The chef José Andrés cooking in the kitchen of the 14ymedio newsroom. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 18 April 2016 — José Andrés arrived in Havana at the best and worst moment of the year. One of the most famous chefs in the world knocked on the door of the 14ymedio newsroom the same day that Barack Obama was saying goodbye to the Cuban people. The shortages in the markets were an incentive rather than an obstacle for the Spaniard who moves easily between the glamorous kitchens of Washington DC and the wood fires of an impoverished Haiti.
In his fingers, each ingredient becomes pure magic. “What do you have?” He asked. And the answer reflected this period of empty shelves in stores. However, the art of cooking is to combine precisely what there is, the ability to convert the little one has at hand into have something marvelous for the palate.
In Cuba you need to be more alchemist than cook to turn out a tasty dish.
There he was, in our newsroom, this Paracelsus of the stove. “What do you have?” He asked again. Very little. Since early this year, with the price increases imposed by the government on many of the food markets and the absence of goods in the stores that sell in hard currency, it is difficult to buy everything from a cabbage to a pound of chicken. On the shelf, a package of Russian oats, scored in 2010, lights up the eyes of chef José Andrés. “We are going to do something with this,” he boasts.
Uniting the elements – including some he had bought under the counter in the streets of Havana – he turned a few somersaults and emerged from the kitchen with steaming and unique dishes. The great chef had climbed to the 14th floor to create an unforgettable dinner on a historic day.
Generation Y 
Fresh produce are really expensive for the average Cuban. The fresh greens, papayas, bananas, sweet potatoes and yuca sold at farmers markets are a luxury for most people, even in small quantities. A pineapple cost 10 CUC, two mangos 5 CUC, a hand of bananas 5 CUC. Lack of vegetable and fruits are one of the causes of high rates of malnutrition among the population.
WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL : To change Cuba, speak up for democracy again and again — The four-day conference, held in Havana, ratified the old guard’s hold on leadership. Mr. Castro, 84, was reelected as first secretary of the party, and the delegates cheered a farewell speech from a frail Fidel Castro, 89. Party members seemed eager to snuff out any lingering glow from Mr. Obama’s visit. Raúl Castro referred to the United States as “the enemy” and warned “we have to be more alert than ever.” The Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, called the president’s visit “an attack on the foundation of our history, our culture and our symbols.” He added, “Obama came here to dazzle the non-state sector, as if he wasn’t the representative of big corporations but the defender of hot dog vendors, of small businesses in the United States, which he isn’t.”
Obviously, Mr. Obama discomfited the regime. Despite some market reforms and economic tinkering in recent years, the authoritarian system the Castros have built still dominates state and society. The brothers’ intention is to make it impossible for Cuba to undergo the kind of transformation that is an ostensible goal of Mr. Obama’s policy. According to the Associated Press, on April 8 one of Cuba’s most well-known advocates of economic reform, Omar Everleny Perez, was fired from his University of Havana think-tank position for allegedly sharing information with Americans without authorization. Mr. Perez was a consultant to the Castro government when it launched some market-oriented reforms. He confirmed his dismissal, saying it was not because of his contacts with foreigners but because he wrote critically about the slow pace of economic reform. “Sometimes they don’t like what you write or think,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-change-cuba-speak-up-for-democracy-again-and-again/2016/04/24/66d63f58-089f-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html
Cuba’s food ration stores mark 50th anniversary
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article1953193.html
By Juan O. Tamayo
The Cuban government calls it a “supplies booklet.” Cubans call it a “rations booklet” or simply “la libreta.”
Either way, half a century after its creation, the booklet has come to symbolize the epic failure of Cuba’s agricultural sector and the communist government’s stubborn insistence on an egalitarian subsidy for each and every one of its 11 million people.
The hundreds of state-run food stores that distribute the rations are marking their 50th anniversary Friday, although the decree creating the system was issued in March 1962, at a time when U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba were beginning to cause shortages of food, medicines and other supplies.
Cuban ruler Raúl Castro two years ago called for an “orderly” end to a system “under which two generations of citizens have lived, this rationing system that despite its toxic egalitarian character offered all citizens access to basic food at laughable prices.”
Castro has been pushing a series of market-oriented reforms to drag his economy out of the doldrums, cutting back on subsidies and other public spending, slashing state payrolls and allowing more private enterprise.
The booklet in fact has been shrinking over the decades, and especially after the early 1990s, when Cuba lost its $4-$6 billion a year subsidies from the Soviet Union and had to tighten its belt to the last notch.
Today, the government spends an estimated $1 billion annually on the system — unique in the world for its level of detail and coverage — a huge number in a nation where the average official salary stands at less than $20 per month.
With an agricultural sector all but stagnant after a half-century of central government controls, Cuba must now import up to 80 percent of the food it consumes, fueling an import bill estimated at more than $1.5 billion per year.
Cubans pay less than $2 for the items they receive under the ration card — an estimated 12 percent of real value — a lifesaver for the poorest of the island’s poor and a help to every man, woman and child regardless of their income.
Yet, the food rations last only about 10 days out of every month. For the rest of the time, Cubans must buy in markets where much higher prices are set by the laws of supply and demand.
Each Cuban is now supposed to receive a monthly ration of seven pounds of rice, half a bottle of cooking oil, one sandwich-sized piece of bread per day plus small quantities of eggs, beans, chicken or fish, spaghetti, white and brown sugar and cooking gas.
Children get one liter of milk and some yogurt, diabetics get special booklets for their diets and there are special rations for special occasions — cakes for birthdays, rum and beer for weddings, uniforms, pencils and notebooks for the start of the school year.
But not all those rations are always available each month, and the number of items and the size of the rations have been dropping for years. Gone are potatoes, soap and tooth paste, salt, cigarettes and cigars and liquid detergent, among other items.
Today the booklet, printed on cheap paper that turns brown, is issued to each of Cuba’s 3.6 million families and has 20 pages, compared to 28 pages in earlier years.
And while the rations account for only a small part of their consumption, Cubans say they fear that the total removal of the system will deliver a harsh blow to retirees whose fixed incomes average $12-$14 per month.
One Cuban axiom holds that “No one can live on the booklet, but there are a lot of people who can’t live without the booklet.”
There has been talk in Havana of replacing the booklet of poor people with something like food stamps, but Castro has made it clear that he wants to eliminate the entire rationing system.
Rationing was introduced “with an egalitarian intent in a time of shortages,” he declared in 2011. But with the passing of time, it has turned into “an unbearable burden for the economy and a disincentive to work.”
THE DAILY SIGNAL : The Castros Are Getting Everything They Want From Obama – by Mike Gonzalez – The White House decision to disinvite a Grammy-award winning jazz legend who is a strong defender of democracy in Cuba was nothing short of contemptible. The fact that it has now embarrassingly backtracked and re-invited him proves it had acted like corporations that are only too happy to ignore human rights violations in exchange for future profits with Cuba until public pressure gets too intense. In other words, engagement with the Castros is not changing them, as promised, it’s changing us—as many of us predicted. It bears repeating it: The Castros, like all dictators, are bacterial. You touch them and you become contaminated. We are diminishing ourselves, and for what? The Castros have rendered Cuba a pauperized state, with no money. Months ago, he was invited to play at the White House on April 30 for International Jazz Day, in an event to be hosted by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. There would be other greats at the concert, including Sting, Chick Corea, Aretha Franklin, Diana Krall, Pat Metheny and Chucho Valdes. He felt honored, cleared his schedule, and prepared.
Then, earlier this month, d’Rivera received a call from the organizers telling him that he “had not passed the vetting process by the White House.” The invitation had been withdrawn.
But suddenly this morning, Thursday, April 21, Telemundo is reporting that the White House has called d’Rivera and said it had all been an error, the invitation is back on.
What happened?
D’Rivera did not take things lying down but penned a public letter to Obama that bears reading because of its clarity and its defense of American values. The letter was dated April 11, but the White House did nothing until it began to get attention yesterday, Wednesday, April 20.
As d’Rivera put it, “I fear that this ‘not passing the vetting process’ may have to do with my decades-long vocal position against the dictatorship that oppresses Cuba, my country of birth, and my support of human rights and democratic values that you defended so well a few weeks ago in Havana.”
This last point is important, because it puts a lie to the Obama administration’s contention that shunning the Castros had not worked, but its new policy of engaging the Western Hemisphere’s worst human rights offenders and only dictatorship would somehow magically produce results.
http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/21/the-castros-are-getting-everything-they-want-from-obama/
WHEN I VISITED CUBA 4 TIMES TO VISIT MY FAMILY I HAD TO PAY AT THE TIME $125 FOR A VISA AND HAD TO WAIT 3 MONTHS TO GET IT. WHERE OTHER FOREIGNERS WERE CHARGED ONLY $25 AND THEY COULD GET IT RIGHT AWAY!
SUN SENTINEL EDITORIAL : Cubans might sail, but it won’t be easy — Carnival Corp. made the right call regarding cruises from Miami to Cuba, but this drama is not over. Neither is the discrimination shown Cuban-born Americans who want to visit their native land. Even if the island relents and allows Cuban-born Americans to arrive by sea, our fellow citizens still will face burdens — with passports, visas and fees — not presented to people born in America. For example, Americans who want to visit Cuba must present a valid passport and a special tourist card that costs $75.
By contrast, Cuban-born Americans who immigrated after January 1971 must purchase a Cuban passport — even though they have renounced their Cuban citizenship and are now U.S. citizens. These passports are valid for six years and cost $375. To keep these passports active, holders must pay $230 every two years.
Those who fled Cuba before January 1971 may use their U.S. passport, but must apply for an HE-11 visa, which costs $250, lasts only 90 days and can take months to obtain. So no last-minute sailings here.
“When you become an American citizen, you should be able to travel all over the world with your passport,” says Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington. He’s right.
Kerry, during his trip to Miami, said it best.
“American citizens, Cuban-Americans have a right to travel, and we should not be in a situation where the Cuban government is forcing its discrimination policy on us,” he said during an interview with CNN en Español and the Miami Herald.
“So we call on the government of Cuba to change that policy and to recognize that if they want a full relationship, a normal relationship, with the United States, they have to live by international law and not exclusively by their own.”
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-editorial-cuba-travel-gs0420-20160420-story.html
THE LEFTIST CUOMO GOT A GREAT FIELD TRIP WITH THIS BUDDIES!
NBC NEWS VIDEO : Exports lacking 1 year after Cuomo’s Cuba trip – Kelly Dudzik — BUFFALO, N.Y. — It was one year ago today that Governor Cuomo was in Cuba for a visit, and you paid for it to the tune of $200,000. The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council is calling out the Governor. “It was a $200,000 24 hour visit to Cuba for a photo op,” says U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council President John Kavulich. Kavulich contacted representatives of the seven New York-based companies that went on the trip to see how they’ve benefited one year later.
“None of the companies have reported any solid exports or service activities since last year. One company that was involved with agriculture wasn’t able to get anywhere. Sought the help from Governor Cuomo’s staff, didn’t get anywhere,” said Kavulich.
That company, according to Kavulich, is Cayuga Milk Ingredients. He says Chobani Greek Yogurt, Pfizer, and Regeneron also reported no exports to Cuba. And his research found Infor just has an agreement to sell software in Cuba. MasterCard is awaiting some legal clarifications. And Jet Blue has applied to start direct U.S. flights to Cuba and is waiting for a decision.
http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/exports-lacking-1-year-after-cuomos-cuba-trip/148127941
Tamayo’s article below hit the nail on the head. This is the real life under the Castroit regime. According to the regime, all Cubans are equal, but as we can see some are more equal than others on the island of Dr. Castro. What it symbolizes is the open admission that the ideals of social justice and equality that inspired the revolution will never come to fruition.
Cuba’s elders struggle daily with poverty
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/03/3911131/cubas-elders-struggle-daily-with.html
Despite — or because of — economic reforms introduced by Cuban leader Raúl Castro, the country’s elderly have trouble paying for basic necessities.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM
Retired Havana radiologist Lidia Lima says her $14 pension lasts her for only 20 days out of every month. But at the age of 78, she “can’t just invent” a way of joining the growing ranks of Cuba’s private businesses to earn a few extra pesos.
Maximiliano Sánchez, 69, says his pension of $8 per month allows him only “to survive, not to live.” But the retired telegrapher adds that heart and vision illnesses have left him too infirm to own or work at one of the new businesses.
Cuban ruler Raúl Castro’s pro-market reforms have opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of eager young and middle-aged entrepreneurs, and many are profiting and joining a burgeoning middle class on the communist-ruled island.
Carpenters, plumbers and construction workers can now easily and legally work on their own. So can barbers, seamstresses and student tutors — in all, there are 182 permitted categories of “self-employment.”
But the same reforms are hammering the estimated 1.6 million retirees, already suffering under historically meager pensions and now pummeled by rising prices in the newly capitalist parts of the economy and shrinking government subsidies on the staples they desperately need.
“The elderly are the most vulnerable sector of the Raúl Castro economic reforms,” said Dagoberto Valdés, a lay Catholic activist in the western province of Pinar del Rio who publishes the digital magazine Convivencia — Fellowship.
Cubans say they see evidence of the pensioners’ growing desperation everywhere: elderly men and women begging outside churches and high-end “dollar stores”; peddling peanuts and newspapers on the streets; “dumpster diving” for anything they can resell; and offering to sell even their most meager possessions, like a pair of shoes or a blanket.
Some earn a few extra pesos as parking lot attendants, getting spots on Cuba’s myriad waiting lines and selling them, or running errands for friends and neighbors. A sack of crushed aluminum cans, picked out of garbage cans, can fetch 60 to 80 pesos.
Sanchez said that from his 200-peso monthly pension — eight U.S. dollars — after working 30 years for the government communications monopoly, he has to pay 30 to 40 pesos for electricity and 10 to 20 for telephone services.
He must also pay the government 65 pesos a month for the television set and refrigerator he was forced to buy in 2005 as part of Fidel Castro’s campaign to reduce energy consumption by requiring all homes to replace their old appliances with more-efficient versions.
“What’s left for food?” Sanchez asked in a telephone interview from his home in the eastern town of Palmarito de Cauto.
The answer is increasingly less and less, as food prices spike under the pressure of market forces — 20 percent in 2012 alone. A pound of pork today sells for 22 pesos, four tomatoes cost 10 pesos and a bottle of cooking oil can cost as much as 70 to 90 pesos.
And while medical care and medicines are supposed to be free, Cubans say they are increasingly forced to give doctors under-the-table gifts to assure proper treatment, and pay for medicines if they are in short supply. Sanchez said he regularly pays about 70 pesos per month for his medicines.
Castro also has been tightening the government’s belt by shrinking ration cards that once provided all Cubans with a basket of essential staples at deeply subsidized prices and was hailed as proof of the island’s egalitarian ideology.
Potatoes, peas, cigarettes, toothpaste and liquid detergent are now off the “ libreta,” and sell at five to 10 times their old prices, while rations of coffee and salt have been cut by half. Items still on the card are estimated to cost a mere 30 pesos per month — $1.20.
“It’s one thing to allow more of a market economy, and another to end the [subsidies for] essential staples,” Valdes said. Like the others quoted in this story, he spoke by phone from the island.
Cuban officials have spoken repeatedly about plans to eventually do away with the entire ration system — which is still costly to the government — and replace it with a subsidy for the neediest, perhaps in the form of food stamps.
Lima said even her above-average pension of 350 pesos — minus the 60 she pays for her “better” fridge — and special chicken rations because of her diabetes last her only the first 20 days of the month. And that is with her buying meat only once or twice per month.
“I am pulling along, but if the pension was the only thing I had, I would be dead already,” said the physician, who retired five years ago from the Joaquin Albarran Hospital in Havana.
Sanchez said he used to raise chickens, rabbits and pigs in his backyard for sale, but they were all stolen and he has not replaced them because of the rising crime — which he also blamed on Castro’s push toward a more capitalist economy.
Both Lima and Sanchez said they survive only with the help of their sons and daughters in Cuba. Other pensioners receive cash remittances from relatives abroad, especially from the United States, that help them make ends meet.
Cuba’s revolution started out with one of the most generous retirement systems in the hemisphere, covering 90 percent of the labor force and allowing men to retire at age 60 and women at 55. But the country went into a tailspin after the collapse of Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s, and a safety net that once guaranteed solid health, education and welfare services began to erode significantly.
In 2008, the retirement ages were increased to 65 and 60, and the average pension rose to 235 pesos but had only half the purchasing power of the same amount in 1989, Carmelo Mesa Lago, a University of Pittsburgh expert on the Cuban economy, wrote in a 2010 report on the pension system. Cuba spent 4.4 billion pesos on pensions that year, almost twice the amount contributed by workers.
Government homes for the elderly are known for the typical warmth of their staffs, but they are too few, have long waiting lists for admittance, their buildings are often in ruinous conditions, and food and other resources are often stolen by corrupt officials higher up the chain, Cubans say.
Responsibility for caring for the elderly has been increasingly passing to their families — a full-day caretaker can charge 300 to 500 or more pesos — as well as the Catholic and other churches.
Several parishes have reported growing numbers of pensioners requiring assistance with meals, their laundry, cleaning their homes and accessing volunteer physicians, dentists and eye doctors.
What’s more, the problems for the elderly — and for the country — are likely to get worse.
Cuba’s population is the oldest in Latin America after Uruguay’s, and it is getting even older as many of its young migrate abroad, birth rates remain low and the elderly live on average until age 79 — about the same as in the United States.
Those 60 and older now make up 17 percent of the population, and are projected to hit 26 percent by 2025, according to official figures.
“Cuba needs youths doped up with caffeine, but the main actors in this city/country are the old people,” Havana blogger Daisy Valera wrote in a recent post on the website Havana Times.
OUR DEAR Mario IS BACK! AS A BACK UP VOICE FOR Omar Fundora! PUN INTENDED!
LATIN AMERICAN HERALD TRIBUNE: Cubans See Their Ration Cards Get Thinner and Thinner – By Anett Rios – September 24,2012
HAVANA – Tobacco is being removed from the Cuban ration cards starting Wednesday, just as potatoes were removed in 2009 within the framework of the “updating of socialism” process whereby President Raul Castro intends to put an end to the excesses of the island’s welfare state.
The end of the cigarette quota received by Cubans virtually at cost is stirring up controversy regarding whether or not it is appropriate to continue with the ration cards and fueling expectations of yet more changes.
In use since 1962, the ration cards give Cuba’s 11.2 million citizens the right to buy at nominal prices grains, sugar, chicken, fish, eggs, rice, coffee, cooking oil, pasta and bread, among other products, according to a meticulous system of regulations that takes into account factors such as the person’s age and place of residence.
Many Cubans say that the monthly allocation of goods supplied to them at subsidized prices does not last them more than one or two weeks, after which they must turn to the hard-currency stores at unregulated prices or to the black market.
Magalys Huerta, a 43-year-old worker, says that the best option would be to eliminate the card but the state has guaranteed a constant supply of products at prices commensurate with wages, which average around $17 a month.
“Nothing that (the card) provides is enough. In the end, I have the pressure of seeking a shopkeeper who will sell me what I need before things run out. I’d prefer to buy what I need when I need it,” Huerta told Efe.
Beatriz, 29, says the card “doesn’t fulfill expectations” and it is absurd that products like sanitary napkins are still distributed in accord with the system that for years has favored “illegalities.”
While some people sell – illegally but openly – what they have left over from their monthly quota, there are more who have to resort to the black market to get the products they can’t acquire with the cards, and often the same shop owner who distributes goods according to the quotas also offers cooking oil, sugar or rice under the table.
Beyond the situation of tobacco, which for many people is not a necessary product, the real debate in Cuba is about the possibility that the government might decide to remove things that are truly indispensable from the quota system, like bread, eggs and grains.
President Castro has called for the elimination of “excess arbitrariness” and “unwarranted subsidies,” with an eye toward better administering scarce national resources and reducing imports in a country that imports more than 80 percent of the food its people consume.
In recent months, official media outlets have reported expressions of public opinion that show that a sector of Cuban society is not ready to survive without the ration cards, and others who see them as an impediment that perpetuates state “paternalism.”
Dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe believes that the disappearance of cigarettes from the card is a decision that points down the “correct road,” but it must be accompanied by “collateral measures.”
“It’s clear that there is a policy of gradually liquidating rationing in Cuba, but I think that it’s necessary to seek compensations for specific sectors of the population who are going to be harmed a great deal by those policies,” he told Efe.
In addition to the measures related to the card, other regulations to reduce state expenditures and imports are emerging, including the closure of workplace coffee shops.
After the controversy caused by the partial closing of the eateries, journalist Ariel Terrero mentioned that the “routines” of “extreme paternalism” are being misinterpreted as a synonym of socialism.
“Changes usually cause bitterness, stomach aches and controversy. Even moreso, if they touch on food. It’s not important that social consensus is clamoring for economic transformations in Cuba,” said Terrero in Bohemia magazine.
The Cuban economy is now facing the challenge of “overcoming the state practice (of being) the big and sacred administrator of all resources, to advance toward true participation of the workers in the execution and control of spending and profits,” he said. EFE
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=364816&CategoryId=14510
WALL STREET JOURNAL : Obama’s Illusions About Post-Castro Cuba – A faux democratization will conceal the military’s grip on power through a dominant political party – By JOSÉ AZEL
Under what I call a hegemonic party system, the emerging regime in Cuba will not rely on its revolutionary past or one man’s charisma, but on the institutionalization of a dominant political party, controlled by the military, designed to hold power in perpetuity. It will differ from Cuba’s current Leninist model in that some “opposition” parties will be tolerated. This opposition has no possibility of gaining power but suggests the false image of a totalitarian state in transition to democracy. This image will serve the regime well in projecting political stability and giving potential investors greater confidence in the long-term survival of the regime. It provides investors with the convenient rationalization that their activities are helping advance a democratization process. It also channels the opposition’s energy into participating in a rigged political process. Instead of factions operating against the whole, they become uncompetitive proto parties that are made part of the whole, much as we saw in Mexico under seven decades of PRI rule.
The Cuban political transfiguration began in 2013 when Miguel Diaz-Canel was appointed first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State with the goal of grooming him asRaúl Castro’s successor. Mr. Diaz-Canel, a 56-year-old engineer with a military background, is portrayed as the young civilian face of the government. The mirage was reinforced by Raúl’s announcement that he will not seek the presidency of the National Assembly when his term expires in 2018.
In an address last year to the United Nations, President Obama placed his expectations for change in Cuba on diplomacy and commerce: “We continue to have differences with the Cuban government. We will continue to stand up for human rights. But we address these issues through diplomatic relations, and increased commerce, and people-to-people ties.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-illusions-about-post-castro-cuba-1461279644
The lack of everything is an important part of the unsustainability picture. It’s quite amazing how inventive the human being gets with limited means. Then, when oportunity presents itself at last, the human is ready to grab it…
It’s a case of bad and good news. The bad ones are in our face, because the Castristas are milking every last drop out of the new deal they’ve been given. The good news is that it’s unsustainable. The Castro broz and their whole generation will soon be gone. The geopoltical “raison d’etre” for revolucion y muerte disappeared a quarter century ago with the Cold War. Even Chinese paranoia won’t be able to keep North Korea enslaved forever.
Humberto and I have been arguing until we were blue in the face about covert vs overt.That”s been interesting, but in the end it’s the Cubans themselves that have to “carpe diem”, move with the times…
YEAH, FOOD
46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out
More:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-21/47-americans-cant-even-come-400-cover-emergency-room-visit
CUBA’S DEMOCRATIC PROCESS LAST YEAR. WHO SAID THAT THERE WAS NO DEMOCRACY IN CUBA
Cuba held partial elections, described as satisfactory and positive, and characterized by the broad participation of voters.elecciones-cienfuegos-cuba-2015-1
More than 7,700,000 citizens voted to elect the delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of the People’s Power in 24,646 polling stations opened yesterday.
The National Electoral Commission (CNE) stressed that these elections took place very quietly, without incident of any kind and tested the effectiveness of the implemented system of communication and data transmission.
About 27,379 candidates were nominated, 35.84 percent of them are women, meanwhile among them more than 59 percent are acting delegates.
Cuban People’s Power National Assembly (Parliament) President Esteban Lazo stressed the relevance of those partial elections, as they were held amid the economic and social updating process underway in Cuba, and the elected delegates represent the highest authority of the political system in grass-roots that they are the voters.
Elections were made in an important time when some economy changes are being implemented and the municipalities are granted more responsibility, Lazo noted.
On the other hand, First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, after voting, ratified the Cuban government’s willingness to hold a dialogue with the United States on the basis of respect.
CNE statistics states that about 188,900 people participated as electoral authorities, who were trained for those functions.
According to the chronogram, a runoff will take place on Sunday, April 26, in those places where no candidate got over 50 percent of valid votes. In this case, the two contenders with the highest number of valid votes will pass to the following round.
American corporatism abroad (CUBANS BEWARE OF THE EMPIRE. SEE THROUGH THE IDEOLOGICAL LIES. LATIN AMERICANS DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION BANK ROLLED BY THE UNITED STATES ARE TRAITORS (THE SAD THING IS THAT THEY CANNOT SEE THROUGH THE CAMOUFLAGE OF THE EMPIRE. MAYBE THEY DO SEE, BUT, DON’T MIND GIVING AWAY THEIR COUNTRY RESOURCES) UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES AND YOU WILL SEE THROUGH THE IDEOLOGICAL LIES. ONLY THEN YOU CAN SEE THE RIGHT WING AUTOCRACY THE UNITED STATES REALLY IS.
As of 1945, American policymakers wished to rebuild world trade under U.S. domination. Their “embedded liberalism” (embedded corporatism) deployed top-down international institutions — the World Bank, the Bretton Woods monetary regime, and other institutions — as substitutes for (literal) free trade, the gold standard, et cetera. The program aimed at protecting America’s domestic corporatist arrangements from foreign competition, while pursuing the old dream of an Open Door into everyone else’s markets for American trade and investment. It would grudgingly tolerate allied nations’ domestic corporatism in the short run. There was no shortage of state involvement in capitalist projects overseas; if anything, the relationship was more blatant than at home.
Corporations and corporatism reunited
Corporatism and corporations are not yet the same subject. The key word is “yet.” If there is a relationship, it is historical. Very briefly, corporations — legally privileged from birth, pampered by courts, subsidized by Congress, with a social “in” with the most important state personnel — were likely, as ideal engines for accumulating capital, to produce unbalanced economic outcomes, mass discontent, and political unrest. Combine those engines with inherited dysfunctional institutions such as fractional-reserve banking, eminent domain, primitive military accumulation (e.g., the Indian wars), governmental distribution of resources, a venal party system, and a mighty executive, and you have a recipe for crisis. American elites recognized the danger fairly early. By trial and error they put together “corporate syndicalism” (Williams), “political capitalism” (Kolko), corporatism (varii), or “interest-group liberalism” (Lowi). It remained to be seen who (business or state?) would dominate the partnership. Hoover himself reflected in 1922 on the danger of “a syndicalist nation on a gigantic scale.”
Since roughly 1938 the military-industrial sector has done much to frame American corporatism, as C. Wright Mills, Seymour Melman, Kolko, Gregory Hooks, and Robert Higgs have taught us. Lucky us: a corporative order intimately connected to armed violence. Add rampant securitarianism, total surveillance, dronology, secret arrests and secret “courts,” et cetera, and Oswald Spengler’s descent into formless power — pure will unmediated through formal structures — becomes something to contemplate. American corporatism — never a finished system — may give way to more direct and arbitrary relations of power. Descent into nihilistic decisionism looks a lot worse than positive law (bad enough in its day) ever was.
Corporatism is based on a body of ideas that can be traced through Aristotle, Roman law, medieval social and legal structures, and into contemporary Catholic social philosophy. These ideas are based on the premise that man’s nature can only be fulfilled within a political community.
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The central core of the corporatist vision is thus not the individual but the political community whose perfection allows the individual members to fulfill themselves and find happiness.
……………
The state in the corporatist tradition is thus clearly interventionist and powerful.
Corporatism is collectivist; it is a different version of collectivism than socialism but it is definitely collectivist. It places some importance on the fact that private property is not nationalized, but the control through regulation is just as real. It is de facto nationalization without being de jure nationalization.
Although Corporatism is not a familiar concept to the general public, most of the economies of the world are corporatist in nature. The categories of socialist and pure market economy are virtually empty. There are only corporatist economies of various flavors.
These flavors of corporatism include the social democratic regimes of Europe and the Americas, but also the East Asian and Islamic fundamentalist regimes such as Taiwan, Singapore and Iran. The Islamic socialist states such as Syria, Libya and Algeria are more corporatist than socialist, as was Iraq under Saddam Hussain. The formerly communist regimes such as Russia and China are now clearly corporatist in economic philosphy although not in name.
Elite pluralism (THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY. IT IS VERY SIMILAR TO HOW A ONE PARTY POLITICAL SYSTEMS WORKS. THIS IS WHY THE UNITED STATES HAS NO BASIS TO CRITICIZE THE ONE PARTY SYSTEM OF CUBA.)
Elite pluralists agree with classical pluralists that there is “plurality” of power, however this plurality is not “pure” as some people and groups have more power than others. For example,some people have more money than others, so they can pay to have their opinion put across better (i.e. more advertising) than the working class can. This inequality is because society has “elites”; people who have more power, perhaps through money, inheritance or social tradition than others
Neo-pluralism (AGAIN, UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIOECONOMIC POWER – THE APARTHEID SYSTEM OF SO CALLED DEMOCRACIES/FREE MARKET SOCIETIES- THE IDEOLOGY IS UNFORTUNETLY WHAT PEOPLE FOLLOW AND VOTE FOR. EVERYONE LIKES FREEDOM, LIBERTY, DEMOCRACY AND FREE MARKET. BUT, THE REALITY IS THAT IT DOES NOT EXIST ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. THIS IDEOLOGY IS THE SECOND BIGGEST LIE HUMANITY HAS TOLD THEMSELVES SINCE THE INVENTION OF GOD.)
While Pluralism as a political theory of the state and policy formation gained its most traction during the 1950s and 1960s in America, some scholars argued that the theory was too simplistic (see Connolly (1969) The Challenge to Pluralist Theory) – leading to the formulation of neo-pluralism. Views differed about the division of power in democratic society. Although neo-pluralism sees multiple pressure groups competing over political influence, the political agenda is biased towards corporate power. Neo-pluralism no longer sees the state as an umpire mediating and adjudicating between the demands of different interest groups, but as a relatively autonomous actor (with different departments) that forges and looks after its own (sectional) interests. Constitutional rules, which in pluralism are embedded in a supportive political culture, should be seen in the context of a diverse, and not necessarily supportive, political culture and a system of radically uneven economic sources. This diverse culture exists because of an uneven distribution of socioeconomic power. This creates possibilities for some groups – while limiting others – in their political options. In the international realm, order is distorted by powerful multinational interests and dominant states, while in classical pluralism emphasis is put on stability by a framework of pluralist rules and free market society.
There are two significant theoretical critiques on pluralism: Corporatism and Neo-Marxism.
Charles Lindblom
Charles E. Lindblom, who is seen as positing a strong neo-pluralist argument, still attributed primacy to the competition between interest groups in the policy process but recognized the disproportionate influence business interests have in the policy process.
Corporatism
Classical pluralism was criticized as it did not seem to apply to Westminster-style democracies or the European context. This led to the development of corporatist theories. Corporatism is the idea that a few select interest groups are actually (often formally) involved in the policy formulation process, to the exclusion of the myriad other ‘interest groups’. For example, trade unions and major sectoral business associations are often consulted about (if not the drivers of) specific policies.
These policies often concern tripartite relations between workers, employers and the state, with a coordinating role for the latter. The state constructs a framework in which it can address the political and economic issues with these organized and centralized groups. In this view, parliament and party politics lose influence in the policy forming process.
Pluralism in foreign policy ( THE UNITED STATES USES ITS MIGHT TO DIRECT WORLD ORDER. THERE IS NO DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES. MIGHT IS RIGHT)
From the political aspect, ‘pluralism’ has a huge effect on the process and decision-making in formulating policy. In international security, during the policy making process, different parties may have a chance to take part in decision making. The one who has more power, the more opportunity that it gains and the higher possibility to get what it wants. According to M. Frances (1991), “decision making appears to be a maze of influence and power.”
Humberto: Democracy IS a Cuban issue. Unfortunately, the right wing crowd understanding of what democracy is looks more like a great deal of propaganda for Right Wing autocracy than it really is about a more perfect democratic process than the one that exist in Cuba today. By the way, Cuba’s Socialist Democratic process is 1000 times better than the Right Wing Utopia that the boot lickers that escaped the People’s justice and are now residing outside the country want us to believe it was during Batista, Machado, Carlos Prio and the rest of the boot lickers that claimed to have been elected by the one man one vote democratic process in Cuba prior to the Cuban revolution. Democracy in Cuba prior to the revolution was for sale to the highest bidder. (Kind of like it is in the United States today). Corporatism and the Mafia ruled the day in Cuba.
WHEN I READ OUR DEAR Omar Fundora’s POSTS, MAKES ME THING WE ARE IN A “BAD OLD USA/CAPITALIST” BLOG! DOES HE EVER MAKE IT ABOUT CUBA AND CUBAN ISSUES?
LOOKS LIKE THIS CARNIVAL/CUBA SHIP IS SINKING! PUN INTENDED!
WLRN PUBLIC RADIO/TV : Carnival Is A Cuba Cautionary Tale: It’s Not About Business. It’s About Politics By TIM PADGETT
American businessmen, lawyers and government officials – in their eagerness to make hay from the normalization of U.S.-Cuba ties – too often forget a paramount rule about striking deals with communist Cuba: It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s politics, both there and here. But everyone seemed to downplay, forget or ignore an odd and obscure Cuban immigration policy that bars anyone born in Cuba from entering or leaving the island by ship. For Cuba to nix the no-exiles-by-sea rule now would look like capitulation to Miami and U.S. capitalism. If the past is any guide, that’s an affront to revolutionary pride that Castro and comrades will never allow.
Could that be one of Havana’s little ways of poking Cuban exiles in the eye?
Gosh, why would anyone assume that? The revolution has only been calling exiles gusanos, or worms, for more than half a century. Welcome to Cuba, Carnival.
And was that poke bound to irk Cuban-Americans once they tried to book passage on the Fathom cruises and found out they were gusanos-non-grata?
Gosh, do you think? Exiles have only been cursing the revolution since 1959. Welcome to Miami, Carnival – oh, wait, you’ve been headquartered here since 1972.
After Cuban-Americans here loudly protested – and even got support from Secretary of State John Kerry – the cruise line announced this week it will delay Cuba voyages until Havana changes the policy. Carnival said it’s “optimistic Cuba will treat travelers with Fathom the same as air charters today.”
But if you think that’s going to happen any time soon, maybe you’ll also believe Cuban President Raúl Castro is retiring to a Collins Avenue condo when he leaves office in 2018.
http://wlrn.org/post/carnival-cuba-cautionary-tale-its-not-about-business-its-about-politics
THIS IS HOW MAY PROGRESIVES IN THE UNITED STATES BELIEVE THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN THE UNITED STATES NEED TO BE REFORMED TO IN ORDER TO DISMANTLE THE CONTROL OF CORPORATISM
Neo-Liberalism
A third approach inspired by the problem of citizenship may be called the neo-liberal approach to politics favored by public choice theorists such as James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock (1965). Against elite theories, they contend that elites and their allies will tend to expand the powers of government and bureaucracy for their own interests and that this expansion will occur at the expense of a largely inattentive public. For this reason, they argue for severe restrictions on the powers of elites. They argue against the interest group pluralist theorists that the problem of participation occurs within interest groups more or less as much as among the citizenry at large. As a consequence, interest groups will not form very easily. Only those interest groups that are guided by powerful economic interests are likely to succeed in organizing to influence the government. Hence, only some interest groups will succeed in influencing government and they will do so largely for the benefit of the powerful economic elites that fund and guide them. Furthermore, they argue that such interest groups will tend to produce highly inefficient government because they will attempt to advance their interests in politics while spreading the costs to others. The consequence of this is that policies will be created that tend to be more costly (because imposed on everyone in society) than they are beneficial (because they benefit only the elites in the interest group.)
Neo-liberals argue that any way of organizing a large and powerful democratic state is likely to produce serious inefficiencies. They infer that one ought to transfer many of the current functions of the state to the market and limit the state to the enforcement of basic property rights and liberties. These can be more easily understood and brought under the control of ordinary citizens.
But the neo-liberal account of democracy must answer to two large worries. First, citizens in modern societies have more ambitious conceptions of social justice and the common good than are realizable by the minimal state. The neo-liberal account thus implies a very serious curtailment of democracy of its own. More evidence is needed to support the contention that these aspirations cannot be achieved by the modern state. Second, the neo-liberal approach ignores the problem of large private concentrations of wealth and power that are capable of pushing small states around for their own benefit and imposing their wills on populations without their consent. The assumptions that lead neo-liberals to be skeptical about the large modern state imply equally disturbing problems for the large private concentrations of wealth in a neo-liberal society.
RAUL CASTRO SHOULD ALLOW ALL DISSIDENTS TO ORGANIZE INTO ONE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP AND PARTICIPATE IN THE POLITICAL PROCESS. THEY COULD BE CATEGORIZE AS A UNION. THE DISSIDENTS IN CUBA REPRESENT ONLY ABOUT 10% OF CUBANS IN A POPULATION OF 12 MILLION. ONE CAVEAT: NO REGIME CHANGE AND MUST PARTICIPATE WITHIN THE LAW OF THE LAND.
Interest Group Pluralism
One approach that is in part motivated by the problem of democratic citizenship but which attempts to preserve some elements of equality against the elitist criticism is the interest group pluralist account of politics. Robert Dahl’s early statement of the view is very powerful. “In a rough sense, the essence of all competitive politics is bribery of the electorate by politicians… The farmer… supports a candidate committed to high price supports, the businessman…supports an advocate of low corporation taxes… the consumer…votes for candidates opposed to a sale tax” (Dahl 1959, p. 69). In this conception of the democratic process, each citizen is a member of an interest group with narrowly defined interests that are closely connected to their everyday lives. On these subjects citizens are supposed to be quite well informed and interested in having an influence. Or at least, elites from each of the interest groups that are relatively close in perspective to the ordinary members are the principal agents in the process. On this account, democracy is not rule by the majority but rather rule by coalitions of minorities. Policy and law in a democratic society are decided by means of bargaining among the different groups.
This approach is conceivably compatible with the more egalitarian approach to democracy. This is because it attempts to reconcile equality with collective decision making by limiting the tasks of citizens to ones which they are able to perform reasonably well. And it attempts to do this in a way that gives citizens a key role in decision making. The account ensures that individuals can participate roughly as equals to the extent that it narrowly confines the issues each individual is concerned with. It is not particularly compatible with the deliberative public justification approach because it eschews deliberation about the common good or about justice. And it takes the democratic process to be concerned essentially with bargaining among the different interest groups where the preferences to be advanced by each group is not subject to further debate in the society as a whole. To be sure, there might be some deliberation within interest groups but it will not be society wide.
Elite Theory of Democracy (REASON WHY DONALD TRUMP IS SO POPULAR AMONG THE RIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES. THE AMERICAN VOTER AS A WHOLE VOTE LIKE A LARGE GROUP OF FLAMINGOS WHO FOLLOW OTHER FLAMINGOS WITHOUT KNOWING WHY) PLURALISM OF POLITICAL PARTIES DO NOT SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. ONE PARTY SYSTEM IS JUST AS GOOD AS A MULTI-PARTY POLITICAL SYSTEM.
Some modern theorists of democracy, called elite theorists, have argued against any robustly egalitarian or deliberative forms of democracy on these grounds. They argue that high levels of citizen participation tend to produce bad legislation designed by demagogues to appeal to poorly informed and overly emotional citizens. They look upon the alleged uninformedness of citizens evidenced in many empirical studies in the 1950s and 1960s as perfectly reasonable and predictable. Indeed they regard the alleged apathy of citizens in modern states as highly desirable social phenomena. The alternative, they believe, is a highly motivated population of persons who know nothing and who are more likely than not to pursue irrational and emotionally appealing aims.
Joseph Schumpeter’s assertion that the “democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (1956, p. 269), still stands as a concise statement of the elitist view. In this view, the emphasis is placed on responsible political leadership. Political leaders are to avoid divisive and emotionally charged issues and make policy and law with little regard for the fickle and diffuse demands made by ordinary citizens. Citizens participate in the process of competition by voting but since they know very little they are not effectively the ruling part of the society. The process of election is usually just a fairly peaceful way of maintaining or changing those who rule.
On Schumpeter’s view, however, citizens do have a role to play in avoiding serious disasters. When politicians act in ways that nearly anyone can see is problematic, the citizens can throw the bums out. So democracy, even on this stripped down version, plays some role in protecting society from the worst politicians.
So the elite theory of democracy does seem compatible with some of the instrumentalist arguments given above but it is strongly opposed to the intrinsic arguments from liberty, public justification and equality. Against the liberty and equality arguments, the elite theory simply rejects the possibility that citizens can participate as equals. The society must be ruled by elites and the role of citizens is merely to ensure smooth and peaceful circulation of elites. Against the public justification view, ordinary citizens cannot be expected to participate in public deliberation and the views of elites ought not to be fundamentally transformed by general public deliberation. To be sure, it is conceivable for all that has been said that there can be an elite deliberative democracy wherein elites deliberate, perhaps even out of sight of the population at large, on how to run the society. Indeed, some deliberative democrats do emphasize deliberation in legislative assemblies though in general deliberative democrats favor a more broadly egalitarian approach to deliberation, which is vulnerable to the kinds of worries raised by Schumpeter and Downs.
THE BASIC PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY: HOW EASY IT DETERIORATE INTO AUTOCRACY WHEN DEMOCRACY EXISTS HAND IN HAND WITH A FREE MARKET ECONOMY.
The Problem of Democratic Citizenship
A vexing problem of democratic theory has been to determine whether ordinary citizens are up to the task of governing a large society. There are three distinct problems here. First, Plato (Republic, Book VI) argued that some people are more intelligent and more moral than others and that those persons ought to rule. Second, others have argued that a society must have a division of labor. If everyone were engaged in the complex and difficult task of politics, little time or energy would be left for the other essential tasks of a society. Conversely, if we expect most people to engage in other difficult and complex tasks, how can we expect them to have the time and resources sufficient to devote themselves intelligently to politics?
Third, since individuals have so little impact on the outcomes of political decision making in large societies, they have little sense of responsibility for the outcomes. Some have argued that it is not rational to vote since the chances that a vote will affect the outcome of an election are nearly indistinguishable from zero. Worse still, Anthony Downs has argued (1957, chap. 13) that almost all of those who do vote have little reason to become informed about how best to vote. On the assumption that citizens reason and behave roughly according to the Downsian model, either the society must in fact be run by a relatively small group of people with minimal input from the rest or it will be very poorly run. As we can see these criticisms are echoes of the sorts of criticisms Plato and Hobbes made. (MORE THAN 3 CENTURIES AGO)
These observations pose challenges for any robustly egalitarian or deliberative conception of democracy. Without the ability to participate intelligently in politics one cannot use one’s votes to advance one’s aims nor can one be said to participate in a process of reasoned deliberation among equals. So, either equality of political power implies a kind of self-defeating equal participation of citizens in politics or a reasonable division of labor seems to undermine equality of power. And either substantial participation of citizens in public deliberation entails the relative neglect of other tasks or the proper functioning of the other sectors of the society requires that most people do not participate intelligently in public deliberation.
I GUESS KING OBAMA’S US-CUBA POLICY IS WORKING REAL WELL! FIRST IS WAS THE DISCRIMINATORY POLICY AGAINST U.S. CUBAN-BORN CITIZENS BANNED FROM ENTERING CUBA WITH CARNIVAL CRUISES, NOW IT’S CENSORSHIP IN THE WHITE HOUSE BECAUSE YOU ARE A VOCAL ANTI-CASTRO ARTIST!
IN CUBA TODAY : Cuban-born musician writes Obama after invite for White House performance is withdrawn – By Nancy San Martin
Multiple Grammy-Award winner Paquito D’Rivera has penned a letter to President Barack Obama questioning whether the decision to “veto” his participation in an upcoming performance at the White House is due to his stance against the Castro regime, now that relations between Cuba and the United States have been restored. In the letter dated April 11, 2016, D’Rivera — who has previously played at the White House — says he fears that his exclusion is the result of his long-standing stance against oppression in his native Cuba, that he is concerned the decision was made without the Obama’s knowledge and as a form of manipulation by the Cuban government and that as a citizen of a free nation he feels a duty to bring the matter to the attention of the most powerful man on Earth.
Here is the full text of the letter.
Dear Mr. President:
A few months ago, the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute informed me that they had proposed that I participate in International Jazz Day, an event organized by UNESCO that will take place at the White House on April 30th, and will have you, Mr. President, and First Lady Michelle Obama, as hosts. This concert will feature many loved and admired colleagues of mine such as Chick Corea, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Heath, Dave Holland, Al Jarreau, Diana Krall, Christian McBride, John McLaughlin, Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Sting, and even my former Cuba-based colleague Chucho Valdés. I was delighted and put the rehearsal schedule and dates on my calendar.
I regarded this invitation as recognition of my contribution to American culture that, throughout the years, has earned me the appointment as NEA Jazz Master, honorary doctorates from Berklee School of Music and University of Pennsylvania, , Kennedy Center Living Jazz Legend, and the Presidential Medal of the Arts, among other awards. So imagine my surprise when, a couple of days ago, I received a phone call from the Monk Institute informing me, without any further details, that my participation did not pass the vetting process by the White House. That is all the information that was given.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article72870942.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.incubatoday.com/news/article72866232.html
THE CASTRO OLIGARCHY HARD AT WORK MAKING MONEY THRU EXTORTION AS USUAL! — MIAMI HERALD: Usher, Smokey Robinson in Cuba for some cultural diplomacy, but U.S. consumer beware – BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO
The Cuban government is still the same repressive host. Cuba’s arbitrary rules, and the no-refund policies of both Cuba and U.S.-based travel providers, make booking a trip to Cuba a gamble. In the latest move to retain its tight control on the island — and still collect dollars from a new wave of American travelers — the Cuban government is wholesaling visas. The visas, however, don’t guarantee entry. Some Americans experience no problems. But some visa-holders are arriving in Havana and, after spending hundreds of dollars on airfare and a visa, are being sent right back to Miami. But here’s what happened to Arturo Villar, the Miami publisher of Hispanic Market Works and a pro-engagement U.S. citizen born in Spain to a Cuban mother. His story is echoed by several other U.S. citizens of different backgrounds, and particularly pro-engagement Cuban Americans who’ve attempted to travel to Cuba recently.
“They insisted I buy an $85 visa along with the $349 round trip fare,” Villar told me. “I was happy thinking that it meant no trouble at the Jose Martí Airport. But of course I was wrong.”
He was taken aside and questioned by two Cuban agents regarding a story he had freelanced to the Wall Street Journal 23 years ago about the dollarization of Cuba. Villar, now 82, had been on a family visit then, when he found out that Fidel Castro was getting ready to make that significant move. His story was a scoop, well-regarded in the U.S. but taboo in Cuba.
As he discovered on Friday when he was put on a plane back to Miami five hours after landing, the Cuban government holds a grudge.
“It’s insulting and a backward move,” Villar said. “This opening is all a fairy tale. They do whatever they want without consequence. It’s terrible.”
Just as bad was the reaction of the U.S. company that sold him the visa and airfare: No refund, no explanation.
“I was told they are not liable for the actions of Cuban immigration,” Villar said. “They said the visa was mandatory. And then explained they get loads of them from Cuban immigration and sell them to their passengers. No questions asked. I asked if this was ethical or legal. And they gave me a Cuban smile that said, no me jodas. Don’t bug me. Is that a ripoff or what?”
It’s a ripoff — and the listed owner of Gulfstream, Ernesto González, didn’t return my call and message seeking comment.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article72723702.html#storylink=cpy
FOR THOSE WHO HOPE THAT THE CASTRO OLIGARCHY WILL LEAVE POWER WITH THIS NEW US-CUBA DEAL I HAVE SOME NEWS FOR YOU! IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN! HEAR THAT KING OBAMA!
WASHINGTON POST: Cuba’s aging leaders to remain in power years longer – By Michael Weissenstein
HAVANA — The former guerrilla fighters who founded Cuba’s single-party government will hold power for years to come after a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress kept President Raul Castro and his hardline deputy in the top leadership positions. Raul Castro, 84, said he would remain the party’s first secretary and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 85, would hold the post of second secretary for at least part of a second five-year term.
Castro currently is both president and party first secretary. The decision means he could hold a Communist Party position at least as powerful as the presidency even after he is presumably replaced by a younger president in 2018. Castro indicated that he and Machado may also step down before the next congress in 2021, saying this year’s session was the last to be led by Cuba’s revolutionary generation.
Despite the ascension of five younger party officials, including three women, to the party’s powerful 17-member Political Bureau, the day’s events disappointed many Cubans who had been hoping for bigger changes at the top of the single-party state.
“I would have liked younger people with fresh minds,” said Luis Lai, a 31-year-old printing-company worker. “The same party, but able to articulate ideas of people of my generation. Older people should retire.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/cubas-aging-leaders-to-remain-in-power-years-longer/2016/04/20/31a020e0-06ad-11e6-bfed-ef65dff5970d_story.html
ABC NEWS: Fidel Castro Gives Rare Speech Saying He’s Nearing the End – By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party’s highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command. That announcement and Fidel Castro’s speech together delivered a resounding message that the island’s revolutionary generation will remain in control even as its members age and die, relations with the U.S. are normalized, and popular dissatisfaction grows over the country’s economic performance. Fifty-five years after Fidel Castro declared that Cuba’s revolution was socialist and began installing a single-party system and centrally planned economy, the Cuban government is battling a deep crisis of credibility.
Limited openings to private enterprise have stalled, and the government describes capitalism as a threat even as it appears unable to increase productivity in Cuba’s inefficient, theft-plagued networks of state-run enterprises.
The Cuban government offered little unified response until the Communist Party’s Seventh Party Congress began Saturday, and one high-ranking official after another warned that the U.S. was still an enemy that wants to take control of Cuba. They said Obama’s trip represented an ideological “attack.”
That defensive stance was reinforced Tuesday as the congress ended and the government said Raul Castro, 84, would remain the party’s first secretary and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura would hold the post of second secretary for at least part of a second five-year term.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/state-media-fidel-castro-attends-cuban-communist-congress-38509273
LOOKS LIKE KING OBAMA GOT BITCH SLAPPED BY THE CASTRO QUEEN Raulina Castro AGAIN! GUESS THAT US-CUBA DEAL IS WORKING REAL WELL! WHAT AN NINCOMPOOP THIS OBAMA IS IN FOREIGN POLICY!
U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: Raul Castro will hold the Cuban Communist Party’s highest post for another five years alongside his hardline second-in-command – By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
HAVANA (AP) — Raul Castro will hold the Cuban Communist Party’s highest post for another five years alongside his hardline second-in-command, state media reported Tuesday, in a resounding message that the island’s aging revolutionary leaders will retain control in the face of detente with the United States and widespread popular dissatisfaction with the country’s economic performance. Government news sites said Castro, 84, would remain the party’s first secretary and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura would hold the post of second secretary for a second term. Castro currently is both president and first secretary. The decision means he will hold a position at least as powerful as the presidency even after stepping down from that post in 2018.
Machado Ventura, 85, is known as an enforcer of Communist orthodoxy and voice against some of the country’s biggest recent economic reforms.
Castro’s decision to remain in power alongside a man even he has criticized for rigidity capped a four-day meeting of the Communist Party notable for its secrecy and apparent lack of discussion about substantive new reforms to Cuba’s stagnant centrally planned economy. Even high-ranking government officials had speculated in the weeks leading up the Seventy Party Congress that Machado Ventura could be replaced by a younger face associated with free-market reforms started by Castro himself.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-04-19/state-media-raul-castro-retains-top-communist-party-post
ELECTIONS IN UNITED STATES…HOW A RIGHT WING AUTOCRACY HIDES BEHIND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS (IF WHAT WE HAVE IN THE UNITED STATES IS CALLED DEMOCRACY. WHAT THE CUBANS HAVE IT IS DEMOCRACY ALSO)
ANALYSIS
Understanding the American Presidential Nomination Process
There is growing controversy about the American presidential nomination process. While Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are firing up the voters’ imagination and winning primaries, it seems that Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are winning the majority of delegates. As a result, many people in America and the world are asking if elections count?
Yes, elections count. However, it’s important to understand the nomination process, which is a complex mix of traditional electioneering and behind closed doors deal making. And, although most years, it makes little difference, the current distrust of the establishment in Washington has highlighted the weaknesses of the system and the difficulty non-establishment candidates have.
The American presidential nomination process is nearly two hundred years old and reflects a time when delegates travelled miles on horseback to distant cities to pick a presidential candidate.
At that time, the lack of communications made the modern campaign impossible. As a result, delegates might go to a convention not even knowing who might even be interested in becoming president. The result was multiple ballots and scores of deals before a single candidate would emerge with the majority of votes.
Although modern communications made it easier for voters to follow potential candidates, the process of allowing the state party to pick the delegates without a primary continued until about 50 years ago. Although some states like New Hampshire did have primaries, most of the states still had their delegates picked by the party leadership. In most cases, they were not pledged to a single candidate or were supporters of a “Favorite Son” – a state politician, who could use his control of the state delegation to make deals with potential presidential candidates, before directing the delegates on how to vote.
The 1970s saw a boom in states holding primaries. This gave the voters more of a say in who the nominee was. In return, the delegates were sworn to support the winning candidate for a certain number of votes (usually only the first ballot, but some states require delegates to support the candidate winning in their state up to 3 ballots).
What this means is that a delegate may be sworn to vote for a candidate that he or she may not personally support. This is where the importance of state caucuses comes in.
And, this is where Donald Trump has made his mistake.
The difference between presidential primaries and delegate selection
On important fact that most people don’t realize is that state presidential primaries aren’t elections in the true sense of the word. They are controlled by the party and in most states, the party must actually pay the state government to hold the primary election. This gives the party the say over who may vote in the election (just voters of that specific party or independents and party voters). They also make up the rules to govern how the delegates will be awarded. And, since primary elections are costly, the party may even decide not to hold a primary and pick its delegates through the caucus process.
To show how this works in the US let’s look at a hypothetical state that is sending 50 delegates to a national convention.
The state can award delegates in several ways. One way is “winner take all,” where the winner of the primary gets all 50 delegates. Another way is awarding delegates in a manner that reflects the candidates’ percentage of the vote. Other states will award the state winner a number of delegates, while the winner in each congressional district may get 3 extra delegates.
For simplicity, let’s assume that this state awards all 50 delegates to the winner and all the delegates are required to vote for this candidate on the first ballot. After that, they are free to vote for whom they want.
Since most of the national conventions in recent history have been settled on the first vote, the delegates’ personal choice traditionally means little. However, this year, the actual delegate attending the Republican National Convention may actually mean something.
In this case, let’s assume that Trump won the state primary, but many of the members of the Republican Party in the state want Cruz. Although the delegation is pledged to vote for Trump on the first ballot, the Cruz supporters will want to get pro-Cruz delegates elected so they can vote for Cruz on the second ballot.
The key to getting pro-Cruz delegates takes place in small caucuses around the state. The Cruz campaign contacts Cruz supporters and encourages them to attend these meetings in order to vote for local pro-Cruz delegates that will attend the state convention.
This is where Cruz has been beating Trump, for while Trump is getting more votes in the primary election, Cruz has more active grassroots supporters attending the caucuses. This means that the state conventions frequently have more Cruz supporters attending than Trump supporters.
If the Cruz campaign has managed to get its supporters out to these meetings, the state convention could have a majority of Cruz supporters, even though the state voted for Trump. That allows them to elect a delegation of pro-Cruz delegates that are pledged to vote for Trump on the first ballot, but are free to vote for Cruz afterwards.
Although the obvious benefit is more votes for Cruz on the second ballot, there are several other benefits for the Cruz campaign. Each state picks some of its delegates for several critical committees at the convention, including the rules committee and the credential committee. These committees can craft the rules and procedures in such a way to benefit Cruz over Trump at the convention.
One example that has been discussed in challenging the credentials of Trump delegations at the convention. In this case, the credentials committee could find a minor rule violation by a state, which could be used to challenge the seating of the delegation. Then a new, pro-Cruz delegation could be seated, which would further guarantee a Cruz win.
However, such tactics could mean a pyrrhic victory for Cruz. Disenfranchised Trump supporters could very well be so angry that they would sit out the general election, allowing the Democratic candidate to win. This actually happened in 1972, when McGovern supporters successfully challenged the credentials of several delegations, which gave them a victory at the convention – only to be followed by a disastrous defeat in the general election.
In the end, this is the biggest factor for the Republicans. There are several ways to stop Trump at the convention, but the political cost could be high.
There is also the problem of Ted Cruz, who is also unpopular with many in the establishment Republican Party. While Cruz and Trump are fighting each other, they are both supported by voters who are upset with the current Republican leadership. If the fight at the convention becomes one of the establishment GOP versus the dissatisfied GOP voters, the establishment will lose.
In the meantime, a first ballot win by Trump remains the most likely outcome. This week, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted Republican presidential front-runner would more likely than not get the needed 1,237 delegates required to secure the GOP’s presidential nomination before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this July. And, knowing that some of his votes may disappear on the second vote will give Trump plenty of incentive to make a deal before the convention if he doesn’t reach 1,237. Obviously a Trump/Cruz ticket could win on the first ballot and depending on how many votes Trump goes to the convention with, picking Kasich or Rubio as the Vice Presidential candidate could put him over the top.
Of course, attitudes may change if polling shows that Trump has a good chance of winning in November. This week an NBC poll showed that Trump was only 2 points behind Clinton amongst registered voters. In addition, Karl Rove, his Crossroads PAC, and a pollster laid out swing state polling and electoral map analysis done by the group showing circumstances in which Trump could beat Clinton in a general election, according to three sources who spoke to the Politico.
If that is the beginning of a trend, Republicans who are now opposed to Trump may figure that winning with Trump is a better alternative than losing with one of their preferred candidates.
The Democratic Race and Super Delegates
While Trump and Cruz are fighting over who goes to the convention, the issue in the Democratic race is the number of super delegates – unelected delegates that are giving Clinton a large edge despite the number of primaries that Sanders is winning.
Super delegates are usually elected Democratic politicians that are automatically invited to the national convention. They were put into the Democratic National Convention rules in the 1970s in order to prevent someone like McGovern from winning the nomination. As such, they are more likely to support the establishment candidate.
This year, the super delegates are supporting Hillary Clinton by a large margin. This has given her a major advantage over Sanders and has meant that she has even won the majority of delegates from states that Sanders won.
The down side for Clinton is that these super delegates aren’t sworn to continue to support her. Should Sanders or another candidate look more promising, they could switch sides just as they defected from Clinton in 2008 for Obama.
The Republicans also have super delegates, but they represent a much smaller percentage of the convention. Each state delegation automatically includes the Republican state chairman and the two members of the Republican National Committee in the delegation. However, in most cases, they are pledged to support the same candidate that their state voted for in the primary.
The problem that the Democratic super delegates and the Republican delegate selection process pose for both parties is the massive dissatisfaction of voters this year. Although Trump and Sanders represent differing views, they both are seen as outsiders that are fighting the Washington establishment. Using super delegates or delegate selection rules to push these two candidates out is a tactic that could cost the two parties dearly in upcoming elections and destroy Americans’ faith in the election process.
THOSE WONDERFUL US/CUBA PEOPLE TO PEOPLE (in this case Cuban spies) PROGRAMS THAT KING OBAMA PUT IN PLACE!
CUBAN EXILE QUARTER: Spies in the Ointment: Downside of going to Cuba to get “A Revolutionary Perspective on Education” -Florida International University and The University of New Mexico are organizing a 9-day trip to Cuba in what they say is a “people to people program” that will “focus on educational practice and philosophy on the island.”
A word of caution to participants that during their stay in Cuba they are at the mercy of the Cuban intelligence service and sadly Florida International University in the past has not been a reliable partner for visiting groups. Psychology professor Carlos Alvarez who was the associate professor for educational leadership and policy studies, and his wife Elsa Alvarez, counselor for the psychological services department at Florida International University were arrested by the FBI on January 6, 2006. Professor Alvarez conducted trips to Cuba with young professionals in the late 1990s in what was billed a conflict resolution project. Alvarez was sentenced to five years in prison and his wife to three years in prison on February
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2016/04/fiu-and-unms-potemkin-village-visit-to.html
Panama Papers: Venezuela to freeze assets in offshore accounts leaks probe – Venezuelans whose names have appeared in connection to the leak include a former top military officer, a former state oil company official and a security official who worked at the presidential palace during the administration of the late President Hugo Chavez.
President Nicolas Maduro asked Ortega to investigate last week.
Venezuela is reportedly mentioned in 241,000 of the 11.5 million leaked documents. But as the country grapples with a severe economic crisis and worsening political gridlock, the leak has not made much of an impact on the public consciousness.
Venezuelans have less faith in the incorruptibility of their government than any other South American country, according to the watchdog group Transparency International.
Venezuela’s socialist administration has for years been dogged by allegations that officials are stealing money from public coffers.
Last year, the country asked foreign governments to share information about large offshore bank deposits amid a spate of reports that $2 billion was siphoned off by corrupt, top-level officials at state-run oil company PDVSA.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-04-12/world-news/Panama-Papers-Venezuela-to-freeze-assets-in-offshore-accounts-leaks-probe-6736156190
BOOK : FIDEL CASTRO’S AGRICULTURAL FOLLIES: ABSURDITY, WASTE AND PARASITISM – by José Álvarez
Using the agricultural sector as the analytical framework, the book «Fidel Castro’s agricultural follies: absurdity, waste and parasitism» by José Álvarez evaluates Castro’s absolute power in decision-making.
PRLog – Oct. 1, 2014 – WELLINGTON, Fla. — Contrary to what the title implies, this book is not about agriculture; rather, the author uses examples from agriculture to make the point that Fidel Castro is a delusional fool, a modern Don Quixote, who has “sunk Cuba into a sea” of misery and despair.
Agriculture in this book is loosely defined. Can one say that building a room where only the heads of cows are exposed to air conditioning so as to increase their milk production is an agricultural activity? Can one claim that a single cow can provide milk for thousands of people? In fact, one must forgive the reader who concludes that the follies described in this book are the fictional musings of the author. They are not; these follies actually took place and they are very well documented.
It has been said that the problem with a socialist economy is that the leaders eventually run out of other people’s money. However, time and again, as shown in the book, the Castro brothers have managed to find the money to subsidize Fidel’s follies. By theft, charity and defaulted debt, they have kept their failing socialist experiment afloat for over fifty years.
The time has come to evaluate Castro’s performance in the economic field. On July 31, 2006 Vice-President Raúl Castro assumed the duties of President of Cuba’s Council of State in a temporary transfer of power due to Fidel Castro’s illness. On February 24, 2008 the National Assembly of People’s Power unanimously chose General Raúl Castro as his brother’s permanent successor. Although Fidel Castro has partially recovered, he will not resume his former duties. His complete control over the economy in general, and the agricultural sector in particular, during nearly fifty years ended with his illness.
The book contains 12 chapters (under three parts: absurdity, waste and parasitism), an appendix and an afterword. Additional materials have been placed on a website devoted exclusively to the book
http://www.cubanquixote.com/?page_id=146
Analysis of the Panama Papers. The reason for the scandal was created on purpose. The United States has become the tax safe haven for every corporation in the World.
The U.S. doesn’t follow a lot of the international standards, and because of its political power, it’s able to continue,” said Bruce Zagaris an attorney at Berliner Corcoran & Rowe LLP who specializes in international tax and money laundering regulations. “It’s basically the only country that can continue to do that. Others like Panama have tried, but Panama can’t punch as high as the U.S.”
Meanwhile, advisers around the world are increasingly using the US resistance to the OECD’s standards as a marketing tool – attracting overseas money to U.S. state-level tax and secrecy havens like Nevada and South Dakota, potentially keeping it hidden from their home governments.
One of the reasons for this is purely economic. The US runs a trade deficit and by allowing “no questions asked” banking, it allows the US to repatriate dollars from overseas.
According to Bloomberg, Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado casinos. It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.
For financial advisers, the current situation is simply a good business opportunity. Geneva-based Cisa Trust Co. SA, which advises wealthy Latin Americans, is applying to open in Pierre, South Dakota, to “serve the needs of our foreign clients,” said John J. Ryan Jr., Cisa’s president.
Trident Trust Co., one of the world’s biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland, Grand Cayman, and other locales and into Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in December, ahead of a Jan. 1, 2016 disclosure deadline.
The result is that money is welcome in the U.S., no questions asked, to be shielded by the most impenetrable tax secrecy available anywhere on the planet.
The irony hasn’t been lost on others. Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, wrote in a recent legal journal, “How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour…That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”
Ignoring International Standards – Who is Guilty?
Ironically, it is the Obama administration and the former Secretary of State Clinton that are responsible for this situation. Obama pushed the trade deal with Panama which allowed the tax evasion revealed by the Panama Papers to flourish. The Huffington Post reported in 2011:
“Obama is also urging Congress to approve a trade agreement that would cement a key tax avoidance tactic deployed by some of the richest Americans. Obama urged Congress approve three trade deals, including one with Panama that would permit Americans to easily stash assets in the Central American country, a notorious tax haven for the wealthy and American corporations.”
Since trade deal negotiations with other countries are overseen by the Department of State, the current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is closely tied to the current situation. The International Business Times reported, “Soon after taking office in 2009, Obama and his secretary of state [Hillary Clinton] — who is currently the Democratic presidential front-runner — began pushing for the passage of stalled free trade agreements (FTAs) with Panama, Colombia and South Korea that opponents said would make it more difficult to crack down on Panama’s very low income tax rate, banking secrecy laws and history of noncooperation with foreign partners.”
Upon Congress ratifying the pact, Clinton issued a statement lauding the agreement, saying it “will make it easier for American companies to sell their products.” She added: “The Obama administration is constantly working to deepen our economic engagement throughout the world, and these agreements are an example of that commitment.”
In what may very well become a campaign issue in the next few weeks, Bernie Sanders opposed the tax evasion deal with Panama, and prophetically warned in 2011, “Panama’s entire annual economic output is only $26.7 billion a year, or about two-tenths of 1 percent of the U.S. economy. No one can legitimately make the claim that approving this free trade agreement will significantly increase American jobs. Then, why would we be considering a stand-alone free trade agreement with Panama, tiny little country?”
Sanders continued, “Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens. And the Panama free trade agreement will make this bad situation much worse. Each and every year, the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations evade about $100 billion in U.S. taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and in other countries.”
This raises the troubling question of which Americans are avoiding taxes in Panama and why aren’t they mentioned in the leaked documents? Some think that there may be rich political contributors on the list, or even administration officials.
It’s a complicated issue. There are at least 200 scanned individual U.S. passports. Some appear to be American retirees purchasing real estate in places like Costa Rica and Panama. Also in the database, about 3,500 shareholders of offshore companies who list U.S. addresses. And almost 3,100 companies are tied to offshore professionals based in Miami, New York, and other parts of the United States.
Further complicating matters, some U.S. citizens enjoy dual citizenship and open accounts under foreign passports.
There is also a Clinton connection. Among those companies is the Russian Sberbank, whose U.S. investment banking branch recently enlisted the services of the Podesta Group. According to its lobbying registration form, the firm will work on banking, trade, and foreign relations issues. One of the three lobbyists working on the account is Tony Podesta, a bundler for the Clinton campaign and the brother of campaign chairman John Podesta, who co-founded the firm.
However, it is clear that some criminals were actively using Panama. Among the people that the news group McClatchy found:
Robert Miracle. He was indicted for a $65-million Seattle-area Ponzi scheme involving investment in Indonesian oilfields.
Benjamin Wey, who is president of New York Global Group. He was indicted last year, along with his Swiss banker, Seref Dogan Erbek, on securities fraud charges.
Some managed to avoid more serious charges by paying serious fines. Anthony J. Gumbiner, chairman of Hallwood Group Inc. He settled an insider trading case in 1996 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, paying $1.7 million in penalties at the time.
There was also Florida billionaire Igor Olenicoff, who raised a national stir in 2007 after being sentenced to just two years of probation for tax evasion. He paid a $52 million fine after not declaring more than $200 million in offshore shell companies.
Given the willingness of federal prosecutors to settle for fines, there is reason to believe that some of these people have considerable political pull. That being the case, it’s easy to understand why some of the names have been left out.
It is now being projected that global demand for food will more than double over the next 50 years. Right now there are over 6 billion people on earth. Around 2040 or so there will be 9 billion people on earth. By the 2060s, there would be over 11 billion people on earth. So where in the world are we going to get the food to feed all of those people?
A global food shortage is coming. There is no possible way that the world can produce enough food for that many people under the current system.
Already 1 billion people in the world go to bed hungry every single night.
Already somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds and 3/4 of them are children under the age of 5.
Already approximately a third of all children in the world under the age of five suffer from serious malnutrition.
And the bad news is that the world simply does not have enough water to grow much more food.
Just consider the following quote from IWMI director general Colin Chartres….
“Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years time, by when the current food crisis may turn into a perpetual crisis.”
Not only that, but because of overfarming and pollution, we are rapidly losing farm land. Today almost 25% of the world’s farm land is affected by serious environmental degradation. That is up from 15% two decades ago.
In some of the biggest countries in the world the environmental situation is absolutely nightmarish.
For example, it is estimated by authorities that 75 percent of India’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste. The truth is that there is over a billion people in India, but sanitation is still only just starting to be developed in many areas. So many people there just “use the toilet” wherever they can. In fact, according to a UN study on sanitation, far more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet.
But it just isn’t places like India where rampant environmental degradation is a problem.
It is happening in the United States too.
It turns out that many big American cattle farms actually feed chicken manure to cattle because it is so inexpensive and because we produce far too much of it to properly dispose of as fertilizer.
So are you eating beef that is from cattle that were fed chicken manure every day?
How would you know?
Not only that, but the world cannot get much more food out of the oceans either. 29 percent of world fisheries are in a state of collapse according to Canadian scientist Boris Worm, and in the years ahead the world fishing industry may actually produce less food rather than more food.
But much more food will be needed in the years ahead.
The really sad thing is that we waste so much food right now. In developed countries we throw away anywhere from one-third to one-half of all food produced.
Considering the fact that so many people in the world are suffering from a lack of food, that is absolutely criminal.
In the years ahead we won’t be wasting that much food. That is for certain. We will look back on these days when there was plenty of food with longing. These are still good times. Even though the world economy is starting to spin out of control, the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet. A devastating world economic collapse is on the way, and a global food shortage will follow shortly thereafter.
– See more at: http://theemergencyfoodsupply.com/archives/the-coming-global-food-shortage#sthash.5hedezmp.dpuf
Society looked the other way as dairy farmers struggled to hang on to herds of a couple hundred cows and maintain their lifestyle. It looked the other way again when small hog farmers were buried under 9 cent hogs, a price that meant ham alone brought twice what the whole pig cost. Some farmers gave hogs away as it would cost them to sell or keep them.
This eliminated many alternatives for our food. While we see now that with oil those who have it can, will, and do dictate the price people do not see the flashing neon sign that our food supply is in the same situation. Indeed, consumers are for the most part so unaware of it that they continue to purchase on cost, generating revenue for the handful of corporate entities that hold the majority of our food supply.
Archer Daniels Midland – ADM – bills itself as “supermarket to the world” and had a 67% increase in profits while Cargill – resented by small farmers the world over – had an 86% profit increase.
Most consumers have no idea what some ingredients in their products really are.
For example, sorbitol is a hydrogenated sugar alcohol derived from corn, which is used in sugarless gums and candy, as well as being an ingredient in polyurethane.
As one of the largest processors of oil seed, ADM produces soybean powder and meal for human and animal use. Extracted from that is a crude oil used not only for edible oils, vegetable oils and lecithin, but also for industrial oil, biodiesel, and polymers.
Cargill – enjoying record profits – has its hands in baked goods, cereals, beverages from alcohol to soft drinks to fruit drinks, candy and chocolate, dairy, health and organic (think sports drinks, vitamins!), meat and poultry, pharmaceuticals, prepared foods (condiments, jams/jellies, side and main dish mixes, puddings, sauces and much more) and snack foods. You won’t see “Cargill” on grocery store shelves openly labeled just like you won’t see the other majority players, but it’s there and much of what you eat comes from them.
Rest assured when it comes to maintaining those record profits that they will have that in mind before those too poor to buy their foods. Cotton farmers in India, pushed out by Monsanto cotton, have committed suicide at the prospect of losing their livelihood, and farmers in many other countries do not even want them as neighbors. If it comes to their finances or yours – theirs will take precedence. Monsanto and Cargill each own 50% of a company that markets genetically engineered foods worldwide.
Monsanto eagerly pushes farmers into courtrooms where a small farmer has no chance of winning, whether or not they’ve ever planted their seed. One farmer was held accountable for planting their genetic altered seed on land he didn’t even own – which made no difference in the courtroom. Absolute power corrupts absolutely is an appropriate adage to describe what’s happening.
With these corporations holding the vast majority of our food supply…what happens when they raise prices and demand more profits? We can do without fuel – but we cannot do without food. Unfortunately, the headlights are approaching and American consumers don’t have a clue to move off the road.
Corporate America exists for one thing – profit. They might give a token amount for charities but profit comes before anything. Lower costs drive the ‘reasons’ for GMO products, which most people don’t want to eat and farmers don’t want near their fields.
If your checkbook is drained and they’re showing record profits do you think they will barter with you as small farmers will? Do you think they will feel sorry and say “here’s groceries until you get on your feet? Not going to happen – it cuts into their profit. Farmers have seen it – consumers don’t and are unaware of it.
And THAT takes food shortages to a whole different level.
As the executive director of Food & Water Watch, Wenonah Hauter is one of the nation’s leading healthy food advocates. In her new book, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, she contends that the local food movement is not enough to solve America’s food crisis and the public health debacle
it has created—instead, Hauter takes aim at the real culprit: the massive consolidation and corporate control of food production, which prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.
Hauter has gathered statistics and stories to back her argument that the United States is in a food crisis, caused by government deregulation and by consolidation and control of the food supply by a small number of powerful corporations. She delves deeply into the many deep structural problems with our food system and makes the
case that it will take political action to reform it. Through meticulous research, Hauter presents a shocking account of how agricultural policy has been hijacked by lobbyists, driving out independent farmers and food processors in favor of the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Kraft, and ConAgra. Not only has deregulation and the weakening of antitrust laws led to a significant reduction of competition, it has failed to allow the consumer to benefit from the economies of scale achieved by larger production facilities. The surviving firms have used their wealth to capture the political system in order to rewrite the regulations for their benefit and have persuaded governments to subsidize their irrigation costs with publicly funded water projects; successfully pushed for the enactment of the Cuban sugar tariff, which directly led to high-fructose corn syrup becoming the sweetener of choice; and weakened oversight by federal bureaucracies, preventing the USDA from testing meat for contamination before and during processing.
THE FASCIST, VIOLENT TACTICS OF THE CASTRO OLIGARCHY THUGS AGAINST THE PEACEFUL PROTESTORS “LADIES IN WHITE” — YOUTUBE: Momentos represion contra #TodosMarchamos y golpe en la cabeza de Berta Soler
AFTER BENDING OVER (with no lube), KING OBAMA GETS BITCH SLAPPED AGAIN BY THE CASTRO OLIGARCHY! HOW EMBARRASSING!
REUTERS: Cuba calls Obama visit ‘an attack’ as Communists defend ideology – U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Communist-led Cuba was an “attack” on its history and culture aimed at misleading a new business class, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on Monday, the latest sign of blow-back after the ground-breaking trip last month. “In this visit, there was a deep attack on our ideas, our history, our culture and our symbols,” Rodriguez said at the Communist Party congress. Cuban leaders have hardened language against the United States since Obama became the first U.S. president to visit the island in 88 years, with Fidel Castro accusing him of sweet-talking the people.
President Raul Castro referred to the United States as “the enemy” in the opening speech of the party congress over the weekend and told Cubans to be alert to U.S. attempts to weaken the revolution.
The congress, held every five years, must make decisions about the future of Cuba’s elderly leadership and the progress of market-style economic reforms adopted in 2011 that allowed more small businesses.
The measures have been only partially implemented, amid resistance from hard-liners who distrust market economics and fear detente with the United States at a time when Cubans are increasingly vocal about their needs.
“The harsh rhetorical push-back by the ideological wing of the Communist Party suggests their heightened sense of vulnerability,” said Richard Feinberg, a former national security adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Rodriguez accused Obama of coming to “dazzle” the private sector, highlighting concern U.S. promises to empower Cuban entrepreneurs were aimed at building opposition to the single-party system in office since 1959.
“Socialism and the Cuban revolution are the guarantees that there can be a non-state sector that is not that of big North American companies,” he told state television.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-idUSKCN0XF2A0
THESE 4 COMPANIES CONTROL MOST OF THE FOOD MARKET IN THE UNITED STATES. WE JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THE PANAMA PAPERS AND HOW 300,000 CORPORATIONS STOLE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. AMERICAN COMPANIES DID NOT PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES TO THE TUNE OF CLOSE TO $40 BILLION DOLLARS. IN THE U.S. WE NEED $85000 PER PERSON PER YEAR TO CREATE ONE JOB FOR A YEAR (DO THE MATH IS SEE HOW CORPORATISM EXPLOIT THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD) CAPITALISM IS NOT SUSTAINABLE AND MUST BE DISMANTLED. LET’S PUT AN END TO THE EXPLOITATION OF MAN BY MAN
Kraft foods controls 22 categories of food in the U.S..
PepsiCo controls 20 categories of food in the U.S.
Con Agra controls 19 categories of food in the U.S.
Nestle controls 19 categories of food in the U.S.
CORPORATISM RUNNING AMERICAN LIVES (AND THE GOVERNMENT)
Executive Summary
Groceries are big business, with Americans spending
$603 billion on grocery products in 2012.1 Big-box food
retailers like Walmart and national grocery store chains
now dominate the grocery industry. These mega-retailers
are the biggest buyers of grocery products, and they
exert tremendous power over food companies and
ultimately farmers. This has led to a handful of food
companies producing the majority of the products in the
supermarket.
This growing consolidation of the food supply is severe
at every step of the food chain, from farm to fork. And
it impacts not only farmers and food manufacturers, but
also consumers in the form of reduced consumer choices
and higher grocery prices. Since the Great Recession
started, grocery food prices rose more quickly than inflation
and wages — twice as fast between 2010 and 2012.2
At the same time, the largest food, beverage and grocery
retail companies pocketed $77 billion in profits in 2012.3
Nationally, the growing size and market power of the top
grocery retailers has had tremendous ripple effects across
the food chain. Food & Water Watch examined 100 types
of grocery products and found that the top few companies
dominated the sales of each grocery item in recent
years.
Key Findings:
In 2012, more than half of the money that Americans
spent on groceries (53.6 percent) went to the
four largest retailers: Walmart, Kroger, Target and
Safeway.4 Walmart alone sold nearly a third (28.8
percent) of all groceries in 2012.5
The top companies controlled an average of 63.3
percent of the sales of 100 types of groceries (known
as categories in industry jargon). In 32 of the grocery
categories, four or fewer companies controlled at
least 75 percent of the sales. In six categories, the top
companies had more than 90 percent of the sales,
including baby formula and microwave dinners.
Many firms sell multiple brands of the same product,
which leads consumers to believe that they are
choosing among competitors when they are actually
just choosing among products made by the same
firm that may have been made at the same factory.
This is true across the board, including organic and
healthful brands typically seen as independent, but
which are being bought up by large food companies
unbeknownst to consumers.
Supermarkets engage in a host of strategies to
manipulate the shopping experience, encouraging
consumers to make impulse and more expensive
purchases that are unknown to consumers.
Regulators have largely left mega-retailers to operate
unchecked as they invented new ways to extract
value from consumers and even large food processors.
It is time for regulators to step in to protect
consumers and restore some semblance of competition
for consumers in grocery stores, providing a
chance for innovative, small or local food companies
to get on store shelves.
IN THE U.S. CORPORATISM TELLS US WHAT TO DRINK OR EAT. THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A COUNTRY OF THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE IS A COUNTRY OF THE RICH FOR THE RICH
Think you’re a savvy grocery shopper? Do the thousands of products from different brands give you all the choice you need? Turns out the average grocery store doesn’t have nearly as many choices as you think:
•The top companies controlled an average of 62.8% of the sales of 100 types of groceries. In 30 categories, four or fewer companies controlled at least 75% of the sales. In six categories, the top companies sold more than 90% of the category sales, including baby formula and microwave dinners.
•Many firms sell multiple brands of the same product, which leads consumers to believe they are choosing among competitors when they are actually just choosing among products made by the same firm – that may have been made at the same factory.
•It’s even true for organic and healthful brands, which are increasingly being bought up by large food companies. For example, Kellogg’s owns both Kashi and Bear Naked brands, even though their packaging and websites make them seem independent.
When just a handful of companies make most of our food, consumers, farmers, and small food companies lose out
I CAN GET MILK IN L.A. FOR UNDER $3.00, CHICKEN FOR $3/LBS
NUMBEO COST OF LIVING IN CUBA: Numbeo is the world’s largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution. – 1,744,983 prices in 5,229 cities entered by 221,114 users (information updated 2015-05-14)
DATA FOR THE FOLLOWING:
Restaurants
Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant $5.00
Meal for 2 People, Mid-range Restaurant, Three-course $15.00
Milk (regular), (1 gallon) $5.30
Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1 lb) $1.61
Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment $5.95
Average Monthly Disposable Salary (After Tax) $24.11
These data are based on 412 entries in the past 18 months from 44 different contributors.
CLICK LINK FOR MORE INFORMATION
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Cuba
FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH! MAYBE KING OBAMA SHOULD LISTEN!
FOX NEWS LATINO : Dissident Cuban rapper now in U.S. says Castro government will never change – April 16, 2016
Dissident Cuban rapper Angel Yunier Rendon, a.k.a. “El Critico,” who took part in the meeting of U.S. President Barack Obama with members of the opposition in Cuba, is now in Miami as a political refugee. Yunier, 29, left Cuba on March 31 headed for Miami, where he will live with his wife and son after taking advantage of a program for political exiles in the United States, he told EFE. Jailed for almost two years in 2013 for the offense of “attacking state security,” the rapper seemed very pessimistic about the possibility of a transition in Cuba as long as “Castro-communism” rules the island.
“Never, never, while there is a Castro regime, will there be a change in human rights. The Cuban government will not change nor will it allow a political opening,” Yunier said categorically.
He said he “didn’t wish to leave Cuba but was forced to leave” by the constant harassment that he and his family suffered on the island, and the pressure of rocks being thrown at him and blackouts in his neighborhood.
“I also come to the United States because of the isolation I’ve been subjected to among the Cuban population, the impossibility of growing as a human being. I can’t work, I don’t have money and my family is suffering,” he said.
Yunier is on the list of the 53 political prisoners freed by the Cuban government following the announcement of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba in December 2014
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2016/04/15/dissident-cuban-rapper-now-in-us-says-castro-government-will-never-change/
FOOD PRICES IN CHICAGO
Food Prices in Chicago, IL, United States: We need about $400.00/month per person.
Recommended Minimum Amount of Money for food (2400 calories, Western food types)
Milk (regular), (0.25 liter) 0.22 $
Loaf of Fresh White Bread (125.00 g) 0.72 $
Rice (white), (0.10 kg) 0.41 $
Eggs (2.40) 0.59 $
Local Cheese (0.10 kg) 1.27 $
Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (0.15 kg) 1.75 $
Beef Round (0.15 kg) (or Equivalent Back Leg Red Meat) 2.25 $
Apples (0.30 kg) 1.19 $
Banana (0.25 kg) 0.37 $
Oranges (0.30 kg) 1.25 $
Tomato (0.20 kg) 0.80 $
Potato (0.20 kg) 0.51 $
Onion (0.10 kg) 0.30 $
Lettuce (0.20 head) 0.31 $
Daily recommended minimum amount of money for food per person 11.94 $
Monthly recommended minimum amount of money for food per person
(assuming 31 days per month) 370.11 $
Distribution of food expenses in Chicago, IL using ourWestern food types modelMilkLoaf of Fresh White…RiceEggsLocal CheeseChicken BreastsBeef RoundApplesBananaOrangesTomato1/26%10.6%14.7%6.7%10.5%10%18.8%
Milk 0.22
Loaf of Fresh White Bread 0.72
Rice 0.41
Eggs 0.59
Local Cheese 1.27
Chicken Breasts 1.75
Beef Round 2.25
Apples 1.19
Banana 0.37
Oranges 1.25
Tomato 0.8
Potato 0.51
Onion 0.3
Lettuce 0.31
Recommended Minimum Amount of Money for food (2400 calories, Asian food types)
Loaf of Fresh White Bread (50.00 g) 0.29 $
Rice (white), (0.25 kg) 1.02 $
Eggs (2.40) 0.59 $
Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (0.20 kg) 2.33 $
Beef Round (0.10 kg) (or Equivalent Back Leg Red Meat) 1.50 $
Apples (0.25 kg) 0.99 $
Banana (0.25 kg) 0.37 $
Oranges (0.15 kg) 0.62 $
Tomato (0.20 kg) 0.80 $
Potato (0.20 kg) 0.51 $
Onion (0.10 kg) 0.30 $
Lettuce (0.10 head) 0.15 $
Daily recommended minimum amount of money for food per person 9.49 $
Monthly recommended minimum amount of money for food per person
(assuming 31 days per month) 294.23 $
Distribution of food expenses in Chicago, IL using our Asianfood types modelLoaf of Fresh WhiteBreadRiceEggsChicken BreastsBeef RoundApplesBananaOrangesTomatoPotatoOnionLettuce10.8%6.2%24.6%8.4%6.5%10.5%15.8%
Loaf of Fresh White Bread 0.29
Rice 1.02
Eggs 0.59
Chicken Breasts 2.33
Beef Round 1.5
Apples 0.99
Banana 0.37
Oranges 0.62
Tomato 0.8
Potato 0.51
Onion 0.3
Lettuce 0.15
Food prices from our Cost of Living Section Avg. Range
Milk (regular), (1 gallon) 3.28 $ 2.50-4.00
Loaf of Fresh White Bread (1 lb) 2.63 $ 2.00-3.50
Rice (white), (1 lb) 1.86 $ 1.00-3.00
Eggs (12) 2.96 $ 2.00-3.50
Local Cheese (1 lb) 5.76 $ 3.99-8.50
Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1 lb) 5.29 $ 3.79-7.00
Beef Round (1 lb) (or Equivalent Back Leg Red Meat) 6.79 $ 5.00-10.00
Apples (1 lb) 1.80 $ 1.00-2.50
Banana (1 lb) 0.68 $ 0.40-1.00
Oranges (1 lb) 1.89 $ 1.00-2.79
Tomato (1 lb) 1.81 $ 1.00-2.50
Potato (1 lb) 1.17 $ 0.75-2.00
Onion (1 lb) 1.35 $ 1.00-2.00
Lettuce (1 head) 1.54 $ 1.00-2.50