DC:
HAVANA — Oscar Hernandez could have finished his bachelor’s degree, but instead he elected to drop out of college to drive a taxi cab around Havana.
The choice for Hernandez was simple: in Cuba, cabbies can earn way more money in a single day, or even one trip, than government employees make in a month.
Oscar did a quick cost-benefit analysis and realized his career as a government psychologist would pay significantly less than driving people from point A to point B every day for the foreseeable future.
“The government would only pay me $15-20 a week to work as a psychologist,” Hernandez told The Daily Caller News Foundation as he sought shelter under an umbrella to protect him from the intense, unrelenting rays of the tropical Havana sun. He received 20 Cuba cucs — the Cuban currency which translates roughly at a 1:1 rate with the U.S. dollar — in one 20-minute cab ride with the TheDCNF and other reporters.
Stories similar to Oscar’s are not uncommon in Cuba, citizens eschew professional fields for higher paying, lower-skilled jobs. Entrepreneurs have the potential to earn up to 250 percent more a month than those that work for the government.
Standing some 300 yards away from the spot where former president of Cuba and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro used to give 8-hour long, exhaustive speeches, Hernandez explained the mentality of people in Cuba. He said they are ready to move away from Castro’s ruinous communist regime and are increasingly favorable to a more western, capitalist economic system. MORE
Communism is centrally controlled chaos. There is never a private sector, no matter what they say or what it looks like.
Someone in the cuban govt. will see this article and implement a plan to take away most the money he earns.
You know you are in a screwed up country when the highest wage earners are maids at resorts catering to westerners. I hear the government shakes them down for the tips they receive in foreign currency.