Cuba embraces 2 surprising free-market reforms

[KissMy]

Cuba embraces 2 surprising free-market reforms

Cuba has issued a pair of surprising free-market decrees, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years — potentially touching off a golf-course building boom — and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables.

The moves, published into law in the Official Gazette on Thursday and Friday and effective immediately, are significant steps as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the communist state's control of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash.

"These are part of the opening that the government wants to make given the country's situation," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who is now an anti-communist dissident.

 

[Douger]

If you ever move to a free nation I recommend a visit. It's an amazing place and far better off now than pre-Fidel. If the US would have died years ago it would be incredible, albeit "socialist".
SOON.
If they didn't get hurricanes , that is where I would be living.

 

[Toro]

In a generation, Americans will be visiting Cuba's beautiful beaches, staying in American hotels and eating McDonalds and drinking Coke.

 

[Oddball]

I bet the SCUBA and PG possibilities are nearly endless.

 

[johnrocks]

Now would be a good time to end the embargo and allow Americans in on the action.

 

[KissMy]

Cuba to Cut 500,000 Gov't Workers; Reform Salaries

Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state employees by mid-2011 and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs -- the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro's push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

After he loses to Hillary in the primary, Obama is going to challenge Fidel in 2012

 

[loosecannon]

Cuba embraces 2 surprising free-market reforms

Cuba has issued a pair of surprising free-market decrees, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years — potentially touching off a golf-course building boom — and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables.

The moves, published into law in the Official Gazette on Thursday and Friday and effective immediately, are significant steps as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the communist state's control of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash.

"These are part of the opening that the government wants to make given the country's situation," said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who is now an anti-communist dissident.

shades of Chinese econ reform.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klRbcEnLPbU]YouTube - Underwater City Off of Cuba Part 1 (The Discovery)[/ame]

Dovetails nicely with the 7-8,000 year old remains found in Florida

 

[william the wie]

End the embargo now and Cuban communism will be a memory within a decade.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

End the embargo now and Cuban communism will be a memory within a decade.

Not as long as we have Democrats