this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nah there's also plenty of mismanagement, in particular spending the cold war being a one product economy and thinking that the USSR will be around forever, overpaying for sugar and sending industrial goods in return.

Venezuela messing up royally and not being able to subsidise Cuba with their oil any more is a more recent problem, but pretty much the same pattern.

Cubans are masters of improvisation and the party is smart enough not to interfere with the people's capacity to self-organise to get around acute problems, unlike Americans and Russians they don't micro-manage for the sake of micro-managing, but they're very much not masters of strategic planning.

Over long, better short, Cuba has to increase its value-add and labour productivity. Export fewer resources, more and most of all more high-value finished products, also become energy independent. It's nice that they can help out Venezuela with toilet paper but truth be told it's not really a product that's highly sought after on the world market because by and large, countries are better at not fucking up their economy than Venezuela.

Or, differently put: Wake me when Cuba exports electric buses. That, preferably, look weirdly like 40s, 50s American cars, in a retrofuturistic way. Or something more niche, but have something that's not rum, tobacco, or honey. Oh, pharmaceuticals, gotta give them that.