What Can Hong Kong And Cuba Teach Us About Economic Policy?

Early this year, I shared an amusing but accurate image that showed an important difference between capitalism and socialism.
And in 2012, I posted a comparison of Detroit and Hiroshima to illustrate the damage of big government.
Well, if you combine those concepts, you get this very pointed look at the evolution of Cuban socialism and Hong Kong capitalism.

Some might dismiss these photos as being unrepresentative, and it’s reasonable to be skeptical. After all, I’m sure it would be easy to put together a series of photos that make it seem as if the United States is suffering from decay while France is enjoying a boom.
So let’s go to the data. In previous posts, I’ve shared comparisons of long-run economic performance in market-oriented nations and statist countries. Examples include Chile vs. Argentina vs. Venezuela, North Korea vs. South Korea, Cuba vs. Chile, Ukraine vs. Poland, Hong Kong vs. Argentina, Singapore vs. Jamaica, and the United States vs. Hong Kong and Singapore.
Now let’s add Cuba vs. Hong Kong to the mix.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 11/28/2014.