"Without the Ordering Task, there was going to be inflation as well," said Miguel Díaz-Canel in his most recent interview/performance. And yes, inflation always exists there because the world's major monetary systems inflate prices by 2-3% annually, so the question is not whether "there is" inflation, but rather its levels. Díaz-Canel knows this, but he wants to hold the global situation responsible for Cuban inflation in an attempt to absolve himself of his own sins. This is why he insists and rhetorically asks "why is there inflation in the (rest of the) world where they have not applied the Task?"
In its worst year, 2022, world inflation hit 8.7%, the same period in which the ONEI (Castro's statistical office) reported inflation in Cuba of 40% ? that is, five times higher! Thus, it is obvious that between international and Cuban inflation there are Cuban mechanisms —such as the Task— aggravating the problem.
This is even clearer if, instead of using the 40% cited by the Díaz-Canel government —which is obviously attempting to hide its own disaster— we use the estimates issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit, or the economist Steve Hanke, which quantify Cuban inflation in 2022 at 740% and 1,221%, respectively. Or, even better, we could use the calculations of Dr. Lázaro Peña at the University of Havana's Center for International Economics Research, who calculated inflation that year at 1,840%.
It is totally impossible that international inflation, at almost 9%, is the cause of the more than 1,000% inflation suffered by Cubans since 2022. Díaz-Canel is lying.
"Also, the Task could not be implemented under the most favorable conditions," said the autocrat in heavy make-up, another misleading and self-exculpatory statement, dodging an accusation that no one levelled at him. What he has been accused of, rightly, is to have implemented the Task when a global pandemic of a magnitude not seen in a century struck humanity, triggering the deepest and longest economic and social standstill in history. Did the Ordering Task have to be launched precisely at that time?
Díaz-Canel himself confessed that "the Task was planned, and there was a group working on it ten years ago." Ten years planning to roll it out at the worst possible time? Was it impossible to wait for the pandemic to subside and the economy to revive?
It is one thing not to expect "the most favorable conditions," which could be a calculated risk, but quite another to launch the Task under the worst imaginable circumstances, which is an absolute blunder and a crime against humanity. Díaz-Canel is lying.
"There were two alternatives: surrender or fight. Surrendering meant applying shock measures, neoliberal policies, and every man for himself," Diaz-Canel argued, defending his socialist alternative as opposed to a neoliberalism that, according to him, has spawned "a world that is increasingly unequal, with the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer." Has he no shame? How dare he talk about inequality and poverty.
Under this supposed "neoliberalism" (if we can call it that) world poverty has, in fact, fallen from 35% to less than 10% since 1990, according to the World Bank, while even Díaz-Canel's friends at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with data in hand, state that "globally, incomes became more equal between 2002 and 2014." So, no, the poor are not poorer, and there is not more inequality in the neoliberal world. But, guess where there are more of both: exactly, in Raul Castro’s socialist Cuba, which Díaz-Canel oversees.
In 2022 alone, according to Bloomberg, Cuba's currency depreciated by 95.83%. Can there be anything more impoverishing than that? And, as regards inequality, it would be necessary to ask people like those who have worked three harvests, or have been teaching for 30 years or in a cramped operating room; people who, from increasingly crowded buses, spot the new luxury cars of the owners of SMBs with ties to the regime, or the nephew of some PCC higher-up. Díaz-Canel is lying.
Then, to justify his Government's most recent misstep, Díaz-Canel argued that "what happens is that, with bankarization, it was also a time when we didn't have any cash, for other reasons, but if we didn't apply it, the cash shortage would have been greater."
Other reasons? Which ones? Was there no cash because Pluto's ascendancy over Jupiter was bad for Virgo? Did we run out of cash because the Tanzanian Bushmen had a bad year hunting and gathering? No! The causes of the lack of cash are in Cuba, governed for 65 years by the same clique; those "other reasons" are Government mistakes.
And it is totally false that bankarization was the only feasible way to resolve the cash deficit, which they themselves caused by having a financial system so devoid of trust that no one deposits money in it. But, instead of correcting the root cause —100% state-owned banking— they exacerbated distrust and the problem by forcing people (that's what bankarization means in Cuba) to use those banks, which people shy away from because they belong to Castroism, and no one trusts them anymore. Díaz-Canel is lying.
Castroism is a parasite of the Socialistus Totalitarie family, subspecies Castroxis, a bloodsucker incapable of evolving, as illustrated by the lies of Díaz-Canel, who justified his actions without assuming the slightest responsibility for their effects, demonstrating that this cerebral pest will lead Cuba to death before releasing its grip. The question that remains is who will die first, the parasite or the host? Will the infected victim be able, on the verge of collapse, to rid himself of his infection? Díaz-Canel is lying, and killing us.