From the Ground Up, Cuba Is Crumbling
from an LA Times story:
[Cuban] homes are also in a sad state, with at least 500 buildings in the capital collapsing each year, by the government's own count. Their utilities are decrepit too: Water and power distribution systems are corroded patchworks predating the 1959 revolution, and olfactory evidence of the state of the sewer system wafts throughout the city.
Cuba is falling apart -- literally.
Even as its economy booms thanks to a thriving tourism industry, brisk nickel exports and cheap oil from ideologically aligned Venezuela, the social benefits are difficult to see at street level. Except for a few high-profile historical restoration projects such as the Art Deco buildings of Old Havana, the country's structural decay seems to worsen with each month.
"It's not a question of repairing anymore. Everything needs to be rebuilt," says Julio, a construction worker who spends more time as an unlicensed cabdriver than on state building sites. "There is no material and no money to buy it, so nothing has been maintained."
buildings crumble under their own
weight in Havana
welcome to the desert of the real ...
some layers here:
no one can take care of a building like its owner (no one can take care of ANYTHING like its owner). do away with private property, and you do away with the incentive to take care of property ... heck, it's not property any more, it's just stuff you use that doesn't belong to you.
when the government says it's going to take care of the people, it can't do it. it can't be everywhere at once; it can't get the resources to where they are needed. it does things arbitrarily, or myopically, by the book. at best, it solves some of the problems some of the time. at worst (as in Cuba) it solves nothing all the time.
without a market system, without supply and demand, consumers can't get what they want. building materials and building services should be in extremely high demand in Cuba. in a market economy, that need would be met (cause you can make a buck). in a controlled economy such as Cuba, no one steps in to take up the slack when the government fails to do so (as it will fail, sooner rather than later)
why are things falling apart in Cuba? because the Cuban government made a promise that it would take care of things. it couldn't keep that promise. rather than let others (private enterprise) step in and fill the demand, it makes such things illegal (so that it can keep the monopoly on services, keep the people looking to it for solutions, rather than to themselves and the market).
welcome to the desert of the real, Cubaland style
[Cuban] homes are also in a sad state, with at least 500 buildings in the capital collapsing each year, by the government's own count. Their utilities are decrepit too: Water and power distribution systems are corroded patchworks predating the 1959 revolution, and olfactory evidence of the state of the sewer system wafts throughout the city.
Cuba is falling apart -- literally.
Even as its economy booms thanks to a thriving tourism industry, brisk nickel exports and cheap oil from ideologically aligned Venezuela, the social benefits are difficult to see at street level. Except for a few high-profile historical restoration projects such as the Art Deco buildings of Old Havana, the country's structural decay seems to worsen with each month.
"It's not a question of repairing anymore. Everything needs to be rebuilt," says Julio, a construction worker who spends more time as an unlicensed cabdriver than on state building sites. "There is no material and no money to buy it, so nothing has been maintained."
buildings crumble under their own
weight in Havana
welcome to the desert of the real ...
some layers here:
no one can take care of a building like its owner (no one can take care of ANYTHING like its owner). do away with private property, and you do away with the incentive to take care of property ... heck, it's not property any more, it's just stuff you use that doesn't belong to you.
when the government says it's going to take care of the people, it can't do it. it can't be everywhere at once; it can't get the resources to where they are needed. it does things arbitrarily, or myopically, by the book. at best, it solves some of the problems some of the time. at worst (as in Cuba) it solves nothing all the time.
without a market system, without supply and demand, consumers can't get what they want. building materials and building services should be in extremely high demand in Cuba. in a market economy, that need would be met (cause you can make a buck). in a controlled economy such as Cuba, no one steps in to take up the slack when the government fails to do so (as it will fail, sooner rather than later)
why are things falling apart in Cuba? because the Cuban government made a promise that it would take care of things. it couldn't keep that promise. rather than let others (private enterprise) step in and fill the demand, it makes such things illegal (so that it can keep the monopoly on services, keep the people looking to it for solutions, rather than to themselves and the market).
welcome to the desert of the real, Cubaland style
posted by Yimboro | 3:37 PM
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