Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations(bloomberg.com) |
Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations(bloomberg.com) |
The Cuban government is reluctant to open internet access to the people, despite of they already have the needed bandwith through a submarine cable from Venezuela. Is really fascinating how the Cubans have developed a higly optimized offline distribution channel to share dowloaded content like websites, software, video games, tv shows, movies, with almost the same comsuption patterns of the connected world.
This is a loable move from Obama admnistration and can have a pontentially impact on the near future of cuban internet. The White House fact sheet (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/fact-s...) said:
"Telecommunications providers will be allowed to establish the necessary mechanisms, including infrastructure, in Cuba to provide commercial telecommunications and internet services, which will improve telecommunications between the United States and Cuba."
If Cuban government allow this kind of companies to do business on or with Cuba, that could be huge. But if happens, this could be very slow, sadly.
Disclosure: I'm the cofounder of some Cuba related startups, a classifieds ads site censored by the Cuba government https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUmPkb44n_w, they block us by ip and dns, despite of the censorship, revolico is one of the most visited sites in the country, taking into account that cuba has a 5% internet penetration. Also a atypical remittances platform https://www.fonoma.com and crowfunding site for cuban artists shutted down by the USA goverment because of the kind of restriction that they are softening today http://www.yagruma.org
The word you are looking for is laudable BTW.
Replace the X with my username. david.gutierrez.X@gmail.com
Un abrazo.
While I hesitate to predict that this change will be all for the good, I do believe that the poorest in Cuba will benefit significantly from increased trade.
Most discussions seems to center around the doom and gloom of quality dropping and prices increasing as the US/Cuban cigar market opens and the demand for CC increases.
No discussion on the legality of owning CC changing amusingly. As apparently everyone forgets that smoking a Cuban Cigar can be considered an act of treason currently.
The USA and OPEC flood the market with oil (literally), crashing prices and sending the Ruble into a spiral. Just as Cuba starts to worry about Russian support going forward, the USA swoops in to provide some economic bracing.
Apparently they have a university dedicated to IT stuff[1] but I don't read Spanish and I couldn't really find any projects/research page on there. The only thing that seems to be portrayed is a Linux distro called Nova.[2]
On the university site, there's a few hidden links to Cuban Mozilla fans[1], a digital publication for open source software [2], a youth-targeted site for open-source users[3] (seems down), and a women-targeted site for IT [4]. Note that there's more, but everything seems to be down at the moment, it might be the HN effect
[1] http://firefoxmania.uci.cu/ [2] http://swlx.cubava.cu/ [3] gutl.jovenclub.cu [4] http://haciendoweb.upr.edu.cu/
I'd recommend formally renouncing your Cuban citizenship (and getting the documentation to certify this) if you want to be 100% sure there are no hassles.
It seems like people commonly raise the fact that Cuba still jails political dissidents. However, while accurate, it ignores the many MANY countries the US hasn't embargoed which do similar or worse.
For one example, the US and Saudi Arabia are "best buddies" but yet the Saudi government is often doing extremely anti-freedom stuff. I mean this is the only country on earth where women are forbidden from driving.
So my point is less "Cuba is the good guy" and more "if they're going to continue the embargo then keep it consistent, hit Egypt, Pakistan, China, Yemen, and so on" for it also.
U.S. policy usually tends to favour business. That's why the economic sanctions on Cuba were bound to be removed sooner or later. At present, there are some products (e.g. compressors and other items requiring a large foundry to produce) that are very difficult and expensive to get in Cuba because most companies that produce them are either American or owned by American companies. Smaller companies from countries such as Canada have made a practice of "bootlegging" for the Cubans. In recent years it has not been uncommon for a compressor skid to be produced in Texas, shipped to Alberta via rail, shipped to the East coast through Canada via rail, and finally shipped to Cuba.
The reason sanctions against Cuba are finally being dropped is probably related to the death or extreme old age of most everyone who can remember having property snatched away from them when the Cubans nationalized everything after the revolution. Subsequent generations of Cubans and americans have been brought up to distrust each other though. It won't be as easy as some think for U.S. companies to march back into Cuba and set up shop again. Companies that have been quietly running mines and building power plants for the Cubans over the last few decades will likely have the edge. It's going to take time and patience for trust to be restored.
However, that is not the entire story. If we (US) were really that concerned about the lost property of the Cubans expelled by Castro, we would also look inward and ponder the fate of the British supporters kicked out in 1776; the KMT supporters kicked out by Mao; etc.
If we can trade with China, Russia, etc. then there's no reason we can't trade with Cuba. In fact, the opening of the borders with USSR is often listed as one of the key factors in bringing it down; so why not do the same with Cuba?
I do find it interesting that in recent years, Bacardi has been playing up its Cuban heritage. I suspect that they're itching to get back, but that whole issue of returning confiscated property stands in the way. Will Cuba end up with something like the Treuhandanstalt in post-reunification Germany?
Freed from any need to cooperate; now that Republicans are in control; with Congress its going to be fun. Why do I say no need, with Reid in charge of the Senate he had to play by party rules, he is free of that.
Some moves will definitely be for the good, some may not be. Regardless it should be chaotic if not fun to watch
And while that's technically only a "section" of the Swiss embassy, a glance at a photo of the place makes it pretty clear that there's a bit more going on.
The ambassador's freedoms are quite limited. Eg, at some point he was not allowed to leave the confines of the DC beltway. Diplomatic immunity be damned. Really sucked for us planning an event in my Baltimore uni for him to speak at, where the travel restriction came into effect just days before and we had to resort to video conf.
But my point is that this is all just paper. Out in the real world, the US can (and probably will) pretty much just swap out the plaque outside the "US Interests Section" with one that says "US Embassy", with the chief and their assistants magically transformed into diplomats.
To see what I mean, Ctrl-F dueling on http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cigar_brands
From the Bacardi wikipedia:
"Ospina describes how the Bacardi family and Company left Cuba after the Castro regime confiscated the Company’s Cuban assets on 15 October 1960; in particular, in nationalizing and banning all private property on the island as well as all bank accounts. However, due to concerns over the previous Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista the company had started foreign branches a few years prior to the revolution; the Company moved the ownership of the Company's trademarks, assets and proprietary formulas out of the country to the Bahamas prior to the revolution as well as constructing plants in Puerto Rico and Mexico after Prohibition to save import taxes for rum being imported to the US. This helped the company survive after the communist government confiscated without compensation all Bacardi assets in the country."
"More recently, Bacardi lawyers were influential in the drafting of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which sought to extend the scope of the United States embargo against Cuba. In 1999, Otto Reich, a lobbyist in Washington on behalf of Bacardi, drafted section 211 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Appropriations Act, FY1999 (Pub.L. 105–277), a bill that became known as the Bacardi Act. Section 211 denied trademark protection to products of Cuban businesses expropriated after the Cuban revolution, a provision keenly sought by Bacardi. The act was aimed primarily at the Havana Club brand in the US. The brand was created by the José Arechabala company and confiscated without compensation in the Cuban revolution. The Havana Club trademark had been registered by the Cuban government in the United States without permission of the rightful owners. The new law invalidated the trademark registration. Section 211 has been challenged unsuccessfully by the Cuban government and the European Union in US courts; however, the act has been ruled illegal by the WTO (August 2001). The US Congress has yet to re-examine the matter."
Basically, Cuba stole some brands after the revolution, so the U.S. said "fuck you, you can't trademark a brand you stole from its rightful owners". The EU and WTO have a problem with that, but luckily the U.S. has never given a shit what the EU or WTO says.
This is an executive action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban%E2%80%93American_Treaty#C...
Not quite; some restrictions have been lifted but this is not yet a done deal:
"Although the decades-old American embargo on Cuba will remain in place for now, the administration signaled that it would welcome a move by Congress to ease or lift it should lawmakers choose to."[1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/us-cuba-rel...
1: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-spendi...
- average life expectancy in Cuba is almost the same as the USA (and higher than Mexico, Belize, Bahamas, Brazil, etc.).
- literacy rate in Cuba is higher than that in the USA
- Physicians per 10,000 people: Cuba has 67, USA has 24
In the Ebola crisis, Cuba has been leading from the front.
The US figure reflects very long careers; late retirements; investment in large teams of trauma specialists due to high war, car crash, and gunshot wound rates; a high percentage of women physicians working part time; and a high concentration of expensive specialists with no documentation that they improve outcomes and paid for by large federal government subsidies.
The actual amount of primary physician and general surgery time available to Americans is very low compared to other countries with similar numbers of doctors. Most countries also allow as many as half the cases administered by fully licensed doctors with 12-20 years of post-secondary schooling in the USA to be handled by nurses and pharmacists. Prescriptions for sniffles or heartburn, basic non-controlled medications, simple physical assessments, and vaccinations are handled by professionals the USA would consider nurses or pharmacists or unlicensed assistants in most first world countries. In the USA those jobs take the time of physicians.
And that is the top reason, among many other unrelated ones, that health care is so much more expensive in the USA. US doctors are fewer and have more responsibilities and thus must be paid extraordinarily to work very long hours and not retire at the usual ages or else some must go without care. It's not an accident; medical societies have blocked medical school expansion for decades until recently as the population grew.
Cuba, on the other hand, appears to be counting nurse practitioners as physicians. That's fine to do because they're highly qualified, but it makes the numbers not comparable across countries.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Perfect-Latin-American-Idiot/pro...
2nd highest in the world, behind Monaco (70): http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/
For comparison: Sweden (38), UK (27), Japan (21), Canada (20)
Makes you wonder if that number has any significance at all. Japan has 1/3rd the number of doctors, but the highest life expectancy in the world.
As engineers we would never compare uptime statistics from a small, niche startup serving a couple thousand people to uptime statistics from, say, Google. Why do we immediately ignore these principles outside of engineering?
Edit: wording
That said, I do hope it does help some people in Cuba who have fallen victim to unnecessary stresses caused by the embargo.
Nothing trickles down to the poorest, spontaneously, almost anywhere in the world.
The Cuban revolution could ignore this for 30 years, because of their ties with the USSR and emphasis on redistribution of existing resources; and then the old problems came back once the USSR crumbled. Now they are trying to build an economic identity around healthcare and education, and without the embargo (which stops technology from entering the country) they might actually succeed in ways that will hopefully inspire other islands.
I will be very careful with that statement. Cuba government is very good at propaganda and making people to think that.
In Venezuela we have a first hand experience about that since there is a lot of "collaboration" between both countries (basically oil in exchange of medical and education services). The result is a lot of cases about medical malpractices.
Also education is very opinionated with a strong emphasis in political indoctrination.
This is, unfortunately, not a problem unique to Cuba. I had this very same reaction when my wife and I vacationed in Jamaica. To get to this lush, tropical all-inclusive resort, you spend two hours riding in a minibus across bumpy barely-paved roads through some of the most abject poverty I've witnessed anywhere. It was very difficult to reconcile the insulated world of endless food and finely manicured lawns inside the resort with the world you witness just outside its gates.
If, on the other hand, people are able to eek out improved standards of living, in general, with savings on food costs, they can increase health and education spending and get into a virtuous cycle of increased living standards.
There's a bigger context necessary.
Trade with the US for DR has not helped much - US dumps Agro products (Powdered milk, meat) and bans Sugar.
Cuba actually has an incredible socialized medicine healthcare system, and the US embargo specifically carves out an exception for cancer pharmaceuticals developed and manufactured there. Its not that far fetched that you would see medical tourism take off from Florida with its vast retiree population.
If I were in the travel business in Florida, I'd start advertising now to get your name out there, and fly to Havana to have a conversation with Raúl Castro about how much yearly revenue you could be bringing in (all in USD I might add). About $39 billion/year is spent in Florida on Medicare; taking only a small piece of that is an incredible proposition for a country the size of Cuba.
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
Like most of the Constitution, I'm sure that there's way more to understanding this section than reading the written words. Nonetheless I'm skeptical of the claim that smoking a cigar could be considered treason.
> Criminal penalties for violating the Regulations range up to 10 years in prison, $1,000,000 in corporate fines, and $250,000 in individual fines. Civil penalties up to $65,000 per violation may also be imposed.
Seasoned critics can name the nationality of a cigar just by touch its actually very cool to see (I'm nowhere near that good lol a few different countries are too similar for me).
And the "golden age" of Cuban cigars is often cited as before WW2 so either way its long pasted.
In the U.S. you will find the same brands like Partagas, but they're made with blends from other countries than Cuba, and they are really inferior. I tried a bunch of them and Cubans wins everytime.
Longer-term, I also expect fierce legal battles over the ownership of houses on Cuba.
I expect the Cuban government will concede on a few national-level items (like legitimacy of the Guantanamo base) in exchange for the US government publicly affirming that any ownership claim from US businesses and individuals pre-revolution will be considered null and void. Anything else would be complete madness. Apart from difficulty in tracking original documents (which were likely destroyed during and after the revolution), handing nationalised assets to US citizens would mine the economic power base of the ruling elite in Cuba.
Consider hotels: they power one of the few sizeable economic activities on the island, i.e. tourism; but any hotel built before the revolution (and there are quite a few, all around the island) would have to revert to (likely US) previous owners, instantly transferring a lot of wealth out of the island. Not gonna happen.
This seems like it's all a concerted effort to double-down on the embargo and slap Putin where it hurts the most.
"During the [July 2014] visit, Putin agreed to write off $32 billion in Russian debt to Cuba, leaving just over $3 billion left to pay over the next 10 years. This was a significant economic weight lifted from Havana, whose gross domestic product shrank by up to a third with the loss of direct aid and subsidies from Moscow after the Soviet Union fell. Putin and Raúl Castro also agreed to new deals in energy, health and disaster prevention and help with building a vast new seaport. Moscow is also now exploring for oil and gas in Cuban waters, right in the U.S.’s backyard."
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/22/russia-and-cuba-get-back-...
There are a ton of good reasons to improve relations, and few reasons not to.
I think it's tempting to connect the dots. But they're just dots.
Cuba will happy accept economic aid from the US (in the form of lifted sanctions) in the light that the Russian oil industry faces the possibility of collapse. Everyone expects a sudden humanitarian/tourist opening, but I don't believe that's going to be as quick.
"Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary." [1]
Cuba has a huge tourism industry. A lot of the business that serve tourists are state owned. Where does this money go? Everything from hotels to restaurants are state owned. Who is profiting here?
I think at this point its less personal and more choice. Cuba chooses to run its govern and keep their people in poverty, the US chooses to keep them on an embargo list. Comparing this to Mexico is a poor example. There is ample current trade with Mexico that if cut off, would hurt the country. The US has not traded with Cuba for a LONG time but has traded with most other world super powers. Nobody here to blame but the Cuban government.
How much of the economic misery is due to the Castro government and how much is due to the US embargo?
Cuba's main problem is its leadership. The US coaxing it to a free market system that respects human rights and property rights is only good for Cuba. The Castros were more than willing to continue to starve their people and become the West's North Korea.
>John Oliver has a very interesting piece on his HBO show.
Maybe you should get your opinions from something other than lowest common denominator appeal comedians. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba
and here:
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/cuba
and here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cuba-country-of-c...
Please stop romanticizing the Castro regime.
Iirc, any vessel that trades with Cuba is restricted from trading with the USA within some time window. So clearly most Caribbean nations choose to focus their trades with the big USA partner.
Regarding human rights, as others have mentioned, we don't embargo countries that have far worse records.
The Cuban embargo is nothing but an antiquated relic of the Cold War that hurts the citizens of Cuba without having much impact on causing change in the government. And ironically it only serves to strengthen the government by giving the people an easy scapegoat for its problems.
Have you been to Cuba? I've been twice. Incredible experience and I highly recommend it.
BNP Paribas is one of the biggest French banks...
Realizing of course there are so many others he promised to end and hasn't...
Because "like so many others" he simply doesn't have the power to; it requires Congressional approval. I suppose he could do what you want and unilaterally declare it over, but that would be a very clear breach of power and would result in many moderates and liberals decrying his overreach. It would end up - at the least - the subject of legal action and an injunction and perhaps even spur bipartisan support for impeachment proceedings.
The power of the Presidency is in general greatly exaggerated by the media. The President has broad power to set the agenda (which the rest of the government and the country is largely free to ignore) and has some power over policy/legal execution (particularly within foreign affairs), and over the military, but that's about it. Even within the executive branch the President is not as all-powerful as the media or even high schools tend to imply: even excluding agencies that are altogether independent, the President generally cannot walk in and tell people what to do.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/russia-reopenin...
I'm not saying that agrochemical proponents are right (I've heard that crop rotation is as good or better than synthetic fertilizers, though it's hard to argue against the labor efficiencies of huge tractors and lots of pest/herbicides), but the simple fact that agriculture is possible without agrochemicals doesn't disprove the argument that it might be better with them.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
(Edited to clarify)
More interesting would be to see who supports a continued embargo and why? Instead of rubber-stamping it, congressmen would have to take a position one way or the other, and I doubt there's much good argument for its continuation en-masse.
Obama could force Congress to have to address Cuba head-on. I don't know if it's the most important thing or not, but you'd at least get to see why we continue a useless embargo.
Its actually been catching on in the US. Its not as good as Cuban, but its far superior to most Caribbean varieties I find. Has an oddly cinnamon spicy flavor (I'm in the US so Cubas are rare unless you hunt for them) rather good.
I don't think that matters - the op's point still stands. Do you think criminalising homelessness solves the problem? It just (poorly) hides it. There may be a different between the 'working' poor and the mentally ill that you point out but I'd be willing to bet the mentally ill aren't left to live on the street and fend for themselves in Cuba.
I don't believe in criminalizing homelessness as it's a public health issue but I would contest the opinion that it poorly hides it. Look at any thread about New Yorkers complaining about SF and count how many times they talk about how the streets of New York have so many less homeless people. Of course, they probably don't understand the reasons very well (Rudolph Giulianis war on the homeless, etc.) but it certainly seems effective at hiding it when you either lock up homeless, force them to go underground and out of sight, or buy them a bus ticket to sunny California.
Yes, let's criminalize homelessness. How dare those homeless people refuse to stay in their mansions and apartments.
Do you think we should send the worst of them to Gitmo?
It depends on your definition of worse. In Cuba there was a general shortage of several basic items (toilet paper, eggs, meat... etc.) were most people (the only exception is the political class) have to face rationing and long lines. As far as I know that is inexistent in Costa Rica.
It has more to do with the incompetence in economic areas rather than a capacity of making wealth.
"Despite a 50-year trade embargo by the United States and a post-Soviet collapse in international support, the impoverished nation has developed a world-class health care system. Average life expectancy is 77.5 years, compared to 78.1 years in the United States, and infant and child mortality rates match or beat our own. There’s one doctor for every 170 people, more than twice the per-capita U.S. average.
Not everything is perfect in Cuba. There are shortages of medicines, and the best care is reserved for elites. But it’s still a powerful feat. “In Cuba, a little over $300 per person is spent on health care each year. In the U.S., we’re spending over $7,000 per person,” said Drain, co-author of Caring for the World and an essay published April 29 in Science. “They’re able to achieve great health outcomes on a modest budget.”"
Nice healthcare system!
And according to Wikipedia, Japanese Americans did get retributions under Reagan (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations#United_States) How much or for what, I wouldn't know.
The "life expectancy" figure can't be gamed, unless you out and out lie.
Here's a recent article for thought: http://www.wired.com/2010/04/cuban-health-lessons/
Mao's China, Lenin & Stalin's USSR, old Vietnam, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Hugo's Venezuela, Fidel's Cuba, North Korea. It's the same story every time.
Socialism is a spectrum.
First time via Toronto (Baltimore -> Toronto -> Havana).
Second time we took one of they very few available IIRC American Airlines flights from Miami. Baltimore -> Miami -> Havana.
Believe it or not, the Canada trip was much easier. In Miami we encountered a lot of hostility from the Miami Cuban immigrant community. Eg, the gate to fly to Havana was really hidden in an obscure place between two terminals, and we felt people were jerking us around when we asked how to find it (we were literally sent to both extreme ends of the airport a couple times). Returning we had some aggressive questions from an immigrations officer when he found out we weren't visiting family there, and sent us to the line for getting our bags fully inspected for farming produce contraband.
So yeah, it is possible to fly there from the USA legally, but in our opinion flying waaaay out of the way to Canada was actually easier and less stressful.
(I'm having trouble finding something to link that is not charged, but I think that is a fair characterization of it)
Think about this: the major health issue nowadays across the world is obesity, not hunger.
Finland in 1994 had a very high standard of living. Their GDP per capita in '94 was equivalent to roughly $40,000 in today's dollar.
Maybe Finland of 1914. Nigeria's GDP per capita today, for example, is $3,000.
http://www.davidbahnsen.com/index.php/2013/11/10/the-rationa...
I read Scott Ridley's book. And I recommend it highly.
We were talking about everything below that scale.
Sort of. There are a lot of very common misconceptions around this.
The AAMC (not AMA!) limited the number of medical school students until about ten years ago, at which point they announced an explicit goal of expanding the number of graduates from medical school.
However, this doesn't mean anything in practice[0], because the bottleneck isn't the medical school graduates - it's the residency programs. As a medical school graduate, you have an MD, but you are not actually qualified to practice medicine. That requires usually four years of training (minimum), plus several more for various specialties.
These programs are costly to run, and so hospitals that offer residency programs are funded by the federal government to do so (through Medicare). The only way to expand the number of practicing physicians in the US is to skimp on quality during training (which nobody wants to do), or to increase funding through Medicare (which nobody wants to do.
> US doctors are fewer and have more responsibilities and thus must be paid extraordinarily to work very long hours and not retire at the usual ages
They also have to be paid a hefty amount to pay off massive debt. If you see an attending physician in his 30s (or even 40s), even if he's making a respectable amount of money, there's a good chance he still has a negative net worth. The level of debt of course varies by location, specialty, and quality of education, but it's rather misleading to look at an e.g. $200K/year income for a physician and compare that to the equivalent amount in the tech industry.
[0] pun not intended, but very a propos!
In this case, the bureaucracy eventually overcame institutional resistance of the wealthiest professional Americans to reform of a system that limited doctors and thus vastly expanded their incomes. I expect that same government and institutional bureaucracy to eventually increase significantly the residencies, but it will move in that typical slow motion of bureaucracy eventually doing good.
When it eventually adds to our production of new doctors, it will have a bigger impact than ten Obamacares or single payer plans or HIPAAs.
The debit of American medical students is as legendary as the vast incomes of doctors, both wildly out of proportion to the rest of the first world. Hazing practices during residency are also still crazy, though much reduced after glacial bureaucratic reforms.
I don't know if there's any better idea there than to hire and appoint good administrators to plan better. A violent revolution like the one in Cuba that built a better health care system seems too extreme.
Your pharmacist is part of a system that got your health care right this time.
At the south of the continent, it is far more common to travel to Argentina, to get free health care. As Argentina has a large public health system, (that has been gradually loosing a lot of quality in the past 20 years) it's common that poor people from Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay travel and get attention for free in Argentina's public hospitals.
therefore, if you want to bring in the analogy of startups and Google, it should be even more impressive that small countries (viz. people in small countries, viz. Cuba) live longer than Google (viz. people in large countries, viz. United States).
Do you really think the US couldn't beat Cuba on those metrics if they decided spending money on those topics was more important than spending money on the military?
The country is surprisingly politically free for a tiny nation facing an existential threat from a hostile super power that has invaded, attempted to assassinate it's leader, and funded militants dead set on violent revolution for decades.
American leadership immediately resorted to torture and illegal domestic surveillance when faced with the loss of two skyscrapers and 3,000 lives from an enemy that is more like an annoying gnat than an existential threat.
Cuba is a success story for socialism, and that is why US policy has sought to punish it, and to make it fail. The US did not want a successful socialist nation in it's sphere of influence, it gives the other nations subject to the Monroe doctrine ideas.
Part of the issue with Helms-Burton is that the retaliatory provisions include a private cause of action for any expatriates whose (former) property is impacted, so that it is impossible for the executive branch to control the application of the law.
> and Canada, Mexico, and the EU all don't recognize it.
Whether foreign countries recognize it has no impact on a anyone subject to it if they have assets that become subject to the jurisdiction of US courts.
> So I'm not sure it has had any real impact other than antagonizing US allies, and generating some private lawsuits.
Those private lawsuits are an additional risk, which is taken into account when firms decide whether or not to do business in or with Cuba -- and which are a negative factor in those decisions. Which illustrates how the embargo's impacts extend beyond just US-Cuba trade.
> Whether foreign countries recognize it has no impact on a anyone subject to it if they have assets that become subject to the jurisdiction of US courts.
I disagree, but regardless, the fear of private lawsuits hasn't kept large European, canadian, and Mexican companies from doing business and trading with Cuba.
Is it plausible that Cubans would really be driving oldsmobiles if they had access to European or Asian cars? That's the only evidence you really need to understand that the embargo is, in practice, global.
It sounds like the restrictions on cars comes from the Cuban gov't, not the embargo.
Until a few weeks ago, there was no way to legally transfer ownership of a vehicle like this. The only cars that could be freely bought and sold were those built before 1959, when Fidel Castro came to power. That's why there are still nearly 60,000 classic cars on Cuba's streets, but few late-model Hondas. Bringing in a new car requires special government permission and a 100 percent import tax...[1]
[1]http://www.npr.org/2011/10/31/141858419/in-cuba-a-used-car-i...
Citizens of the US have wildly varied views about what it means to be a good American, and we often have greater cohesion to groups such as race or state, etc. Just about the only thing we do agree upon is when there is an existential threat to the country, hence military growth over time.
Cuba or Norway have much less divided societies to govern, and Cuba's leadership is so small that it can focus on specific issues in a way US politics cannot.
The parent was comparing the proportion of physicians in Cuba v.s. the US and claiming that the US couldn't match Cuba because of its heterogeneous population.
Now if you look at the WHO report on density of physicians[1] you see first-wold countries like Japan and Canada ranking below the US on the number of physicians per-capita.
I think numbers like these have a lot more to do with how the health care system is structured than the sort of population you have. E.g. maybe nurses in Japan and Canad have a bigger role in health care than the US.
1. http://www.who.int/gho/health_workforce/physicians_density/e...
Cuba is small. Does it have an homogeneous population?
No, amigo!
Despite the fact that I spend much of my working life writing "if" statements, I am going to ignore everything after the sixth word of this sentence and express disbelief at how you can claim that Cubans are politically free.
if cubaFree
> True
What I meant:
Considering how much political freedom was jettisoned by the US after 9/11, I am amazed that Cuba sits as close to the free side of the freedom spectrum as it does considering its been under existential threat for five decades.
Cuba is not a completely free and open society, and I don't claim to be able to pinpoint with certainty where on the freedom spectrum it sits exactly. I have never been there, as a US citizen I have not been free to travel there.
We are not free to go see for ourselves, we just echo the dominant ideology.
From the reading I have done I know that Cuba is more free than I was led to believe in school. It is not an Orwellian state.
I cite a comment from this thread on the topic:
> When I was there I was struck by people saying how hard it was and how they had to get by on about US$2 a week - this was a while back now.
Cubans are free to complain, I've heard it's a national past time.
They are free to engage in politics within socialism.
They are not free to oppose socialism and work to end it.
Americans have never been free to undermine capitalism. Anarchist/Marxist revolutionaries in the US have always been monitored, harassed, imprisoned and sometimes killed. See the history of the FBI, the Palmer raids, the Wobblies, Joe McCarthy, the black panthers, SDS, etc...
The US has given the Cuban government justification to curtail rights. This justification would not exist if the US would have respected Cuban sovereignty and not tried to murder it's leader, invade and destabilize.
How do you tell the difference between a sincere citizen activist and a foreign spy when the most powerful empire the world has known is actively trying to sabotage your government?
In the US in the years after 9/11 we heard a dire meme repeated over and over that went something like "If we get hit again it will be martial law" and we mostly accepted that as inevitable.
I find the finger pointing at Cuba to be unfair and lacking historical context.
I don't think your argument is supported by any of the facts.[1]
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba#Contempora...
How come nobody hit the ceiling when we didn't close our embassy with China today?
With that type of success who needs failure.
They just aren't unhealthy enough to demand more doctors?
Edit: Arguably the high food prices reduce obesity which is really important.
I don't think it's the food prices, because the cheapest foods tend to be the ones that lead to obesity (among other health problems). Fast food burgers and white bread are not expensive here in Japan, but fresh fruits and vegetables are.
I think there are many factors, but the pretty great universal health care system has to be a big one. As a working adult in Tokyo, I receive tons of preventative care and thorough annual check ups. It's cheap, and virtually all health care for my kids is completely free until they turn 15.
The lack of equal access to health care in the USA is almost certainly a reason that poor people die 5 years earlier than affluent people[1]. I would guess good access to health care is a big reason that Cuba does so well on that front, despite its obvious economic obstacles.
[1]: http://news.rice.edu/2012/06/21/poorer-us-citizens-live-five...
Canada, which has even fewer physicians, has a life expectancy only 2 years less than Japan.
If nothing breaks there is little need to fix anything.
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/2014/03/26/medical-ban...
“In 2013 over 20% of American adults are struggling to pay their medical bills, and three in five bankruptcies will be due to medical bills. While we are quick to blame debt on poor savings and bad spending habits, our study emphasizes the burden of health costs causing widespread indebtedness. Medical bills can completely overwhelm a family when illness strikes,” says Christina LaMontagne, VP of Health at NerdWallet. “Furthermore, 25 million people hesitate to take their medications in order to control their medical costs. Unfortunately this can lead to even worse financial outcomes as preventative treatments are not rendered and patients end up using expensive ambulance and ER care as their health worsens.”
Then I also grew up in Soviet Union, where supposedly great healthcare was developed. And I can tell you they had a horrible health care like they have it in Cuba today.
If Cuban health care is so great, where is their great health research and studies? When did they publish the last time in Lancet on in NEJM? Where is that?
That's because you're an anesthesiologist, and you see the acute cases which have already been admitted to the hospital. Poor people don't receive comparable long-term care. They don't receive comparable followup care after procedures. They can't afford lifesaving medication, they can't afford physical therapy, and they can't afford psychiatric care. They're denied for transplants, and many surgeons won't accept them as patients because their recovery stats are so much lower due to the aforementioned lack of followup.
All of this, without even mentioning the increasing number of specialty surgeons that operate on a cash-only basis, or the poor who don't go to the doctor simply because they cannot afford to. There's no comparison between the care that the rich and poor receive in this country, except possibly once they're unconscious in the OR.
Cuba invests heavily in cancer research.
"Even in times of economic hardship, the Cuban Government has remained constant in its political and financial support for biotechnology. In the last 20 years it invested around one billion US dollars in research and development. Today, the Cuban biotech industry holds around 1200 international patents and markets pharmaceutical products and vaccines in more than 50 countries. Exports are soaring and generate yearly revenues of several hundred million dollars."
http://www.who.int/features/2013/cuba_biotechnology/en/ http://investmentwatchblog.com/cuba-develops-anti-cancer-tre...
I have worked in one of the top medical schools in the US, with world-class researchers, and know that there is very little there that is directly applicable to a population of rural farmers and impoverished city dwellers.
Elites, in other words.
Cuba is third world poor. A country where the average person earns $300 to $500 per month, is a slave pen. State sponsored slavery is the only way you can repress people to such an extreme extent as to hold their standard of living that low for 50 years.
Given there has never been an economically successful Socialist nation in world history, it makes perfect sense that Cuba would be a failure just like all the rest.
The mortality rates for children under five in 2007 were as follows (World Bank): Cuba, 6.5; Latin America and Caribbean, 26.37; United States, 7.60;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba#Comparison_...
You are right, Cuba is third world poor and they still beat their capitalist neighbors and even the wealthy and powerful US in life expectancy and infant mortality.
Cuba does so much with so little because of the radical idea that we are all in this together. Cuba spends $300 per citizen on health care, the US spends $7000. I spent $5000 personally just this year on health care and I'm young and healthy.
Those in capitalist countries are getting fleeced, and Cuba shows us that. If Cuban socialism didn't exist I couldn't point out these facts, and that is why Cuban socialism was such a threat and why the US has acted so insecure towards the tiny island's revolution.
I don't want the US to adopt the Cuban system, I just believe we had no right to violate their sovereignty, and having different political systems out there lets us have a sort of A/B test for politics. I don't believe a global political and economic monoculture is healthy.
As an American I wouldn't want to trade places at birth with a Cuban, but if I had the choice between being born to asset-less parents in Jamaica or asset-less parents in Cuba, I know I would be healthier, more materially secure and far safer from violent crime in Cuba. I also would have a much greater chance of not dying during my birth.
Honestly, I'm not into communism and am very surprised that their figures are as good as they are. It's dumbfounding.'
I guess it's more a statement of how hard it is to come up from the bottom whatever your system is. Russia and China both showed great results in their first couple 5-year plans before communism petered out and didn't deliver further gains.
I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, I was in college when the revolutions happened. Now I live in the US.
When I describe the life under communists to people who grew up here, I mention, of course, the lack of political freedom, the demagoguery, etc. But then I say things like "OTOH unemployment was zero, health care was free (\), college was free, and everyone was sure to receive a livable pension from the state when they retired." Oh, and there was a decline and clear commercialization of the arts immediately after revolution.
Then everyone gives me odd looks.
It's like they expect a tale of Aragorn vs. Mordor, with clear heroes and villains. It's not like that. Life in the US is clearly better overall, but there are some interesting points to be learned from the ol'country too. Not kicking the destitute to the curb seems the most important.
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(\) - if you felt the impulse to point out that "free" really means "paid out of your taxes", please be informed that Captain Obvious and his minions are not welcome here. Yes, we get it, ktnxbai.
> education health care and the arts flourish
THIS is the Cuba I'd like to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tozhe0yTAqo
The minimum wage is a trade off. You create e.g. 10% unemployment so that the ~4.3% of people who make the minimum wage (and still have jobs) can make $7.25/hour instead of $5 or $3. There is a legitimate question as to whether this is the right trade off, but people seem to be in favor of it.
A food, anyway, provided you aren't spending your $8 a day on rent.
How would social services work in this system without minimum wage? Would people making below a minimum wage deemed necessary to house and feed and care for oneself be eligible for benefits?
When you have the choice between a job that pays $10 and a job that pays $7.25, you generally pick the one that pays $10. When the choice is between $7.25 and $4 or $4 and $1 the choice is similarly obvious. But so is the choice between making $8/day and buying eight pounds of pasta/rice/beans/etc. or being unemployed and hungry.
> How would social services work in this system without minimum wage? Would people making below a minimum wage deemed necessary to house and feed and care for oneself be eligible for benefits?
That's how it works already. People making minimum wage qualify for government benefits that phase out at higher income levels.
The poor state of travel and communication at the time. You couldn't exactly hitchhike to the nearest city with a public library and find work via the internet in 1938.
Perhaps a "necessity" in the sense that it's a necessary outcome of a system designed like that.
E.g., you build an engine according to the principles of thermodynamics in this universe, a necessary outcome is wasted heat. The engine would not work if you prohibited the waste; or it would become something else entirely (not a Carnot machine anymore, or whatever).
The trick is to figure out a system where the necessary outcomes are not very undesirable. Pretty hard to do that with the entire human society.