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A day using money in Cuba
41–50 of 186 posts
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
State owned production and distribution. The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.
>The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods. wonderful! so then you must understand why these stores were orthogonal to communism right?
Google's definition of socialism
"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."
Private enterprise isn't the community. I'll admit that the state isn't the only way these things can organize, but it is probably the most common (excluding groups like the Mennonites)
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#43And as a tourist, you’d always get change back in the wrong currency (worth 1/25 the original). And to make matters worse, the change will also be wrong in their favour. Hated being assumed that I’m a dumb foreigner.
> Hated being assumed that I’m a dumb foreigner.
I believe they assumed you were not dumb, but that you were willing. That's what I told myself, at least.
And since the prices were about about half of what I would pay at home, I was totally OK with that.
Some markets are only open to foreign currency, and if that currency is worth 25x more to someone else than it is to me, and they're selling a product to me at what feels like a 50% discount, then I am a willing participant in that economy!
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is just stating it matter-of-fact, since they could use USD to purchase things at a (free) market price.
do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands o…
I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться".
My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but impossible for a regular Ivan to acquire due to the aforementioned illegality of foreign currency). 99.999% of soviet citizens _did not_ receive income in "foreign currency", and by definition "invalutny ruble" could only be bought with foreign currency. Or just handed out to a party apparatchik through other mechanisms. Those folks weren't suffering at all, best everyone else could tell.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB...
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#45Reminiscent of Argentina's Blue Dollar, the real exchange rate between the peso and the US dollar and usually very different from the official rate.
I thought the Blue Dollar was mostly phased out when they let the peso float at the end of 2015?
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#46Went to Cuba with my girl. (She really wanted to go; I was the skeptic.) Walking around the ruins of the Centrum, and someone invites her in to get a haircut. Sure, she says, why not? $5 (convertible), but all we had on hand was a $20. Little Cuban girl heads out running through the neighborhood to scrounge up change for a $20 because that’s almost a month’s salary.
Similar situation, although not as intense.
I bought a skewer of grilled meat from a poor elderly woman in central Colombia. The skewer was 5,000 COP and all I had was a 50,000 note (which I discovered when the food was ready) which is about a day’s wage.
She had to leave the grill and go out in the search for change. Felt terrible.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands o…
I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться". My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but…
i grew up in the soviet union too. даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это. so my point still stands.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves I wouldn't be able to describe it any better way than this.
Can't our current economic system be described as rule by those who impose dog-eat-dog capitalism on others, but do not live in it themselves? I think the common factor is that elites always find a way to insulate themselves from the problems of the plebs, including the ones that they have created.
I suppose you could. The difference is, you can't find yourself in a labor camp in Siberia for the crime of having some foreign currency on you.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#49I actually went to Cuba on holiday, and I used the tourist dollars. It's incredible how this separates society into haves and have-nots. Basically everyone wants to be near the tourists. They'll invite you into their homes for food, they'll offer to take you around town, sell you some cigars, and so on. Since you have tourist bucks, you also have access to the tourist nightclubs, where you run into some regional cele…
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Re: A day using money in Cuba
#50Reminiscent of Argentina's Blue Dollar, the real exchange rate between the peso and the US dollar and usually very different from the official rate.
I thought the Blue Dollar was mostly phased out when they let the peso float at the end of 2015?
I did too, but reading recent news reports, it still exists.[1] I presume that the spread grows when the country is in times of crisis (inb4 "When is Argentina ever not in crisis?"), such as the recent default.
[1] https://www.explica.co/dollar-today-the-blue-dollar-rises-to...