The BBC notes that the legacy of the Cuban socialist miracle is ‘complex’.

This is just what Serbian Communist leader Draza Markovic used to say about the problems in Kosovo in the early 1980s: "the situation is still complicated, even complex!"

The BBC on Cuba:

Fifty years on, the legacy of the revolution is complex. There is free education and health care but the state-controlled economy means wages for many Cubans are very low, on average about $20 to $25 a month.

The country’s difficulties cannot just be blamed on the US trade embargo, in place since 1962, or global financial problems, says our correspondent.

Note the fatuous ‘just’. Castro’s failure to deliver more than $25 per month wages over 50 years can not be blamed on the US embargo at all!

Let’s remind ourselves about two warm and nicely situated islands. One big. One small.

50 years ago the bigger one was notably wealthier than the smaller one, indeed as wealthy in per cap GDP terms as Japan.

Today that smaller island has one of the highest living standards and best health services in the world. Japan has its problems, but broadly speaking I think we can agree that it has got wealthier since the early 1960s.

The big island, Cuba, is a unique case in modern times of creating Nothing out of Something.

How did that happen?

Let’s hope President Obama lifts the US trade embargo and the gormless socialist regime in Cuba is washed away by a tsunami of Coca-Cola and new brash shopping malls. Liaena Hernandez can start a new career in a PR agency and no doubt do very well.