Cuban Accounting

[Josephus]

How do you see Cuba thriving? I am seriously curious. All I can see is it returning to a hotbed of American tourism (though Mexico will try to prevent that). It has no natural resources. No industrial base. It has people, yes. And enterprising ones, at that, who can keep a 1952 Chevrolet running. But I can't see what else it can offer. Cubans tend to be over-educated, which means that there will undoubtedly be a brain drain once the borders open up.

[Razgovory]

I don't agree.  I think post-communist Cuba has a lot of potential, if it can be managed properly.  One thing communism is generally good at, with some notable exceptions, is developing human capital.  Ironically, you can't take advantage of it until you lose the communism bullshit, but it does build a lot of the necessary framework.

I think post-communist Cuba has the most potential if it isn't managed much at all.  It would be the anti-Haiti, in fact.

The Somalia option.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Yeah, Castro is awful but our embargo has been more harmful to the Cuban people and has done more to keep them in poverty than Castro has. Hate to say it, but it's true.

I don't hate to say it.  The embargo is just hilariously counter-productive and idiotic policy, kept in place by intertia decades after its original purpose has past.  I would be really upset by it but there are so many similar things being done by the Feds.

The hypocrites who do business with Red China would call you a commie liberal terrorist for doing business with Red Cuba.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think post-communist Cuba has the most potential if it isn't managed much at all.  It would be the anti-Haiti, in fact.

I don't think the problem in Haiti is over-management. 

[Camerus]

What policy (and this is not a rhetorical question) would be more effective as both a retaliatory measure and as a future deterrent for the appropriation of US assets? And how would that policy punish only the regime (and still be an effective deterrent) while not punishing the people?

[Martinus]

Isn't the fact that there is a bunch of idiot Spics in Florida who can vote pretty much the only reason for the embargo these days?

[Razgovory]

You are such a charming person Marty.

[fhdz]

I don't understand the ... ellipses.  The Cuban state expropriated US property in the name of the Cuban people.  Would it make more sense to punish Argentinians?

Did the Cuban people ask the Cuban state to do that? Or did Castro and crew just decide that's what the Cuban people wanted?

[fhdz]

Isn't the fact that there is a bunch of idiot Spics in Florida who can vote pretty much the only reason for the embargo these days?

They aren't idiots; they ARE single-issue voters, largely because you would be too if a dictator had ruined the fuck out of your country.

[Razgovory]

So to drive that one home, we are punishing...the Cuban people?

I don't understand the ... ellipses.  The Cuban state expropriated US property in the name of the Cuban people.  Would it make more sense to punish Argentinians?

How's that been working for us?

Perfectly.  We still have the chip.

Yeah, a chip so valuable that  they haven't done actually done what we want them to do in the last sixty years.  If you are selling something and nobody has tried to buy in half a century "I still have it", is small consolation for the time it spent taking up shelf space.

[mongers]

Isn't the fact that there is a bunch of idiot Spics in Florida who can vote pretty much the only reason for the embargo these days?

They aren't idiots; they ARE single-issue voters, largely because you would be too if a dictator had ruined the fuck out of your country.

Indeed this exactly explains why communism still has so much residual support in Cuba.

[Admiral Yi]

Did the Cuban people ask the Cuban state to do that? Or did Castro and crew just decide that's what the Cuban people wanted?

Before doing anything Castro always visits each and every Cuban family in their homes and asks them if a given policy is a good idea.  He got the idea from Hirohito, who invited every Japanese citizen for tea at the palace to discuss their opinion on bombing Pearl Harbor.

[fhdz]

Sigh.

[Admiral Yi]

Sigh.

Sigh what?  What sigh?

You asked a rhetorical question, trying to make the point that the Cuban people have had no say in the policies for which they are being punished.  I rebutted that point by showing we have *always* held people accountable for policies in which they had no say.

[derspiess]

I think post-communist Cuba has the most potential if it isn't managed much at all.  It would be the anti-Haiti, in fact.

I don't think the problem in Haiti is over-management. 

Nor is it under-management.