It would be comical...

raul calls for more sacrifice from the Cuban people:

Cuban President Raul Castro called on Saturday for austerity measures including fewer subsidies for workers and stricter management to pull the country out of an economic morass aggravated this year by three hurricanes and the global financial crisis...

"The accounts don't square up," he said. "You have to act with realism and adjust the dreams to the true possibilities," said Castro, who officially replaced his ailing older brother Fidel Castro as president in February.

Yes, forget your dreams Cubans. Realism must rule the day.

Castro implemented reforms when he took office, including opening the sale of computers and cell phones to Cubans and allowing them to go to hotels and stores previously reserved for foreigners.

But he said the country's economic problems would postpone some changes, including a planned government restructuring.

Castro lamented the economic effects of hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma, which caused $10 billion in damages, and warned that no one can tell how bad world economic problems will get.

When I debate the embargo I'm invariably confronted by people who say "If we remove the embargo, we take away castro's excuse" as if it were some sort of original thought. My answer is always the same, this regime has no shortage of excuses.

Cuba's import costs have soared while prices for key exports such as nickel have plunged, requiring the communist-run country to impose greater fiscal discipline, said the 77-year-old Castro.

Those nickel prices just might be hurting more than the regime, our favorite lobbyist/think tank expert just might be affected too.

Before his speech, the assembly voted to raise the age at which workers can retire with a government pension by five years, to 65 for men and 60 for women. Officials said the change was needed because Cuba's population was aging rapidly due to a declining birth rate and immigration.

What do you expect with the high rate of abortion and the lovely conditions of the worker's paradise?

Castro said Cuban managers need to demand more from their workers, who receive free education and health care and subsidized food rations but on average earn only $20 a month.

If you make far below the wage indicated by your line of work and have more and more demanded of you don't the "benefits" cease to be free at some point? Didn't slaves get "free" health care and education from some of the more benevolent slave masters?

"I have arrived at the conclusion that one of our big problems is a lack of systemic demand," said Castro.

Huh? In Cuba there's demand for everything. There's demand for toilet paper, there's demand for meat, there's demand for freedom. What's lacking in Cuba is supply.

He expressed dissatisfaction with the system of subsidies for those who can work, but do not, saying government handouts discourage Cubans from being more productive.

raul castro discovers gravity. What an idiot. Want Cubans to be productive? Unshackle them. Of course we can't have that can we? Productive Cubans that don't live off of the state would make the state irrelevant. Thus is the conundrum for a communist ruler.

That Reuters reports these things with a proverbial straight face would be comical if it wasn't so damned depressing.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at December 28, 2008 12:11 AM