>>>I am not aware of any actual practicing communist economies that work well without outside subsidies.
>
>That's not proof. Not are anecdotal sound bites. Nor is theorizing, especially after the purportedly capitalist US banking system began eating itself and then relied on Socialist subsidies (funded by external borrowing) to save the day. Instead, if you have any evidence to support your view that the embargo did not trash the Cuban economy, can we see it please. FWIW, I don't believe you have any, apart from "Reds under bed = bad, Capitalists = good."

JR, that last line is a pure ad hominem fallacy.

As for the "show me evidence that the embargo did not trash the Cuban economy", that's another fallacy. I know you know the onus is on those who claim the embargo trashed the economy.

And candidly, the entire argument really missed the point. The argument tries to paint a country (Cuba) in a pure "stimulus-response" mode - and that seems to be the context of most discussions about the Cuban economy - either other nations help them or they hurt them. Candidly, this is an age-old tactic of the political left - infantilizing socialist/communist nations.

. As I said yesterday, they lost one "economic sugar-daddy" in Venezuela, which is why they were open to talking to the Obama administration. At some point. Cuba needed to show responsibility as a nation.

Communism in Cuba imposed (for decades) this sophomoric idea of egalitarianism on the masses. Instead of making things better, the entire plan reinforced the lowest common denominator: nearly everyone is at poverty level.