0 damage btw. But I thought China made their buildings out of tofu 😵‍💫

edit: and of course CNN has to do the “but at what cost” fallacy with a random citizen they were able to immediately get a hold of lol

they immediately treat it as a terrorist attack to make China seem unsafe (or sow further seeds of “actually the chinese people dont like CCP”) when, considering how woefully pathetic it looked… was probably likelier to be an accident. nobody in china cared to answer CNN’s call lmao, good call.

I believe in them. It may get worse for some segments of the population in the short-term, but if they navigate this right, they will be incredibly better off in the long-term. Today the Chinese live in peace in their own land, because of socialism. They also struggled and fought and sacrificed for future generations, but today they live peaceful, healthy lives.

It is clear from reading the list of proposals (of which only 66% were accepted) and the government’s statements, including Comrades Raul and Diaz-Canel’s, that they know exactly what they are doing. Is it a vector for imperial interference? Yes, but just existing as a socialist nation is hazardous to one’s health. If we stopped development on the fear that we would displease western marxists and that the imperial hegemon would try to swoop in, we might as well not do anything.

Increased Chinese investments would be a panacea, as China will work with you and your system without trying to change it. Year-on-year export-import balance with China is rapidly increasing each year for Cuba (though for the time being Cuba is mostly importing from China). But because of Cuba’s economic model, Chinese participation mostly takes the form of technical and engineering cooperation. In Sept 2025, Diaz-Canel met with representatives from 77 Chinese companies to find a way to get them to work in Cuba, focusing, once again as I keep noting, on “food production, energy, cybersecurity and development in these areas” (https://www.radiohc.cu/pt/diaz-canel-se-reune-com-empresarios-chineses-interessados-em-cuba/#pll_switcher)

Anyway, I don’t want to make grand predictions before anything has had a chance to play out. But I find it difficult not to be optimistic about Cuba’s future. They’ve had their revolution; they already won. To me this isn’t a pink tide where social-democrats with milquetoast programmes get elected for 4 years and then replaced by an OAS-backed fascist because they didn’t overthrow the government structure. Cuba only has the Communist Party, and will continue to do so.

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I would look at it from the other way around; the US hasn’t kept its hands off Cuba for the past 80 years, and Raul, someone who has lived through all these coups and imperial interference, is still alive (very few people from the time of the revolution are left, I saw just this morning that Commander Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, who had been with the revolutionaries all the way back at Moncada, died today). They know what imperialism looks like and what it does.

I trust Cuba to make the right decisions, they know their own conditions best. Remember: what ‘greater autonomy’ or ‘private banks’ means to them in their conditions means an entirely different thing to us.

I think targeted welfare makes more sense, as some people will earn more this way, which goes a long way when you’re on welfare. However I did not see the details of how this new welfare would look like - there’s a pdf in the sources on the PW page though for the entire economic program of 2026. It’s over 120 pages long though and in Spanish, but it probably goes into the details.

As for Raul’s words, best as I can interpret them is that people mechanically believed that a socialist system must enforce strict economic equality for all citizens. This is just my interpretation though.

the tl;dr is as I see these reforms, they aim to beat imperialism at its own game much like China did - though the reforms are different and Cuba insists it’s following its own path (which I have no reason not to believe).

As Kwame Ture said, you can only appeal to the conscience of your enemy if it has one, but the United States has none. 60 years of appealing at the UN has not loosened the embargo one bit.

Socialism is not pauperism. Poverty is a torture, not a goal. A lot of ‘leftists’ only like Cuba as an example of socialism because it’s sufficiently poor; as soon as it’s not poor anymore, they disown it. They did it to China. They don’t want to win, they don’t care about people’s lives, they just want to be ideologically pure.

When you read between the lines, it’s clear the reforms are meant to create a more resilient Cuba. They mainly target food production, industry and energy. There is also a plan to overhaul the digital infrastructure and bring Cuba into an increasingly interconnected world – remember that they rarely have Internet, and if they do, people pay a premium for it, individually.

Likewise, there have been positive upgrades to state workers and caregivers: a minimum wage increase to state works (likely to retain employees and not have them leave immediately to the private sector) and up to 10 years of caregiving for a family member in need will count towards the required 30 years of work to retire, recognizing social labor. Moreover, a digital platform will be created to distribute targeted aid to Cubans in need instead of the universal subsidy. In general this is better, as it means people who need more money will receive more.

Particularly, the reforms target the diaspora as ‘foreign’ investors. This is interesting because they form a strong political bloc in the United States, where they are mostly based, and they are historically very anti-communist. But between a national of your country and a new york wall street preppie, you probably want the national to invest. This targets their material interests immediately, and pushes them to petition for easing the embargo on Cuba so they can actually open businesses and invest there. Maybe even move back to Cuba, weakening a historically counter-revolutionary base – that the PCC knows very well. They are easier to keep an eye on once in Cuba than they are in the US. Make them work for you, basically.

The communist party retains the high overview of the economy and planning, and investors are basically limited to making money, not policy. Raul Castro himself was in full support of the reforms that, he reminded, came about from a long process involving the party, the government, and the population.

I bet you’d be able to install a catch that eats this command before it gets sent out. Could be useful if you start installing Linux for people that don’t know computers too well.

Please be mindful of rule 3.

This is what happens when economists think they know anything outside of their field. In the socialist republic they will be reminded of their place daily: you just crunch the numbers, that’s it.

Should add lofi beats to chill and burn flags to lol

Deng: [He laughs.] Listen, they can call me anything they like in the West, but I know Khrushchev well; I dealt with him personally for ten years, and I can assure you that comparing me to Khrushchev is insulting.

This is partly why I say I love Deng so much. It makes western ‘marxists’ seethe and look at that, he even calls them out for being ineffective and irrelevant.

In truth Deng continued a lot of what Mao had started or planned to start.

the communists discussing Stalin have managed mass production of tanks meanwhile the anarchists are still sitting on the ground (presumably because they didn’t find anybody who likes building 100 chairs in their spare time). MLism undefeated 😎

Oh man californian fruit is so bad. All I can get here because of the sanctions (which affect everyone even outside the US) are either “Israeli” or US dates and pistachios (usually the latter for pistachios). But if you’ve ever had Iranian pistachios and any other dates, including even UAE dates, the difference is night and day. US pistachios have no flavor and the dates have a weird gritty texture when it should be completely smooth. Iran wants to sell its dates, we just can’t import them because daddy US decides everything.

It’s identity politics (yes I know the word is charged but this is also literally what it means). Living in a place does not confer someone instant total knowledge about the conditions of their experience. I live in capitalism and what do I know about capitalism or running a company? Has everyone living in a neoliberal hellhole read Mises, Hayek and the other so-called ‘real’ economists that championed the misery we experience?

Sure I can say that it’s pretty miserable, that wage is not keeping up with cost of living etc. None of this confers me the LTV, the theory of surplus value, etc. Just start with where you live and reframe from there imo. In capitalism there are also dissidents (we are proof), regime bootlickers and others “I just want to grill” apolitical types. There are also liars who tell you their new law will be good for workers when it’s the complete opposite (like France graciously “allowing” employees in bakeries and flower shops to work on May 1st at increased wages, the only reason people “agree” to work on May 1st is because wages are too small and don’t cover cost of living so people feel compelled to take the day).

This is why no one person is an authority on the subject of “this is how living here is like”, no matter how much zeal they might put in their speech. Most people don’t even fully understand their political system even if they have civics class in school, or just did the bare minimum to get through school and move on.

is the economy actually doing bad (and do the people perceive it as such), or is he just saying this?

We’ll have to live alongside/with the liberals and socdems too either way, can’t really kill off an entire country of people just for the 5000 Real Communists to remain governing over each other. The USSR had to reckon with it and so did China (with varying policies and degrees), but what matters is that once you win state power, you can enact law. You can protect the revolution and the DotP, and keep these people in suitable posts where they can’t undermine the state. But first you have to win of course.

Just read through it, it’s cute that the BBC thinks it’s doing journalism lol

Under the terms of the self-defense force, are they not technically barred from doing exactly this?

6 months is a bit much, maybe that’s assuming they will not go through it too quickly i.e. that people will not be eating rice for breakfast lunch and dinner. If they did though it would last well over a month for every person on the island, including the newborns (see my other comment for the math)

that’s even bigger than I last heard at 60k tons! It’s about a third of the yearly rice production in China.

Reminder that China is not an oil exporting nation and has never been, they are a net importer (11m barrels imported vs 4m domestic production per day). There is no sense in China buying oil to try and send to Cuba, they would just be slapping a Chinese sticker on Russian oil that they already buy (China is Russia’s biggest buyer of oil and LNG).

It’s better if they focus on providing what they do actually own and produce, such as solar panels and rice.

Napkin math is easy enough, a portion of dry rice for one person is around 60g when used as a side dish. There are 11 million people living in Cuba, and I’m assuming that’s 90k metric tons, not imperial.

At two portions a day, this is enough rice to feed the entire country for ~68 days. At three portions a day (or assuming slightly higher portions), this would last 45 days. And it’s not just rice of course; 60g is good for a side dish or if you’re really, really stretching it. A “full” portion if you eat only rice and nothing else might be 100-120g (around 360kcal in 100g of dry rice).