Cuba Can’t Keep the Lights On

The socialist model is beset by constant food and energy shortages

WSJ editorial. 

"In the socialist and healthcare paradise that is Cuba, the regime can’t keep the lights on. Another failure of the electricity grid struck Saturday evening and continued into Sunday, blacking out much of the island including the capital of Havana.

The country has been enduring weeks of periodic blackouts that can last for 10 to 20 hours at a time, as the Communist government struggles to provide even basic services. The regime blames deteriorating equipment, fuel shortages and rising electricity demand. It also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as it always does for every ill on the island.

But nothing stops Cuba from importing the parts it needs from the rest of the world. The real problem is a regime that can’t make much of anything work except exporting its people. Russia and Venezuela have reduced fuel sales to the island, which can’t pay its bills. Shortages of food and medicine are rampant.

Cuba’s dictatorship is a human tragedy and its people deserve much better. But they won’t get it as long as Communists run the place and enrich themselves at the expense of the people they impoverish."