". (By the way, the old section actually included a link to a Granma article!)  |   

 On a related note, economy of Cuba also needs a clean-up. Most of the text there is not unsalvageable. Still, the article (predictably) does in detail extolling Cuba's ""world-class biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry"" while not mentioning the word ""rationing"" even once!  |   

 :And your present paragraph doesn't mention the US embargo, 172. Your re-write omits that elephant in the room. Nor does your re-write recognise any of this  or this  or this  etc, etc. But we're in for the long haul towards NPOV, so we will have plenty of time to discuss the economy section in more detail once more pressing issues are resolved.   

 I agree that the embargo and its effect on the economy need to be discussed. While revolutionary regimes which claim to reject the world capitalist system can't really complain when that system takes them at their word and excludes them, the loss of Cuba's most natural export market and source of investment (the US) has obviously had a major impact on its economy. But ultimately, of course, Cuba's poverty is Castro's fault, because the embargo, however misguided, is a response to his undemocratic regime. When Castro came to power, Cuba and Puerto Rico had roughly comparable standards of living. Today Puerto Rico is six times wealthier than Cuba per capita in per capita GDP, although I concede that in Cuba the poverty is more evenly distributed. If Castro had never come to power, Cuba would by now not only be a democracy, it would be at least as rich as Puerto Rico and probably richer. (Don't worry, comrades, I'm not going to try to put that in the article.) I'm also struck by 172's assertion that Cuba is a net importer of sugar. What is his source? The FAO doesn't seem to support this.   
 :(1) My omission of the embargo was intentional. Still, if you want to add a few details on the embargo, please go ahead. Since you're the main author of the article, I'll defer to your editorial judgment on how to organize the article. In case you're interested, I'll lay out my reasoning on the omission. First, when I was writing the section and contemplating the choice of adding a few lines on the about the embargo, I realized that by the time the reader would work his or her way down to the ""Economy"" section, the embargo had already been mentioned about half a dozen times, particularly in the ""History"" section. Hence, I was interested in avoiding redundancy. Second, while I do not disregard the role of the embargo in cementing Cuba's isolation from the world capitalist system, I think that's a topic belonging under a broader discussion of economic history in the ""History"" section. My assumption is that a section entitled ""Economy"" is not necessarily going to offer an economic history. The ""Economy"" section is supposed to be a discussion of the contemporary Cuban economy, right? (The model I had in mind was something along the lines of a shorter version of the type of write-up one would find in Economist Intelligence Unit country report.) At any rate, if you disagree, I won't make an issue out of it. (2) Regarding the claim that Cuba is a net-importer of sugar, the figure is indeed quite surprising. I found that claim in the Heritage Foundation's most recent report on Cuba.  While I'm not much of a fan of Heritage generally, I don't think the factual accuracy of their reports is too much of a question. Still, if you want to remove the claim, go ahead. It's only one possible anecdotal illustration of the deep-seated structural problems in Cuba commonly associated with other past Soviet-style command economies. If you can think of more relevant, please add them.  |   

 ==Archive manipulation== 
 Maybe as an archive worker I'm being a bit sensitive but I am finding it a tad disturbing that the archives of this discussion are being manipulated, probably by Adam and his allies. Last time I dropped by I  wrote some comments, under the heading 'The Cold War continues...', on Adam's claims to be the standard bearer of the truth round here. The next time I looked a new page had been started, and the last section of the previous page, (now Archive 5) had been broken up by subheadings all of which begin with 'Bruce complains about...'. M