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Fuck off, Randy!

Caaaaarl

they definitely do punch above their weightclass, they’ve developed a vaccine against a certain type of pulmonary cancer, developed their own covid vaccine etc.

the thing is the lack of money and professionals to keep the system running.

apparently since the new constitution of of 2019 was approved, which amongst other things (re)affirmed the right of private property and foreign investments and opens the economy up to a market economy, the state has been reducing funding for education and health systems, which is especially apparent in rural areas. The direction to a more privately owned system is set and taken.

a fairly omnipresent example is medicines: during covid the state dropped the customs duty on medicine, in order to alleviate supply chain problems, so individuals could import medicine from around the world. this trend is ongoing, you will see a lot of whatsapp statuses of people offering and looking for certain types of medicines. Also a lot of selling and reselling of any imported goods such as generators, motorbikes, air conditioning, etc. is going on through whatsapp and other social media market places. a lot of people have internet on their mobile phones nowadays, they no longer rely on “el paquete”.

they are already the only country with a very high human development index and a ecological footprint smaller than 1.7 global hectares per person which is the threshold beneath which development can be sustainable.
source

but i’m afraid with the health and education system completely falling apart, especially in rural communities, this high hdi will not be maintained.

also there is no money for normal people to get any kind of vehicle, let alone electric.
if they are lucky and have some family abroad they might be able to source a solar panel, converter and battery, but going electric is far away, even if we consider the cheapest chinese EVs sold at 3000usd.

they might be able to pull it off in a different way, cubans have become really resilient and resourceful. old washing machine motors would be sold to transform into generators, normal one use lighters would be made refillable (the gas canisters would be reused insecticide cans), electronics would be fixed on a hardware level…

but that was before…on addition to the ever tighter embargoes and economical woes that come with it, since 2012 the population declined rapidly from a maximum of 11.2 million people to 9.75 million people in 2024, due to emigration and natural population decline through an ageing society source