{"id":6618,"date":"2009-08-30T09:18:30","date_gmt":"2009-08-30T09:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/08\/when-the-government-controls-t.html"},"modified":"2009-08-30T09:18:30","modified_gmt":"2009-08-30T09:18:30","slug":"when-the-government-controls-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/08\/when-the-government-controls-t.html","title":{"rendered":"When the government controls the economy…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even toilet paper is rationed<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials.
\nBut CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria says that “at the bottom of this toilet paper shortage is Cuba’s continuing commitment to its bizarro world of socialist economics.”
\n“Cuba’s disastrous economy would be a joke were it not for the poverty it has perpetuated among millions of Cubans,” Zakaria said in a video commentary posted last week. “The whole country is stagnating. Fifty percent of its arable fields are going unfarmed. First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture.”
\n“It’s insane farm policies lead to frequent shortages of fruit, vegetables and other basic food needs, shortages even more serious than toilet paper,” he added. “And all those programs that they have held up for years as successes of the communist revolution — free education for all through college, universal health care — well, Ra\u00fal Castro just announced they’re going to have to make cuts in all of these.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They’re using copies of newspapers as a substitute. This is the country that Rep. Diane Watson was singing praises about<\/a>. Yeah, Castro is so brilliant, he can’t even keep his people supplied with toilet paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even toilet paper is rationed! Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials. But CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria says that “at the bottom of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-2"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen the government controls the economy... - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/08\/when-the-government-controls-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When the government controls the economy... - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even toilet paper is rationed! Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials. 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