How can the U.S. embargo on Cuba be stopped? - Page 16 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

goober · #**226** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamwhatiseem

Did you happen to miss the 60's-80's ??
Ever hear the term "welfare momma" or "welfare society"?

Welfare can absolutely create/maintain poverty if unchecked or w/o restrictions.

There was plenty of poverty long before the first welfare check was cut.
What welfare and unemployment do is bring something out in the open where it appears much larger than it did before.

goober · #**227** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scribbler1

When did I blame anything for ANYTHING? I was postulating that Cuba, being as poverty stricken as it now is, would likely end up like PR if we took it over. The biggest difference would be the US would foot the bill for their assistance, which we don't do now, thankfully.

Why would the US take over Cuba?
Just opening trade with Cuba would be enough to pull it out of poverty.
There are recently discovered oil deposits north of Cuba in it's territorial waters, Cuba may become a large oil exporting nation, why would it need US Welfare?
Cuba provides the US some Welfare assistance now, by training doctors for free to serve America's poor who have no access to health care.

Maybe in the future they can also help the US poor by providing low cost oil for the poor, like Venezuela does now.

Richyrich03867 · #**228** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by goober

If they held a free and fair election in Cuba, who do you think would win?
The real opposition to Castro, moved to the US, and became US citizens, they can't even vote in Cuba.

When the embargo is lifted, and it will be, probably after the death of the Castro brothers, and let's face it, that's not that far away, Fidel is knocking on deaths door now, otherwise he'd still be Jefe, and Raul is an old man getting a very stressful job, not a recipe for a long reign.
So the tide is turning their, not to a free enterprise capitalist system where all the expropriated landlords in Miami get their sugar plantations and Rum distilleries back, but to some form of socialism, open to business in the way China is now.
Only 6000 miles closer than China, with an educated, healthy workforce, ready to do the jobs Americans aren't willing to do (for 85 cents an hour).

One more thing, that could speed up the process, Cuba has oil, and as long as the embargo is in place, the development of that oil is off limits to American Oil Companies, so maybe if you toss in their influence, Cuba gets back into the fold sooner rather than later. I'm guessing shortly after Fidel's funeral.

Goober an excellent question but let's preface it with "if opposition leaders are allowed to campaign, who would win a free and fair election." Honestly at this point I think the current guys would win, NARROWLY, because too many people are fully vested in the party for their jobs and would be afraid of losing them. I have heard that some of the former big-time plant owners that had their property taken away would like it back, but the most likely scenario is they would be granted some manner of co-ownership in exchange of significant capital investment. Most of those old sugar mills and in serious disrepair.

Wallaroo · #**229** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scribbler1

I wasn't comparing it to anything. THAT particular article did the comparing. I linked it just for the numbers, to answer Wallaroo's question.

And 46% labor participation is 54% UNEMPLOYMENT! That might not be "overly negative" to you, but to almost anyone else, it stinks.

Unemployment rates should be measured as a percentage of the actual workforce available. People below 18 and above the pension age as well as people on disability pension are obviously outta the question. The real number must therfore be much lower than 54%.

Scribbler1 · #**230** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by goober

Why would the US take over Cuba?
Just opening trade with Cuba would be enough to pull it out of poverty.

Since when has this government ever "helped" a poor nation for anything other than self-interest and/or political pressure? We're in it for US and Cuba is no threat to us, nor do they have much of anything we can exploit.

Quote:

There are recently discovered oil deposits north of Cuba in it's territorial waters, Cuba may become a large oil exporting nation, why would it need US Welfare?

Now THAT would make US oil interests real chummy with Cuba, and with it our government.
And I said they would need welfare if we should take them over like Puerto Rico. I never said it would happen and I never said it would be a good thing. The point was if they became a protectorate of the US there wouldn't be any "red menace" to our south. Oil was not even part of the point, as I didn't know it existed.

Quote:

Cuba provides the US some Welfare assistance now, by training doctors for free to serve America's poor who have no access to health care.

That is not any kind of measurable "assistance" to us or anyone else. I'm sure their doctors come here for their own reasons and the government wouldn't be training them just for the purpose of coming here.

Wallaroo · #**231** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scribbler1

Heres the LINKPuerto Rico is just another governmental failure.

The whole concept of territories is completely fucking idiotic anyway, and just another great example on how scumbag politicians dont think like their own citizens. I fail to see how ordinary americans benefit from Puerto Rico being a U.S. territory (other than the fact that they can settle down there without visa) where puerto ricans on the other hand laugh at you all the way to the bank. Puerto Rico and other U.S territories should either be forced to apply for statehood, or be left to themselves.

Scribbler1 · #**232** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wallaroo

Unemployment rates should be measured as a percentage of the actual workforce available. People below 18 and above the pension age as well as people on disability pension are obviously outta the question. The real number must therfore be much lower than 54%.

Only if the original numbers were based on the entire population. Do you know how this number was arrived at?
Normal unemployment rates are usually the product of available workforce minus the people who hold jobs in that group. I haven't seen anything to indicate this is any different.
But then again, I don't feel the urge to do much more research.

goober · #**233** (**permalink**) 02-26-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scribbler1

That is not any kind of measurable "assistance" to us or anyone else. I'm sure their doctors come here for their own reasons and the government wouldn't be training them just for the purpose of coming here.

Cuban doctors don't come to the US, Cuba gives free medical school to Americans who promise to serve the poor.
Venezuela provides low cost oil to the poor in the US, they did this long before Chavez was elected, and they continue to do it to this day.

Now there are huge offshore oil deposits that have been discovered north of Cuba. I think that a huge oilfield, 50 miles from the US, may just provide the impetus to grease the diplomatic wheels and get normalized relations, despite the writeoff of the Cuban votes in Florida. Cuban sugar cane could support a pretty decent ethanol industry, maybe between the oil and the ethanol, we could get to fly 90 miles beyond Miami before too long.

Obama could do this, the Cubans vote Republican so he wouldn't be giving anything up, and he'd be taking the oil companies away from the GOP, so it wouldn't be a bad move for his 2012 campaign.

Anselme · #**234** (**permalink**) 02-27-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wallaroo

A good idea on Rauls part would be to copy the China model.

I read an article that Raul's model was not China, but Vietnam. And Vietnam model is probably China... And I actually don't know much about the differences

Steve · #**235** (**permalink**) 03-12-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by goober

Maybe, Baby Bush lifts the embargo after the election as last gift to his buddies in the oil biz................

Typical liberal bullshit.

Libs whine and piss and moan, saying the embargo should be lifted.

Let Bush do it, though, and these same libs will refuse to acknowledge that Bush did something they see as "good", and will, instead, decry the decision because of what the perceived reason is...

Steve · #**236** (**permalink**) 03-12-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by goober

Cuba provides the US some Welfare assistance now, by training doctors for free to serve America's poor who have no access to health care.

Do you have examples of that?

My cousin went to medical school in Mexico. His tuition was paid, but he had to agree to serve as a doctor, for three years, in Mexico. He's said he worked in some of the poorest areas of the country's interior.

You make it sound like another country trains doctors and sends them back to the States when they graduate medical school.

I don't believe that's the case at all...

erikvv · #**237** (**permalink**) 03-12-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve

Do you have examples of that?

...

You make it sound like another country trains doctors and sends them back to the States when they graduate medical school.

I don't believe that's the case at all...

They train Cuban doctors ofcourse, not foreigners. Cuba sends has sent aid to developing countries and disaster areas. Currently there are about 25.000 doctors paid by the state deployed abroad.

Cuba offered to send help after katrina (in the form of 1600 doctors with supplies), but the US governement rejected it.

Cuba exports health, by Hernando Calvo Ospina

Steve · #**238** (**permalink**) 03-12-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by erikvv

They train Cuban doctors ofcourse, not foreigners. Cuba sends has sent aid to developing countries and disaster areas. Currently there are about 25.000 doctors paid by the state deployed abroad.

Cuba offered to send help after katrina (in the form of 1600 doctors with supplies), but the US governement rejected it.

Cuba exports health, by Hernando Calvo Ospina

The statement was that doctors trained in Cuba are sent here to "serve America's poor", as "welfare assistance". It wasn't that Cuban doctors have been offered during a natural disaster, and we refused.

I've asked for an example of the latter, and you've failed to provide one.

Nice work...

erikvv · #**239** (**permalink**) 03-12-2008

BBC NEWS | Americas | Cuba-trained US doctors graduate Ok, here you go.

erikvv · #**240** (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

1 More vote for lifting the embargo than last year. 185 countries for, 3 against.

AFP: Massive UN vote in support of lifting US embargo on Cuba

Quote:

Some 185 of the assembly's 192 members approved a resolution, which reiterated a "call upon all states to refrain from promulgating and applying laws and measures (such as those in the US embargo) in conformity with their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and international law."

The United States, Israel and Palau voted against the resolution, while Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained.

Quote:

Noting that the US embargo is "older than Barack Obama and my entire generation," Perez Roque said the new US president "will have to decide whether to concede that the embargo is a failed policy which each time creates greater isolation and discredits his country or whether he continues, with obstinacy and cruelty, to try to wear out the Cuban people with hunger and diseases."

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode