When the ailing Fidel Castro ceded power to his less doctrinaire younger brother Raúl in 2008, the quasi-capitalist bubble expanded, but the economy remains heavily socialist. In the United States, we have a minimum wage; Cuba has a maximum wage—$20 a month for almost every job in the country. (Professionals such as doctors and lawyers can make a whopping $10 extra a month.) Sure, Cubans get “free” health care and education, but as Cuban exile and Yale historian Carlos Eire says, “All slave owners need to keep their slaves healthy and ensure that they have the skills to perform their tasks.”
Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8–$10 an hour. But Meliá doesn’t pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the workers—but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The workers don’t get $8–$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day—a child’s allowance.
The maximum wage is just the beginning. Not only are most Cubans not allowed to have money; they’re hardly allowed to have things. The police expend extraordinary manpower ensuring that everyone required to live miserably at the bottom actually does live miserably at the bottom. Dissident blogger and author Yoani Sánchez describes the harassment sarcastically in her book Havana Real: “Buses are stopped in the middle of the street and bags inspected to see if we are carrying some cheese, a lobster, or some dangerous shrimp hidden among our personal belongings.” Perhaps the saddest symptom of Cuba’s state-enforced poverty is the prostitution epidemic—a problem the government officially denies and even forbids foreign journalists based in Havana to mention. Some Cuban prostitutes are professionals, but many are average women—wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers—who solicit johns once or twice a year for a little extra money to make ends meet.
it's that it shouldn't have been handled as a diplomatic amateur hour and we should have something to show for handing Havana their biggest propaganda coup in a half-century. Fugitives, concessions on human rights, something that suggested this was more than a gift to a pauper dictatorship that was fresh out of benefactors.
Bingo. This is a godsend to Castro, and we're getting nothing in return.
I don't think Coca-Cola's sales to Cuba will be particularly robust since a six-pack will cost two weeks' wages.
One good thing to come of this will be the lamentations of leftist poverty porn fetishists who will fret and tug at their chins over the horrible commercialization that may come to Cuba. There's nothing like authentic human suffering to set a lefty's heart aglow.
RE: To do that before they extradited Joanne Chesimard ... Â
is an utter travesty. I think this gives her resident-for-life status in Cuba. And it tells the family of a murdered police officer that they count for nothing.
Since we're on the subject of "utter travesties"... What about Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban expatriate, a known terrorist living in Miami. He's been responsible for numerous attacks on Cuban civilains, including the bombing of an airliner en route to Cuba from Venezuela in 1976 which killed 73 people, including numerous children and the entire Cuban national fencing team. His partner in this crime, Orlando Bosch, lived happily in the U.S. until his death in 2011. These are just two examples of many such criminals whom our government has steadfastly refused to extradite. So let's put the brakes on the moral outrage here. It's not all that constructive, particularly when we are so incapable of looking in the mirror.
Have you ever been to Jamacia and made the 2 hour ride from the airport to Ocho Riis? You want to talk about poverty, take the trip. There is poverty all over the world, deep,deep poverty in countries we go to visit but never see outside the Tourist area. Cuba is not poorer than Haiti. So pontificate away about the immorality of spending money in Cuba
But let's try this one on for size - Jamaicans are limited to a maximum wage of $20 per month, true or false? The money you give to a vendor on the beach is entirely confiscated by by the Jamaican government, true or false? A poor Jamaican would be arrested for raising his own chickens to suppliment his diet, true or false?
But seriously, we waged war for years against Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Cold War and hot wars via proxies vs. China, Russia. But we have diplomatic and economic relations with all except for Cuba? Please. Whatever Chairman O's motives, it's the inevitable end of a stupid and obviously failed policy. The Castros have outlasted 11 Presidencies, and outlived 6 Presidents (Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan). Hopefully things change for the better for the average Cuban who suffers most. Our policy hasn't helped them at all has it?
it's that it shouldn't have been handled as a diplomatic amateur hour and we should have something to show for handing Havana their biggest propaganda coup in a half-century. Fugitives, concessions on human rights, something that suggested this was more than a gift to a pauper dictatorship that was fresh out of benefactors.
Bingo. This is a godsend to Castro, and we're getting nothing in return.
I don't think Coca-Cola's sales to Cuba will be particularly robust since a six-pack will cost two weeks' wages.
One good thing to come of this will be the lamentations of leftist poverty porn fetishists who will fret and tug at their chins over the horrible commercialization that may come to Cuba. There's nothing like authentic human suffering to set a lefty's heart aglow.
The scuola di Coca-Cola has NOTHING to do with soft drink sales.
Yeah that's a problem too. WTF is Swiss cheese doing on a Caribbean inspired sandwich? Meh, I mean I'd eat one and enjoy it(and have) but what's the fuss all about?
I agree with establishing relations with them. It is a relic of the past. I have an uncomfortable feeling that the fugitive issue will be handled in January 2017 by a pardon. Hope this turns out to be wrong.
I don't understand how someone with family in that country would actually want a continuation of Cold War policy over normalizing diplomatic relations. 60 years of embargo versus a chance at American involvement when the Castro's eat dirt?
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
I don't understand how someone with family in that country would actually want a continuation of Cold War policy over normalizing diplomatic relations. 60 years of embargo versus a chance at American involvement when the Castro's eat dirt?
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
Ben (and others in S. Florida)....what is the feeling of the Cuban refugees, escapees, and immigrants down there? Are they generally in favor of it? It seems like they are major stakeholders. I haven't heard of any specific polling on the national news.
Again, nobody has really addressed the question... Â
why was "effectively nothing" the best we could get for handling the Castros a propaganda coup? Why was this handled by amateurs and not professional diplomats? I don't have a particular objection to the policy change but it sure as hell doesn't strike me as a "deal." It looks a lot more like aunilateral concession to a regime that was suddenly friendless.
was interviewed a month ago. He is now 21. He wants to come to America as a tourist to thank the American people for what they did for him. He is grateful. He is now in college studying Engineering.
I don't understand how someone with family in that country would actually want a continuation of Cold War policy over normalizing diplomatic relations. 60 years of embargo versus a chance at American involvement when the Castro's eat dirt?
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
Ben (and others in S. Florida)....what is the feeling of the Cuban refugees, escapees, and immigrants down there? Are they generally in favor of it? It seems like they are major stakeholders. I haven't heard of any specific polling on the national news.
The ones I know hate it.
You could always go go to Cuba. All you had to do was fly in from a country that had relations with them.
Have you ever been to Jamacia and made the 2 hour ride from the airport to Ocho Riis? You want to talk about poverty, take the trip. There is poverty all over the world, deep,deep poverty in countries we go to visit but never see outside the Tourist area. Cuba is not poorer than Haiti. So pontificate away about the immorality of spending money in Cuba
Yes there is poverty, but at one time Cuba was free, wealthy and modern. The ideology which turned it into what it is today is now being given a Thank You from the country that so fiercely opposed it. I know I lived there during the "good" times and 1 year of shit. I am so thankful that my parents were wise enough to get out before it was too late. You guys have no idea what it feels like to lose your motherland and the stigma that comes with it. As Greg so eloquently put it, those poor soul;s down there will be under the grip of that government regardless of the outside influences. As much as I once wanted to return, I shall never set foot or support that country in any manner.
You do realize that Fulgencio Batista was dictator, right. Sure there were wealthy people in Cuba, but most of the country was dirt poor. Batista whored his country out to mobsters and other moneyed interests while his people starved.
Castro was worse, but the Cuban people rebelled for a reason.
Having an Embassy with Diplomats that can move about the country and enable the Cuban people access to the Embassy and having the big Neighbor to the North spending money and interacting with the Cuban people will spread the seeds of change directly with the people of Cuba. Isolating them has not worked, why not try something new and engage them?
so I'm not sure I see the need to have squeezed "concessions" out of it. The change we want to see is more easily affected if we actually have an official presence there. Or does anyone think otherwise? This is the beginning of a process, not the end.
Do people think the US should not have had diplomatic relations with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. during the Cold War? I can tell you that not having the US around would have been a bad outcome for those countries.
You do realize that Fulgencio Batista was dictator, right. Sure there were wealthy people in Cuba, but most of the country was dirt poor. Batista whored his country out to mobsters and other moneyed interests while his people starved.
Castro was worse, but the Cuban people rebelled for a reason.
Gary,
Check with the people that lived there even with Batista, he was just a whore for the Gringos. However the poverty you speak of must have been well hidden, in any case the revolution in Cuba was supported by the left in the US...
Fuck Castro.
THIS !!!
Quote:
When the ailing Fidel Castro ceded power to his less doctrinaire younger brother Raúl in 2008, the quasi-capitalist bubble expanded, but the economy remains heavily socialist. In the United States, we have a minimum wage; Cuba has a maximum wage—$20 a month for almost every job in the country. (Professionals such as doctors and lawyers can make a whopping $10 extra a month.) Sure, Cubans get “free” health care and education, but as Cuban exile and Yale historian Carlos Eire says, “All slave owners need to keep their slaves healthy and ensure that they have the skills to perform their tasks.”
Even employees inside the quasi-capitalist bubble don’t get paid more. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havana’s hotels. Before accepting its contract, Meliá said that it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The Cuban government said fine, so the company pays $8–$10 an hour. But Meliá doesn’t pay its employees directly. Instead, the firm gives the compensation to the government, which then pays the workers—but only after pocketing most of the money. I asked several Cubans in my hotel if that arrangement is really true. All confirmed that it is. The workers don’t get $8–$10 an hour; they get 67 cents a day—a child’s allowance.
The maximum wage is just the beginning. Not only are most Cubans not allowed to have money; they’re hardly allowed to have things. The police expend extraordinary manpower ensuring that everyone required to live miserably at the bottom actually does live miserably at the bottom. Dissident blogger and author Yoani Sánchez describes the harassment sarcastically in her book Havana Real: “Buses are stopped in the middle of the street and bags inspected to see if we are carrying some cheese, a lobster, or some dangerous shrimp hidden among our personal belongings.” Perhaps the saddest symptom of Cuba’s state-enforced poverty is the prostitution epidemic—a problem the government officially denies and even forbids foreign journalists based in Havana to mention. Some Cuban prostitutes are professionals, but many are average women—wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers—who solicit johns once or twice a year for a little extra money to make ends meet.
Greg on point again.
ha
Bingo. This is a godsend to Castro, and we're getting nothing in return.
I don't think Coca-Cola's sales to Cuba will be particularly robust since a six-pack will cost two weeks' wages.
One good thing to come of this will be the lamentations of leftist poverty porn fetishists who will fret and tug at their chins over the horrible commercialization that may come to Cuba. There's nothing like authentic human suffering to set a lefty's heart aglow.
Since we're on the subject of "utter travesties"... What about Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban expatriate, a known terrorist living in Miami. He's been responsible for numerous attacks on Cuban civilains, including the bombing of an airliner en route to Cuba from Venezuela in 1976 which killed 73 people, including numerous children and the entire Cuban national fencing team. His partner in this crime, Orlando Bosch, lived happily in the U.S. until his death in 2011. These are just two examples of many such criminals whom our government has steadfastly refused to extradite. So let's put the brakes on the moral outrage here. It's not all that constructive, particularly when we are so incapable of looking in the mirror.
Link - ( New Window )
Give them fucking Posada. It's not like I give a shit about him.
But seriously, we waged war for years against Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Cold War and hot wars via proxies vs. China, Russia. But we have diplomatic and economic relations with all except for Cuba? Please. Whatever Chairman O's motives, it's the inevitable end of a stupid and obviously failed policy. The Castros have outlasted 11 Presidencies, and outlived 6 Presidents (Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan). Hopefully things change for the better for the average Cuban who suffers most. Our policy hasn't helped them at all has it?
Now, when do the cigars start flowing up here?
Quote:
it's that it shouldn't have been handled as a diplomatic amateur hour and we should have something to show for handing Havana their biggest propaganda coup in a half-century. Fugitives, concessions on human rights, something that suggested this was more than a gift to a pauper dictatorship that was fresh out of benefactors.
Bingo. This is a godsend to Castro, and we're getting nothing in return.
I don't think Coca-Cola's sales to Cuba will be particularly robust since a six-pack will cost two weeks' wages.
One good thing to come of this will be the lamentations of leftist poverty porn fetishists who will fret and tug at their chins over the horrible commercialization that may come to Cuba. There's nothing like authentic human suffering to set a lefty's heart aglow.
The scuola di Coca-Cola has NOTHING to do with soft drink sales.
no cop killer is getting a pardon
Is this addressed to me?
You just have to sit back and enjoy it.
I'm very angry about something that will never impact my life in any way! Grrr!!!
Quote:
or something you read in some right wing rag?
Is this addressed to me?
I think it was just next up in the queue. Don't take it personally.
It would appear that most Americans don't agree.
Cuban American opinions are shifting; majority now agree time to normalize diplomatic relations.
Council on Foreign Relations - Public Opinion - ( New Window )
Well answer me this then...why do you feel that you should be the only one who should be able to fling gratuitous pejoratives?
I'm very angry about something that will never impact my life in any way! Grrr!!!
A close friend of mine is Cuban and has family there, so yes, I take an interest.
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
Ben (and others in S. Florida)....what is the feeling of the Cuban refugees, escapees, and immigrants down there? Are they generally in favor of it? It seems like they are major stakeholders. I haven't heard of any specific polling on the national news.
Quote:
I don't understand how someone with family in that country would actually want a continuation of Cold War policy over normalizing diplomatic relations. 60 years of embargo versus a chance at American involvement when the Castro's eat dirt?
The table is set for the (most likely) next Administration to help the island over the next decade.
Ben (and others in S. Florida)....what is the feeling of the Cuban refugees, escapees, and immigrants down there? Are they generally in favor of it? It seems like they are major stakeholders. I haven't heard of any specific polling on the national news.
The ones I know hate it.
You could always go go to Cuba. All you had to do was fly in from a country that had relations with them.
Wut?
Yes there is poverty, but at one time Cuba was free, wealthy and modern. The ideology which turned it into what it is today is now being given a Thank You from the country that so fiercely opposed it. I know I lived there during the "good" times and 1 year of shit. I am so thankful that my parents were wise enough to get out before it was too late. You guys have no idea what it feels like to lose your motherland and the stigma that comes with it. As Greg so eloquently put it, those poor soul;s down there will be under the grip of that government regardless of the outside influences. As much as I once wanted to return, I shall never set foot or support that country in any manner.
Castro was worse, but the Cuban people rebelled for a reason.
I am for improved relations with Cuba, but not without some kind of change in the Cuban government.
Do people think the US should not have had diplomatic relations with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. during the Cold War? I can tell you that not having the US around would have been a bad outcome for those countries.
Castro was worse, but the Cuban people rebelled for a reason.
Gary,
Check with the people that lived there even with Batista, he was just a whore for the Gringos. However the poverty you speak of must have been well hidden, in any case the revolution in Cuba was supported by the left in the US...