Photo by Ansalmo Juvaga
Spare a thought for the people of Cuba
The situation went from awful to something much worse.
They ran out of working electrical plants ten days ago, and endured blackouts lasting for four straight days, including one hurricane. Reports coming out suggest that though electricity is partly restored, it’s often only for four hours a day. Not surprisingly, the country is semi-paralyzed — schools are still closed and “labor services” are largely non-existent, apart from hospitals, funerals and efforts to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Oscar.
Soon they may run out of people. People were fleeing Cuba before things got this bad.
The big blackout began on Friday October 18th. In the next four days they restarted the grid three or four times only to have it crash again, and while power is sort of mostly restored the structural problems appear to be dire. Nothing really sums the state of the communist economy better than one line on Vox news which described the moment the big blackout began:
“Seven of the country’s eight thermoelectric plants, which generate power for the island, were not working or under maintenance prior to the Guiteras plant’s failure. So when the Guiteras plant shut down, there were no more energy sources.”
As if “seven out of eight” is not bad enough, there’s more. Cuba can’t get subsidized fuel anymore from Russia, Mexico or Venezuela, and they can’t afford to buy fuel at market prices. The economy is kaput. They don’t make many things that the world wants to buy, and tourism dried up with the pandemic.
It appears that either the only surviving plant suffered a malfunction, or the nation actually ran out of fuel, or both. Reuters is somewhat vague:
Cuba power grid: How it collapsed and what comes next
Reuters
Long-time ally Venezuela slashed fuel shipments to Cuba by half this year as it struggles to assure supply at home. Allies Russia and Mexico have also cut exports to Cuba, forcing the cash-strapped government to seek far pricer fuel on the spot market.
Life is tough. Generators were only able to power hospitals for emergency situations.
People are collecting wood in the streets so they can cook anything for dinner. Even before the blackout some 600,000 had no running water, and now that is worse. The BBC reports that some are now going hungry.
Predictably there are fears the exodus will grow
The word is that the government won’t let people protest the dire living conditions, but it will let them leave, so one million people have left in the last three years. (There go the dissidents, the ambitious, the motivated, and often the brightest). Since Cuba had a population of around ten million, effectively ten percent of the country left since 2021.
There are fears this will only increase:
Blackouts aren’t unusual in Cuba, but this one is different
Ellen Iones, Vox
This crisis could fuel a further exodus; an estimated 1 million Cubans have left the country in the past three years, the largest such migration in the country’s history. One Havana-based economist, Omar Everleny, told the New York Times he’s already starting to see a new wave of emigration: “Anyone who was thinking of leaving is now accelerating those plans. Now you’re hearing ‘I am going to sell my house and go.’”
Cuba Enters the Dark Ages
By Martin Gurri, The Free Press
This is not an exaggeration or a metaphor. The entire island went dark—even Havana, which has been protected from the worst of the recent blackouts. It was a civilizational breakdown. The economy quite literally ground to a halt, as factories and stores were ordered closed by the government. From elementary schools to universities, the educational system was put on pause. Hospitals turned people away. For three days, Cuba, already tattered and abused, entered a special circle of hell reserved for the most mismanaged nations on earth.
The material catastrophe is self-evident and can be measured empirically. The depth of human suffering is impossible to gauge from a distance. Without refrigeration, food—always hard to obtain—was spoiled. Mothers lacked milk for their children. Without fans or air conditioners, everyone, including the very young and the very old, was exposed to Cuba’s blistering temperatures. Without elevators, the old and the sick who lived in apartments were forced to sleep outdoors, in the heat and among the mosquitoes. Without traffic signals, venturing to the streets became a death-defying nightmare. Without light, the human mind itself begins to shut down—the Cuban public, frozen in place by an incompetent and antiquated regime, sank to almost metaphysical levels of hopelessness.
Bad governments can ruin a lot of lives:
People are angry. Online many people complain that the government built many fancy hotels for tourists, instead of fixing the electricity grid for the people.
Despite the crisis and the hurricane, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel somehow found the time to advise the citizens that “if they protest on the street they will be prosecuted”. He put on military garb and said the protestors were just drunks, as if sober people would not mind having no functional economy.
…
It’s hard to get stories out of Cuba but ex-pats or friends outside Cuba post opinions on Reddit and they are gloomy.
The problems in the Cuban grid have been decades in the making.
The eight power plants are largely crude fuel oil plants of about 400MW. In total, theoretically, they could generate 2,500MW. In actuality, they are badly built, badly maintained, and 30 to 40 years old. Power generation has declined by 25% in the last five years.
‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis
Ruaridh Nicoll in Havana, The Guardian
“It’s very hard to restart a power station,” said a retired engineer from Antonio Guiteras, who asked to remain anonymous. “You need to produce a lot of electricity just to get it going.”
Antonio Guiteras was built in 1989, and is now battered and obsolete. “The truth is that it was built rotten,” said the engineer. He told harrowing stories of working with faulty safety equipment, political management who would disappear when problems arose and a system long pushed to its limit.
“There was a scheduled maintenance programme, but it was never followed,” he said. “The requirements were too tight. We were told: ‘The factory has to produce, so patch it up.’”
Somehow, despite Cuba being almost a failed state, there are glorious plans to build 26 solar farms with a capacity of one gigawatt. As the Guardian tells it, China has offered the parts to make them, in return for access to Cuba’s nickel deposit. Though there are fears that the people who might have been able to build the solar plants have already left Cuba. What then?
The gigawatt of solar (if it even happens) will only provide about one third of existing demand at most, and will obviously only work in the middle of the day, and possibly not at all after the first hurricane. As Broken Hill, and Alice Springs know, when things are desperate, solar panels are not the answer. Baseload comes first.
If Cuba can’t get fuel oil, and get the grid functioning, surely food and water will run out, and people will be forced to make some very tough decisions.
If the grid can’t supply enough energy for the people, in the capitalist world the answer is “more grid” but in the communist world, it apparently means “less people”. In this case Cubans are “lucky” enough to be allowed (at the moment) to walk or swim away, but for how long?
h/t Chad and another ian.
h/t Tony Thomas one mega corrected to giga…
One hopes that Albo & Dimwit don’t hear this and go full ‘steam’ ahead.
Just what they are aiming for.
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The age cohorts of the leavers might be interesting. Likely young men and women with/without children. Next where have they gone? Venezuela and Cuba will not recover from their socialist pasts for many generations. Sad.
There was a US politician from New England in years gone by that was quite fond of Cuba. The name escapes me.
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My understanding is that Cubans are the only illegals that the (D)s don’t welcome into the US of A. Maybe something to do with not liking communism.
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They go to Florida.
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There was a Canadian PM quite fond of Cuba. Or was that his wife?
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That was the wife .
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…and Cubans, not Cuba
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Just ask her son
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The writing is on the wall, but will anyone read it?
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Blackout Bowen can read it on the wall when he is in the Slammer for crimes against Australia. Airbus Albo will be in the cell next to him.
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Socialism, have they run out of other peoples money.
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The only people to ever make communism work are the Jews. And apparently kubutz collected so much money many younger people decided to live in normal society with that money. So I heard anyway. But the commie Kubutz still continues in Israel. But the Cubans seem committed to the ideology themselves, or scared of the gun? I’d say the latter – as we saw in the UK recently.
The commie/socialist thread runs through all of Latin America. Its why some of them actually hate socialism quite passionately- Che Guevara is more popular in the west than Argentina – because they have to live with the constant threat of it – there’s often commie guerillas in the mountains.
But the socialism that pervades regular politics holds the entire continent at bay. I see little reason for South America not to be as wealthy as the west (except their heritage is the chaotic emotional Spaniards not skilled bureaucrats of economy and civility like the British.)
Milei(?) – the new President of Argentina – seems to be taking that on finally. I’ve been to Argentina a few times and it shares with Cuba it’s persistence of old cars, the Ford Falcon – the same one on our roads in the 60s. Same cause as Cuba, socialism.
But is Queensland more commie than Argentina? What Milei is doing is similar to what Campbell Newman did in Qld – cutting the bloated useless public service) and he was booted quickly. Beware, the socialist lies within and never learns from its gaping wounds, like Cuba!
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The Kibbutz movement was a form of voluntary collective living or socialism on a micro-scale dictated by the conditions of the time and the need for collective security (initially).
There is no problem with that as long as it’s strictly voluntary and doesn’t require any of my taxes. I think all people of a socialist persuasion should go and set up their own socialist communities, just don’t impose it on the rest of us.
I think today many kibbutzim run with privatised services and very few run according to the traditional “socialist” model. The pure socialist model just didn’t work.
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And it resembles early cooperative village lifestyles which go back at least 10,000 years. Compared to the high pressure clock driven modern world, it can be a retreat to a simpler life with few worries. Apart from being murdered by your jealous neighbours. And that hasn’t changed either.
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Is Queensland more commie than Argentina?
I’m not sure about tags like communist, socialist and the like but there are an awful lot of snouts in the trough. Most families seem to have one or more snouts in the government trough. And none of the useless snouts likes seeing any other useless snout removed from the trough because they might be next.
And that was Campbell Newman’s undoing. The useless snouts were too numerous and liked things just as they were thanks very much.
Good luck Crisafulli. Choose your path wisely.
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Try naming one successful Socialist State and don’t say Sweden. Sweden as a wealthy small-government State
pre 1950.. In the 1960’s to 1990s experimented with Socialism. The result was that capital and talent left Sweden in droves,
including Ingmar Bergman, film maker… Sweden started lagging behind significantly. In 1970, Sweden was 10 percent richer than
the G7- group of wealthy countries on a per capita basis. In 1995, it was more than 10 percent poorer. During that period, not
a single net job was created in Sweden’s private sector. Sweden is now a low tax small-government economy again.
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China.
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Cubans have a number of options for escape.
Where do Australians escape to?
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NZ?
Do a Hutt River?
Take our country back?
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Who are you taking it back from? It’s a big world and an airline ticket isn’t expensive. See ya!
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You mean we are “runed”. Where will you go that is any better – do tell.
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I’m a lottery winner. born in the best country, as “modern” dentistry, antibiotics and anaesthetics became common place. I enjoyed the post war boom where, even though “poor”, we were never on struggle street.
Too young for Korea and in spite of being in the services I never went to ‘Nam. I have no reason to buy lottery tickets, I’m Aussie and a winner.
Why do you feel downtrodden? If you don’t like it buy that airline ticket.
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Mr. Madison: Haiti?
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25% of Cuban population already in US. Very successful group that includes Harvard Law Graduate – Ted Cruz – who is the Conservative Republican Senator from Texas and Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami also a Republican.
Cuban Americans as a group for the most part are anti Communist. They or their ancestors escaped Communism – they get it.
Many illegals now coming to US are also from Cuba.
Yankee Si, Cuba, No!!!!
Quite a list below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuban_Americans
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Depressing article. The CO2 demonisers have the Cuba they always wanted.
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Definitely off grid now.
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The one thing worse than this tragedy is knowing that there are people who will be happy to see this happen.
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Fair comment, but … how can a country rid itself of a regime that exercises total control?
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Civil disobedience will eventually bring the regime down. As per the possibly apocryphal saying from the USSR that the government pretends to pay us so we pretend to work.
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Ever heard of the :-
French Revolution
Russian Revolution.
Amazing what a disgruntled population can achieve.
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A good way to rid yourself of a monarchy.
The yanks did it too!
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A better way is to simply legislate them into insignificance. All the pomp and ceremony but no responsibility or BLOOD as you advocate.
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Romania 1989.
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We’re not glad it happened, we’re just glad it hasn’t happened to us……. yet.
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Where is the mainstream news about this?
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It’s communism.
Communism is a utopia of rose-smelling Unicorn flatulence.
Nothing bad happens in communist countries so there’s nothing for the Lamestream media to report.
/sarc
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Besides having a doomed economic/governance structure Cuba has endured decades of attrition from the USA.
An Au doctor says that they met someone in Washington who talked about weaponising Borellia californae or some other genus. Wilhelm Burgdorforer PhD was employed by the CIA to modify a bacterium that was resistant to the human immune defences and to antibiotics. The modified organism was later named Borellia burgdorferi. It was put into Ixodes ticks and scattered over Cuban sugar cane plantations and caused an awful malaise and debilitating head-aches. This was during the early 1960s Cuban Missile stand-off.
We’ll never know what happened for certain but Cuba has been neutralised.
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Tedious Lutz. A quick search will reveal plenty including from ABC australia.
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Ah talking of tedious, you’re back. Must be a work day.
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8:29am. You are kidding?
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9:29 my time so I’d been at work at least 10 minutes.
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Is it your job to comment here?
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Yes. I’m cheap. Can you tell?
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We can.
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Ah, that’s why we didn’t see it.
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This is how y’all look from the outside. Express surprise when something like this gets your attention on your media despite being discussed for years on MSM.
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“For years”. So people probably died due to the blackout in Cuba, and how many people in Australia or the UK know that? The BBC and Guardian stories (which I quoted) have only just appeared in the last couple of days. Just because the billion dollar ABC writes a page on a website that 0.01% of the country checks is not the same thing as reporting the death of one teenager in WA for 100 days straight in the nightly prime time news.
How many times do the ABC/BBC/CBC refer to Cuba as a far left extremist government GeeAye?
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How many at the ABC know that chicken and rice is the staple for Cubans. Nothing against that but I pity the people. Still a few of the old guard carry on memories of the revolution. I buy their Rum occasionally.
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This sentence intrigued me:
“Antonio Guiteras was built in 1989 and is now battered and obsolete”.
I’m familiar with the obsolete UN squawker, Antonio Guterres (put a moustache on his top lip and who does he resemble?) so a similar sounding, and looking, name for one of Cuba’s naturally fossil-free fuel-powered electricity plants is, socially speaking, ironic… or a perfect match, if the UN’s nightmarish dream comes true.
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Like its namesake, decrepit and useless.
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Always look on the bright side of life. At least Cuba has reached “Net Zero”™.
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Before 1959 and the revolution Cuba was extremely prosperous. People wore the latest fashions drove the best cars and Havana had wonderful architecture. In fact it was a very advanced country with high wages and standard of living.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNixpGx4AV8
Now look at it, a totally bankrupt failed state.
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The many benefits of Communism are obvious for all to see.
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When it comes to starvation diets the North Koreans top the bill.
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A bit like Iran, pre 1979.
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Grid down, again?
Government complete idiots, couldn’t organise a bun fight in a bakery?
How to charge your phone.
https://imgbox.com/2QAUfXTI
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That’s it, just don’t wait till it’s dark to make a call.
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From The Manhattan Contrarian
.
What The Hell Is Going On In Cuba?
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-10-9-what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-cuba?rq=cuba
and
The Economic Record Of Socialism — Cuba And Latin America
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-9-15-the-economic-record-of-socialism-cuba-and-latin-america?rq=cuba
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“The authorities would not “tolerate” vandalism, he said, or any attempt to “disrupt the social order”. ”
You will have no electricity and you will like it…. or else.
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As I recall Cuba was a failed State way back in 1963 when China offered to install nuclear power in the form of some rockets and other strategic weaponry that the then POTUS (JFK) took exception to and blockaded the Island for several days. WW3 was averted then more by good luck than management. The similarities, albeit reversed, with Ukraine are stunning! As always though the politicians and their brothers die rich while their country withers on the vine!
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I think you mean Russia, not China.
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The Soviet Union.
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Thanks! A Freudian slip? They’re all communists!
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Perhaps the US should be careful that China doesn’t set up shop there, 90 miles off Florida, maybe some help from the US wouldn’t go astray.
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Cuba is keen to sign up with the Belt and Road extravaganza and BRICS, the US should offer a better deal and quickly.
https://www.caribbean-council.org/cuba-seeks-partner-status-in-brics-describing-it-as-key-geopolitical-player/
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Cuba is the poster child for allowing politicians to run grids and economies.
“Elected Officials” rarely, if ever, have any knowledge about anything useful, except lining their own pockets. The People deserve the Government they elect. Every time.
Prove me wrong.
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“Somehow, despite Cuba being almost a failed state, there are glorious plans to build 26 solar farms with a capacity of one gigawatt. …
The megawatt of solar (if it even happens) will only provide about one third…”
Is gigawatt or megawatt correct?
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Doh! Tony. Thanks. Obviously 1GW.
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The most intelligent and productive people will flee, at every opportunity, from every tyrannical governance. Every single time. Smart people leave first. Because they are smart.
Criminals also flee, but they are not smart. Simply able.
The vulnerable, aged, ill, ignorant, lower criminals, and powerless, are left behind.
It is better to create/found/support/defend a credible government, than to moan about the failures of obviously corrupt governments. Cuba is not an exception. It is the Rule of failed governance.
Allowing an obviously failed government to continue in power, is a recipe for similar results.
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This is why people and businesses are fleeing SicktoriaStan and moving to other Australian States.
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That’s best case. Many are moving OS. No state is immune from net zero disease.
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Indeed, true also for the [once] United Kingdom.
Anecdotally, a lot of younger people are looking at moving – some, seemingly – to the UAE.
The prolonged speculation over Ms Reeves’ Budget [due about noon GMT IIRC – tomorrow, 30th] has certainly led to some – mostly well-off, so net job-creating – people to at least investigate other shores.
The seriously rich, of course, may already have bolt-holes, or mansions, abroad.
Possibly the measures actually announced tomorrow are ‘not-quite-as-bad’ as had been feared.
We will see . . .
But speculation and unnecessary worry may have already pressed some to go.
The wonderful Dale Vince, Ecotricity owner, recipient of much subsidy from the tax [and electric-bill] payer, has suggested [I think because he gets lots from the Government] that others can – ahh, go forth and multiply, as it were, if they don’t like it.
He is said to have given a large number of shillings to Labour – maybe purely altruistically.
Or maybe not.
It certainly would be in Ecotricity’s interests if the Labour government continued – or even increased – subsidies for unreliable power.
Auto
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Soon to be coming to your home Australians. With Eraring power station scheduled to close mid 2025, lights out, ahah flash, flash, flash lights…bwahaha
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Then you get the previously first world country Venezuela which in 20 years has become a third world country under a military dictatorship pretending to be an elected socialist government. Now that industrial chemists can remove the sulphur from their oil, they have more oil than Saudi Arabia! So China, Russia and all the usual culprits are there except America. And of course they will not give their cheap oil to poverty stricken former Russian satellites like Cuba. In socialism, it’s all about the cash. The only certainty is that the Venezuelans will never see the money.
Perhaps the most extraordinary direct comparison of governments is the old Island of Hispaniola where Columbus landed in 1492 now split. In the West of the island you have the absolutely self destructive French colony of Haiti which somehow manages to get worse every year, if that was possible. And in the East, the prosperous former Spanish colony of the Dominican Republic.
Two Colonies. Two governments. One a rolling total disaster and one a success. The same island. The GDP per capita differnce is 5:1.
Once socialism gets hold, it does not let go. Or totalitarian control, as in Iran, an Arab occupied and oppressed country since 800AD. Which was going fine until the people decided a Theocratic dictatorship was better than a hereditary Persian emperor. And they have regretted it ever since and you can be legally murdered by the morality police if your scarf slips.
So the lesson is that you cannot presume hard work and resources make for success of a society. And South American states like Argentina could be as wealthy as Australia. Or conversely Australia could be turned into Argentina.
The trick is to not let politicians and their friends run the place for their own benefit and that of their friends. As we see with our totally fake electricity prices and massive tax on carbon dioxide. No one really knows where the money goes or why we are paying so much for nothing. Nett zero and windmills and solar have nothing to do with CO2. And CO2 has nothing to do with the weather. Plus the universities, the CSIRO, the BOM, the ABC, the Chief Scientist all play along with the lies. Everyone’s on the payroll. Just like Argentina.
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At least Argentina is trying to get back to where it should be. Australia is currently going the other way being led by donkeys (apologies to the real donkeys and no offence meant).
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Exactly what Australia does
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I can only guess the CIA are launching yet another anti-Cuban campaign of propaganda, as they do to any country that doesn’t toe the line.
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Cuba had reached the end of the the socialist road during the Obama tenure. Obama bailed them out prolonging the agony for another generation.
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Cubans come to Florida. There is a large & prosperous ex-pat community several generations old to support them,
and many communities where one can get by & work for a while without English. They Thus assimilate almost immediately.
This community could manage the re-capitalization & rebuilding of Cuba at Trump speed when the regime fails; they have skills,
moderate wealth, and access to the capital markets.
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Shows the power of sanctions by predatory big states against their small weak neighbours. After decades of enforced isolation by the USA and economic persecution by the USA, Cuba is in a bad way.
Not excusing Cuba’s stupid Govt, that usa sanctions have kept in power, but its the usa that has impoverished this island by forcing its isolation.
Yet again its the USA that is the global vampire and enemy of peace and prosperity.
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Life in Cuba is going to be back to basics for some time to come.
Which means hunger, disease, and a breakdown in law and order.
So sad that this is taking place.
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