1. For CUBA, give the following information:

1. capital
2. location/the countries that share its borders
3. the religious breakdown of the population
4. the type of government
5. the chief of state (and head of government if different) If monarch or dictator, since what date has he/she ruled? – include name of heir apparent for monarch
6. the population

Find the answers at the CIA World FactBook website. For each country, answers can be found under the “Geography” “People” and “Government” headings.

NOTE: Before answering the following questions, read the info under “Background” and watch the video under “Resources” below.

2. For CUBA:
a) list the who, what, where and when of the news item
b) What does Communist Cuba’s Commerce Minster Betsy Diaz Velazquez blame for shortages in Cuba?
c) What is the real reason for the shortages?
d) How much of its food does Cuba import?
e) Why/when did it crash, and then recover, and now crash again?
f) In March Cuba produced 900,000 fewer eggs than the 5.7 million needed daily to satisfy national demand. The production of pork, the most-consumed meat in Cuba and a normally affordable staple of most people’s diets, is hundreds of tons below target.

Cuba’s Communist government-run means of production is unable to produce enough to meet people’s basic needs. Venezuela’s socialist government ran its economy into the ground and everyone is suffering.

Why do you think a majority of young people polled in the U.S. support systems where government controls the means of production, which always leads to shortages and everybody suffering together (except for the leaders, who live in luxury), rather than a free-market, capitalist system, where everyone has the opportunity to make money, and some (like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin, and Jay Z and Kim Kardashian and Michael Jordan, et al) become millionaires and billionaires?

--Is it because young people don’t understand the economic systems, were never taught the difference, don’t care about working hard to make a lot of money, don’t want anyone to have that much money, don’t understand that the leaders in authoritarian governments always live in luxury while the people suffer?…
Please explain your answer.