Cuba Letting Drivers Rent Buses, Make Money

Cuba Letting Drivers Rent Buses, Make Money
By Rosa Tania Valdes
May 17, 2010

HAVANA (Reuters) - The Cuban government has begun renting its smaller city buses in Havana to the bus drivers in another minor move under President Raul Castro to ease the state's hand in Cuba's socialist economy.

The program, launched several months ago and still not announced by the government, appears to be part of Castro's drive to improve the communist island's troubled economy by giving more incentive for Cubans to work harder.

"They rented us the guaguas (buses). The (state) guarantees gasoline, we pay daily taxes and what is left is for us," said a driver this week while passengers filled the 16 seats of his Chinese-made Yutong bus in a Havana plaza.

Improving public transportation is one of the major challenges facing Raul Castro, who replaced ailing older brother Fidel Castro as president two years ago.

More:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=10665832

Fidel must be getting weaker, because Raul always wanted to change things. He's a big believer in EVOLUTION, not the Revolution :-)

My Cuban friends say this is really good news, because they are going to allow capitalism to flourish, even if it's in the small business side -they seem to be reserving big business deals to be done in the form of JVs with foreign multinationals, which is a shame, because it lets these multinationals reap profits and forbids Cuban citizens from even hoping to do the same thing an sob vulture from Canada or Spain is allowed to do. In the end, the whole system will change, but hopefully it won't be like China, where a very savage form of capitalism is emerging.

Your "friends" are full of shit. ;)

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They have to do it to stay alive, because there is no food, and they are all dyyyyyyiiiiiinnnnngggggg of hunger, just like certain conservative obvious genius blowhards say. :cry: :crazy: :silly: :dunce:

They are the ones who told me during the special period they ate all the stray animals. The pigeons disappeared before. They also told me about people selling vulture meat, and the one about the shredded blanket mixed with eggs was a doozie, wasn't it?

and I hope that there are many reforms that allow for entrepreneurs to flourish in Cuba.

Just kidding. I hope when Fidel Castro dies they'll be able to do some normal business. This idea of theirs of keeping most of the business reserved for foreigners must stick in the liver of a Cuban like a spike driven under a toe nail. Can't really match up nationalism with a policy that limits profitable private businesses to foreigners, it treats Cubans as if they were sub-human, incapable of figuring out how to make a dollar on their own. This is why I got to get out of Venezuela, the idea that we're going to have Chinese, and Belarussians, and other foreigners (even gringos from Chevron) making profits from our oil fields while we can't even be sure we get to own a food market without getting nationalized really gets to me.

There's no one here at DU who has spent more time in Cuba than Dr Mika -even lived there w/his Cuban wife and family. He's been a student there in his formative years (marine biology) with many follow up visits, and as an educator during his many latter stays (oral surgery). From my own interaction w/Dr Mika I clearly see that he has hundreds of Cuban friends, family, and professional associates on the island with whom he communicates regularly.

There is no one here who has more experience studying the Cuban electoral system.

Yet you, with zero experience there, think that Mika needs re education in order to conform with your uninformed views?

Laughable. :rofl:

I said it was a joke. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Saint Paul, Billy, you got to grow a sense of humor.

They like to claim to have a fabulous sense of humor and the target is simply sour, and uncool.

We're very familiar with that practise by now, having been unwilling witness to the sourest, most unimaginitive right-wingers in our country, like Rush Limbaugh, as they attempt to ridicule, attack people who are of course their betters.

Humor is recognized by its actual humorous aspects. Humor has nothing whatsoever to do with attempting to devaluate other people. That is a symptom strictly of a LACK of humor. Good humored also involves good will toward others, a sense of community, a shared human condition.

Do you see the :rofl: icon?

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and gouge people by charging FAR more than they should, if they have any moral sensibility at all.

We all know hoarding food, and price gouging are old, old habits in Venezuela, predating Chavez by a LONG, long time, especially screwing the poor around Christmas when they know the poor people might be tempted to pay far more than they really can safely afford just to provide a nice holiday for their loved ones.

Those little details still do get out to the rest of the world, no matter how loudly the fools howl and gibber about that democratically elected Chavez.

These people are pure filth, and they're the first ones to shriek at the top of their filthy lungs when they suspect there's ever a chance they might, in their dreams, lose their ability to cheat the helpless poor, and steal what little resources they have so that they might feel powerful, and safe from the ravages of the poverty which eats up helpless people, dragging them down their entire lives in misery, hopelessness, despair.

They are perverts and deviants, criminals who should have been thrown into the pits of hell for their greed and ill will toward others. How anyone can lament limiting their power to harm others, to live off their suffering is contemptible.