I'd like to visit Cuba on my own dime as a tourist, but likely I can't in the rest of my life, without a US federally approved excuse or a basket of money. The reason? Under pressure from Marco Rubio and other Florida Cuban legislators, Trump is clamping down on ordinary visas to visit Cuba. Those Miami exiles will never forgive and forget the loss of their properties under Castro, no matter how feudal and corrupt their ownership was.

But one thing in Cuba's favor is its great climate which allows cheap housing and tropical agriculture, so that low wages still allow education and health care for all. Our own housing regulation prices many out of decent housing, or housing of any kind. This means our teachers and health care workers are far more expensive. In the meantime we warehouse impoverished people in 19th century ghettos with minimal financing for schools that might give their children opportunity to advance. We have problems that Cuba seems to have solved.