Cuba’s economic failures are now in the spotlight as they finally realize they need to change their socialist nightmare economy into something more … sustainable.    But Cuba’s problems are too often cited without a recognition of the success they have had in health care and education and poverty reduction.      This has come at what most would say is a serious expense in terms of personal freedoms, economic, and especially political freedom.   However it is important to note that on the best measure of overall “well being”, Cuba ranks 51st of all the countries.

Now, if we can only get all the fake conservatives to stop supporting the embargo which is a violation of free trade principles we *REAL* conservatives hold dear, maybe the good folks in Cuba can get cracking on the sustained and sustainable economic progress they so richly deserve.

More about the HDI:

The UN’s Human Development Index
From WikiPedia:

The HDI combines three dimensions:

• Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity
• Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
• Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.