Cubans currently pay about 25 centavos, or about a penny, for a rationed bar of soap. They'll soon have to fork out four to six pesos, according to the gazette.
Wait!
You're telling me supply, demand and prices still apply in command economies?
I thought the price would be whatever the Central Committee, acting in the best interests of the people, deemed was appropriate?
How could I have been so naive?
dipsydoodle (1000+ posts) Thu Dec-30-10 04:27 PM
Response to Original message
1. That's why Europeans and Canadians
Edited on Thu Dec-30-10 04:27 PM by dipsydoodle
never take such stuff back home with them. They just leave it for the locals to use when they leave the island and often carry soap around with them to just give away in the street too - been like that for at least 10 years.
Overall yes it is a bi-product of the embargo and the Cuban people know that too.
Apparently soap has become a form of currency in Cuba (and yes, the French still make lousy tippers) and apparently the US is the only manufacturer and supplier of soap in the entire world.
Hopefully once they start pumping oil with help from either Russia or China , maybe even both ,their foreign reserve situation will improve substantially.
So what was the excuse when Cuba was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the USSR?
btw - these constant references by the US media to $20 a month is only half of a story at best. That's expressed in convertible pesos which are loosely related to the US$ despite the fact that possession of US$'s outside of the Cuban government has been an imprisonable offence since GWB accused Fidel Castro of money laundering.
I blame Bush for Castro!
Things will start to change anyway by spring next year when small private enterprises become legal.
A defense of communist despotism seeking salvation in greedy slef-centered profiteering.
