Meme Solís rechaza invitación para ir a Cuba

vertical actitud que enorgullece a la nacion cubana en frente de los limosneros claudicantes como Descemer y Xiomara Laugart.

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ElNuevoHerald.com

Alberto Sánchez

El compositor, arreglista y cantante cubano Meme Solís se ha negado a asistir a un homenaje que le ofrecerán en el teatro América de La Habana el 5 y 6 de enero. El espectáculo Otro Amanecer: la música de Meme Solís contará con las voces de algunos de los principales intérpretes de la isla como Rosita Fornés, Farah María, Miguel Angel Piña y Ela Calvo.
“No creo que vaya a Cuba mientras esté ese gobierno. Una cosa es que mi música se ponga allá y otra es que yo vaya”, comentó Solís en entrevista con El Nuevo Herald en Miami con relación a una invitación no oficial de parte del productor del espectáculo Raúl de La Rosa.
Fundador del conocido cuarteto que llevaba su nombre, Solís hizo época en la música popular cubana junto al resto de los integrantes del grupo: Farah María, Miguel Angel Piña y Héctor Téllez. En la segunda mitad de la década de los 1960 los Meme popularizaron éxitos como Otro amanecer, El Torrente y La distancia. Su música se dejó de difundir en la isla cuando Solís decidió emigrar a España en 1969.
“No quiero ofender a nadie, pero no creo que este sea el momento [de ir a Cuba]. Las razones son obvias. Pasé demasiadas cosas allí por las que no quiero viajar”, explicó el cantante que no pudo salir del país hasta 1987, gracias a una gestión del expresidente español Felipe González, después de una larga y tortuosa espera de 18 años.
“Yo mismo sabré si algún día regreso a Cuba, eso sería de acuerdo con mis convicciones. Me emociona mucho que se me dé ese tributo, pero este no es el momento de ir, con homenaje o sin homenaje”, enfatizó.

Justo cuando se encuentra preparando su concierto del 23 y 24 de marzo en el teatro Manuel Artime junto a la cantante argentina María Marta Serra Lima, Solís supo que artistas de varias generaciones se unirán al homenaje en la isla. Además de Farah María (radicada en España) y Miguel Angel Piña (en Cuba), asistirán Rosa María Medel, hija de Fornés, y el actor Mario Aguirre. El espectáculo es idea del productor La Rosa, quien asistió el año pasado a un concierto de Solís en Miami.
Por otra parte, Solís percibe este homenaje como un hecho que “viene a romper el hielo del verdadero intercambio cultural como algo recíproco”. El cantante aseguró que desde hace algún tiempo sus temas se han vuelto a escuchar en la radio cubana.
“Algunos amigos que han viajado a Cuba me lo dicen, y que también me ponen en la televisión, y que se han hecho varias tiradas de mis discos”, contó.
A su vez asegura que esta no es la primera invitación ni el primer homenaje. “He sido invitado en cuatro ocasiones, entre ellas por la Unión de Artistas de Cuba, pero no he aceptado ni creo que las vaya a aceptar. Me siento feliz de que se me dé ese tributo, pero no quiere decir que cambie mi posición y que quiera ir a Cuba ahora. También el señor Silvio Rodríguez me invitó para grabar en sus estudios el reencuentro de Los Meme, pero no he aceptado. No puede ser”, amplió.
Solís contó que otro homenaje a su música fue organizado hace tres años en La Habana por Julio Acanda, director del centro nocturno El Gato Tuerto. “Me homenajearon en el hotel Comodoro, donde cantaron varios artistas junto con los integrantes de los Meme. Incluso desde Nueva York grabé un saludo para los artistas y el público. Se lo agradecí mucho”, detalló.
Para Solís, quien en sus inicios fue pianista acompañante de Olga Guillot, Elena Burke y Fernando Albuerne, su posición está muy clara.
“Nadie puede dudar de ella, pero no quiere decir que no me cause emoción un homenaje como este. El pueblo que me admira no tiene nada que ver con las cosas de un gobierno. Para mí es una satisfacción muy grande que después de más de 30 años de estar ausente mis seguidores allá no me olviden. Estoy muy agradecido, sobre todo por el respeto y la admiración que siempre me han profesado, como mismo hago con mi público del exilio”, concluyó el artista.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2012/12/28/1372403/meme-solis-rechaza-invitacion.html#storylink=cpy

What happens to you if we go over the fiscal cliff

NBC News/ Allison Linn 

Some lawmakers are back in Washington hoping to hammer out a last-minute deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, but so far it seems that there’s more name-calling than deal-making going on.

If no deal is ever reached, it will be more than just a political headache. Americans also could feel considerable pocketbook pain as taxes rise, unemployment benefits are cut off and an array of smaller changes take effect.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The cumulative effect on Americans’ wallets could be enough to dent significantly the already weak economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said the combination of tax increases and spending cuts could be enough to send the nation back into recession.

That’s the worst-case scenario, and despite the considerable gridlock, most experts expect that Congress and the president will eventually come to some sort of deal. Experts also say that even if no deal is reached by Jan. 1, retroactive fixes and other dealmaking could prevent the most harmful effects from ever hitting most Americans.

Related: Consumers, businesses brace for fiscal cliff impact

Still, the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, says that nearly 90 percent of households would be affected if we go over the fiscal cliff completely and no deal is reached.

A stalemate would have very specific effects on certain groups of taxpayers, such as students, parents and married couples who have benefited over the past decade from certain tax law changes passed under the Bush and Obama administrations.

But the Tax Policy Center says that on average, taxes would go up for every income group, from the poorest taxpayers to the most wealthy:

• Americans in the lowest 20 percent of the income scale could pay an average of about $400 more in taxes.
• Middle-income households could pay about $2,000 more in taxes, on average.
• The top 20 percent of taxpayers could pay about $14,000 more a year in taxes, on average.
• The 1 percenters could pay an average of $120,000 more in taxes.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest issues likely to affect the largest groups of taxpayers if Congress cannot make a deal.

Tax rates will go up: If no deal is made, taxpayers can expect their tax rate to rise no matter what income group they fall in, said Roberton Williams, senior fellow with the Tax Policy Institute. That’s because previously passed rate cuts would expire.

“Everyone who has taxable income will see a tax increase because of the rates,” Williams said.

Payroll taxes: For the past two years, the employee’s share of taxes paid for Social Security has been set at 4.2 percent instead of the previous level of 6.2 percent. That temporary tax cut would expire without a new deal, meaning almost everyone’s taxes would rise by 2 percentage points.

Translation: Your paycheck would be a little bit smaller.

“That’s the thing that people will see first,” Williams said.

Alternative Minimum Tax:  The Alternative Minimum Tax  was originally designed so that wealthy taxpayers would be forced to pay a minimum level of taxes no matter what. But because it was not created to account for inflation, over the years it has threatened to affect an ever-bigger group of people.

Congress has previously passed temporary “patches” to keep lower-income households from having to pay more taxes. If no deal is reached this year, the latest patch would expire and the Internal Revenue Service says around 30 million additional taxpayers would become subject to the AMT.

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Of course, every taxpayer’s individual circumstances are different. To see how your family’s tax rates could be affected, you can check out the Tax Policy Center’s individualized tax calculator.

Taxes aren’t the only pocketbook problem Americans could face if a deal isn’t reached, because so much government spending is tied up in reaching a deal. But the most widespread effect would probably be on people who have been unemployed for a long time.

Unemployment benefits: About 2.1 million unemployed Americans are scheduled to lose federally funded unemployment compensation if Congress can’t reach a deal to extend the benefits plan by the end of the year. President Obama has said he’d like to see those benefits extended as part of a fiscal cliff deal.

The federally funded unemployment benefit extensions were introduced in 2008 while the country was in the depths of the recession. The extended benefits kick in after an unemployed person has exhausted his or her 26 weeks of state benefits. The exact amount of additional compensation depends on the unemployment rate in the person’s home state.

The unemployment rate has fallen sharply in recent months, but long-term unemployment remains a major problem. About 4.8 million people, or 40 percent of the total number of people who were unemployed in November, had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The top 12 tech stories of 2012

(CNN) -- In the tech world, 2012 was the year of the reboot. Older, established tech companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Nintendo all tried to restart their brands with bold new products and fresh blood in the executive suites.

Facebook struggled with its new life as a publicly traded company, and Instagram, the photo-sharing network it acquired in April, was dragged along for the ride.

There were inspiring stories, such as the Internet coming together to protest anti-piracy legislation. And there was darker news, like the Israeli military live-tweeting its strikes against Gaza.

And as always, the world's dominant and most closely watched tech company was all over the news. Apple did a little bit of everything in 2012, from hit new products (the iPad Mini) to high-profile failures (Apple Maps) to some old-fashioned courtroom drama in its patent war with Samsung.

Here are our picks for the top 12 tech stories of 2012. What did we leave out? Let us know in the comment section below.

Microsoft's big push

This was the year Microsoft took a big, bold and surprisingly fun step with a new version of Windows, an updated mobile operating system and its very own iPad rival.

The company, best known for its efficient but stodgy desktop software, needed to do something fresh to get customers' attention in 2012 and started with its flagship product. Windows 8 is a complete overhaul of the Windows operating system. Microsoft nixed the Start button and mixed a playful touchscreen interface with a more traditional desktop experience that runs on tablets, traditional computers, and hybrid machines.

The company also made a leap into the hardware market, releasing its first tablet, the Microsoft Surface, which ran a truncated version of the new Windows 8 operating system. And finally, there was Windows Phone 8, a major revamp of its smartphone operating system, which Microsoft hopes can compete with Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

It's still too soon to judge any of the new releases as successes or failures, but give Microsoft credit for taking chances.

SOPA backlash

In January, a pair of anti-piracy bills united the Internet in outrage. The proposed legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, would have restricted access to sites associated with pirated content, including the search engines and ad networks that do business with them.

The Internet cried censorship, and on January 18 some of the most popular sites blacked out their pages in protest. Reddit, Craigslist, Boing Boing, The Oatmeal, the English-language version of Wikipedia and thousands of other sites went dark. Even Google put a black censorship box over its logo. There were also petitions and organized boycotts of companies who supported the bills.

The protests worked, as both SOPA and PIPA were shelved. It was an impressive demonstration of the power of an organized Internet community.

Live-tweeting war

Violence and war have long been documented on Twitter and other social networks -- typically by journalists and by regular people on the ground (notably the Pakistani witness to the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden).

But in November, the Israeli military took this concept to a new level. During its conflict with Palestinian forces in Gaza, the Israel Defense Force tweeted updates, including the news it had "eliminated" Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari. The military arm of Hamas responded on Twitter with its own provocations.

The back-and-forth between the warring sides signaled a jarring evolution in how war is broadcast in real time.

iPhone 5 and Apple Maps stumble

Every Apple hardware release is a big news story, starting with rumors months in advance and peaking with a well-oiled Apple press event, followed by usually glowing reviews and huge sales numbers. But in 2012, Apple made a major misstep when it released the iPhone 5 and its new operating system, iOS 6.

The company dropped the Google-powered maps that had come pre-installed on every iPhone since 2007. In its place, Apple introduced its own mapping app. Apple Maps looked stunning, with 3-D graphics and neat features like Flyover and turn-by-turn directions. All it was missing was transit directions and accuracy -- the maps were riddled with mistaken locations and outdated information.

The resulting criticism inspired an apology from CEO Tim Cook and led to an executive shakeup at Apple. Customers turned to third-party map apps until Google finally released an iOS version of its popular maps in December.

Apple vs. Samsung

It was the biggest tech trial of the year. Two of the top phone and tablet manufacturers went to war when Apple accused Samsung of infringing on its iPad and iPhone patents for a variety of tablets and smartphones. The drama culminated in a federal jury trial over the summer that offered a rare peek into how notoriously secretive Apple operates.

The story became huge because of the large amount of money at stake and the implications that its verdict would have on Samsung's business and the Android platform.

The jury decided in Apple's favor, awarding the company just over $1 billion in damages. But the case is far from over. Lawyers for both sides will continue bickering over potential appeals for months and possibly years to come.

Facebook's botched IPO

It was the most anticipated IPO of the year, and one of the largest ever for a tech company. Social-media darling Facebook looked primed for a big public opening: The company was valued at $104 billion, snapped up popular photo-sharing app Instagram and was still growing.

But then an array of problems and misjudgments led to a botched IPO in May, and the company's stock plummeted. The initial offer price of $38 was too high, too many shares were issued, its opening day was marred by Nasdaq's technical glitches, and underwriter Morgan Stanley was fined for improperly influencing share sales.

The stock price dropped significantly, hitting a low of $17.55 on September 4. Facebook is still struggling to recover some of its early-2012 luster.

Keep reading on CNN >>

No scaled-back fiscal cliff plan, White House says

 

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Chavez 201 dias en Cuba en el 2012

El diputado Carlos Berrizbeitia señaló que la comitiva que acompaña al mandatario en Cuba promedia gastos de alrededor de 14 millones de dólares, sin incluir las medicinas. "Existe un puente aéreo entre Caracas y La Habana. Esta vez se ve que su estado es crítico, no está despachando como lo hizo en anteriores ocasiones", indicó

Continuar leyendo en El Universal >>

China’s Antigraft Edicts: Flowers, Booze and Calligraphy Are Verboten

world.time.com/ By Hannah Beech

Chinese policemen set up anti corruption billboards on display-thedailybeast.com

Woe to premium rice-wine distillers, potted-plant purveyors and weavers of red carpets. A slew of new regulations issued in recent days to curb corruption and limit showy displays by Chinese officialdom have claimed some unusual victims. “We’ve received no orders from the government at all,” laments an employee surnamed Ye of the Laitai Flower Market in Beijing. “Usually at times like this, we would always have government orders.” The weeks before Chinese New Year (also known as Spring Festival) are normally peak season for selling flowers because of a glut of official meetings that are decorated with extravagant floral arrangements.

China’s new leadership, which was introduced to the world in mid-November and is helmed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping, has made combating the country’s endemic corruption one of its publicly stated missions. In late December, Xinhua, China’s state news agency enumerated a list of eight don’ts to fit these more austere times. Floral displays and welcome mats for official delegations are now prohibited, according to regulations from the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. So are clusters of waving schoolchildren dispatched to greet visiting dignitaries. State employees traveling overseas should keep an eye on the size of their entourages. Closing roads or otherwise disrupting traffic to smooth a government official’s journey will no longer be tolerated. The iconic red banners that hang during Chinese government functions — which “warmly welcome” visitors or point out the glories of Chinese socialism — have also been banned by China’s communist czars.

(MORE: Meet the Men Who Will Rule China)

One of the more unusual prohibitions: officials are not allowed to ink public calligraphy (called tizi or 题字) without prior approval. Although these inscriptions might seem like innocuous displays of an ancient art, a local cadre can wield power through possessing a high-level official’s tizi, much like a restaurant might profit from displaying a photo of a celebrity enjoying a meal.

Not to be outdone by the Communist Party, the Central Military Commission, which supervises the People’s Liberation Army, issued 10 regulations of its own, including the banning of alcohol from its receptions. On Dec. 24, the share price of some premium Chinese liquor brands listed on Chinese stock exchanges declined, with Kweichow Moutai, one of the most well-known luxury alcohol makers, losing $2 billion, or 5.5% of its value, on the Shanghai bourse. Kweichow Moutai is a state-owned distillery based in remote Guizhou province; its white-and-red bottles, which can cost hundreds of dollars, are like the fruitcakes of Chinese officialdom — passed around at banquets and used as influence-buying gifts but rather less often quaffed, perhaps because of the corrosive burn of the grain spirit inside. (Another premium mao-tai firm’s stock price was hit last month by domestic media reports alleging that its alcohol was tainted by toxic contaminants.)

In addition to the alcohol ban, the Central Military Commission has nixed “luxury” banquets for members of the armed forces. (Just what constitutes a “luxury” banquet, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill one, was not specified.) Officials visiting Beijing for work, meanwhile, will have to make do with buffet meals, as opposed to multicourse banquets, according to new municipal regulations. The eastern province of Jiangsu issued similar dietary restrictions. Earlier this month, state media noted that China’s new leader Xi carried his own plate while eating at a cafeteria in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen. “Some viewed his actions as an attempt to encourage officials to forgo bureaucracy and a sense of entitlement,” noted Xinhua. Will we see a future reduction in the girth of Chinese cadres or biceps made brawnier by officials hefting their own cafeteria trays?

(MORE: Murder, Lies, Abuse of Power and Other Crimes Of the Chinese Century)

The government’s effort to combat official excess was preceded by months of Chinese Internet vigilantism. Using social media to attack government workers they suspected of living beyond their means, Chinese muckrakers circulated photos of officials wearing luxury clothes or accessories. Tales of cadre-organized orgies and multiple-mistressed officials proliferated online. Some officials have been axed from their jobs following the Internet exposés — a rare example of grassroots activism succeeding in China.

But will the state’s anticorruption campaign actually change the slippery way in which officialdom operates in China? When Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao came into office, he kicked off a similar antigraft drive. Yet official malfeasance and impunity only increased during Hu’s decade in power. Xi’s supporters say his administration realizes how dire the situation is today, even compared with 10 years ago. China’s wealth gap is yawning ever wider, and the Internet has made it harder for officials to hide their ostentatious habits.

Xi’s manifesto against state extravagance (and any attendant corruption) has certainly prompted some curious edicts. Among the Central Military Commission’s 10 regulations was one discouraging speeches that are “empty talk.” The Communist Party’s Beijing Municipal Committee has deemed that “news publishers are also required to shorten the lengths of stories on officials’ activities, which have often bored people due to the stories’ wordy, meaningless style.” That’s according to Xinhua — itself a model manufacturer of such journalism. Separately, another Chinese media outlet noted that with official functions stripped of all their expensive pomp and circumstance, efficiency has been heightened. A meeting that would normally take more than an hour needed only 20 minutes. What will China do with this precious gift of time?

— With reporting by Chengcheng Jiang / Beijing

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/12/26/chinas-anti-corruption-toolkit-no-flowers-expensive-booze-or-empty-talk/#ixzz2GI3jIS8P

Cuba cuts state payroll, private sector jobs grow 23 pct in 2012

sindrome del neocastrismo y la lucha del alpiste.
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reuters

* Private sector jobs double in 2 years

* State jobs slashed 5.7 percent in 2012

* Unemployment and informal work grows

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Cuba's drive to slash state payrolls and spur private-sector growth picked up surprising steam in 2012 as President Raul Castro moved ahead with reforms to the Soviet-style economy, according to figures unveiled recently with little hoopla.

The number of private or "non state" workers rose 23 percent in 2012, while state sector employment dropped 5.7 percent, according to a report from Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez. The unemployment rate grew to a record 3.8 percent, not including Cubans who did not seek work.

The wide-ranging year-end report to the National Assembly, which met in Havana last week, indicated the government is quietly making progress toward its goal of moving toward a more market-oriented economy while maintaining the socialist system in place the last half century.

Just a few years ago, the state employed more than 85 percent of Cuba's labor force, but that is changing as the government battles heavy indebtedness, economic stagnation, poor retail services and pilfering.

The report said the government cut 228,000 public jobs in 2012, on top of the previously announced 137,000 in 2011, closing in on its goal to slash 20 percent, or nearly a million jobs, from its bloated payrolls, by 2016.

At the same time, the number of private, or "non-state" workers as Cuba calls them, rose to 1.1 million jobs, double the number reported two years ago.

The majority of the non-state workers, or about 610,000, were farmers, whose numbers have grown under Castro's agricultural reforms, which include leasing state lands to individuals. The goal is to stimulate local food production and cut the need for budget-draining food imports.

The rest of the non-state workers are mostly in small retail businesses or self-employed such as carpenters, seamstresses, photographers and taxi drivers.

RUNNING THEIR OWN BUSINESS

The cash-strapped state is closing thousands of its small retail outlets such as barbershops and cafeterias, notorious for economic inefficiency and employee theft, and offering to lease the premises to employees or others interested in running their own business.

Starting in 2013 the state plans to turn more than 200 medium-sized businesses, from shrimp breeding and produce markets to construction and light manufacturing, into private cooperatives. The experiment will be expanded if successful.

Yzquierdo reported that unemployment was a record 3.8 percent in 2012, or a bit more than 250,000 out of a potential labor force of 6.8 million people. He admitted that the figure did not include a million Cubans who he said "did not actively seek employment."

Cubans often complain that the communist island, with its wide-ranging social benefits, is a place where too many live off the dole, a situation Castro has complained about in a number of speeches and vowed to change.

"Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls (and) losses that hurt the economy, are counterproductive and form bad work habits," a trade union federation statement said in 2010, when plans were first announced to push state employees into the "non-state" sector.

Many of those without jobs still enjoy free health care, education, subsidized food ration and other government services while also dealing in Cuba's vast black market, engaging in minor business activity and trading on the margins of the law.

Clara, a 36-year-old Havana resident, was laid off two years ago from her job as a secretary for a state-run security company, given one month's pay, another month of unemployment benefits and then left to fend for herself.

Instead of looking for another job, she decided to do manicures and hair styling, working under the radar without getting the small-business license required by the state.

Clara said she charged 24 pesos (1 dollar) for a manicure and about the same for hair styling, and brought home maybe 500 pesos, or about $20 per week.

That is considerably more than the $15 a month she earned with the government, but not enough to get legal.

"I only do my friends and as far as I'm concerned make too little to go through all the bother of registering my business and paying taxes," she said.

Buy, sell, hold or panic! No deal in sight!

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The best bizarre beauty trends of 2012

 

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While Chavismo Should Hold Elections ASAP, Diosdado Only Talks About Delaying Them

devilsexcrement

Let me try to understand the current scenario: The opposition just suffered one of its worst defeats ever since Chavismo came to power. Chavismo can give the opposition the final knockout punch by holding elections as soon as possible, elect Chávez’ chosen successor ( And Castro´s!) but Diosdado wants to wait and give Chávez time to get better by loosely interpreting the Constitution (and saying it is the opposition that wants to rush the process). Of course, we hear Maduro say nothing about the issue. Not one iota from Maduro about Jan. 10th. just Chávez is better, while time simply gives the opposition the chance to: select a candidate, organize, raise funds and try to regroup after the Dec. 16th, defeat.

Does any of it make sense to you? Does it make sense for heir apparent Maduro to wait? Does this make it sound like Chavismo is unified?

Because in the end, what we do know is that it does not look like Chávez will live for four years after Jan. 10th., the time that would have to elapse for Chavismo to hold on to power for the next six years. But it does seem, like if you rush an election now, before the ¨people¨can realize what a terrible candidate Maduro is, Chavismo can cling to power for six more years.

Instead, we get Godgiven Cabello telling us daily, at every turn, all over the country, how Chávez does not have to show up for however long he wants. Of course, Godgiven will be President all of this “extra” time, call it Cabello´s overtime.

So, I would have to agree with Dieterich, that Cabello is trying to bypass Chávez’ wish of designating Maduro as his successor. but while Godgiven addresses the issue at every step, Maduro just plods along, talking about unity and that Chávez is getting better. But Maduro has yet to say beep about what happens if on Jan. 10th. Hugo is a no show.

Is this for real? Or is this a well planned out game of making the opposition believe that the elections are not forthcoming? Because otherwise, it just seems as if Diosdado wants to extend to the power he should only hold for thirty days after Jan. 10th. for as long as he can.

To me, this is the best possible scenario for the opposition.(Just better, not much more) Let the elections be delayed as soon as possible. Let economic decisions be delayed. Let Maduro go around the country “campaigning” so that people can see he is just a Chávez wannabe and let the oppo build up a credible challenge.

Does it get better than that? I doubt it. But it still seems like a distracting ploy to me.

Next important date: Jan. 5th. Will Diosdado be ratified as President of the Assembly or will a woman named Blanca be named? And will she become the first female President of Venezuela, albeit for thirty days?

Fudging the Castro-Chavez Numbers

capitolhillcubans

With the health of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez quickly deteriorating, Cuba "experts" are looking to minimize (perception-wise) the economic impact of his largesse towards the Castro brothers.

And, the AP has provided the platform.

Thus, they've ingeniously concluded:

Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $2 billion to $4 billion a year.

"A (loss of) $2 billion to $4 billion would definitely pinch. But it is not the same relative weight as the sudden complete withdrawal of the Soviet subsidies in the early '90s," said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego.

Brilliant, except last year alone, Venezuela bankrolled Cuba to the tune of nearly $10 billion.

And this is a conservative estimate, for Venezuelan economists pegged trade in 2008 at almost $11 billion.

Consequently, the most renowned Cuban economist (coincidentally) observed yesterday:

“In nominal terms, the Venezuelan subsidy is higher than whatever subsidy the Soviet Union gave to Cuba,” says Carmelo Mesa, a Cuban economist who’s a visiting professor at Tulane University.  

But just as absurd as trying to fudge the numbers on Chavez's subsidies to Castro is the AP's analysis of Raul's "economic diversification" efforts.

The AP mentions "Cuba's successes in courting foreign investors for joint ventures."

Yet, only cites Brazil's Odebrecht (attention Miami-Dade County) as an example.

On this issue, we recommend a re-read of an article earlier this year in The Economist about foreign investors running away from Cuba in droves.  It's the one about how Raul has imprisoned many of his long-term foreign business partners, which is apparently easier for him than sharing profits or having to make debt payments.

And no AP article about the Cuban economy is complete without some mention of Raul's efforts with "independent and cooperative farming" and his new experiment with "non-farm collectives."

Except that the Castros have been experimenting with so-called "private" farming cooperatives since the 1970's and even The New York Times recognized last month that these have netted few results -- if any.

Bottom line: Raul's bogus "diversification" is not going to ameliorate the tens of billions in Chavez's largesse.

No matter how you fudge the numbers.

Unless, of course, the United States decides to unilaterally lift sanctions and become Castro's third major historic subsidy -- pursuant to the Soviet Union and Venezuela.

Something Raul and Cuba "experts" are keenly aware of.

Is the Amazon Rainforest Drying Out?

scientificamerican

By Barbara Fraser

TARAPOTO, Peru—For tropical ecologist Gregory Asner, flying over the Peruvian Amazon from the town of Tarapoto is like traveling back in time. Modern houses, rice paddies and oil palm plantations give way to steep, forested mountains and then to green, unbroken forest that curves toward the horizon.

Suddenly the tree canopy below the twin-engine plane turns a mottled gray-brown, a sign of drought damage that he estimates may affect as many as half the trees.

In this remote corner of Peru’s Ucayali region, Asner, a tropical ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, is afraid he is seeing the future. In the last few years this patch of forest has been hit by two “once-in-a-century droughts”—one in 2005 and another in 2010. These dry spells may become more frequent as temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean rise and as humans burn thousands of square kilometers of forest for farming. Although it has seen warmer temperatures in the past, the western Amazon is under siege now from a combination of a warming climate and human population growth that it has never faced before, and scientists are scrambling to determine whether existing protected areas will be enough to buffer against the changes to come.

Behind the plane Asner glimpses smoke rising from fires set to clear land for farming. Migration from the Andean highlands has boosted Peru’s Amazonian states to the top of the population growth chart, and the influx of people is taking a toll on the forest.

Peru’s Ministry of Environment—using satellite images and Carnegie-provided software—calculates that the country lost about 6,475 square kilometers of forest, an area the size of Delaware, between 2005 and 2009, up from some 4,550 square kilometers in the five previous years. Losing forest reduces precipitation, further stressing the remaining trees. “About 50 percent of the rain that falls in the Amazon is generated by the forest itself, through transpiration and evaporation,” Asner says. “Deforestation exacerbates the drought problem, because it removes that internal engine.”

Clearing fields and pastures also leaves more exposed forest edges, drying out the interior and making it more likely to burn if an agricultural fire escapes. Fires during the 2005 and 2010 droughts added 3.8 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere, according to Simon Lewis, a forest ecologist at University College London. In recent genetic studies Lewis found that Amazonian trees have weathered past climatic warming, but the changes were slower then and were not exacerbated by humans, he says.

Faced with warmer, drier conditions, trees have three options:

“Individuals can acclimate, species can adapt or migrate, or they go extinct,” says Kenneth Feeley, a biologist at Florida International University. A floral species can expand its range into a cooler region, but only as fast as seed dispersal allows. Feeley, who studies trees on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes, was surprised to see range changes there in just a few years. “Species are moving upslope about three vertical meters a year—that’s really fast,” he says, although perhaps not fast enough. “Based on the climate change that’s already happening, they need to move nine or 10 vertical meters a years.”

In the lowlands, deforestation reduces the areas to which species can move, and fields, pastures and roads create barriers to dispersal. Peru has some large protected areas, such as Manú National Park, where Feeley does his work, but scientists don’t know if they are big enough—or in the right places—to allow species to migrate in a rapidly changing climate.

Keep reading on scientificamerican >>

Huffington Post: ‘President Clinton’s Policies Sent The Economy Seriously Off Course’

finally someone realizes the origin of the present mess.

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foxnews

By Dean Baker

The truth is often painful but nonetheless it is important that we live in the real world. Just as little kids have to come to grips with the fact that there is no Santa Claus, it is necessary for millions of liberals, including many who think of themselves as highly knowledgeable about economic matters, to realize that President Clinton's policies sent the economy seriously off course.

In Washington it is common to tout the budget surpluses of the Clinton years as some momentous achievement, as though the point of economic policy is to run budget surpluses. Of course the point of economic policy is to produce an economy that improves the lives of the people in a sustainable way. Clinton badly flunked this test.

theblaze.com

The Clinton economy was driven by a stock bubble. This is not a debatable point. The ratio of market-wide stock prices to corporate earnings was well over 30 to 1 at the peak of the bubble in 2000. This is more than twice the historic average.

Keep reading on huffingtonpost >>

Descemer Bueno presenta disco en La Habana y canta con Xiomara Laugart

a todo vapor el programa de atraccion de los musicos "respetuosos".

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La Habana, 27 dic (PL) La cancionística cubana volvió a anotarse un tanto favorable con el concierto que ofreció el destacado cantautor Descemer Bueno, quien presentó su más reciente disco en el cual comparte con diversos intérpretes del patio.
 

El capitalino teatro Mella resultó pequeño, la víspera, ante la avalancha de seguidores del también bajista, ganador del premio Goya 2006 por la banda sonora del filme español Habana Blues, de Benito Zambrano.

Con una escenografía convencional que utilizó con acierto el diseño de luces, el espectáculo arrancó con un guiño a la cultura afrocubana para dar paso a una rítmica guajira que entonaron a dúo Xiomara Laugart y Bueno.

Fue una noche de duetos sobre el escenario, por donde desfilaron Israel Rojas (Sed de sol), Haila María Mompié (Cuando me enamoro), Luna Manzanares, Baby Lores y Alain Daniel.

Ovaciones para Kelvis Ochoa y Santiago Feliú, el primero cómplice de varios temas que gozan de gran popularidad; el segundo, impulsor y guía de la carrera autoral del anfitrión.

La pica más alta sobrevino, sin dudas, con la aparición del cantautor colombiano Jorge Villamizar, ganador de varios premios Grammy y fiel admirador de su par cubano.

Escudado apenas en su guitarra eléctrica, este último levantó al público de sus butacas y lo hizo vocalizar, en gigantesco coro, los estribillos de sus más conocidas piezas.

Bueno, título del fonograma que licenció en la isla la disquera Bis Music, de Artex, quedará también registrado en un DVD bajo la dirección de Enrique Carballea y Luis Najmías.

Feliz propósito de ese reconocido sello, confiado en que si es Descemer, tiene que ser Bueno.

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cuando se presento hace 3 anos en la'bana:

Arturo M Del Monte

 

Hagel, Obama and the Israeli Elections

frontpagemag/ Caroline Glick 

thejerusalemconnection.us

The National Journal recently reported that Obama is reconsidering his decision to appoint Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense. As I wrote in my previous post, there is no chance that Obama will appoint a supporter of a strong Israel to any senior foreign policy post because he wouldn’t appoint someone who doesn’t share his basic animosity towards Israel. But in Hagel, he chose someone even more outspoken in his animus towards the Jewish state than Obama.

Hagel’s looming appointment provoked angry responses from many leading Jewish voices in the US. Whether this opposition made a difference in driving Obama to reconsider his choice is unclear. Plenty of other influential groups – including senators, members of the military and lobbyists for homosexual rights – expressed their discomfort and opposition to the prospect of having Hagel serve as Defense Secretary. Still it is notable that Hagel’s possible appointment sparked an outcry among prominent American Jews and that this outcry had some unknown impact on Obama’s possible decision to cancel Hagel’s appointment.

If Obama indeed scuttles Hagel’s elevation to Defense Secretary, it shows that it is possible to fight Obama on foreign policy even in his second term, and win, at least sometimes. This is important information for Republicans, American Jews, and the Israeli government.

Obama will have multiple, massive domestic challenges to contend with in his second term. If he wishes to focus on advancing his domestic agenda, he may well punt on foreign affairs.

The US President’s inbox is always overflowing. One of the hardest things for a president to do is take control over his own agenda.

Just consider the issue of gun control. Certainly, as a liberal Democrat, Obama is for it. But Obama has never made the issue of restricting gun ownership  a priority during his presidency. Now in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, he is suddenly spending a lot of time on the issue and going into a head to head battle with the National Rifle Association.

Maybe Obama will win this battle. Maybe he’ll lose it. But he will be focusing on it a lot in the coming weeks. Again, this is not an issue that was ever central to his agenda. But due to an unforeseen event, it has become an issue that he is now forced to spend time on.

There are of course, many more foreseeable issues Obama will have to devote his presidential time, energy and capital to. The biggest among them is Obamacare. Budgetary and tax woes are not far behind. With only 24 hours in the day, Obama will not be able to focus on Israel or foreign policy on a daily basis. And in order to make time for other things, which are more important to him, or more immediately pressing, Obama may be willing to back down.

As I was working on my book this morning, I came across an article I wrote before the 2006 elections in Israel. In it, I argued that the reason the Sharon government had such good relations with the US was because it bowed to every US demand, no matter how antithetical it was to Israel’s national interests. At that time, I mentioned Sharon’s decision to set aside his concerns and bow to US pressure to permit Hamas to participate in the Palestinian Authority’s legislative elections in January 2006.

For bending to Washington’s will, Israel got plaudits from Rice and Bush. But we also got Hamas in charge, an even more radicalized Fatah racing to prove its own terror bona fides to measure up to Hamas, and increased international isolation for Israel as nation after nation began softening to the idea of Hamas being a legitimate organization.

In retrospect, it would certainly have been better for Israel – and for America – if Sharon had stood up to Rice and simply refused to permit Hamas to participate in the elections. It would have been better to have had a public fight with Washington and kept Hamas out of power than maintain warm relations with the Bush administration while empowering a terror group that openly seeks the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.

This brings us to Obama, his apparent decision to stand down on Hagel,  US relations with Israel in Obama’s second term in office, and finally to how the Israeli election campaign plays into all of these things.

Here in Israel, the Left’s basic diplomatic attack on Netanyahu involves accusing him of having wrecked  Israel’s relations with the US by standing up to Obama. But whereas by not standing up to Bush and Rice, Israel got Hamas in power and missiles on Jerusalem, by standing up to Obama, Israel is still in control of Judea and Samaria and the two-state delusion has been increasingly discredited in Israel, and to a lesser degree in the US.

Moreover on Iran, Israel has coaxed a reluctant US administration into passing serious sanctions against Iran, and while the economic pressure hasn’t made any dent in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Israeli pressure has made it harder for Obama to simply accept Iranian nuclear weapons. Vocally expressing Israeli concerns has certainly helped Republicans maintain pressure on Obama to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and publicly support a potential Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.

It is understandable that Netanyahu is keeping mum on his diplomatic achievements. He can’t risk even worse relations with Obama by mentioning his success in keeping the US President at bay in his quest to diminish Israel’s strategic options.

What makes less sense is his decision to adopt the Left’s talking points against the Right in his assault on the Jewish Home Party and its leader Naftali Bennett.

Last Thursday Bennett was conned by television personality Nissim Mishal into discussing what his  personal response as a soldier would be to the completely hypothetical issue of IDF expulsions of Jews in Judea and Samaria. The issue is artificial is because no one is proposing a mass expulsions of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria today. The Palestinians are uninterested in negotiating with Israel. Netanyahu is uninterested in surrendering land. And the Left, which would like to cut and run, has no chance of winning next month’s elections.

So Mishal manipulated Bennett into an irrelevant policy discussion in order to embarrass him.  Bennett said that he would personally object to fulfilling an order to expel Jews from their homes, and if necessary, bear the personal consequences.

Netanyahu himself is quite familiar with Nissim Mishal’s manipulations of political theater to embarrass candidates on the Right. In 1999, during a televised candidates’ debate when Netanyahu ran for reelection as Prime Minister, Mishal repeatedly interjected himself into the debate to support rival candidate Yitzhak Mordechai’s character attacks on Netanyahu.

Keep reading on frontpagemag >>

Obama’s Regulatory Cliff Draws Near

frontpagemag/ Arnold Ahlert

garyhasissues.com

Many Americans believe the biggest problem the nation currently faces is the so-called fiscal cliff. Unfortunately, the fiscal cliff is nothing compared to the avalanche of new regulations that will be coming in 2013. That Americans remain unaware of this ominous development is understandable. The most transparent administration in history ignored the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and a subsequent series of executive orders that require the semi-annual release of all regulations under development or review by some 60 departments, agencies, and commissions. Thus, the April 2012 and October 2012 deadlines came and went without compliance. Now that the election is over, Americans will discover just how all-encompassing Obama and his big-government zealots intend to be.

The scope is staggering. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the overall regulatory burden has reached $1.8 trillion annually, and $215.4 billion in compliance costs have been added in 2012 alone. The OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website reveals that 4,100 new regulations are in the pipeline, with more than 400 aimed at small businesses, whose compliance costs will exceed those of their larger competitors by 36 percent.

Unsurprisingly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be taking the lead role in flexing the administration’s regulatory muscles. Proposals to significantly expand the Clean Water Act will give the EPA power over virtually every body of water in the nation, including farm ponds, streams, and even storm water runoff, all of which could seriously impact family farmers and small businesses. More restrictive requirements for controlling ozone emissions could cost $90 billion annually and trigger the potential loss of millions of jobs. The designation of coal ash as a “hazardous substance” will substantially increase energy costs, adding another $79 billion to $110 billion to the regulatory tab, and eliminating thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Missouri, and Ohio. A new rule that tightens allowable levels of so-called fine particulate matter will be added to the mix as well, making it far harder for local governments to issue new manufacturing permits.

Keep reading on frontpagemag >>

HARRY REID: 'It Looks Like' We'll Go Over The Cliff Because Of Boehner's 'Dictatorship'

businessinsider/ Brett LoGiurato

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid/ CNN

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this morning that it "looks like" Congress will fail to come to a deal to avert the year-end fiscal cliff, blaming the failure on House Speaker John Boehner's "dictatorship" running the lower chamber.

"It looks like that's where we're headed," Reid said. "I don't know, time-wise, how it can happen now."

It's not exactly a surprise — leaders left Washington last week without any imminent signs of a deal in the making. But it's a grim warning just days before tax hikes and automatic spending cuts begin to take effect.

Reid opened the Senate session by launching into a lengthy criticism of the House and Boehner, saying he "seems to care more about his Speakership" than making a deal on the cliff.

The House is being run "by a dictatorship of the Speaker," Reid said. He accused Boehner of waiting until the election of the Speaker on Jan. 3 to get involved with negotiations. And he urged the lower chamber to pass the Middle Class Tax Cut Act, which the Senate narrowly passed in July. The bill made permanent all of the Bush-era tax cuts on incomes of less than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals.

Reid also slammed the House for not being in session on Thursday. He said that instead of being in Washington, Republicans are "out watching movies."

"They had to have a conference call," he said.

Reid's comments come a day after Boehner put the onus on the Senate on making the next move in fiscal cliff negotiations.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fiscal-cliff-harry-reid-negotiations-obama-boehner-taxes-cuts-spending-2012-12#ixzz2GGr4KwHP

How The Media's Fiscal Cliff Hype Could Backfire Massively

businessinsider

Joe Weisenthal 

In theory, all of the media hype about how the US will go down into a canyon of flames on January 1 if we hit the Fiscal Cliff should help lawmakers come together to hammer out a deal.

Today's New York Post cover is an overdramatized version of what most media are doing with their countdown clocks and so forth.

The problem becomes: What happens if there's no insta-tragedy on January 2, when everyone comes back to work and the market opens?

What if the market doesn't budge?

What if life for most people seems totally normal?

The problem then is that you have the debt ceiling fight coming up soon thereafter, and there there's a real likelihood that failure to raise it would result in catastrophe.

Even in 2011, there were a fair number of people who thought that not lifting the debt ceiling wasn't a big deal, and that everyone was just spinning scare stories. If we go over the Cliff and nothing happens, the skeptics will multiply this time. There'd be no credible pressure from anyone.

This isn't a first order worry. The big worry is austerity via lower spending and higher taxes. But in terms of addressing a real issue, all this hype isn't helping.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-medias-fiscal-cliff-hype-could-backfire-massively-2012-12#ixzz2GGqTEfAl

FORGET THE DEFICIT: Here's The Real Reason Liberals Want To Hike Taxes On The Rich

businessinsider/Joe Weisenthal 

A common argument you hear from conservatives is that raising taxes on the rich is a joke of a deficit reduction proposal, because it hardly makes a dent in the deficit.

According to CNBC, reverting to Clinton-era levels would just get you about $40-$45 billion in the first year.

GOP Congressman Tom Price has gotten a lot of attention for saying it would only fund government for 8 days... so what's the point?

So what is the point?

Well, it's not really about deficit reduction at all.

Zachary Goldfarb at The Washington Post has a great piece on how Democrats once vehemently opposed the Bush tax cuts, but are now trying to permanently preserve all of them for the vast majority of taxpayers. One big reason is that the economy has changed, and there's a recognition among virtually everyone that the economy is too weak to let taxes rise above the board.

But as for raising taxes on the rich...

What’s more, income inequality has been growing. Sparing the middle class higher taxes while requiring the wealthy to pay more would tip the scales slightly in the other direction.

“The reason there’s been this movement toward broad consensus on renewing the tax cut for working- and middle-class families is that will give us a sharper progressivity in the tax system that is very much desired by Democrats and progressives who’ve seen an income distribution more and more distorted toward the wealthy,” said Betsey Stevenson, former chief economist in Obama’s Labor Department and a professor at the University of Michigan, who added that taxes may have to rise even more than currently contemplated to meet the country’s needs.

The point about making the tax code more progressive doesn't get talked about enough, but when discussing changing marginal tax rates, this should be the main issue.

The truth of the matter is that it's not going to be that easy closing the deficit using the tax code, or even via lower spending. Deficits are closed via more growth, and that's about it.

As this chart shows, a great predictor of deficits, going back decades, is the unemployment rate. The tax code has much less to do with it than people think.

But the tax code can help create more progressive outcomes, and at a time when inequality continues to rise, addressing that inequality is a major liberal goal. Actually it's not just a liberal thing. Most people in most societies feel that extreme inequality is problematic.

For those unfamiliar with it, here's a look at the Gini Coefficient (which measures societal income inequality; higher = more unequal) for the U.S.

So yes, tax hikes on those making $250K or more won't dent the deficit much.

But that's at a minimum a secondary issue in the tax discussion. It's all about trying to do something about inequality. Debt and deficits so thoroughly dominate politics, however, that politicians usually frame it through that.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fiscal-cliff-obama-heres-the-real-reason-liberals-want-to-raise-taxes-on-the-rich-2012-12#ixzz2GGpLcJiM