Cuba lifts computer ban
- following Fidel’s circling of the drain, his brother, Raul, took over in 2006 and though he is just as much a communist hardliner as El Fidel, he has shown signs of softening up to… well, lets say, the modern world.
An internal government memo seen by Reuters on Thursday said the appliances long desired by Cubans can go on sale immediately, although air conditioners will not be available until next year and toasters until 2010 due to limited power supplies. Only foreigners and companies can buy computers in Cuba at present, while DVD players were seized at the airport until last year, when customs rules were eased. Now Cubans will be able to buy them freely, paying for them in hard currency CUCs, or convertible pesos, worth 24 times more than the Cuban pesos state wages are paid in.
“Based on the improved availability of electricity, the government at the highest level has approved the sale of some equipment which was prohibited,” the memo said. It also listed television sets, which were already on sale, electric pressure cookers and rice cookers, electric bicycles, car alarms and microwave ovens. Raul Castro, 76, has led Cuba since July 2006 when his older brother Fidel Castro provisionally handed over power after intestinal surgery from which he has not fully recovered.
Welcome to the 80’s, Cuba!
The sale of many electric appliances was banned in the 1990s when the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Cuba of billions of dollars in subsidies and oil supplies, resulting in an energy crunch and daily blackouts of as long as 18 hours.
You know you’re running a shitty economic system when your entire nation must recieve external subsidies to stay afloat.
Raul Castro has encouraged debate of Cuba’s economic woes and has received a torrent of complaints focusing mainly on poor wages and limited access to consumer goods that are priced in hard currency.
The wonders of state socialism, eh?
source.
The digital universe is now 281 exabytes large
- IDC/EMC estimates that the digital universe of humanity is now around 281 exabytes in size. By 2011, it with be 10 times the size that it was in 2006 (which as 161 exabytes).
Interesting stuff.
Gold breaks 1000$/oz
- or rather, the dollar broke 1/1000 oz of Gold - downwards. This happened on the 14th of March, and is the lowest level for the dollar, ever, even lower than the post-Nixon gutting of Bretton Woods. This is following that the Fed has been inflating the dollar for years, and lately, Bear Stearns crashed from trading at around 60$/share to a miserable 3$. JPMorgan stepped in to buy out BSC, with the aid of the fed who propped them up with 200e9 $.
Making money out of thin air. *shrug*