The shortfalls have left Cuba to fend for itself on the far costlier spot market, at a time when its government is near bankrupt.
Which is all we need to know about socialism, right?
The shortfalls have left Cuba to fend for itself on the far costlier spot market, at a time when its government is near bankrupt.
Which is all we need to know about socialism, right?
Very strange that the Guardian’s favourite government of a very sunny, pretty windy island is not drowning in excess of the Guardian’s favourite sources of electricity – solar and wind power.
Given China’s status as a leading provider of said infrastructure, the leftie twats can’t even blame the US.
If TTK and Mad Ed carry on as they’ve started I think I’ll emigrate to Cuba, which will indeed seem like a paradise…
I gather that Cuba runs on 1950s US “autos” since re-equipped with Toyota engines. Sounds like petrolhead heaven. Except for the socialism.
Hold on, apparently governments can’t go bankrupt. So Weimar never happened, and Healey was never forced to call in the IMF and comply with their demands.
I can’t work out if Cuba can’t afford to buy enough oil or if Venezuela is just too badly messed up to supply it. Probably both. I wonder what they have in common……
I guess even Venezuela wants dollars for whatever oil they can spare.
We have the dollars but they get spent instead on pointless virtue signalling. I’m sure Red Ed will continue to feel really virtuous until the mob breaks down his office door carrying a rope or piano wire.
This is the best part.
“Cuba’s largest oil supplier, Venezuela, has reduced shipments to the island to an average of 32,600 barrels a day in the first nine months of the year, about half of the 60,000 barrels a day sent in the same period of 2023, according to vessel-monitoring data and internal shipping documents from Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.
PDVSA, whose refining infrastructure is also ailing, has this year tried to avoid a new wave of fuel scarcity at home, leaving smaller volumes available for export to allied countries like Cuba.”
Fuel scarcity… in Venezuela.
Fuel scarcity… in Venezuela.
That strikes a strong blow at those who say that socialists are no good at doing difficult things?
“apparently governments can’t go bankrupt”: I gather that is technically true. Sovereign entities – e.g. the states of the USA – don’t get subjected to the court procedures that define bankruptcy in the legal sense. In the USA, at least, counties, cities, school boards, and such can go bankrupt.
So you could say it’s a metaphor to say that Illinois may go bankrupt. A perfectly decent metaphor in my view – for everyday discussion among laymen there’s no need to hew to the narrow legal definition because it wouldn’t capture what people probably mean which is that Illinois may default on its debts and pension obligations. It’s precisely true to say that Chicago may go bankrupt.
I ANAL, as people used to say, so open to correction.
But shortly before midday, the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the country’s largest and most efficient, went offline, prompting a total grid failure and leaving approximately 10 million people without power.
I couldn’t find out how old their “largest and most efficient” plant is, but it looks old as dirt and just came out of several months of maintenance last year.
The power plant is named after
Antonio Guiteras
Cuban politician, revolutionary and anti-imperialist. He studied Pharmacy at the University of Havana, where he opposed the dictatorship of General Gerardo Machado from the University Student Directorat
Thankfully, there is a happy ending to Antonio Guiteras if not the Cuban people:
He died in Matanzas, Cuba: Guiteras and several of his conspirators died in a gun battle with Batista’s army on May 8, 1935, at the abandoned Spanish Fort Morrillo in the Valley of Matanzas.
Daily reminder that even fascism is a superior form of government to any form of socialism.
Don’t underestimate the number of people admiring Cuba for setting an example for an electricity free world.
dearieme:
Not a lawyer, so this may not be accurate. I think bankruptcy these days is something like “filing for protection from creditors by the government”.
In other words, the creditors cease to dun the bankrupted. In return, they come up with a plan for any assets to be sold and the creditors to get paid in some more or less “fair” fashion – or at least according to previously laid down rules.
How does that work with a sovereign state? It doesn’t generally. What happens is creditors refuse to extend more credit under any circumstances. Or the state reneges on its promise to repay, Or both.
Often they work out something. But it can also end up with fighting, since the state normally tries to pay the soldiers first. If they’re not paid, then the soldiers may go looking for someone who will pay them.
“ Don’t underestimate the number of people admiring Cuba for setting an example for an electricity free world.”
And demonstrating the benefits of degrowth, not that they’ve every had much growth.
I think the mark of a government going bust is not being able to borrow any more money to keep services running at which point either IMF steps in and imposes austerity or money printer go brrrrr.
It appears to have been commissioned in 1989. So it’s among the newest they have.
Cuba does use very little power per capita. Seems to be around 5% of uk usage.
Since Cuba is one of the world’s poorest countries and also situated in a warm place, 5% of UK power consumption per capita sounds about right to me. Their output is whatever will grow naturally under those circumstances; their inputs are aid and imports from what’s left of the Commie world.
That’s not necessary a model that will work here.
Norman: Yep. Ironically the Cubans will cope with a black grid much better than we will. The years of blackouts mean that there will be a lot of backup generators for people and services. Of course they too depend on the fuel supply network but I expect there are a lot of small diesel tanks around that the main power stations have no access to.
I don’t think Cubans have lots of generators. Where would they get them from? If the government doesn’t import them, which it won’t, then they are not for sale.
Cuba is not a place where the government allows you to live outside the government — at all.
The effect of socialism on Cuba is much less obvious due to the long term actions of the USA. The USA should immediately remove all sanctions on Cuba, lift all trade barriers with Cuba, eliminate all import and export taxes and tariffs on trading goods and services with Cuba, remove all restrictions on people moving between the US and Cuba, and then we will see the effect of socialism separated from confounding factors.
Chester: I would expect there is enough corruption there to maintain processes for importing stuff like that that the govt can’t or won’t close down. It may be old Soviet crap rather than Honda or Perkins though.
Charles
remove all restrictions on people moving between the US and Cuba,
So you propose Cuba as a National Park, largely empty of humans?
I love the way that the Left’s excuse for Cuba is basically that communism only works when the communists are given full access to international markets.
‘Daily reminder that even fascism is a superior form of government to any form of socialism.’
Steve
Must admit I’ve always regarded fascism as a form of socialism. Though I’ve got to admit that when China and Russia finally dumped communism, they adopted a form of fascism.
As for the Cubans, the party I’ll be voting for on 26 Oct has said they’ll keep the coal burners of Queensland running indefinitely. One does wonder whether we’ll eventually enjoy Cuba’s problems.
I do wish your daughter good luck Norman. If she eventually comes to Queensland!!
I don’t think Cubans have lots of generators. Where would they get them from? If the government doesn’t import them, which it won’t, then they are not for sale.
Cuba is not a place where the government allows you to live outside the government — at all.
I’ve no knowledge on the particular, but based on the way socialist governments usually behave my money is on cronies being allowed to import generators and then sell them on the black market. Its one of the ways they can maintain the patronage that keeps them in power.
Charles @ 09.00, so very generous of you to allow the USA to take another 11 million migrants into their country.
I was shocked that you didn’t suggest we allow them into our country.
I might be wrong, but I think Charles is saying that the US sanctions – which are by this point little more than cosmetic – are very convenient to the government of Cuba and the left generally, in that they provide an excellent scapegoat.
Remove the excuse for the continuing failure of Cuba, and one more leg of leftist support is removed with it.
I don’t suppose he means all Cubans would immediately be allowed unfettered rights to migrate, though this would have a similar effect to the operation of the Berlin Wall – it is always amusing to ask an unreconstructed Communist why so few people were ever shot trying to climb over it to East Germany.
The Chinese are apparently bemused/frustrated that the Cubans have come to them cap in hand but refused to take their advice which is “be a bit less communist and move to a managed market economy controlled by the Party”
I visited the old West/East German border on a school trip. The East side consisted of a wide stretch of ploughed ground, which we were told was a minefield. Get through that, and there were several lines of barbed wire. Obviously there were frequent watch towers equipped with machine guns. If you thought about rushing the border in a car (as if a Trabant could ever be described as “rushing”), the road was dead straight for about a mile, with large concrete blocks that could be moved into place.
The West side had a tree trunk across the road, to let you know you were at the border.
Apparently most of those that got across were ex East German border guards.
“Cuba is not a place where the government allows you to live outside the government — at all.”
In practise, you’ll find trying to live outside the (control) of government in places like Cuba is far easier than the UK. Rule of thumb. Go somewhere where can afford the police. Only the richest or most politically connected in the UK can afford to buy the British police.
@ BiW
I saw both sides of the East/Allied western powers Berlin border when it was still in existence. I would say the difference between East & West Berlin was in the west you could get almost everything you wanted provided you had the money & connections. Whereas in the east you could get everything you wanted provided you had the money & connections.
“ The Chinese are apparently bemused/frustrated that the Cubans have come to them cap in hand but refused to take their advice which is “be a bit less communist and move to a managed market economy controlled by the Party””
The Soviets said something similar to Honecker when he went cap in hand, after to trying to impress them with his implementation of communism – he’d been trying to out communism them to show his loyalty.
@philip – “So you propose Cuba as a National Park, largely empty of humans?”
It would be a National Park where you could go to see communists in their natural habitat. Or, more safely, view them from afar with modern technology.
It would be a valuable warning.