The kitchen no longer smells of kerosene, nor are the walls black with soot, nor is alcohol needed to "warm up" the stove. The tenement no longer wakes up with the noise of the air valve stoking the fire, and the lady's allergies are not set off by the stench of burning. The little window no longer vents a gray smoke, and the food doesn't have that faint taste of fuel. She no longer fears falling asleep and having the flames crawl through the wooden door. Now, no...
Now the problem is the electricity bill. The rice cooker that they gave out five years ago and that has had to be repaired dozens of time. The stove that was handed out in those days of the so-called Energy Revolution which seems to voraciously swallow kilowatts. The Chinese refrigerator -- a replacement given out for the old Frigidaires -- which spends more hours thawing than freezing. In short, now her great concern arises from the excessive bill with the blue numbers that they slip under her door.
If, before, she spent her day in search of fuel, now her pension goes to the high costs of electricity. Using the stove and water heater at least three times a week, means she now has to allocate 80 percent of her retirement to pay for energy. It's gone from one distressing difficulty to another desperate one. She exchanges a ceiling covered in soot for several days a month with no electricity because she can't pay for it. Before she could complain, swear, scream at the stove, howl to the four winds because the damn burner wears her out. Now, no. Because it's all been "the Comandante's idea," the "Comandante's program."
Translating Cuba is a compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
In May 2009 Raúl Castro announced “exceptional measures” to reduce power consumption and warned that blackouts are inevitable if saving goals are not achieved.
Read up:
Found at: http://saludcuba.blogspot.be/p/bloqueo.html
"The U.S. says it approved $142 million in commercial and donated medical exports to the communist island in 2008. So why did less than 1 percent of it get there?"
"It's not the embargo," said John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser at the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Economic Trade Council, which provides nonpartisan commercial and economic information about Cuba. "These are economic and political decisions not to buy." Cuba often waits for allies to donate what it needs, Kavulich said. "They'd rather get things for free than pay for them."
"It's unclear why U.S. medical exports aren't reaching Cuba", Dallas Morning News, 5 December 2009.
U.S.-CUBA TRADE AND ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC.
ECONOMIC EYE ON CUBA- February 2012 - Report For Calendar Year 2011
2011-2001 U.S. EXPORT STATISTICS FOR CUBA
The following is the data for exports from the United States to the Republic of Cuba relating to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) of 2000, which re-authorized the direct commercial (on a cash basis) export of food products (including branded food products) and agricultural products (commodities) from the United States to the Republic of Cuba, irrespective of purpose. The TSRA does not include healthcare products, which remain authorized by the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA) of 1992.
The data represents the U.S. Dollar value of product exported from the United States to the Republic of Cuba under the auspice of TSRA. The data does not include transportation charges, bank charges, or other costs associated with exports from the United States to the Republic of Cuba. The government of the Republic of Cuba reports data that, according to the government of the Republic of Cuba, includes transportation charges, bank charges, and other costs. However, the government of the Republic of Cuba has not provided verifiable data. The use of trade data reported by the government of the Republic of Cuba is suspect. The government of the Republic of Cuba has been asked to provide verifiable data, but has not.
CLICK LINK FOR ENTIRE REPORT!
http://www.cubatrade.org/CubaExportStats.pdf
It's not TRADE unless it goes both ways, genius.
They can't.
Found at:
http://cubafood.blogspot.ca/p/rising-cost-of-living.html
HIT HARD: RETIREES
Hit especially hard have been retirees, the disabled, widows and others who live on fixed incomes, and the 40 percent of Cubans who don't receive remittances from relatives abroad and must rely on salaries that officially average a mere $20 per month.
``This is seriously complicating the survival of the Cuban family, which is already very difficult,'' said Darsi Ferrer, a Havana dissident who has studied the impact of the vanishing state subsidies.
Except for the health and education systems -- still free yet increasingly tattered -- Castro has cut subsidies steeply in many sectors to jumpstart an economy thrown into a tailspin by declining export and tourism income and a dearth of external finances.
The government closed thousands of workplace canteens that provided free lunches to 250,000 employees, paying them an estra stipend instead. Its inspectors also cracked down on fraudulent claims for the extra benefits granted to some Cubans, such as those with ailments that require increased food rations.
In the central city of Santa Clara, inspectors earlier this year shut off 4,700 of the 7,000 people who were receiving the special assistance, said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a dissident Havana economist.