[bad company]

I think the French are onto the right idea. There are a whole bunch of technologies now that should be viewed as free public amenities, to be fully and freely funded by the Government because it makes good business sense to do so. Electricity, gas, telecommunications, water and the Internet are four that leap immediately to mind. Nobody should make a profit from any of these amenities: they should be viewed as sunk costs, the price that Civilization pays for progress. They should be nationalized and provided at-cost, for the good of the Nation. Any country bold enough to do that would leap way, way ahead of other countries that insisted on siphoning off “profit” from what should be bare-bones commodity-priced Utilities for the public good.

You just described Cuba.

[durasell]

It isn’t a matter of socialism, it’s a matter of attracting businesses to the city.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> You just described Cuba.

Give ‘em credit: they have done quite OK for forty years running their own agenda under Castro. And they still make fine cigars: the best in the world. In fact, I can legally go buy a box now and enjoy them, along with fine Cuban rum. I have a nice box of “Romeo y Julietta” Churchills in my humidor: if I wanted to I could smoke ‘em all at once, and when I run out I can go buy more.

And if I want, I can buy a plane ticket and frolic on the sandy beaches of Cuba and have a wonderful, cheap Cuban holiday, without a care in the world.

Sadly you can’t...

So how is Cuba germane to this topic?