Cuban Pesos Research Articles

On the Efficiency of the Informal Currency Markets: The Case of the Cuban Peso

On the Efficiency of the Informal Currency Markets: The Case of the Cuban Peso

Valuation of ecosystem goods and services of seven Caribbean coastal lagoons

Objective: This study was to estimate the value of the ecosystem goods and services of seven coastal lagoons in the Sabana – Camagüey Archipelago. Methodology: Results were obtained using general and empirical methods, as well as different research techniques. Four of the lagoons studied are in Cayo Coco and the rest in Cayo Sabinal. Relevance: The methodological framework for this research had dynamic, comprehensive and systemic purposes with two steps: comprehensive characterization of the lagoons and their ecosystem goods and services and the calculation of the value (revenues) of these goods and services (real and potential) for each lagoon, for each territory and for the entire study area. Results: The coastal lagoons from Cayo Coco and Cayo Sabinal offer a wide variety of goods and services (fishing, beekeeping, tourism) still underestimated due to different factors. The direct and indirect use values of these lagoons represented more than 95 % (15 million Cuban pesos) of the total estimated value. Social / management contributions: the current social and economic context of Cuba and the regulatory and institutional frameworks require the use of methods and techniques for economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services, particularly those of coastal ecosystems, in correspondence with the fast development of tourism in coastal areas. For this reason, the results of this study could be a starting point to expand the valuation of ecosystem goods and service to other Caribbean and Cuban coastal lagoons.

People in Havana Talk

People in Havana Talk Leonardo Padura (bio) The following essay by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura was written in the weeks preceding the Eighth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, held from April 16 to 19. At the congress, Raúl Castro stepped down from leadership of the party and his successor Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected. The essay was originally published in Nueva Sociedad and is translated here by Peter Bush. ________ People in Havana talk. They talk about everything. They talk a lot, for example, about the resurgence of COVID-19, which in the last two months has reached figures verging on a thousand daily new cases of infection, when we had become used to less than a hundred. They talk about the news of so-called additional restrictive measures as a consequence of the pandemic: more closures, more controls. They talk about their poor neighbor who has just tested positive and is in the hospital. They talk, naturally they do, about the various embryonic Cuban vaccines, pinning their hopes on them as a future lifeline. They are also talking, right now, about how the Cuban government authorized the country's farmers to kill cattle to sell their meat and gave them the facilities to sell milk after an almost sixty-year ban on such activities. And that's no small deal: you were given a worse sentence in Cuba for killing a cow than in India. You could go to prison for twenty years, for much longer than some murderers. Now, you will be able to sell meat and milk but, of course, subject to controls. Everything in Cuba is regulated and controlled, although everything soon sidesteps regulations and spirals out of control, like the spread of the pandemic. The real problem is that few cows remain in Cuba, a country that once exported meat. The decision to "liberate" livestock comes as part of an array of sixtythree measures of which, the official media assures us, "thirty are considered to be a priority and others of an immediate character, in order to stimulate the nation's production of food"—something, as people keep [End Page 115] Click for larger view View full resolution A poster for the Eighth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in Havana (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images) saying, that is a problem that only gets worse. Those measures also included a reduction in the price of electricity for food producers, and price increases determined by the government. People talk all the time about their money not going far enough. The long-awaited, much heralded currency unification has been implemented, removing from the scene the so-called convertible pesos (CUC), which had a degree of parity with the U.S. dollar, but were exchanged at a rate of 24 Cuban pesos (CUP) for each CUC … although sometimes at 12, or one for one, according to the commercial or administrative context of the exchange, the logical result being that you never knew the exact cost or worth of anything. That's how the national economy functioned, or attempted to. The official exchange rate for one U.S. dollar has now been set at 24 CUP, to avoid an excessive devaluation of Cuba's currency. And state pensions and salaries have been increased fivefold in CUP, if not more, while the prices of products in state shops have gone up sevenfold, if not much more. However, as those state shops are out of stock, and there are long lines outside that may cause a hopeful shopper to spend five or six hours in the sun and rain with no bathroom to do what you have to do (people talk about that, endlessly), the black market for currency exchange has set the dollar and euro at more realistic rates: around 48 pesos to the dollar and 56 to the euro. And rising. [End Page 116] Naturally, people also talk about the fact that President Joe Biden hasn't once glanced in our direction. They were hoping for changes to the extremely restrictive measures imposed by the previous administration, which ramped up the embargo, practically banned the transfer of remittances from the United States to Cuba, shut...

Cuba at the Table: Waiting for Change Again

Cuba at the Table Waiting for Change Again by Norge Espinosa Mendoza YOU HAVE TO WALK TOWARD THE Callejón del Chorro, alongside the Cathedral of San Cristóbal in Old Havana, to get to Doña Eutimia. The private restaurant or paladar—one of the most well known in the capital, and one of the few that has managed to make its way onto the most in-demand tourist sites—awaits its guests next door to the Taller Experimental de Gráfica. It’s small, and yet the clientele is aware of the privilege it confers. It’s recommended, of course, to book in advance, because there’s always someone waiting to take the first available chair, if there is one, at one of its few tables. Doña Eutimia represents more than twenty-three years of work, prestige, and, of course, authentic comida criolla (Cuban cuisine). The secret of their success: black beans, ropa vieja (shredded beef in tomato sauce), the favorite of my friend and translator George Henson, as well as other traditional dishes. Decorated with screens, lamps, and works by national artists, this cozy restaurant is more than what’s on the menu; it’s the experience that has managed to preserve its charm. Named for a señora who once cooked for the painters and artists who worked in the adjacent engraving workshop, the reallife Eutimia won the affection and praise of creators of all types, and today her memory lives on in the restaurant that bears her name. On one occasion, I took a rather haughty and formal academic friend to a lunch, together with a group of American professors, and it amused me to see that such a professorial man waited as the others served themselves the thick black beans, only to repeat the Cuban custom, so typical of humble families, of cleaning the serving bowl with scraps of bread, to enjoy the delicacy to the fullest. Good food has that power: it frees us from certain atavisms and airs to return us to the mere pleasure of unabashed pleasure. To keep a paladar open—especially one celebrated for its famous menu and with ingredients in high demand—is a true feat in today’s Cuba. The unavailability of supplies, the internal failures of the national economy and its mechanisms, the weight of the US embargo imposed on the island, and the reduction of points of entry for seasonings and other products—for reasons that Covid19 has only aggravated—have compounded and belie the boom image that trade, small businesses, and cuentapropistas (entrepreneurs ) enjoyed not long ago. During the brief bridge of exchange that the Obama administration built between 2014 and 2016, hopes multiplied. Then, everything changed dramatically . And the negative impact has even reached the table of such famous restaurants (and away from the pockets of “ordinary” Cubans) as La Guarida, where essential ingredients for their select and exclusive menu have vanished. Beginning January 1, the Cuban government launched the Tarea Ordenamiento (restructuring of the country’s economy), which includes the withdrawal of the CUC— the convertible peso that tourists exchanged for dollars—and a revaluation of the Cuban peso. It’s a delicate context, amid numerous shortages, of a dissatisfaction that manifests in long lines, a meteoric rise in prices, the end of subsidies, and the changes that Cubans are demanding on social media from the government beyond mere sloganeering, despite the consequences that such actions exact. In 2021 the island’s resistance and hope will be put to the test once again. Hopefully , in a not-so-distant future, we’ll be able to talk about all of this, sitting at a table at Doña Eutimia, waiting for the black beans to arrive. Because one doesn’t live by faith alone. Poet, playwright, and cultural critic Norge Espinosa Mendoza (b. 1971, Santa Clara) is widely considered one of Cuba’s most important LGBTQ activists. His plays have premiered in Cuba, Puerto Rico, France, and the United States. George Henson’s translations include Elena Poniatowska’s The Heart of the Artichoke, Sergio Pitol’s Trilogy of Memory, and, most recently, Alberto Chimal’s novella The Most Fragile Objects. He teaches...

INVENTARIO DE CARBONO EN LA RECUPERACIÓN DE PLAYAS CUBANAS

The objective of this study is to construct an inventory of carbon for the nourishment of Cuban sand beaches. It uses data of a beach nourishment project executed in 2016 in the archipelago of Jardines del Rey in Ciego de Avila, Cuba, according to an algorithm of carbon inventory for the recovery of beaches. The carbon budget was 62531.04 Mg, of which 952.36 were contained in consumed fossil fuels, 2338.95 were retained in the protected or rehabilitated vegetation, and 59239.73 Mg were retained in carbonate sands. The mole ratio in carbon compounds was used to transform the inventory into a net capture of 5084.16 Mg of carbon dioxide and the net depositions of calcium carbonate at 493652.11 Mg. These amounts were valued at 127 104.06 and 30 413 906.67 Cuban pesos, respectively. The total amounts were compared with the cost of investment. A positive net present value was deducted, representing a profitable investment in terms of carbon capture and increased carbonate sand surfaces on the studied beaches. We recommend to continue the study of sand beaches, in other to complete the inventory by our further research on carbon emission due to changes produced in the vegetation of the submarine zone.

Cost-effectiveness of introducing a domestic pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7-TT) into the Cuban national immunization programme

ObjectivesTo evaluate the cost-effectiveness of introducing a domestic pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7-TT) into the Cuban National Immunization Program (NIP). MethodsWe compared PCV7-TT given at two, four and six months of age to a scenario without PCV7-TT, over a ten-year period (2020–2029). We calculated the cost (Cuban pesos – CUP) per Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) averted from a Government perspective. We compared results from a static cohort model and a parsimonious prediction model informed by the serotype distribution among pneumococcal carriers and cases. We ran probabilistic and deterministic uncertainty analyses. ResultsPCV7-TT could prevent 6897 (95% uncertainty interval, 4344–8750) hospitalizations and 189 (115–253) deaths in children <5 years of age, over the period 2020–2029. This could cost around 25 million (20–31) discounted CUP but would be offset by treatment cost savings of around 23 million (14–31). A parsimonious model predicted less favourable impact and cost-effectiveness but the cost per DALY averted was still less than 0.4 times the current GDP per capita. ConclusionsPCV7-TT is likely to be cost-effective in Cuba. The impact of the vaccine would need to be carefully monitored following its introduction into the NIP.

What is the association between price and economic activity with cigarette consumption in Cuba from 1980 to 2014?

ObjectivesCuba is a tobacco-producing country that has been economically isolated as a consequence of an embargo imposed by the USA. It has also experienced a severe economic depression in the 1990s after the withdrawal of support by the former Soviet Union. These characteristics provide a unique opportunity to study the relation between large changes in economic activity, cigarette price and demand for cigarettes in a relatively isolated socialist economy. Study designThis is an observational epidemiological study. MethodsData were obtained on the annual price of a packet of cigarettes and the mean number of cigarettes consumed per adult living in Cuba from 1980 to 2014. Descriptive and regression analysis were used to explore the relationship between cigarette consumption and price in Cuba. ResultsIn 1980, the mean price of a packet of cigarettes was 1.53 Cuban peso (CUP) in 1997 prices and the mean annual per capita consumption was 2237 cigarettes. In 2014, the mean price had increased to 5.57 CUP (1997 prices) per packet of cigarettes, and consumption had fallen to 1527 cigarettes per capita. There were significant negative associations between annual cigarette consumption and both price and living through an economic depression. The elasticity was approximately −0.31 with price, and living through an economic depression was also associated with lower consumption of cigarettes (a reduction of 9%, 95% confidence intervals −0.18 to −0.001). ConclusionsHigher cigarette pricing, along with other public health interventions, are required to protect the national population from the adverse effects of tobacco smoke exposure.

Bioestimulante Liplant®: su efecto en Solanum lycopersicum (L.) cultivado en suelos ligeramente salinos

La aplicación de sustancias húmicas, estimula mecanismos bioquímicos, fisiológicos, se han realizado investigaciones que revelan las propiedades y funciones de estas sustancias. El objetivo de esta investigación fue evaluar el efecto de diferentes concentraciones de Liplant® aplicadas vía foliar (1/10, 1/20, 1/30 v/v y un control-agua destilada-) en el crecimiento, producción y calidad de fruto de tomate, y factibilidad económica. Realizándose bajo condiciones de campo y utilizando un diseño de bloques completos al azar, 5 días después del trasplante se midió altura, diámetro de tallo; 65 días después, se consideró peso fresco y seco de frutos, diámetro polar y ecuatorial, número de frutos, rendimiento, acidez titulable, sólidos solubles totales, índice madurez, contenido de vitamina C, pH del jugo del fruto, pérdida de humedad y firmeza de frutos. La factibilidad económica se realizó considerando rendimiento, valor y costo de producción, beneficio neto, costo y la relación beneficio/costo. Se realizaron análisis de varianza y comparaciones múltiples de medias (Tukey HSD p= 0.05). El pH de jugo no mostró diferencias significativas entre concentraciones de Liplant®. Altura, diámetro del tallo, número de frutos, diámetro polar y ecuatorial, peso fresco y seco de frutos, rendimiento, firmeza de fruto, sólidos solubles totales, vitamina C y pérdida de humedad de fruto mostraron valores superiores cuando las plantas se asperjaron con la dilución de Liplant® de 1/30 (v/v). La dilución de 1/30 (v/v) de Liplant® generó un beneficio de $36 753.9 miles de pesos Cubanos por hectárea, un beneficio/costo de $3.60 pesos cubanos y un costo por peso de $0.21.

Economic considerations on Cuban public health and its relationship with universal healthConsiderações econômicas sobre a saúde pública cubana e sua relação com a saúde universal

RESUMENEste trabajo expone, en el contexto de la estrategia de salud universal, algunas consideraciones generales y acciones económicas sobre el financiamiento, la eficiencia y otros desafíos económicos de la salud pública en Cuba. Se revisaron fuentes bibliográficas oficiales del estado cubano hasta 2015. Los análisis de series temporales se ajustaron a precios constantes de 1997 y tasa oficial de cambio: 1 peso cubano = 1 dólar estadounidense. El Sistema Nacional de Salud cubano cuenta con una infraestructura sólida, constituida por una amplia red de instalaciones sanitarias que garantizan la cobertura total, el acceso y la equidad en los servicios de la población con recursos humanos calificados. Se realizó un análisis económico bajo el marco conceptual de la estrategia de salud universal con énfasis en el financiamiento, la eficiencia y los desafíos de la salud pública cubana para mantener el derecho a la salud de sus ciudadanos, la equidad, cobertura y acceso en los servicios que se prestan, incluso la eliminación de las barreras económicas, socioculturales y de género, así como la solidaridad con la población cubana y del mundo. Se concluyó que en Cuba se considera la salud universal como una de sus más valiosas realizaciones, aunque se requiere del análisis más eficiente de fuentes fiables y disponibles, la investigación y aplicación de resultados a la práctica sobre las fortalezas y debilidades del sistema en materia de economía de la salud, actualización y uso de los recursos y tecnologías, así como profundizar en las lecciones aprendidas y enfrentar un conjunto de desafíos.

Influence of the Live Weight of Incorporation of the Gilts on the Mortality and Productive Indicators of the Piglets

A total of 80 gilts were selected and divided into two experimental groups of 40 animals each. Group I, grouped gilts with weights of 118 to 124 kg. And group II, those weighing more than 130 kg. The weight of incorporation of the gilts, as well as the litter size and the birth weight, at the weaning and average daily gain of the piglets, were controlled through simple ANOVA; in addition to relating the weight of incorporation of the gilts with the litter size, birth weight and weaning by linear regression, using the program Stagraphics plus 5.1. The results showed that there is a strong and positive relationship between the weight of incorporation of the gilts and the productive indicators of the piglets, which were always higher in the incorporated gilts weighing more than 130 kg. It was shown that more live piglets are born from incorporated gilts weighing more than 130 kg and that mortality is higher when the incorporation weights are lower than this. It was verified that in the incorporated gilts with less than 130 kg of live weight, 50575.00 Cuban pesos loosen benefits for fewer live born piglets.

The Cuban Monetary and Financial Jigsaw Puzzle

The Cuban economy currently operates with two local currencies –the Cuban peso and the convertible peso, both with convertibility problems and multiple and overvalued exchange rates– and has been subject to a banking crisis since 2009. It is a veritable monetary and financial jigsaw puzzle. In order to do away with the dual currency and overcome financial imbalances, monetary policy must devalue the two domestic currencies. Cuba’s banks are facing a systemic liquidity crisis with no lender of last resort to help them out of it. The country cannot access a last-resort loan from the IMF, the World Bank or the IDB since it is not a member of these institutions. The government has been applying a tough adjustment policy which has led to the reduction in the fiscal deficit and to a surplus in the balance of payments, which has served to pay off debt and gradually unfreeze bank accounts, although the matter is far from being fully settled.

Monetary and Exchange Rate Reform in Cuba: Lessons from Vietnam

In 2010 it was confirmed that the Cuban economy was beginning a new economic reform, officially labeled an “update of the economic model.” At the end of 2010, the “Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy” (Guidelines), was issued, a text that to some extent explains the content of the reform for the period 2011–2015. The Guidelines have a section on monetary and exchange rate policy that outlines the changes intended for that field. The proposed changes could be grouped into three directions or main goals: (1) currency unification between the Cuban peso and the convertible peso (CUC), (2) improving the strategy for monetary policy, and (3) financial transformations. This paper seeks to evaluate these three objectives given Cuba’s current situation following the monetary and exchange rate policy transformations of the 1990s and subsequent setbacks, while using Vietnam as a case for comparison.

From Pancho’s Hankie to Pablo’s Hippo: An Interdisciplinary Tour of Latin American Popular Culture

From Pancho’s Hankie to Pablo’s Hippo:An Interdisciplinary Tour of Latin American Popular Culture Emily Hind Geoffrey Kantaris and Rory O’Bryen (Eds). Latin American Popular Culture: Politics, Media, Affect. Woodbridge UK: Tamesis, 2013. Pp. 314. ISBN 978-1-85566-264-3. Kantaris and O’Bryen have edited a brilliant volume that makes excellent use of the academic reader’s precious time. The impressive range of material, drawn from Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, entertains and informs. From the ambiguities of Cuban art in a global market to the authority-confounding “reverse” graffiti in São Paulo, this book covers culturally intriguing topics without simplification of their possible “popular” nature. Excellent photographs support the discussions when helpful. All serious academic libraries should own this book. The introduction supplies a masterful, if thickly written, overview of the popular. Kantaris and O’Bryen reinforce their theoretically solid thirty-eight page text with an extensive bibliography, ranging from William Rowe and Vivian Schelling’s Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America (1991) to thought by Gramsci, Deleuze, Hardt and Negri, among many others. Next, Francisco Ortega’s dazzling first chapter recovers the various etymologies of el pueblo, a concept subject to significant change. Ortega argues that Christian religion, urban geography, and political voices inform just a few of the documented incarnations of the pueblo. His concluding remarks on spectrality as characteristic of the “people” unsettle with the observation that “emancipation” is “produced as a social impossibility” (64). The remaining ten articles fall into three sections, “Politics,” “Media,” and “Affect.” My review organizes these texts by nationality. Two pieces contemplate Argentina. Joanna Page’s wonderfully intriguing article on Lucrecia Martel’s films ducks the prevailing approach to Martel’s work. Page overcomes the reader’s initial objection that Martel’s work is not popular but “arthouse.” The critic’s luminous alternative examination of patternings in the films, inspired by Bergson and Deleuze, searches for “relations” rather than “essences,” and thus offers an exciting approach to Martel’s cinema. The last piece in the volume, by Edward King, studies the Argentine comic book series Cybersix, created by the writer Carlos Trillo and artist Carlos Meglia, [End Page 206] and first published between 1993 and 1999. King harnesses Bernard Stiegler and Deleuze’s differing notions on affect to study the conflicted character Cybersix, an unhappy android in a “chaotic and depersonalized end of the century,” who is hunted by the former Nazi doctor Reichter. According to King, the character arc developed for the protagonist “stages the anxious process of coming to terms with the increasing externalization of memory in technological systems” (273). This timely concern extends far beyond a graphic novel, although King carefully respects the context supplied by the detailed plot. Cybersix suspects that all her memories may be programmed by her nefarious creator, and thus the reader and character focus “on the repeated attempts and repeated failures to ‘capture’ or narrativize the realm of affect” (277). Clearly, King challenges the idea that comic books fail sophisticated readings. Three additional pairs of articles feature the popular in Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia. Stephen Hart contemplates Cuban santería from the complexities of a double economy and points out the existence of a third, “supernatural economy” that intersects with the “money economy,” itself bifurcated between the Cuban peso economy and the more lucrative CUC/tourist economy and its “peso convertible” (worth 24 Cuban pesos). In a parallel study of “Refuse and Disjecta Aesthetics,” Erica Segre returns to the multiple currencies of the Cuban economy and shows how “convertible” art tests the limits of the transferable, in terms of the local environments that feed a global art market. The specialist and nonspecialist alike will find Hart’s and Segre’s perspicacious analyses of great interest. Turning to Brazil, Lúcia Sá writes on the points of contact between two favela films, Antônia and Cidade de Deus. This culturally sensitive analysis points out that neither film makes good on its “documentary orientation”: Sá argues that Antônia’s answer to the all-male barbarity portrayed in Cidade de Deus is a sanitized, women-centered version of daily life and popular culture, “which ironically reinforces...

Costo institucional del infarto agudo del miocardio en en el Instituto de Cardiología y Cirugía Cardiovascular

Objetivos: Describir características psicosociales en personas con diabetes tipo 2. Métodos: Estudio transversal en 200 personas con diabetes. Se evaluó la autoestima, el estrés, la depresión y locus de control con Coopersmith, Seppo Aro, Zung y Escala de Locus de Control, respectivamente, todos con alfa de Cronbach de 77 a 85. Se registraron variables sociodemográficas, glucemia, antigüedad del diagnóstico y estadio de la diabetes. Se realizaron análisis descriptivo y comparaciones entre sexos con programas computarizados. Resultados: Mujeres 74 %, edad 59,2±11,5, casados 80 %, ocupación 55 % hogar, escolaridad 3er. grado, antigüedad 10,3±8,5 años, glucemia 174,2±75,9 mg/dL, 81 % descontrolados o complicados. Autoestima media-baja 59 %, estrés alto 26 %, depresión severa 27 %, locus externo 41 %. Sin diferencias por sexo, excepto autoestima más alta en mujeres y glucemia mayor en hombres (p<0,05). Conclusiones: Autoestima disminuida en la mitad de la muestra, estrés y/o depresión en la cuarta parte; alto locus externo. Sólo difiere la autoestima en mujeres.

Estimación de los costos de la detección de casos de tuberculosis: Municipio Habana Vieja. 2002

The Cuban Tuberculosis Control Program has been able to significantly reduce the tuberculosis cases incidence in all its forms. La Habana Vieja municipality has maintained the highest incidence in Havana City province during 5 years and one of the highest in the country. To estimate the cost of Tuberculosis cases detection in Habana Vieja municipality, in the year 2002. A descriptive retrospective study to estimate the costs with social perspective was carried out. The costs of cases detection and their departures in health facilities were considered. For patients with cough/expectoration > or =14 days (RS+14) the pocket expense and monetary losses for labour absences were considered. Costs were expressed in equivalent Cuban pesos to American dollars (1 CUC = 1 USD). Information from official records in health institutions and from interviews to workers and RS+14 was obtained. Social cost of tuberculosis cases detection for an RS+14 was in average 24,11 CUC, and institutional cost was 12,55; for clinical investigation 0.37; for sputum smear microscopy 2,25; for culture 7,05; for thorax X-ray 1,67; for notification 3,07; and for registering 0,36. The biggest costs were observed in sputum smear microscopies and cultures performance; salaries and reagents were the issues contributing more in that cost. The results obtained in this study could be extrapolated to other municipalities in the country with social and economic conditions similar to La Habana Vieja.

Spam in the Cuban Ajiaco : An Interview with Alaen Perez

Spam in the Cuban Ajiaco:An Interview with Alaen Pérez Karina L. Céspedes (bio) In 1939, the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz introduced his ajiaco metaphor, and described the ajiaco as a traditional Cuban stew of ameridian origin that is cooked over a long period by continuously adding new ingredients to the simmering mixture. Like the ingredients of mixed race and culture, additions to the dish maintain their identities to varying degrees; some dissolve fully or evaporate, while others remain more distinct. This Ortiz described as "transculturation," a complex appropriation and transformation of identity that is different from "acculturation." Ortiz argued that this term best described Cuban identity. However, there have been some changes in the ajiaco and in Cuban identity since Ortiz's use of the ajiaco metaphor. The pot is no longer slow cooked over a long period by continually adding new ingredients to the simmering mixture; rather, today's Cuban ajiaco is ready in less than an hour and made in a pressure cooker. The ingredients are grown domestically as well as arrive via packages sent by Cubans who reside in the exterior, or they are canned thousands of miles away, imported, and purchased exclusively in stores that only accept a convertible currency, which, since 2004, physically replaced the dollar but remains at an exchange rate of twenty Cuban pesos for one convertible dollar. Much of the quaintness of Ortiz's ajiaco, which inferred a self- sustaining national economy that drew natural and human resources from the land, has been either radically changed or perhaps has simply stayed the same, as the constant stream of "transculturation" requires such drastic social economic and political changes, such as those that would lead to adding Spam to the Cuban ajiaco. Alaen Pérez lives in Cardenas, Elian's home town. Here Alaen is an engineer for a state run firm that builds and maintains hotels in the neighboring beach town of Varadero. His wife, also an engineer, works for a Canadian company in Varadero. Both moved to Cardenas from the neighboring village of Maximo Gomez to be closer to their job sites and to meet the state's requirement that workers within the resort town of Varadero live within the boundaries of the county. The interview was conducted December 27, 2005 in Pérez's mother-in-law's kitchen in Maximo Gomez. * * * CÉSPEDES: When do you usually make ajiaco? PÉREZ: I make it when I have been able to gather up enough of the ingredients and then when I have enough that is all I need to have a reason to make it and it turns into an impromptu [End Page 71] party. I also only make it from my mother-in-law's kitchen. The stove my wife and I have in our apartment is not that good and we come here to make the ajiaco. CÉSPEDES: When was the last time you made ajiaco? PÉREZ: I would have to say about six months ago when I got my hands on enough malanga and yucca to make a good sized pot that would feed almost ten people. The farmers' market comes to Cardenas only once every six months so when I am able to buy what I need is when I make a pot. I have to make that much because people in my house don't just have one or two servings. They eat until they can't eat anymore and then they have one more bowl [laughter]. CÉSPEDES: What do you do when the farmers' market is not here? PÉREZ: We use the rations that come into the state run stores, we buy other things at the dollar store, but not much because everything there is so expensive. We also buy from folks that are growing food locally. We end up eating seasonally that way so sometimes you really have a craving for corn or need some green beans but if they are out of season then you have to wait. I also do a lot of my own pickling, I can pickle just about anything, and I make my own tomato paste and my own butter. CÉSPEDES...

Cuba: From “Dollarization” to “Euroization” or “Peso Reconsolidation”?

AbstractSince its “depenalization” in 1993, the U.S. dollar has become possibly a more significant component of Cuba's money supply than the old peso. What are the alternatives? The euro seems inappropriate, given the inevitability of eventual normalization of relations with the United States. More advantageous would be to restore the Cuban peso, though this would involve unifying the bifurcated economic structure and the dual monetary and exchange rate systems. The Cuban government has yet to announce its plans. This study argues that an appropriate mix of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and income or wage and salary policies should support a rehabilitation of the Cuban peso.

Cuba: From "Dollarization" to "Euroization" or "Peso Reconsolidation"?

Following Cuba’s de-penalization, of the use of the dollar in August 1993, its role expanded rapidly. It now may be a more significant component of the overall money supply than the old peso. This generates some advantages but also contributes to some problems. The Government of Cuba has considered the advisability of switching to the Euro, and more important, consolidating the role of the peso. A forced switch to the Euro would produce many more problems than it resolved. In the longer term, it would be unwise to adopt a currency that was economically and geo-economically inappropriate for Cuba, given the inevitability of a normalization of relations with the United States at some time in the future. The Central Bank of Cuba does not now appear to be pursuing the Euro-ization option. A more advantageous objective would be to restore the Cuban peso as a strong and convertible currency. This would involve unifying the bifurcated economic structure, the dual monetary system and the dual exchange rate system. This would be difficult to implement. It appears that while the Cuban government is studying the matter, it does not yet appear to be moving in this direction in a concerted way. In time, however, an appropriate mix of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and income or wage and salary policies should be able to support a rehabilitation of the Cuban peso. This essay explores possible processes for strengthening the role of the peso in Cuba’s monetary system.

Smelling Like a Market

I REMEMBER SOME MARKETS AS WORLDLY CELEBRATIONS of labor and sociality, their busy exchanges and careful presentation of goods and crafts a feast of abundance, colors, and smells. One of my favorite markets in the United States is Philadelphia's Italian market, which combines the buzz of a major city with the intimate feel of certain regional markets in Latin America, where goods have to do with local production and uses. Of course, there are also less appealing markets, like some in the barrios of Latin American cities, where no effort can dispel a sense of disorder and lack, the stink of abjection. In some markets, one can "smell" fear: one has to be careful not to be robbed by either the vendors or the clients. Others communicate calm, like my local farmer's market, a place for socializing and shopping in an atmosphere of cordial and safe exchange. There are also markets, alien to me, like the New York Stock Exchange, defined by the high-energy movements of betting on the shifting risks of corporate values, transacted in anonymous exchanges. The chain supermarket where I shop, homogenizing and impersonal, also qualifies as a market, as do the West's new temples, the malls, those commodity shrines whose excess, social control, and rarefied air so quickly disorient my senses. The markets of socialist Cuba have an estranging atmosphere all their own, one that smells of desires and social divisions defined by the boundaries of the dollar's circulation. While ordinary stores carry but a limited array of inexpensive local goods sold for Cuban pesos, new supermarkets and malls offer diverse imported goods at inflated state-set prices for U.S. dollars. Markets not only have smells, they are also apparently able to smell. Advocates of the capitalist market tell us that it can smell a successful product, a crisis, or a consumer need. For those who imagine it as an invisible hand that turns selfish individual choices into harmonious collective ends, the market seems to operate as a hidden nervous system: it senses people's desires, monitors their private decisions, and directs their conduct toward the production and consumption of goods that satisfy ever more differentiated needs. For its critics, the capitalist market is an all-too-earthly invention, rather than a benevolent transcendent force, blind to human needs and aimlessly propelled by the short-sighted pursuit of filthy money. Clearly, markets vary immensely in their purposes, organization, state relations, and social norms. Given not only its widely varying historical forms and attributes but also the divergent theories directed at explaining it, is there such a thing as smelling like a market?