LOL! I don't have a strong opinion on Cuba, but I'm fairly confident we aren't getting the straight truth from our media.
A demonstration that capitalism can fail too.
Paul Krugman said it best:
<<< Krugman's first point is that knowledge about economic development is very limited. Much of economic growth has to be attributed to the "residual" -- "the measure of our ignorance," as Robert Solow calls it. In the best studied case, the United States, two-thirds of the rise in per capita income falls within this category. Similarly, the Asian NICs provide "no obvious lessons," having followed "varied and ambiguous" paths that surely do not conform to what "current orthodoxy says are the key to growth." Krugman recommends "humility" in the face of the limits of understanding, and caution about "sweeping generalizations."
Krugman's second point is that, nevertheless, sweeping generalizations are constantly offered by policy intellectuals and planners (including many economists). Furthermore, they provide the doctrinal support for policies that are implemented, when circumstances allow.
Third, the "conventional wisdom" is unstable, regularly shifting to something else, perhaps the opposite of the latest phase -- though its proponents are again brimming with confidence as they impose the new orthodoxy.
Fourth, it is commonly agreed in retrospect that the policies didn't "serve their expressed goal" and were based on "bad ideas."
Finally, it is usually "argued that bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups. Without doubt that happens..." >>>
In my ~10 years of following the markets, I must say that this rings true. Dogma is rampant.
Tom |
