Canadian blames Fidel Castro for "economic blunders"

Arch Ritter, a Canadian expert on the Cuban economy, lists "Fidel's Phenomenal Economic Fiascoes." So here are his top 10 in reverse order, a la David Letterman:

• Fiasco # 10    The Instant Industrialization Strategy, 1961-1963:
• Fiasco #9       The 10 Million Ton Sugar Harvest Strategy, 1964-1970
• Fiasco #8       The “New Man”
• Fiasco #7       The “Budgetary System of Finance”
• Fiasco #6       The “Revolutionary Offensive” and the Nationalization of Almost Everything
• Fiasco #5       Revolucion Energetica
• Fiasco #4       A Half Century of Monetary Controls and Non-Convertibility
• Fiasco #3       Shutting Down Half the Sugar Sector
• Fiasco #2       Suppression of Workers’ Rights
• Fiasco #1       Abolition of Freedom of Expression

Next time around, Ritter promises to come up with Cuba's 10 greatest achievements under Fidel Castro. I'll post that, too, once I see it.

Note: After filing this post earlier today, I received a message that Ritter's link was putting out malware - automatically generating spam showing my e-mail address as the sender. So I took down the links. If anyone has any idea how to prevent that from happening, please let me know. I use a Mac equipped with anti-virus software. Thanks, Tracey