Posted by: McQ on Friday, May 18, 2007 Kate Connally tries to put a happy face on her article on Cuba and how swimmingly it is going there since a 500 million dollar deal with Germany. But while you can put lipstick on a pig, in the end, it's still a pig. Some examples in which the pig shines through: "We've been asked to send 808 pumps to help the country's infrastructure get on its feet," he tells an audience at Munich's chamber of trade and industry (IHK), noting the dearth of clean drinking water for the Caribbean island's 11.4 million inhabitants.Clean drinking water. A regime that's been in place for 50 years still hasn't managed that? Mr Lang's firm, Wilo-EMU, represents one of hundreds of companies in this most capitalist of German states that have agreed to help communist Cuba's command economy, which, despite the United State's embargo, has of late found a new lease of life, largely thanks to help from Venezuela and China.Or said another way, without outside help in massive doses, Cuba's command economy would go under rather quickly. All you have to do is survey it's rotting infrastructure to see that. And the "United State's embargo" is largely a smoke screen used to excuse socialism's failure in Cuba. In reality, it has little if any real effect. As far as the Cubans are concerned, Bavarians have proven themselves to be loyal participants in the revolution. By improving infrastructure they are helping to put socialism on a solid footing for the post-Castro generation.Or said another and more realistic way, it props up the teetering facade for a few more years, but does nothing to really strengthen the foundation (despite the claim), because socialism is built on a foundation of ideological and economic sand and there isn't a thing they can do to change that. The most delicious part of the deal for Bavarian traditionalists is the request for the luxury carmaker BMW to provide all of Cuba's ambassadors with its Series 1, 3 and 5 models. Even Raúl Castro, who is standing in for his sick brother, is to get a Series 5 car.Meanwhile the elite get the usual best stuff in wonderfully egalitarian Cuba. Raul cruises in his Series 5 BMW while the peons take the 1950 DeSoto to work. And as Fred Thompson pointed out recently, anyone except Michael Moore, knows that Cuba certainly isn't anywhere near a free country: Cooperation is not without risks. The European Union has frowned on dealing with Cuba since Mr Castro's arrest four years ago of 90 critics of his regime and the US is quick to punish firms that break its embargo. German companies with US subsidiaries, or which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, have had to set up in places such as Egypt.[Notice how effective the embargo is? Heh ... you go to Egypt, you set up a dummy company and everything to do with the embargo is ignored. The embargo is pro forma now.] Oh and I loved this: But Mr Castro's illness has slowed the cooperation. "We noticed when he was ill that payment process was much more sluggish," says Mr Mey of MAN. "The power vacuum has been obvious."Really? Have the goodies been delivered already? Heh ... well look for it to get even more sluggish, Castro or no Castro. Sometimes "businessmen" amaze me. They'd sell you the rope with which to hang them if the price was right. That's not the case here, but you have to wonder what they expected when the dealt with a country that has so impoverished itself over the years that the last BMW seen there was made in the '50s. |
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