Family Values Under the Bush Administration

[Snide]

You mean Bush pleased 52% of the electorate in November, 2004 without even trying?

Damn, he's good...

I'm confident a good number of those were simply less displeased with him as a choice than the others.

 

[Kerberos]

Could you please rewrite that sentence so it makes grammatic sense? I have no idea what you're talking about. Thanks

Sorry ills, not ill's. What Cleon is saying is that the embargo hurts Cuba, he hasn't said if he thinks there are other things that hurts them more.

Thanks for looking that up. The point I was making was that there's a hell of a lot of trade in the world that doesn't flow through the U.S.; if the main reason for a country's economic misery is lack of trade with the U.S., then there's something seriously flawed with that country's economic system. If the U.S. doesn't buy Cuba's sugar, it has to buy more of someone else's, and the worldwide demand for sugar won't change as a result. That means that Cuba will get the same amount of money for a pound of its sugar whether the U.S. buys any of it or not. The embargo doesn't affect that. This is Economics 101.

The same holds true for tourism. If Americans don't go to Cuba, they'll go to the Virgin Islands or Jamaica. But the worldwide demand for Caribbean hotel rooms won't change. Cuba will get the same amount of money for its hotel rooms whether the U.S. rents any of them or not.

If that's what they teach in Economics 101 you desperatly need to take Economics 102, because this in nonsense. There is a very strong corelation bwtween both trade and distance and tourism and distance.
For a totally generic product like sugar and assuming that transportation costs don't matter, you are correct in stating that an embargo should make no difference. For non-generic products like luxury cigars it does make a difference. As for tourists there are AFAIK 2 rich countries in the vicinity of cuba, USA and Canada. The notion that forbidding around 90% of their potential rich customers from visiting makes no difference is to absurd for words.

The straw man is the claim that the U.S. embargo hurts the Cuban economy.

Straw man means a position you falsely atribute to somebody else, not an incorrect statement. So even if it was incorrect that the embargo hurts the Cuban economy, which it isn't (economics 102 remember), it wouldn't be a strawman because I didn't attribute that posistion to you.

It would only hurt if the rest of the world's demand for Cuban products was insufficient to fill the supply. Show me that excess Cuban sugar is being dumped into the ocean or that Havana luxury hotels are closing for lack of U.S. customers, and you might have a case.

Allow me to make a radical sugestion. Considering that the embargo has been in place for 44 years, isn't it possible, at least in theory, that the Cuban market for sugar, cigars, hotels and whatever other products or services that are influenced has adjusted to the lower demand caused by the embargo? The Cubans might decide to cut their sugar production and close their hotels (or refrain from opening them) after only say 20 or 30 years. Just a thought.

 

[Kerberos]

Read, and learn.If international sanctions against South Africa were a good idea, why are they a bad idea for Cuba?

I'll give you a hint, see if you can spot it:

"On November 6, 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On August 7, 1963 the United Nations Security Council established a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. Following the Soweto uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on November 4, 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally."

Notice anything or do I need to be less subtle?

 

[FreeChile]

If international sanctions against South Africa were a good idea, why are they a bad idea for Cuba?

Aside from your faulty comparison, let's use your own words here. Perhaps you will agree with yourself. Let me know if you can't perform the appropriate reversal of the argument.

So your argument for lifting the sanctions against Castro comes down to this: We help support one murderous dictatorship, therefore we should support every murderous dictatorship (plus you want to be able to smoke his cigars).

Does your list of approved dictatorships include Saudi Arabia?
Pakistan?
Apartheid-era South Africa?
Somoza-era Nicaragua?
Pinochet-era Chile?
Batista-era Cuba?

 

[BPSCG]

Trade with Cuba can only make the country more affluent.

Was Cuba a rich country before Castro came to power?

Cuba has a lot to offer the U.S., in tourism, and in thousands of doctors, and nurses whom we sorely need.

Then why don't they come here? They could surely make much more money in the U.S. than in Cuba. What's preventing them from emigrating? Cuba is closer to the U.S. than Boston is to New York. What's stopping them from coming to the U.S., for a better life? (I wish I had a sarcasm smilie...)

The Cuban people are well educated. They are also poor, in deperate need of wok,

I like Chinese food, too. Wal-Mart sells them cheap.

Oh, you meant "work." (sorry...) What jobs are not available because of the embargo? Are there thousands of empty hotel rooms at the height of the tourist season, because of the Yanqui embargo?

and all the medical professionals in Cuba would give anything they had for an MRI, and the medical technology we enjoy.

I wasn't aware the U.S. was the world's only manufacturer of high-end medical equipment. You mean the the Europeans and the Japanese don't make MRI scanners? Or do you mean they refuse to sell them to Cuba?

The embargo is mildly destructive to the U.S., but it's monsterously disastarous to the Cuban people.

How? Are Havana hotel rooms empty at high tourist season? Is Cuban sugar being dumped in the ocean, or is the cane being left to rot in the fields, for lack of world markets?

Castro uses the Embargo as an excuse for every failing in the government. The Cuban people are told the reason El Revolucion hasn't brought them prosperity is because the Yankee devil is making them poor.

Do you know what the worst part is? Castro's right.

You know, it's possible to be poor even if you don't have a trade embargo with the U.S. Ask Haiti. Do you think it's possible that Cuba is poor because it clings to a catastrophic economic system that discourages work and denies the profit motive? An economic system that has failed every single place it has been tried? An economic system whose sole legacy to the human race has been misery, poverty, and mass murder on the order of tens of millions of people?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Excuse me, I think many of those who support the embargo are woefully ignorant of how extremely unpopular it is, in Cuba, the United States, and in the rest of the world. The following is just the highlights, there's muchmore on the website.

Remedial History:
http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/funfacts/embargo.htm

1963

February 8. The Kennedy administration prohibits travel to Cuba and makes financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens.

May 14. The U.S. Department of Commerce announces the requirement of specific approval for exports of all food and medicine to Cuba.

November 17. President Kennedy asks French journalist Jean Daniel to tell Castro that he is now ready to negotiate normal relations and drop the embargo. According to former Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, "If Kennedy had lived I am confident that he would have negotiated that agreement and dropped the embargo because he was upset with the way the Soviet Union was playing a strong role in Cuba and Latin America…"

December. The Foreign Assistance Act is amended to prohibit U.S. aid to countries that continue to trade with Cuba.

December 12. Less than one month after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy seeks to end the travel ban to Cuba in a memo to Secretary of State Dean Rusk. He refers to the ban as "inconsistent with traditional American liberties," and difficult to enforce. The memo is not released to the public until June 29 2005.

December 13. Robert F. Kennedy's memo of December 12 is discussed at a State Department meeting (to which RFK is not invited) and Undersecretary of State George Ball rules out the possibility of ending the travel ban to Cuba. [The ban continues until 1977 when the Carter Administration opens travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens. The Reagan Administration reinstitutes the ban in 1981.]

1975:

August 21. The U.S. announces that it will allow foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to sell products in Cuba, and that it would no longer penalize other nations for trade with Cuba.

November 15. In Washington, Representative John B. Breaux and senator J. Bennett Johnston Jr., Democrats from Louisiana, argue that it is in the national interest for Louisiana to be allowed to sell rice to Cuba. Mr. Breaux is quoted in the New York Times: "…my constituents say that if the United States can sell grain to the Soviet Union and China, why can't they sell rice to Cuba?"

1981

January. Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President, and institutes the most hostile policy against Cuba since the invasion at Bay of Pigs. Despite conciliatory signals from Cuba, the new U.S. administration announces a tightening of the embargo.

1982

April 19. The Reagan Administration reestablishes the travel ban, prohibits U.S. citizens from spending money in Cuba, and allows the 1977 fishing accord to lapse

1985

October 4. U.S. President Reagan bans travel to the U.S. by Cuban government or Communist Party officials or their representatives. It also bars most students, scholars, and artists.

1992

February 5. U.S. Congressman Robert Torricelli introduces the Cuban Democracy Act, and says the bill is designed to "wreak havoc on the island."

June 15. From an editorial in the NY Times: "…This misnamed act (the Cuban Democracy Act) is dubious in theory, cruel in its potential practice and ignoble in its election-year expediency… An influential faction of the Cuban American community clamors for sticking it to a wounded regime… There is, finally, something indecent about vociferous exiles living safely in Miami prescribing more pain for their poorer cousins."

October 15. U.S. Congress passes the Cuban Democracy Act, which prohibits foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and family remittances to Cuba. The law allows private groups to deliver food and medicine to Cuba. (At this time, 70% of Cuba's trade with U.S. subsidiary companies was in food and medicine. Many claim the Cuban Democracy Act is in violation of international law and United Nations resolutions that food and medicine cannot be used as weapons in international conflicts.)

October 23. President Bush signs the Cuban Democracy Act into law. Congressman Torricelli says that it will bring down Castro "within weeks."

November 24. The United Nations General Assembly votes heavily in favor of a measure introduced by Cuba asking for an end to the U.S. Embargo. The vote is 59 in favor, 3 against (the U.S., Israel and Romania), and 79 abstentions. State Department spokesman Joe Snyder in the LA Times; "The Cuban government, in violation of international law, expropriated billions of dollars worth of private property belonging to U.S. individuals and has refused to make reasonable restitution. The U.S. embargo - and I point out it's not a blockade - is therefore a legitimate response to the unreasonable and illegal behavior of the Cuban government."

1994

October 26. For the 3rd year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly for a measure to end the U.S. Embargo of Cuba. The vote is 101-2, with 48 abstentions, and only Israel votes with the U.S.

1996

March 12. President Clinton signs the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act (also known as the Helms-Burton Act) which imposes penalties on foreign companies doing business in Cuba, permits U.S. citizens to sue foreign investors who make use of American-owned property seized by the Cuban government, and denies entry into the U.S. to such foreign investors.

July 16. President Clinton suspends enforcement of Title III provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.

November 12. By a vote of 137 to 3, the United Nations General Assembly recommends, for the 5th consecutive year, that the U.S. end the embargo against Cuba.

1997

November 5. For the 6th straight year, the U.N. General Assembly passes a resolution to end the Cuban embargo. The vote is 143 to 3.

1998

October 16. The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution against the U.S. embargo on Cuba for the 7th consecutive year. The vote is 157 to end the embargo and 2 (U.S. & Israel) to keep it.

1999

February 23. The coalition of Americans for Humanitarian Trade With Cuba join the United States Association of Former Members of Congress to call on the Clinton administration to end the embargo on food and medicines to Cuba. "The U.S. embargo on Cuba is the single most restrictive policy of its kind. Even Iraq is able to buy food and medicine from U.S. sources," says George Fernandez, Executive Director at AHTC. "As a Cuban American, I speak for the vast majority of us who do not think the U.S. should be in the business of denying basic sustenance to families and children in Cuba."

Snip

November 9. A resolution is passed in the United Nations General Assembly on the need to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The vote is 155 in favor and 2 against (U.S. and Israel). This is the 8th time in as many years that the resolution is passed.

2001

November 28. For the 10th consecutive time the United Nations votes to condemn the 4-decade-old trade embargo by a vote of 167 to 3, with three nations abstaining. Voting for the embargo: U.S., Israel and the Marshall Islands.

2003

October 10. U.S. President George W. Bush establishes the Committee for assistance to a Free Cuba, and further enforces the ban on travel to the island.

October 24. The U.S. Senate votes (59 to 36) in favor of lifting the ban on travel to Cuba. The result is similar to a vote at the House of Representatives last month. This is a major "rebuff" of President Bush's policy towards Cuba. (The travel ban was introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1963.)

November 4. The UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly against the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba for the 12th consecutive year. Only 3 nations vote for the embargo: the U.S., Israel and the Marshall Islands.

2004

February 26. U.S. President Bush signs Presidential Proclamation 7757, which bans vessels from traveling to Cuban ports from U.S. ports.

April 30. According to a letter sent by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to the U.S. Congress late last year (and now provided to the Associated Press) the Treasury Department had 4 full-time employees dedicated to investigating Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and over 2 dozen assigned to investigating Cuban Embargo violations.
The letter reveals that over $8 million were collected in embargo violation fines since 1994, and over 10,683 "enforcement investigations" opened since 1990. Relating to terrorism, the OFAC opened 93 "enforcement investigations" between 1990 and 2003.

October 28. For the 13th consecutive year, the UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly against the U.S. embargo on Cuba. The vote is 179 to 4, with 1 abstention. Voting with the U.S. for the embargo are Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands. In the only speech loudly applauded on the assembly floor, Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roughe states: "The U.S. government has unleashed a world wide genocidal economic war against Cuba. It is the government of a large and mighty empire, but it is afraid of the example of a small rebellious island."

December 16. A number of U.S. lawmakers and food firms meet in Havana. By the end of the week, Cuba has agreed to purchase about $125 million in farm goods from U.S. companies.

 

[Lurker]

BPSCG:

I don't get your hotel room economics either. You say lifting the travel ban would not benefit Cuban tourism. They would have no influx of American tourists. Sorry, I don't see that at all. Certainly some Americans would want to go to Cuba (my parents DID go there through Canada). Thus, demand for Cuban hotel rooms increases.

I don't know what you learned in Econ 101, but as demand increases, what happens to price assuming supply remains the same?

Just don't get your Econ logic but if you explain it better I am listening.

Lurker

 

[BPSCG]

For a totally generic product like sugar and assuming that transportation costs don't matter, you are correct in stating that an embargo should make no difference. For non-generic products like luxury cigars it does make a difference.

Is Cuba unable to sell all the cigars it produces?

As for tourists there are AFAIK 2 rich countries in the vicinity of cuba, USA and Canada. The notion that forbidding around 90% of their potential rich customers from visiting makes no difference is to absurd for words.

Fine. Show me the Havana hotel vacancy rates compared with the corresponding Jamaica hotel vacancy rates, controlling for variables such as regular electricity, clean hot running water, and room bugs (electronic, not the six-legged variety), and if you can show me that after controlling for all those factors, the Havana vacancy rate is significantly higher than Jamaica's I'll rethink my position on whether or not the embargo hurts Cuba.

Straw man means a position you falsely atribute to somebody else, not an incorrect statement.

You're right; I was typing hastily.

Allow me to make a radical sugestion. Considering that the embargo has been in place for 44 years, isn't it possible, at least in theory, that the Cuban market for sugar, cigars, hotels and whatever other products or services that are influenced has adjusted to the lower demand caused by the embargo? The Cubans might decide to cut their sugar production and close their hotels (or refrain from opening them) after only say 20 or 30 years. Just a thought.

Sure, that's a possibility. What's far more likely, however, is that they're poor because they are one of the two last countries on earth still clinging to the worst economic system ever devised by man.

The other country is North Korea. 'Nuff said.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Is Cuba unable to sell all the cigars it produces?

Fine. Show me the Havana hotel vacancy rates compared with the corresponding Jamaica hotel vacancy rates, controlling for variables such as regular electricity, clean hot running water, and room bugs (electronic, not the six-legged variety), and if you can show me that after controlling for all those factors, the Havana vacancy rate is significantly higher than Jamaica's I'll rethink my position on whether or not the embargo hurts Cuba.
You're right; I was typing hastily.
Sure, that's a possibility. What's far more likely, however, is that they're poor because they are one of the two last countries on earth still clinging to the worst economic system ever devised by man.

The other country is North Korea. 'Nuff said.

Thanks, as though I haven't seen enough anti-comminist rhetoric in my life. If you want answers to your questions, here they are. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1587736#post1587736

Note for example that the Embargo initially shut off Cuba from the outside world completely, for 12 years, mercfully mitigated due to Carter. However, Ray-Gun's administration litterally tried to destroy Cuba with economic sanctions.

Great Brittain, another island nation, was partially chocked off from supplies of food and medicine for a few short years, and we rushed to their aid. We brutally closed off an island nation from any outside trade for twelve years.

 

[BPSCG]

Excuse me, I think many of those who support the embargo are woefully ignorant of how extremely unpopular it is, in Cuba, the United States, and in the rest of the world. The following is just the highlights, there's muchmore on the website.

All can say is, any time the UN General Assembly votes 179 to 4 in favor of a resolution, that should be a red-flag warning that the resolution is idiotic. The only other time you see lopsided votes like that is when the General Assembly is condemning Israel for racism or somesuch.

 

[BPSCG]

Thanks, as though I haven't seen enough anti-comminist rhetoric in my life.

Evidently it didn't make much of an impresion. Even the Chinese have given up on it.

Note for example that the Embargo initially shut off Cuba from the outside world completely, for 12 years, mercfully mitigated due to Carter.

I wouldn't call Carter as my expert witness on the handling of foreign affairs...

However, Ray-Gun's administration litterally tried to destroy Cuba with economic sanctions.

Figuratively. If Reagan had wanted to literally destroy Cuba, he would have sent in the B-52's.

Great Brittain, another island nation, was partially chocked off from supplies of food and medicine for a few short years, and we rushed to their aid. We brutally closed off an island nation from any outside trade for twelve years.

Maybe because Britain was a democracy fighting for its life against a brutal, mass-murdering dictatorship, while Cuba's present leader has a history of befriending brutal, mass-murdering dictatorships.

 

[Manny]

The price of sugar is artificially inflated in the US. It's much, much cheaper internationally. However, the sugar industry is very wealthy, and contributes heavily to political candidates who support the special protections the industry gets from the government. Foreign sugar is tariffed all to hell.

Bush moved in the right direction with sugar subsidies and tariffs with CAFTA. He would have moved further but he had to give up some import relaxations to get over the hump vote-wise. I don't imagine the Fanjuls will be giving much money to Jeb in the future.

 

[Kerberos]

Is Cuba unable to sell all the cigars it produces?

Just when was it you took that economics 101 class you've mentioned? Because you quite clearly remember nothing whatsoever. I'll explain it. When the demand falls, supply falls correspondingly. A drob in demand simply does not result in a long term suplus. This is not just Economics 101, it's the first leson of Economics 101.

Fine. Show me the Havana hotel vacancy rates compared with the corresponding Jamaica hotel vacancy rates, controlling for variables such as regular electricity, clean hot running water, and room bugs (electronic, not the six-legged variety), and if you can show me that after controlling for all those factors, the Havana vacancy rate is significantly higher than Jamaica's I'll rethink my position on whether or not the embargo hurts Cuba.

Sight! go find an economy book. Look up supply and demand. It will help. Trust me.

Sure, that's a possibility. What's far more likely, however, is that they're poor because they are one of the two last countries on earth still clinging to the worst economic system ever devised by man.

I'll share another radical notion with you. I have this WILD theory that more than one factor can influence the state of an economy, and that having a lousy economic system doesn't magically make the negative effects of an embargo go away. The central problem with Communism is that they can't magically change the laws of economics, if they could it would work.

 

[Manny]

First to bring Bush into it. You lose.

Psst. Check the thread title.

 

[Kerberos]

BPSCG:

I don't get your hotel room economics either. You say lifting the travel ban would not benefit Cuban tourism. They would have no influx of American tourists. Sorry, I don't see that at all. Certainly some Americans would want to go to Cuba (my parents DID go there through Canada). Thus, demand for Cuban hotel rooms increases.

I don't know what you learned in Econ 101, but as demand increases, what happens to price assuming supply remains the same?

Just don't get your Econ logic but if you explain it better I am listening.

Lurker

I can explain it, it's quite simple. Let's say the Cubans produce for 2 billion dollars of Sugar. This sugar which is in every way identical to sugar produced elsewhere and transportation costs are close to zero. Half of it is exported to the US untill one day the US instills an embargo. The US however still needs it's sugar, so it buys for 1 billion dollars of Mexican sugar that would otherwise have been sold to Canada. Canada in turn will then buy the 1 billion dollars of sugar from Cuba that they previously sold to the US and the net effect of the embargo is zero. The problem is that while these assumprions might hold with sugar they do not hold with fx tourism. A vacation to Cuba is not perfectly interchangeable with a vacation in Mexico, and while Canadians might take up some of the places left by Americans who have been forbiden to travel to Cuba, there are relativly few Canadians, and Europeans obviously wont travel to Cuba in droves when it's much easier to travel to Spain, Italy or Greece.

In other words Cuban exports if totally generic products like sugar might very well be unaffected by the embargo, but non-generic products like vacations or Cuban cigars will be affected.

 

[BPSCG]

I'll share another radical notion with you. I have this WILD theory that more than one factor can influence the state of an economy, and that having a lousy economic system doesn't magically make the negative effects of an embargo go away. The central problem with Communism is that they can't magically change the laws of economics, if they could it would work.

Three points:

• When a country has communism as its economic system, claiming that its economic ills are because the U.S. won't buy any of its primary export is akin to saying that a 400 pound sedentary McDonaldsholic is having heart problems because of the second-hand smoke he's exposed to on his weekly hour-long visit to the pool hall. Every single country that has tried communism has found it to be a complete economic disaster. Short of out-and-out war, communism is the greatest wealth-destroying force the world has ever seen, and it is so wildly unpopular among its subjects that governments almost always have to resort to naked force to keep it in effect.
• Getting rid of communism would be a double benefit for Cuba. It would remove the wealth-destroying mechanism from the country, and the U.S. would likely lift the embargo. Why does Castro insist on crippling his country with an economic system that has never worked? Personal vanity? A religious-style devotion to a clearly bankrupt system?
• As for your claim that "[t]he central problem with Communism is that they can't magically change the laws of economics, if they could it would work", the only response I can make to that is an old French saying: "If your grandmother had balls, she'd be your grandfather."

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Three points:

• When a country has communism as its economic system, claiming that its economic ills are because the U.S. won't buy any of its primary export is akin to saying that a 400 pound sedentary McDonaldsholic is having heart problems because of the second-hand smoke he's exposed to on his weekly hour-long visit to the pool hall. Every single country that has tried communism has found it to be a complete economic disaster. Short of out-and-out war, communism is the greatest wealth-destroying force the world has ever seen, and it is so wildly unpopular among its subjects that governments almost always have to resort to naked force to keep it in effect.
• Getting rid of communism would be a double benefit for Cuba. It would remove the wealth-destroying mechanism from the country, and the U.S. would likely lift the embargo. Why does Castro insist on crippling his country with an economic system that has never worked? Personal vanity? A religious-style devotion to a clearly bankrupt system?
• As for your claim that "[t]he central problem with Communism is that they can't magically change the laws of economics, if they could it would work", the only response I can make to that is an old French saying: "If your grandmother had balls, she'd be your grandfather."

For the last time, cut the anti-communist rhetoric, and face the facts. We have been systematically isolating the trade of an island nation which cannot be independant. They have than 35% of the fossil fuels they require for consumption, for one thing. Blaming communism for cuba's ecnomic ills is a cheap cop out. Why does Castro insist on hanging on to communism, because it's his only ticket to power. Here's another question, why did we cheerfully trade with aprtheid era South Africa, but we still refuse to trade with Cuba, which is less oppressive?

 

[BPSCG]

Here, I fixed it for you:

For the last time, cut the anti-communist rhetoric, and face the facts. We have been systematically isolating the trade of an island nation which cannot be independant. They have than 35% of the fossil fuels they require for consumption, for one thing. Blaming communism for cuba's ecnomic ills is a cheap cop out. Why does Castro insist on hanging on to communism, because it's his only ticket to power. Here's another question, why did we cheerfully trade with aprtheid era South Africa, but we still refuse to trade with Cuba, which is less oppressive?

The amount of nonsense here is staggering, so I'll just deal with one claim:

We have been systematically isolating the trade of an island nation which cannot be independant.

Hong Kong is literally the most crowded place on earth. It has no natural resources. Yet it has been prosperous for decades, even while its much more powerful neighbor to the north was stuck in a communist catastrophe that claimed the lives of, by some estimates, as many as forty million people.

Israel is surrounded by enemies who have sworn its annihlation. Its enemies, some of the richest nations on earth, will not trade with it and in fact periodically wage waar against it, forcing Israel to devote an extraordinary share of its GDP to national defense. And Israel is in the middle of the stinking desert, on top of everything else. By every sense of logic, Israel should be an economic basket case. And yet, it has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Go ahead, make all the excuses you want for Cuba's poverty. Try to be a magician by diverting the crowd's attention away from its real problem. [FONT=Verdana, Times][FONT=Verdana, Times]All you're doing is adding to the long list of threads that share in common the relentless search for a plausible intellectual pretext to see nothing, know nothing, and excuse anything as long as it can affix the blame on the U.S.

Cuba is poor because the U.S. won't trade with it just like the drunken bum on the street corner is poor because you won't give him a job.
[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Here, I fixed it for you:

For the last time, cut the anti-communist rhetoric, and face the facts. We have been systematically isolating the trade of an island nation which cannot be independant. They have than 35% of the fossil fuels they require for consumption, for one thing. Blaming communism for cuba's ecnomic ills is a cheap cop out. Why does Castro insist on hanging on to communism, because it's his only ticket to power. Here's another question, why did we cheerfully trade with aprtheid era South Africa, but we still refuse to trade with Cuba, which is less oppressive?

The amount of nonsense here is staggering, so I'll just deal with one claim:
Hong Kong is literally the most crowded place on earth. It has no natural resources. Yet it has been prosperous for decades, even while its much more powerful neighbor to the north was stuck in a communist catastrophe that claimed the lives of, by some estimates, as many as forty million people.

Israel is surrounded by enemies who have sworn its annihlation. Its enemies, some of the richest nations on earth, will not trade with it and in fact periodically wage waar against it, forcing Israel to devote an extraordinary share of its GDP to national defense. And Israel is in the middle of the stinking desert, on top of everything else. By every sense of logic, Israel should be an economic basket case. And yet, it has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Go ahead, make all the excuses you want for Cuba's poverty. Try to be a magician by diverting the crowd's attention away from its real problem. [FONT=Verdana, Times][FONT=Verdana, Times]All you're doing is adding to the long list of threads that share in common the relentless search for a plausible intellectual pretext to see nothing, know nothing, and excuse anything as long as it can affix the blame on the U.S.

Cuba is poor because the U.S. won't trade with it just like the drunken bum on the street corner is poor because you won't give him a job.
[/FONT][/FONT]

How dare you deliberately lie about the facts. Hong Kong has been a major trade center for ages, and had numerous trade partners. It did not need China. Israel rceives more aid from the U.S. government than all of Africa combined. We shut off Cuba from the outside world altogether for twelve years.

Please, stop your lies.

 

[Cleon]

Hong Kong is literally the most crowded place on earth. It has no natural resources. Yet it has been prosperous for decades, even while its much more powerful neighbor to the north was stuck in a communist catastrophe that claimed the lives of, by some estimates, as many as forty million people.

Israel is surrounded by enemies who have sworn its annihlation. Its enemies, some of the richest nations on earth, will not trade with it and in fact periodically wage waar against it, forcing Israel to devote an extraordinary share of its GDP to national defense. And Israel is in the middle of the stinking desert, on top of everything else. By every sense of logic, Israel should be an economic basket case. And yet, it has one of the highest standards of living in the world.[FONT=Verdana, Times][FONT=Verdana, Times]
[/FONT][/FONT]

You just named two regions that get a $%^&load of money from the United States, and you want to use them to "prove" that you don't need US trade to survive?

Remember...We're not just talking about "you can't go through the drive-through at Burger King." This means no US products, no companies that do business in the US (or want to), nada.