No it doesn't fare well. Average cuban workers have a salary of what? I think it's about 15 dollars a month? In the HDI calculations they use the national gdp per capita when workers are assigned salaries by the state. So the revenue of the state has zero to do with the earnings of people. You are being intellectually dishonest if you can't admit how this throws ANY standard of living figure based on GDP per capita right out the window. What is the most accurate figure for standard of living? I'd say notional gdp per capita normalized for taxes and cost of living. Just plain nominal gdp per capita would probably provide a roughly accurate picture, at least more so than HDI. Yes they are absolutely the most laissez faire nations in latin america. You have no clue what you are talking about. Milton Friedman was an economic advisor to Chile. Chile was well known for it's free market reformation. The "Miracle of Chile" was a term used by free market Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman to describe liberal and free market reorientation of the economy of Chile in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and the purported benefits of his style of economic liberalism. He said the "Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society." Chile now enjoys the highest rate of GDP per capita in Latin America; this lends strong credence to the assertion that economic freedom is more important to prosperity than are democratic institutions. The state-centric approach to neoliberalism is not critical, but it concurs with the critical approach that neoliberal ideas are really just laissez-faire liberal prescriptions that overthrew Keynesianism. State-centric theorists hold that neoliberalism is "the attempt to reduce the role of the state in the market through tax cuts, decreases in social spending, deregulation, and privatization." You are clueless. Chile is very often referenced as a model of what laissez faire reformation can accomplish. And of course chile has the highest standard of living and gdp per capita in latin america. Whether or not a nation has a public health care system is not a qualifier for being or not being a laissez faire economy. Switzerland has (more or less) a public health care system, it's a highly laissez faire nation. In fact it's the nation that Ron Paul cited as being "most ideal". Hong Kong has a (largely) public health care system and it's probably the most laissez faire economy in the world. You mentioned belize again, after I have already explained to you that it is a crony republic, not a laissez faire economy. "Wild west" isn't "laissez faire", even though it fits your deluded narrative to try to pretend they are the same. Belize isn't laissez faire, it's good ole boy cronyism. Quit trying to change the subject. This conversation isn't about my estimation of what the regional % of households with electricity in cuba are.
Remember when I said: Because their standard of living formulas use things like "equality of income". They also base their measurements on PRE TAX income per person (hence negating the effect of excessively high taxation in the formula) and generally do not take into account local average prices. They also don't take into account average sq footage of homes, prices of "luxury" items, cost of essentials such as food and energy, etc nearly all of which are much lower in America. Then dave said: ROFL! Big dave sticks his big foot in his big mouth, once again!! ROFLMAO!!! Same old show around here folks!!!!!
You pick any quality of life measure you like then. You are badly confusing GDP per capita with income per capita, but I'll happily accept any standard quality of life measure you wish to choose. Milton Friedman was never an economic advisor to the Chilean government. He wrote Pinochet a letter and met him once. In addition, even if you were able to claim that Chile is more laissez faire than Bolivia, for example, you'd still have to contend with the other two -- Uruguay and Argentina. All this exercise for you two to deny the obvious that mixed economies are superior to laissez-faire. Wow. So I guess I won't be receiving an answer on Cuba's rural electrification from either of you two.
I'm not confusing anything. GDP per capita is the single biggest variable used in calculating GNI per capita. So much so that people often use them interchagably. GDP calculations are the primary basis for GNI calculations. "The calculation of GNI is equal to GDP minus primary income paid by resident units to non-resident units plus primary income received by resident units from the rest of the world (ROW)." Again, none of these measures are adjusted for local income taxation or local pricing, that's my main problem with them. What do *I* personally think is the best representation of standard of living? I don't know. Again, none of these measures are adjusted for local income taxation or local pricing that's my main problem with them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_per_capita GNI per capita is as good as anything. (And appears to put the USA over all of Scandinavia except for Norway). But again, this doesn't measure how much actual money is earned per capita because it ignores taxation. It also ignores how much a "low","average", or "high" standard of living costs to procure in a given nation. I agree that Sweden is a fine country. However, have you ever simply bought a bottle of water from a street vendor there?! HOLYSHIT! Have you ever looked at the price of housing? Swedes live very modest lives by American standards. Swedes pay lots of money (by american standards) for very so-so, modest housing. In other european destinations like say France? OMG you will pay a small fortune for what can only be called a shack! It's absurd. The same sum in the United States would get you a 4 year old mcmansion. Go to Paris and the bottle of water fromt he street vendor is like 3-5 euros!!! Around 4-6.5 USD for a regular size bottle of water!!!! A bottle of water same size in USA is like .69-1.09. Not to mention gasoline being 3-4x as expensive. The problem with these GNI/GDP per capita, or HDI doesn't take these pricing realities into account. It also doesn't take the horrific taxation in most of Europe. Sure Swedish and Norweigan incomes look great as long as you don't count the roughly half of your income that goes to the government, and that's BEFORE you start paying all those absurd prices... Creative government statistics are great, until they meet reality... Don't get me wrong, I think Scandinavia is a fantastic place. They have a far better record with upholding individual rights and freedoms, personal liberties, etc. However, with regard to actual standard of livng, the reality is they just don't compete with America. Friedman was absolutely an advisor to Chile, he just wasn't on the payroll for it, and hence didn't have the job title. He wrote letters, spent lots of time there advising, giving speeches to staff, helping to apoint staff, etc. He comminicated with them regularly for a long time afterward. He was very much the seminal architecht of the modern Chilean economy. The most robust in Latin America. I already addressed your irrelevant and diversionary Cuban electricity question. I said that I don't know. I'd bet, based on my conversation with multiple cubans, including a whole family of cubans, that rural, residential electricity penetration is under 50. I was told in no uncertain terms "Most people outside the city don't have electricity in their homes but they stay there anyways because they dont have to worry about the crime and govt harassment inside the city"Why? Because that's what cubans tell me. A better queston, who gives a shit? And what the fuck does that have to do with this conversation? You need to go to a seminar or workshop on diversionary tactics, you aren't so great at it. What you don't understand is that a Laissez Faire (which you finally learned how to spell, it only took you 5 pages, congrats) economy IS a mixed economy. I have no idea what you are referring to laissez faire economies and mixed economies as being different things, they are not.
Sigh. PPP IS the adjustment for local pricing, and it IS factored into HDI. Plus, regarding adjustment for taxes, Cuba DOESN'T HAVE an income tax except on hard currency earners. Seriously, do you guys trade? And what do you trade? Because I want to be on the other side of you! GNI is not a measure of standard of living. And even then, per capita, adjusted for PPP, Norway beats the US. Standard of living measures aren't "How much does the country make" -- it's "How good do the people live." Bull. He gave private talks to non-government people, sponsored by right-wing think tanks. Then his followers started claiming that he was an advisor to the government, which was beyond exaggeration. Then when people started pointing out that he never even criticized Pinochet for murdering thousands he gave some weak, mild, criticism after the fact. Not his finest moment. Well Cuba electrical penetration seemed pretty important when it was brought up in this thread just a few posts ago. Now suddenly it doesn't seem so important when Cuba under a laissez-faire system did worse than under their current (and bad) mixed socialist/private system. Also false. Go check the definition and get back to us.
Cuba has done surprisingly well considering the unethical US embargo. And on an anecdotal note, I found the people there surprisingly happy, in spite of their privations.
Whoa, we agree, the US has treated Cuba unfairly. You can buy all the Cuban women you want for a buck a piece too.