Slashdot Mirror
Cuba Calculates Cost of 54yr US Embargo At $1.1 Trillion
First time accepted submitter ltorvalds11 writes Cuba says its economy is suffering a "systematic worsening" due to a US embargo, the consequences of which Havana places at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against gold. "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years," Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno told reporters. He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive" to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million. It is also the sector that has fallen "victim of all kinds of attacks" by the US, as violations of the Cuban radio or electronic space "promote destabilization" of Cuban society, the report notes. The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers. Barack Obama last week signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the U.S..
Which is all the more reason to lift the embargo, so that this lie can not be told any more. Without the embargo the current regime would probably have a lot more trouble staying in power.
Venezuela is an excellent counter argument. They are becoming just as dictatorial and scapegoating the United States. But the current administration turns a blind eye to ideological equals. The embargo is not a contributing factor. We need to stop ignoring and forgetting Cuba and blast their human rights violations.
I wonder what the value of American-owned assets nationalized by Castro would be worth today had they never been nationalized. My guess is that it has to be at least Cuba's "cost" or worse.
It'd also be interesting to know the value of the lost productivity imposed by Cuba's communist economics.
The US has tried to lift the embargo several times. Every time Cuba does something to get it maintained. There was famiously a plane hijacking one of the times we talked about lifting it.
Beyond that, the embargo does not stretch to the whole planet. They can trade with Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China, etc. Just not the US. I think they can trade with any country and europe and probably canada. So... whatever Cuba.
Like most failed states, they're just blaming their incompetence on someone else.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
What country sized example of long term communist rule which doesn't turn into fascism or dictatorships are you referring to? I didn't see any. Note that I do not lump socialism in with communism.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Well our constitution was written much later - with a lot of inspiration from the US - which is why our bill of rights and the US one is very similar.
However there is also one or two items from more recent sources (for starters the entire International Convention on Human Rights).
There is also a few liberties we've taken from things like the German constitution - which deal with the realities of countries that had experienced gross human rights abuses - such as a right to dignity.
The right to dignity for example has several clauses - such as a positive obligation placed on the government to ensure there is quality housing for all citizens and a requirement that evictions can only be done with a court order. Another impact is that it informs the right not to be discriminated against - here a business cannot deny service to anybody on discriminatory grounds. Recently a wedding venue wanted to refuse a gay couple the right to marry there on religious grounds and lost their case - the constitutional right not to be discriminated against on sexual orientation means that if you operate a business you MUST serve ALL sexual orientations. There's no obligation to approve of gay marriage, but you cannot as a business discriminate against it (a church could refuse to host a service, but a church is not a business).
Not everybody thinks these are freedoms, some people would say the above example reduces the business owner's freedom for example - and it's true that this is a trade-off but the right not to be discriminated against protects freedoms (such as freedom of association and movement) for many, many people - if a small minority has a very slight decrease in freedom (while making money out of the people they aren't allowed to mistreat) then this is a worthwhile trade-off in my mind.
In some regards the fact that our constitution is only 20 years old has been advantageous - it means that we have all the rights the US has - most of which were not in their original constitution (Everything with "amendment" in it) right in the basic document, and we still have the option of future amendments if we need them.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Repeating a lie often enough does not make it true.
Pinochet was resistant to free market, through most of 1974 his own style of handling economic problems left in the wake of Allende meant putting the army in charge of alleviating penuries through requisitions, rationning and distribution, and it was a complete failure. Chile kept printing money just like under Allende, leading to 300% inflation in 1974 and 1975.
If Pinochet was, as you put it, a "free-market fundamentalist", then explain why did oil and copper industries remain state-owned all through his regime, and why did the fishing and forestry industries remain syndicate-run (CORFO) ? Why did he keep in place many programs of subsidies ? Why did he have several failing corporations bailed out (like the Osorno bank) ? Why did his constitution of 1980 keep copper resources as irrevocably public property ? Why was the Peso pegged to the USD, chinese-style, in the early 80s (leading to a monetary crisis and recession), instead of maintaining a free-floating exchange rate like Friedman advocated in his speeches and books ?
Oh, right: that's because Pinochet was NOT a free-market advocate. He was not even right-wing either - his wife was a senator in the Radical Party, an ally of Allende's Unidad Popular, and he was a close collaborator of Allende until the coup d'état. Instead, his pragmatism at least let him put people who mostly were free-market enthusiasts in charge of some of his government's economic policies. He, himself, had no such convictions, he was just an autoritarian voluntarist. But I guess that makes for an insufficiently romantic narrative to convince you.
Sergio de Castro Spikula was one such free-market enthusiast in Pinochet's government, and he had to bitterly fight (there even was one incident with a gun) with other members, like General Gustavo Leigh, Admiral José Toribio (president of the government's economic committee), or Raul Saez (the man who was responsible for planning the economy of Chile in the Junta), in order to get the reforms done.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
In 2009 Obama made massive changes to our policy losing restrictions. He reached out. A response thanking Obama, arguing for better relations and backing Obama in international forms would have worked. Cuba could have given Obama a diplomatic win and won an end to the poor relationship with the USA.