Is Cuba Bankrupt?

Is Cuba on the verge of bankruptcy? Reuters reported on Yahoo Argentina that Cuba head was on the verge of financial collapse and had to stop honoring large wire transfers from foreign companies as their cash reserves are almost depleted. The Castro Cartel blames the hurricanes that hit the island last year, but in reality Cuba had been negotiating with its lenders prior to both hurricanes in order to lower their interest payments so they could meet their financial obligations to the foreign nations that had lent them money.

The real reality is that the economic crisis in Cuba started long before these two hurricanes and long before Reuters wrote about it. The truth is that the economic crisis in Cuba started the day that Castro marched into Havana and assumed power and deepened the day the Soviet Union imploded. The island nation has never really recovered from the Special Period, or from 1959 for that matter.

As a tourist in a hotel last October it was hard to tell that there had been two major hurricanes that had hit Cuba but the second I left the hotel and got on the bus the effects of the storms were instantly visible. The little stands and restaurants in the cities had doubled the price of food and halved the portions; short crops were being grown in a fruit producing province; the houses that were already battered and nothing more than shacks looked like inhabited rubble.

Cuba truly is on the verge of financial collapse and is trying to avoid bankruptcy...

If I was Raul today I’d be worried:
History has shown us famine leads to dissent and rebellion.
The people are hungry, literally hungry for something to eat...

But what their stomachs and their souls are rumbling for is something much bigger than a meal, they are starving for Change.

Muchacho Enfermo

Why don't we bail out Nortel?

When Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty announced they would follow suit with the US and hand over a 4 billion dollar bailout package to the big 3, a large portion of the population was supportive of the move.

Checking the website of the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers union) it clearly shows that 13% of their 250,000 members work directly for major auto companies. That means 32,500 people are employed by ALL major automakers that have plants in Canada, not just the big three. In addition the two of the big three have posted tremendous loses in the last 4 years. GM has lost 73 billion dollars since 2004 and Ford lost 12.7 billion dollars in 2006 alone.

That just goes to show a serious lack in the management of these companies even in times of economic boom. But we still gave them 4 billion of our tax dollars.

Nortel on the other hand still employs about 32,500 people (only about 6500 in Canada though) and compared to Ford and GM Nortel actually made money in 2006.

I'm not saying Nortel is an amazing company with and excellent business model but I'm saying that people are quick to judge and remember how much money Nortel cost a lot of in the stock market. A poll in the Globe and Mailshowed that 88% of respondents didn't think that Ottawa should bail out Nortel.

If the government wants to give money to companies with ailing business strategies that are years past their prime like GM and Ford why not give at least a little money to Nortel? The deserve it just as much as those wonderful people in the big 3. Maybe if the employees of Nortel had a huge union behind them it would be a little different who knows?

I just know that thousands of Canadians will lose their job and that a government that was so quick to help the auto-industry seems to want nothing to do with the tech sector.

Muchacho Enfermo