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from HumanProgress.org Education Website
Monnery: Human Progress in Cuba and Hong Kong, Pt. 2
Sixty years of meager human progress in Cuba.
Those who crowded the streets of Havana in 1959, hoping that the fall of Batista’s crony capitalism would usher in a period of human progress, have been sadly disappointed. Anyone interested in what prevents economic and human progress can learn many lessons from Cuba’s stagnation. As Fidel Castro progressed slowly toward Havana in the first days of 1959, he was met by huge crowds of enthusiastic supporters. The ex-president, Fulgencio Batista, had fled in the early hours of New Year’s Day to the Dominican Republic, accompanied by various supporters and an estimated $700 million in cash, art and bullion. With a high degree of corruption, the brazen presence of the U.S. mafia, and the use of violence to ensure control, Cuba’s crony capitalism had little support, even from its previous backers in the United States. Batista had fallen and, for the cheering crowds, the revolution was a chance to replace a system that enriched a small corrupt clique with one that promised to deliver human progress to the Cuban people as a whole. Castro had expressed little by way of an economic agenda other than his commitment to land reform, greater democracy and better education. It was a program that made it easy for him to ally with others. When he took control, he even appointed a liberal president and prime minister. Six months after the revolution (July 1959), Castro could assert, “I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.”
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RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
Small Countries Are Better: They're Often Richer and Safer Than Big Countries
In the wake of the Brexit vote, Scottish nationalists have renewed their calls for a new referendum on Scottish independence. But many remain unconvinced, and many claim Scotland is "too small" to be an independent country. Others claim that Scotland is too poor, since Scotland's GDP per capita is only 90 percent that of England. Smaller countries have often been shown to perform better than large countries in terms of overall income and in economic growth. Also, their populations often enjoy more healthy and safe social environments.
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from The News Tribune
News & Media Website in Tacoma, WA
News & Media Website in Tacoma, WA
Sound Transit on Thursday won a lawsuit that took aim at the heart of the transit agency’s taxpayer funding. In a 7-2 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the transit agency’s motor vehicle excise tax as constitutional. Chief Justice Debra Stephens and Sheryl McCloud dissented. The legal dispute revolved around how the transit agency uses a formula that inflates the value of vehicles when it levies a motor vehicle excise tax, pumping more money into its coffers. Vehicle owners in urban parts of Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties pay the tax through their car tabs.
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from NPR (& affiliates)
Nonprofit Broadcasting & Media Production Company
'Just Plain Ugly': Proposed Executive Order Takes Aim At Modern Architecture
The architectural world is reeling over President Trump's call for traditional designs for new Federal buildings. His proposed executive order is called "Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again," it takes an out-with-the-new, in-with-the-old approach to architecture, calling modern federal buildings constructed over the last five decades "undistinguished," "uninspiring" and "just plain ugly."
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'Just Plain Ugly': Proposed Executive Order Takes Aim At Modern Architecture
The architectural world is reeling over President Trump's call for traditional designs for new Federal buildings. His proposed executive order is called "Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again," it takes an out-with-the-new, in-with-the-old approach to architecture, calling modern federal buildings constructed over the last five decades "undistinguished," "uninspiring" and "just plain ugly."
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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Putin has set his eyes on Belarus. The West can help it resist.
Vladimir Putin has spent much of his two decades in power attempting to restore Moscow’s rule over former republics of the Soviet Union. For the most part, he has failed. Though he has applied economic pressure, organized electoral fraud, mounted propaganda campaigns and cyberwars, and, in the cases of Georgia and Ukraine, resorted to military invasion, he has regained only a few fragments of territory outside Russia’s borders, while alienating nations that used to be close friends. Yet Mr. Putin is undeterred. He has now mounted a new effort to subjugate Belarus, a country of 10 million wedged between Russia, the Baltic states and Poland. His aim is to force Belarusan President Alexsander Lukashenko to finally implement a 20-year-old agreement that would merge the two countries, essentially turning Belarus into a province.
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from The Washington Post
Newspaper in Washington, D.C.
Putin has set his eyes on Belarus. The West can help it resist.
Vladimir Putin has spent much of his two decades in power attempting to restore Moscow’s rule over former republics of the Soviet Union. For the most part, he has failed. Though he has applied economic pressure, organized electoral fraud, mounted propaganda campaigns and cyberwars, and, in the cases of Georgia and Ukraine, resorted to military invasion, he has regained only a few fragments of territory outside Russia’s borders, while alienating nations that used to be close friends. Yet Mr. Putin is undeterred. He has now mounted a new effort to subjugate Belarus, a country of 10 million wedged between Russia, the Baltic states and Poland. His aim is to force Belarusan President Alexsander Lukashenko to finally implement a 20-year-old agreement that would merge the two countries, essentially turning Belarus into a province.
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