Tema: Lift the Cuba Embargo?

In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?

Iniciado por Tamakun

In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?

While I don´t approve of the Cuban gregime, your claims are dishonest, since you leave out the facts pertaining free education, free healthcare, free housing, and other benefits that add up to much more than 18 dollars a month. Cuba has a higher income and standard of living than some of the Central and Caribbean states that are capitalist, for instance.

The embargo serves no purpose but to give the corrupt regime propaganda material.

Iniciado por Josean Figueroa

While I don´t approve of the Cuban gregime, your claims are dishonest, since you leave out the facts pertaining free education, free healthcare, free housing, and other benefits that add up to much more than 18 dollars a month. Cuba has a higher income and standard of living than some of the Central and Caribbean states that are capitalist, for instance.

Iniciado por Josean Figueroa

The embargo serves no purpose but to give the corrupt regime propaganda material.

Look that you haven't read the previous posts, look back and you will find the answers there.

Here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth with respect to the embargo:

“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro*
*Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988.

Communism is the social system which institutionalizes envy, which uses pressure and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from those who produce. Everything is shared by everyone and control by the government, there are no incentives to work and compete. A large percent of the Cuban people fake that they work, and the farmers do the minimum, since the regime pay them the minimum.

You are making no sense, why should I care for an idiocy writen by the idiot Castro?

If Cuba embargo ended, U.S. businesses ready for rush, but not island
http://www.miamiherald.com/embargo/v...ding&pageNum=1

While U.S. companies dream of a post-embargo Cuba, infrastructure woes, a lack of financing and Cuba's legal system may present challenges.

Cuba is a bankrupt inefficient country that doesn’t generate the wealth necessary to a healthy trade. The embargo was a self inflicted consequence of the treacherous confiscation of US owned property in Cuba, and nothing else. You don’t do business with those who steals from you.

We can eliminate the symbolic “embargo” tomorrow and nothing will change, as the Cuban economy controlled by Castro brothers’ regime wouldn’t have enough hard currency to make a dent into their misery.

Iniciado por Tamakun

Cuba is a bankrupt inefficient country that doesn’t generate the wealth necessary to a healthy trade. The embargo was a self inflicted consequence of the treacherous confiscation of US owned property in Cuba, and nothing else. You don’t do business with those who steals from you.

We can eliminate the symbolic “embargo” tomorrow and nothing will change, as the Cuban economy controlled by Castro brothers’ regime wouldn’t have enough hard currency to make a dent into their misery.

Your ignorance is manifest. Cuba has a higher per capita income and higher human development than many of the capitalist states of the region, and the U.S. trades openly with this states, that can not generate as much wealth as Cuba. Why does the U.S. trade with other communist states like China or Vietnam? Why does it trade with Saudi Arabia, which violates human rights in a worst manner??

The Castro regime is given political capital by the ridiculous embargo. Take the embargo away and the excuse of agression by the U.S. is removed from the arsenal of Castroist rhetoric.

The embargo is simply a manifestation of U.S. imperialism towards Hispanic America, and of its bending to a group of untrustworthy Cuban exilees in Miami.

Cuba will change as Hispanic America evolves towards greater stability and prosperity during the next decade, and the U.S. because of its idiocy in policy, would have suffered a propaganda defeat in a region it will not be able to control anymore because of its obvious duplicity and hipocrisy.

If travel restrictions are lifted, we can expect the communist regime in Cuba, to do all it can to encourage immoral behavior. Spring breakers will be lured by the promise of unrestricted alcohol and drug sale to minors, the sex trade already a staple of tourism to Cuba will also increase, and all in all we can expect the communists to make a profit at the expense of our citizens, as Lenin said "the end justifies the means."

Sounds just like the U.S. or Mexico...

You have no argument save absurdities...

There is something obscene about wanting to have a good time in Cuba, a place where the citizens are restricted in their liberties and movement. You might be free to travel, but "they are not". Where they are put in prison because of their thoughts and beliefs, you will discuss openly your thoughts and religious beliefs, but "they" will not. Where they and their family can be deported to any region at a moments notice, you will be able to board your plane and go home when your visit is over, but "they" can not leave.

As long as Fidel Castro is alive and in charge, investments are a huge risk. Cuba owes everyone money, a staggering debt of $60 billions, and does not pay its bills simply because they do not generate any wealth. Since 1992 the Cuba regime hasn’t paid the external debt and therefore cannot obtain more credit from many countries. It would take a real dummy to make any type of investment in Cuba under the present regime.

You can keep repeating the absurdity that Cuba doesn´t generate any wealth and it won´t change the fact that Cuba has a higher standard of living than many of the surrounding capitalist countries like El Salvador or Guatemala, or countries like India and China where everyone wants to invests. Also, the many Spanish investments in the island refute your argument.

You seem to be nothing more than a rabid, uninformed Cuban exilee from Miami who is no better in his capacity to think clearly than the communist in Havanah. A tale of two cities filled with intellectually primitive people incapable of moving on from erred policies.

The communist regime of Cuba, wages war against its own people, it will never of its own will return democracy to its people, it will never stop putting people in jail for expressing thoughts freely, it will never lift censorship of the press, it will never allow Cubans to travel freely, it will never allow free elections. The effect of the embargo on Cuba has partially fulfilled its objectives. It prevented Castro from obtaining loans and lines of credit that would allow him to finance his permanence in power and avoiding the growth of the indebtedness of Cuba without benefit for the population.

The argument for lifting the embargo is made by people who believe that laws that in our country protect property and its lawful owners should not apply to the Cuban citizens, this is why they encourage us to enjoy parading in 50's era cars that were stolen at gun point from their lawful owners, and stay in hotels that were confiscated from their lawful owners, and smoke cigars made in factories that were stolen from their lawful owners, or sip mojitos and daiquiris made from rum brands stolen from their rightful owners.

You don’t need to look further; here you have the answer from the “horse” mouth:

“It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro (Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)

What will bring "Change" to Cuba are free elections, the freeing of all political prisoners, and the implementation of a market economy. Everything else is “mental masturbation!”

This is one of the few times that I agree with Castro. In this case a 100%. Keep the embargo until he cry uncle.

The impossible dream, again
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/30/the-impossible-dream-again/

Everett 'Ted' Ellis Briggs
The Washington Post

My father was a U.S. diplomat stationed in Cuba when I was born. Thus I am an American by birth who spent my life as an American diplomat serving in many countries, including Portugal, Honduras, and Panama where I was the American ambassador. Because we lived in Cuba for many years, I have remained interested in the island's affairs.

I attended this month's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on whether to lift restrictions on tourist travel to Cuba. Many in Congress, who favor a softer U.S. policy, argue we should neither demand nor expect anything in return from the Castro regime for lifting what remains of the U.S. embargo. It doesn't bother them that Havana rejected President Obama's request, when he lifted restrictions on remittances and family visits, that Cuba respond by releasing its political prisoners.

In fact, it is misleading to continue to call U.S. restrictions on commercial dealings with Cuba an "embargo." Today's restrictions aim not to undermine the regime, but rather to avoid financing its longevity, and they do so without harm to the Cuban people. That's because the hardships of Cuban life don't stem from the U.S. "embargo." They stem from the mind-numbing economic and heavy-handed political policies of Cuba's communist regime.

Cuba's "bailout", by obtaining US-backed credit lines as well as the external debt of over $60 billion, will guarantee the continuation of the Castros regime, delaying instead of accelerating a transition to democracy.

Mora than 15 million tourists have gone to Cuba in the last 10 years, mainly from Canada and Europe, haven’t been able to influence a political and economic opening of Castro’s regime, exceptfor providing hard currency to it. Who could maintain the illusion that tourism and trade with the United States can do it?

If American tourists are allowed to visit Cuba, the Castro regime will follow the same practices of the communist countries in the past. Their travel would be controlled and channeled into the tourist resorts built in the island away from the major centers of population, and they will be screened carefully to prevent "subversive propaganda" from entering the island. They will have limited contact with Cubans thus their influence would be limited.

Castro's security forces tightly controls most of the tourist resort areas. They are off-limits to the average Cuban. Employees in these resorts are carefully screened by the regime and programmed to tell the visiting tourists Castro propaganda line.