Photo by Rebeca
Accustomed to the crumbs of a patriarchal government, incapable of assuring productions, dedicated for years to false egalitarianism in distributing misery among ordinary Cubans, on beginning to put the laws of economics into practice and, with them, those of supply and demand, some citizens are screaming bloody murder at the high prices of products for popular consumption, principally those related to agriculture.
It’s natural that this should happen: as long as production doesn’t meet and exceed demand, prices won’t fall.
Acting as if they’ve discovered warm water, some propose fixing price caps on products, without understanding that this bad practice, applied for years,was one of the causes of the national agricultural debacle, because it doesn’t stimulate production. Others speak of fixing a maximum profit percentage, without considering its impracticability, because it’s precisely the State and its commercial networks that have established profits of 100%, 200%, 300%, 400% and more above the costs of the products for sale, whether imported or from the scarce national production, and I doubt they’re disposed to turn off this spigot of foreign currency and even local currency.
Therefore, using a baseball analogy: we have to stop playing loose and learn to play hard.
18 May 2014
