• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 11 / 26 / 2010

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MIAMI HERALD,When opening a copy of the monthly magazine of the Archdiocese of Havana you expect to find only religious news, right?

Think again. The current issue of Palabra Nueva (New Word) has an article dealing with the planned layoffs and their aftermath in which it boldly counsels the government how to proceed.

Titled "Liberation of employment in Cuba," the article scoffs at the idea that the million workers about to be "liberated" from their jobs will find gainful employment in the informal trades.

"The job market needs a positive buffer more drastic and a lot more ambitious than the ones announced," the article says. "For the self-employment area to absorb all the jobs that need to be absorbed, it is crucial to broaden the area
of private activity more than as contemplated up to now." Some recommendations:

• Engineers, architects, doctors and accountants "must be given access to self-employment in their areas of expertise. They are the workers with the qualifications needed to manage new companies that, in turn, would generate employment and increase the availability of goods and services."

Highly trained professionals should not have to end up selling flowers on the street or becoming barbers or clowns.

• No limit should be placed on the number of employees an entrepreneur can hire or the number of clients that can be served "as in a restaurant or a beauty shop." Such restrictions limit the scaled savings "production costs that drop as production rises" that increase the workers' productivity.

• "It would also be very desirable to permit the organization of private enterprises that complement or compete with state-run activities, given the deterioration of the Cuban economy."

• "The problem in many Latin American countries is that their economic activity has been dominated by a body of small enterprises and inefficient service providers and almost half the population works in the informal, or underground, economy. The new economic policies in Cuba must try to prevent these situations."

• "The rules of the game must be clear and not subject to arbitrary changes [as in] the 1990s, when, after the field was opened to certain private activities, those activities were later restricted, directly or indirectly,through confiscatory taxes."

The state should "establish legal institutions with sufficient autonomy to ensure clear and transparent rules for private activities."

• "Regulations to obtain self-employment permits should not be onerous or arbitrary, and the permits should be issued as soon as possible" after they're applied for.

• "The self-employed worker should be allowed to determine how much he'll charge for his services or products," either in national or convertible pesos. In this connection, "a simplification of the exchange system and the valuation of the national currency to a rate of exchange that better reflects its value,relative to convertible currencies, is essential to promote an increase in the production of tradeable goods."

There's more, and it's in Spanish, but you get the idea. The author is identified as Lorenzo L. Pérez, a retired economist who was an adviser to the International Monetary Fund and is now a member of the Washington-based Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.

Source: //miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/