KEEPING CLEAR ACCOUNTS No crystal ball By Ariel Terrero (nacionales@bohemia.co.cu) A CubaNews translation by Giselle Gil. Edited by Walter Lippmann. (June 15, 2009) Strait to the chest and with a somewhat Cuban mocking ring to it, the tall man spat at me in the middle of the street, without protocol or introduction: "If they stop the blockade tomorrow will our problems be solved?" Uff, he really put me on a spot. But, instead of looking for a crystal ball [to find the right answer], I answered with another question: If a young person of any country arrives at the necessary age to use a tool, would this automatically guarantee that he/she won’t be hungry? Clearly, arriving at the necessary age would be of no consequence if he/she doesn't first learn how to use the tool, or if after knowing how to use it, he/she doesn't actually use it. Something similar will happen when they end - some mysterious day - the economic blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba. In any case, arriving at a certain condition is only a starting point. It is not the road and, much less, the conquered goal. But, I sometimes perceive an extremely categorical, and therefore corrosive, way to see or to understand the policy with which our neighboring power explicitly intended, almost five decades ago, to drown the Cuban economy and nation. Some people overestimate its presence or consequences, while others emphatically deny them. Punished by lack of resources and by commercial persecutions conceived in Washington, some Cuban officials have achieved the miracle of transforming the blockade into a resource: they use it to explain other hardships which are consequences of our own inefficiencies. In this case, the limits between reality and fiction are erased, arousing amongst us suspicion toward the phenomenon as a whole. On the other side [of the Florida straight], perverse intentions impel people to close their eyes or to speak only of an embargo. And others, in the middle, out of total ignorance or because they have been misinformed, say: I don't see it. And yes, it is difficult to see the blockade, because it is intangible. To all appearances. Outside documents and statistics, its biggest economic effect in Cuba are economic benefits that didn’t get to see the light or saw it at a bigger cost, with delay, or without all guarantees usual in trade and international finance transactions. Thousands of millions of dollars misplaced in traps, which could have been invested, used to buy factories, tractors, irrigation equipment, and technologies; but, they didn't arrive or they don't exist. If you look at it in this way, the blockade is intangible. The effects in Cuba of the economic world crisis run the risk of suffering a similar fate, if our eyesight is not sharpened. The defense against all odds of the principles of social equality, which are fair if they don’t slip into egalitarianism, keep our society safe from the most visible impacts of the crisis as in other countries to the North and the South: the increase of unemployment, accented deterioration of personal revenues, contraction of consumption, the crashing of banks and companies... In Cuba disaster doesn't directly knock on the door of the common citizen, like it does elsewhere. But, it would be naïve to suppose that we are free from consequences. The cost of the crisis also shakes our economy. If the consequences are already mitigated when they get down to the people, it is because the socialist state absorbs, distributes, and makes veritable magic tricks to compensate the millions in losses due to goods and service exports that fell through. It cannot stop, however, the deterioration of the capacity to continue investments of social or economic benefit. In the end, the quality of life of Cubans will suffer in some way, although it is not perceived immediately or at first sight, or if it’s difficult to accept. The consequences are so serious that the government has been forced to make severe readjustments. For example a six percent cut in budget expenses, the postponement of some purchases and investments and, more recently, the severe reduction of electricity consumption, followed down to county, municipality and work center level. To leave the waste faucets open would be doubly sinful in these times; as sinful as to sit down and passively await solutions conceived by the State or other main figures of the economy. In my opinion, this crisis can be an opportunity to cure ourselves of the "pigeon syndrome ", always waiting to be fed by a state that has been overly paternalistic. If besides the unavoidable damage, it turns out to be a stimulus to increase saving, efficiency, and sanction squander it will be good. With or without the blockade, with or without the crisis, a lot it will depend on each person's and each group of workers’ attitude and action. The ability to find a way out and arrive to the goal exists in this permanent obstacle race that is life. http://www.bohemia.cubasi.cu/2009/06/16/economia/cuba-crisis-economica-bloqueo.html
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