We haven't had a Cuban Embargo since atleast 2000

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles...ow=1&rss=1

Quote:Some 34,000 American tourists sneak into Cuba illegally each year, determined to get an "authentic" Cuban experience on Varadero Beach or in old Havana.

In Cuba's old hotels, they sip daiquiris, a pre-revolutionary Cuban cocktail, like Ernest Hemingway. These travelers kick in a share of the $1.2 billion tourist income to the Cuban economy.

The Associated Press found the experience they get is largely Made In America. The daiquiri mix used in Havana, for instance, is the same stuff you get in an Atlanta fern bar.

The AP also found the Communist Party's propaganda "newspaper" in the tourist hotel is made from genuine Alabama wood pulp.

Meanwhile, the Cuban bureaucrats who deny that same Alabama newsprint to a free press go shopping in special stores for the party elite brimming with goods stocked from — you got it — Uncle Sam's empire. Ordinary Cubans get nothing.

The whole tourist experience is bogus, with U.S. businesses telling AP that since Cubans are too poor — making $18 a month, on average — to buy their goods, they want more U.S. tourists to do so.

This shows that what passes for an embargo on Cuba really isn't one. The U.S. sells $718 million in goods to Cuba through a 2000 legal loophole that permits the sale of food, medicine and lesser-known goods like chemicals, crude materials, machinery and transport equipment, according to the Census Bureau.

The goods do nothing for average Cubans. No, these goods merely prop up the Castro regime through the circular dynamic of tourists and goods. The daiquiris come from the U.S., the tourists follow to drink them, and Castro's regime skims the profits.

No end to the embargo will stop that, because there is no consumer market for goods or services in Cuba; there's only bureaucratic distribution. The one thing Cuba's regime cannot create is a real economy that produces things of value, like tasty daiquiris.

For an authentic Cuban experience, tourists would need to "savor" rationing, shortages, long lines and bureaucratic indifference, because that's the real product of Cuba's regime.

The tourist illusion is pernicious, because for outsiders it creates a picture of a nation that only needs goods. The AP report shows that goods are plentiful — or potentially so.

The real problem is communism — not lack of trade. The only people the embargo's end will help are the party's oppressive elites.

Their first interest is in perpetrating their hold on power. If U.S. goods and tourists achieve that, then goods and tourists it will be.

great editorial, and gets the crux of a fallacy some Libertarians beleive:

That by trading with a nation, its people will be better off. Not always, some things trump Trade and Commerce:

Power, Communism, Nationalistic Pride and Evil bearded Dictator Ideologues. When the Soviet sugar daddy fell, many former Soviet client states wised up(see Vietnam), but not Castro he is a true beleiving Communist Slave Master famous for his long passionate speeches on the subject.

Its ironic the Congressional black caucus love a Slave Master(Castro) as much as they do.

Cuba's trading partners....even BEFORE the embargo was somewhat decreased:

Netherlands, Canada, China, Russia, Spain, Venezuela, Italy, Mexico, and France.

Those are just the major ones. The reason for Cuba being a shithole has nothing to do with a US embargo. Communism fails every time it's tried.

the irony in those that like to quote jefferson often, and claim all would be right in the world with Trade alone, seem to forget that Thomas Jefferson engaged in one of the largest trade embargo's in our history.

He also talked about taking over Cuba and making it part of the United states once.


Castro has to fundamentally change who he is, for Trade to benefit the Cuban people.

In the name of communism Cuba has cut it's own throat. Being just a few miles off the coast of the world's wealthiest nation with cold tourists who love to flock to warmer weather in the winter is a natural gold mine. Add some casinos and things like American manufacturers using cheap Cuban labor and it becomes mind boggling why they would choose communism instead of capitalism.

Shoot, I thought this thread would include these guys ...

(05-20-2009 11:41 AM)smn1256 Wrote:  In the name of communism Cuba has cut it's own throat. Being just a few miles off the coast of the world's wealthiest nation with cold tourists who love to flock to warmer weather in the winter is a natural gold mine. Add some casinos and things like American manufacturers using cheap Cuban labor and it becomes mind boggling why they would choose communism instead of capitalism.

Havana would be the "Sin City" of the world, if not for Castro. The Mob was already building it, then the Castro/Soviet disease struck and they moved on to Las Vegas instead.

idiots

I wonder what lifting the embargo will do in regards to Cuban boat people and refugees - will they leave in droves to the Keys, stay in Cuba to rebuild, and even a reverse flow - how many powerful Cubans go home?

(05-20-2009 12:56 PM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  - how many powerful Cubans go home?

Would you leave here to go there? There is no better place to be in the world than here if you have money.

Castro would have to grant Property Rights again, for any real 'change' to occur there.

Many Cuban Exiles have grievances on file at the State Dept. for Land/Property that Castro stole from them.

Bacardi Rum company for example, was moved to Dominican Republic after Castro Stole their property.


anyway, we have been trading with Cuba, but the thing is you can only trade with the Regime itself, not its people. Big Difference

most people don't realize it but in Cuba, your Children become property of the State(Castro) when they turn 4 yrs old, he can then do as he pleases with them.

It's little wonder they try to swim to Florida....the place is a place for Slavery, Castro is the Plantation owner and the Congressional Black Caucus are absolute fools

Castro's policies are on dead legs right now. He has no more proteges waiting in the wings because they are all old now. He doesn't have a young Stalin at his side as Lenin did.

(05-20-2009 01:38 PM)GGniner Wrote:  It's little wonder they try to swim to Florida....the place is a place for Slavery, Castro is the Plantation owner and the Congressional Black Caucus are absolute fools

He's also a blatant racist.

http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/montenegro.castro.html