid it on a little too thick this time, Belial."

0000000

So, we agree, I believe for the second time. I don't know why I'm so "thick" today. After all, it's not raining here in Houston.

But yesterday, it drizzled.

Belial your message gets lost in your rhetoric. Remember you only have to hit the post button once not half a dozen times. As for Cuba, it all will depend on the picture that one wants to paint. I believe, they have a high standard of living when we measure their basic needs: health, education, nutritional security ( the right to food is guaranteed in their constitution). They have a low standard of living if we measure their access to consumer goods. What is more important in a poor country? What would it be like if it wasn't embargoed? A lot of the social problems that all nations face would probably creep in.

Just go and visit the Malecon on in Havana on a weekend, and see all the healthy hookers who are doctors and pharmacists by day but don't make more then 1.00 dollar .

They do get food rations but not enough to feed their children.

Or when you are there look for Segio (Surgeon by day)he will sell you Cohiba's out of his trunk , but don't let the police see you or him, or you may never be heard of again.

Freedom is everything!
.

I can't match your vocabulary but I can sit down and tell what the real Cuba is.

.

Henry Ford once said: "if you believe you can or you believe you can't, you are right."In other words,it all depends on your point of view or what you believe. If you go to Cuba looking for misery, you will probably find it.If you go looking for something positive you will probably find it too. What I have a hard time dealing with is the arrogant positions that many seem to take towards Cuba while ignoring the circumstances under which it is forced to interact with other countries. Why don't we let the Cubans decide for themselves what is good for them? After all is that not what we preach to everybody that we want for ourselves? Tell me why is it that you North Americans think you are so pure and have all the answers? Most countries don't have the resources to live like you do and most countries don't have the armed forces to go take by force what isn't theirs. Freedom is everything so how why not give all these other countries the freedom to govern themselve any way they want? OK?

Jander I see nothing wrong with your vocabulary.

The US embargo is a transliteration of Che Guevara (Minister of economy) embargo against the US. It was done after 2 years of fruitless negotiations with the torture master. It's a dead document anyway as there is not effective embargo but the lack of Cuban money to buy stuff, because, if Belial hasn't noticed, Communism doesn't work!!!

My three trips through Cuba show only Soviet style living standards, houses are wrecks and overstuffed with underfed people. Public preventive health care is good. Education is propaganda. Civic action is the Thursday block meeting where you turn in your neighbor for pathetic favors. Wonder why Belial is in Houston instead of Havana?

Finally, the UN report of 1959, before Fidel, showed Cuba to have the 3rd highest proportion of middle class in the world. Today it's at the bottom. Misery is equally shared.

"Today it's [Cuba's] at the bottom. Misery is equally shared."

oooo

Cuba has the highest standard of living in Latin America and Caribbean if you use education, health care, nutrition, and housing as indicators of living standards.

Cuba's generously supplies significant amounts of foreign aid in the fields of education and health care to about a dozen capitalist Latin American and Caribbean countries which are held down, plundered and looted by US imperialists.

For example, Cuba and Venezuela, by Mission Miracle, has restored the eyesight of over a million people in the region since to 2005.

The lying cappie press [or US capitalist media] reports that Cuba doesn't have the economic and scientific resources to do this. But over a million people who have recieved these medical services know that the cappie media is flatout lying about Cuba.

In contrast, US-imperialist controlled IMF tries to close hospitals and close schools and shutdown other social programs.

Some hookers in Cuba and USA brag that they are "doctors and pharmacists" and what-not. If you believe them, then enjoy yourself. Some hookers in NYC boast that they are angels. There is no way to disprove their claim of angelic orgin. But if you believe it, enjoy yourself. In 2003, a hooker/reporter named Gannon claimed he turned tricks in the White House.

Homeslessness, malnutrition, lack of education and health care are not the motivating causes for hookers in Cuba, because these social problems are milder in Cuba compared to other regional countries. This is why the AIDS rate in Cuba is the lowest in the region.

Cuban food rations result in highest daily caloric and protein consumption in Latin America/Caribbean. The Cuban food rations are indeed far from being satisfactory. But it's better to have rations rather than not have them, as in the case with capitalist Latin American countries where malnutrition is a more severe problem than in Cuba.

I think that both Capitalism and Socialism have their positive and negative aspects. That's why I think that the best government is a Social Democracy. Why do you think that Western Europe has been so successful? It's because they take the positives from both systems and have proven the world that a mixed economy is the way to go!

"This is just one of many health care indices that establishes that Cuba has the highest standard of living in Latin America and Caribbean if one accepts health care, education, housing, and nutrition as the chief indicators of living standards."


Yet here you are:

Written by: Belial, 27 Jan 2008 2:06 PM
From: *****United States******

"Why do you think that Western Europe has been so successful? It's because they take the positives from both systems and have proven the world that a mixed economy is the way to go!"

Its because their populations are small.
And I am sure you mean easter Europe and Wester Europe is pretty poor.

to pelaut; you say that your trips to cuba revealed overstuffed houses with underfed people. have you been to anywhere else in the developing world, such as brazil, the dominican republic, india, the phillipines? are there any poor, underfed people in these capitalist societies? are there no soup kitchens and flop houses in the united states? try taking a trip through the ozark area of the USA if you want to see poverty and backwardness. cuba surely is not perfect, but what it has done is to create a survival base for everyone. i agree that there is not a starbucks on every corner, and kids do not have the latest iteration of playstation 3. but i have been there myself, and there are positive aspects to the society which are always marginalised by the rabid anti- castro cadre. what people have to realise is that man does not create circumstance; circumstance creates man. edgar allan poe did not create horror; horror created him. the same applies to nelson mandela and martin luther ki

king. had cuba been a just and fair society before castro, he would not have had a platform for his ideas. but it was the playground for rich and powerful caucasian types , both local and foreign, and the brothel of the caribbean. black people were relegated to the lowliest tasks, with no opportunity for advancement. some people in this forum see nothing wrong with such an arrangement , because they believe in some sort of divine entitlement for certain inhabitants of the planet. i take no umbrage with their choice of that philosophy; i just see things differently. the ravers and ranters want to see cuba return to what they characterise as the GOOD OLD DAYS, when a few folks with straight hair and noses were the lords and masters of everything, and other people were just collateral inconveniences. i am not here to adjudicate for anyone the right or wrong of this belief system. its just that the folks on the receiving end of injustice see things differently than those dishing it out.

Even though I don't agree with totalitarianism at least Fidel ended the racism and how the rich were exploiting the masses. I just hope they have reforms. You can have socialism and communism without having a dictatorship. It's called "democratic socialism" like what is going on in Venezuela right now.

"to pelaut; you say that your trips to cuba revealed overstuffed houses with underfed people. have you been to anywhere else in the developing world, such as brazil, the dominican republic, india, the phillipines?"

0000000

Dreadlocks, the question above is the key point of the ideological struggle. Whether the living standards of the Cuban people are to be compared with those of the capitalist and pro-imperialist countries of the developing world to which Cuba happens to belong as a developing country OR compared to the living standards of the peoples of the developed capitalist world, especially the USA, a region to which Cuba does not belong.

When the living standards of the Cuban people are compared to those of the pro-US imperialist capitalists countries of Latin America/Caribbean to which Cuba belongs, Cuba leads all of the developing capitalist countries if we use education, health care, nutrition, and housing as the chief indicators of the living standards.

Dreadlocks, another methodology for comparison of the standard of living of the Cuban people with those of other demographic groups has been proposed.

Many US reactionaries and imperialist cheerleaders believe that the living standard of the whole of the Cuban people should be compared with the living standards of the Latin American/Caribbean bourgeoisie and middle classes, perphaps only 15 percent of the peoples of most countries in the region.

Well, Cuba leads the regional bourgeoisie and middle classes in health care and education. That's why tens of thousands of wealthy patients of the region fly to Cuban hospitals for treatment.

But Cuba trails very far behind the regional bourgeoisie and middle classes in food and housing.

I don't believe its fair to compare all of the Cuban people to only the richest and most privileged people in other countries. Such rigged research befits only the lying US bourgeois media and its parrots.

absolutely correct analysis, Belial. i am a little unsettled by those who try to establish comparisons between havana and berlin, instead of havana and rio de janiero. and hello, Edward; look at democratic socialism in scandinavia; those are some of the most socially progressive societies in the world. there are limits to the earnings of company CEOs, for instance. look at a society such as the USA: the founder of countrywide loans created one of the biggest scams in the history of mortgage lending. he destroyed the hopes and lives of millions of people with dishonest business practices. mortgage foreclosures in florida are 147% higher than for the same period last year. yet he will step away with a 75 million dollar golden parachute. one of his associated will get a mere 161 million. the borrowers will get the shaft. so much for the glories of capitalism.

Yeah reckless capitalism is not a good thing. There should be some limits.

Dreadlocks, there is still another methodology that rejects the use of health care, education, nutrition, and housing as the chief indicators of a standard of living in favor of indices of ownership of consumer goods, like the number of car owners per 1000 people [e.g.,150 per 1000 in Argentina and 750 per 1000 in USA], TVs, radios, CD players, computers per 1000, refrigerators and gas/electric ranges per 1000, and ... most important of all ... vibrators per 1000.

You see Dreadlocks, in the decadent bourgeois society of capitalist countries, a vibrator is widely deemed a better indicator of the standard of living than nutrition or health care.

Cuba's indices on most of these consumers goods are comparatively low. Many of the more impoverished countries of Latin America and Caribbean ... homelessness, disease, illiteracy, and famine abound ... have better consumer good indices ... like car ownership ... than Cuba.

So, US reactionaries use consumer goods as indicators.

you are absolutely right, Belial. i dont know your age, so i dont know if you are an old enough person to remember the Elian Gonzales debacle in Miami during the Bill Clinton administration. the instructive essence of the issue was the fact that the miami relatives bought this poor child more toys than he could use in a lifetime. but that is their value system. they believe that if you live in a society in which you can find 756 different types of carbonated beverages on the store shelves, you have freedom; as that number declines, so does your degree of freedom. everything is based on how much stuff you have. no wonder the suicide rates are so high among americans, because their values are so warped,and they have no idea where to seek happiness. they all think that nirvana is something you can pick up at the mall, and , when they cannot, they jump off the roofs of tall buildings. they believe cubans are all miserable because they cannot join the long line of american humanity

camping outside Macys for days for the newest nintendo products. they believe that if you have not had the joys of paying 7 dollars for the latest starbucks latte, life is not worth living. meanwhile, as Daddy figures out whose throat to slash in his line of business, in order to make the next million, junior is on heroin, and has impregnated the helper from Guatemala. Mom gets the bad news when she is perusing the latest paris fashions at the galleria, and wipes out the Bimmer on the way back home to the mansion. they all gather around the mahogany dining table, which they never otherwise use, being too busy pursuing the American Dream to remember they are a family. while they lament their misfortune, and weep uncontrollably, some kid in Havana sips on a coconut, blissfully admiring a passing señorita in a floral skirt, which was handed down to her by her older sister. they enjoy a brief moment of levity and mirth, while their american brethren pray for death before foreclosure