Slashdot Mirror
Cuba's Pending Tech Revolution
dcblogs writes The White House order last week lifting economic sanctions against Cuba specifically singles out technology, from telecommunication networks to consumer tech. There's much potential and many obstacles. Cuba has an educated population craving technology, but it has little income for new tech. The Cuban government wants to trade with the U.S., but is paranoid about the outside world and has limited Internet access to 5% to 10% of the population, at best. "The government has been very reluctant to have open Internet access," said Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. But "there is real hunger for technology," and with the easing of the embargo, the government "will be facing new pressures," he said. The country needs a complete technology upgrade, including to its electric grid, and the money to finance these improvements. "Markets like Cuba, which will require a wholesale construction of new infrastructure, don't come along often, if ever," said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA, a tech industry trade group. "The flood of companies lining up to get in should be quite substantial," he said. Cuba has a population of about 11 million, about the same size as the Dominican Republic, which spends about $1 billion annually on technology and related services, according to IDC. But capital spending today on IT in Cuba may be no more than $200 million annually.
As we know, there is quite a bit that the President can do without congress. As well, with the lifting of restrictions that are within the President's power, a "critical mass" for full lifting will build. Don't fool yourself, it will - and should - happen.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Okay, okay, not "dump", but we all know there's a lot of old hardware here which would be genuinely useful someplace like Cuba, where they're not yet jaded.
The question is, how will they have a tech revolution without an open internet?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think they probably want decent toothpaste more than the latest iThingie. They love getting toothpaste as tips.
Then Congress should pass that law ASAP. It's ridiculous, just like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
I don't understand why any company would line up to put their assets in Cuba where the Castro brothers will seize them like they did in 1960 to the tune of a billion dollars before the US put the embargo in place to stop it...
Cuba is NOT about to make any big changes. At least not unless the man who has been busy trying to destroy this country by Executive Action decides to prop up the Communist Government at our expense. The idea that Cuba has been suffering from an isolationist policy imposed by the United States is bogus. We were (somewhat) cut off from Cuba by our government, but we are only one country. Canada and most of the rest of the world has still been trading with them. Sure, Cubans drive around old American cars from the 50's, but they keep them running and keep fueling them with imported gasoline. Other countries would be glad to sell them newer cars, it is just that when you have a communist mindset keeping the economy depressed, no one has the money to buy new modern expensive cars.
Sure, they might sell Americans some cigars, although there has been a supply of them coming in through Canada already. They will not be selling us sugar, but not because of any real barrier. Rather because of a completely artificial barrier, Cubans who moved to Florida when Castro took power have gotten laws in place that impose such high tariffs on imported sugar that we can't import it, and we have higher prices on Sugar than the rest of the world, with all of that money going into the pockets of a few politically powerful Cubans in America who grow sugar and trickling down to the politicians they buy to keep the system in place.
Cuba is going to see a little bump in tourism, at least while the novelty is still there, but it will not be that much or make a big impact, they already have tourism from the rest of the world and from Americans going there through Canada who show their American passports and ask that they not be stamped to avoid problems back home. We will still over pay for sugar compared to the rest of the world and have tariffs that keep us from importing it from Cuba.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Indeed, the parts of the sanctions that are required by law remain in effect. Congress did give the executive pretty broad discretion over parts of them, though, which is what Obama is using to modify the sanction regime (something previous presidents have also done, in both directions). Specifically the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (TSRA) authorizes exports to Cuba in certain areas, such as agriculture and medicine. The law directs the Treasury Department to come up with regulations governing such exports, such as procedures for receiving a permit, and/or annual quotas, but doesn't specify these procedures in any detail. The president therefore has quite a bit of leeway regarding whether he wants the export-licensing process to be easier or harder. A president who wanted to maximally restrict exports could institute a very onerous licensing process with low limits (effectively the current process), while a president who wanted to loosen the restrictions could institute a more streamlined licensing process.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have some "old" computers that really aren't that old and are in fabulous condition. Is there an organization I can contact to send it to Cuba so that it ends up in the hands of people who would make good use of it (instead of one of those scams that makes it end up in a dump in China)?
For that matter, I have other things like old clothes destined for the garage sale I could send there too. Seriously. I would feel good about sending clothes that no longer fit me (I lost weight) to people who would benefit.
As we know, there is quite a bit that the President can do without congress
like close guantanamo for example ....
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Dear Sir/Madam
This letter is not intended to to cause any embarrassment but just to contact your esteem self-following the knowledge of your high repute and trustworthiness.
I am Huevo Ranchero,the son of the late Cuban Rum Minister who died on the 8th of June 1998.If you are conversant with world news,you would understand better,while I got your contacts through my personal research.
You must have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the recovery of various huge sums of money deposited by my late father in different Banks and security firms abroad.
I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund into your Bank account for safekeeping. This arrangement is known to you and my junior brother (Abbas) only. So I will deal directly with you.I am proposing a 20% share of the fund to you for your kind assistance.I shall provide for you all the documents of the fund deposit with the security firm, and raise a power of attorney to enable you claim and receive this fund into your bank account.
etc...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As much as I like what's happening recently, I'm really troubled by the *way* it's happening.
Eric holder just gutted civil forfeiture. That's a good move, should have been repealed 30 years ago, I'm all for it.
Has anyone noticed that a single man who was not elected gets to pick-and-choose which laws he will enforce? Here's a man in the executive branch who decided unilaterally to dump an entire law. The legislature can pass or repeal laws, that's their job. The supreme court can bless or condemn laws, that's their job.
But the executive branch?
Can they just unilaterally pick and choose which laws(*) they will prosecute?
Similarly, Obama told Holder awhile back not to pursue "Defense of marriage" cases. That's fine too, the law should never have been passed and should have been dumped long ago.
Has anyone noticed that this was done by the executive branch all on its own, with no oversight?
I'm troubled by this because everyone accepts the outcome because the results are so good. The ends justify the means in these cases, it's so good to get these laws off the books that we don't notice *how* they got repealed.
To be specific, in the future we will see the executive branch gutting laws more often, and if people complain they will point to these good results and say "it's OK for us to do this now because no one complained when we did it previously".
This is a troubling turn of events.
(*) I'm making a distinction between pick-and-choose laws, as opposed to pick-and-choose cases, the latter of which is within the discretion of the prosecutor. Yes, there's line, and yes it can be abused.
I used to work for an after-market brake parts supplier. They had a full-line catalog: if you needed a master cylinder for a 55 Checker cab, they could sell you one. The sales and marketing guys used to have wet dreams about the day when Cuba would open up.
Obama can close guantamo. He can't transfer prisoners. He can't get them trials on american soil.
Congress didn't stop the closing of that base the govenors did by refusing transfer requests.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Has anyone noticed that this was done by the executive branch all on its own, with no oversight?
No, the executive branch is the oversight. Congress wanted those people prosecuted, but the president acted as a check and prevented it from happening.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe some nice multinationals might come in and improve life for all those poor Cubans.
Bring them into the new millennium of corporate servitude.
Go well
Eric holder just gutted civil forfeiture. That's a good move, should have been repealed 30 years ago, I'm all for it.
I see you've fallen for the PR-spin version. The administration loves making it SEEM like they're reformers when they really did very little. What Holder actually did was limit the ability of state and local governments to seize assets under federal law, then later have a federal agency 'adopt' the seizure and take a percent cut under the 'equitable sharing' program. This is bypassed by simply categorizing something as a joint investigation and sticking some feds name on the papers. As if that wasn't a hole big enough to drive a truck through, there's also an exemption where the seizure 'protects public safety' where the feds may still adopt it (this was in the damn headline of the announcement on justice.gov)
The bigger deal is that this is ultimately trivial, as it does nothing to stop seizures under state law. The yet even bigger than that deal is that STILL not a god damn thing has been done about the fact that seizures still require no criminal activity; they can (and do) seize property without ever even filing charges against the owner, who must now go to court and PROVE HE'S INNOCENT to get it back. Nor does it address highway patrols that seize any large amount of cash they find. That's right, when police find you with a lot of money, they'll take it and you'll have to pay for a lawyer to go to court and prove it's NOT drug money. Nothing in Holder's new policy even touches on any of this.
Even with criminal activity... your kid got caught selling a little pot? The car you bought for him and your house are now subject to seizure under state law, and the new federal policy won't help you there either.
Given they haven't gotten it, I suspect it's more complex than that! Part of it may be that companies that operate in violation of U.S. embargoes cannot do business in the U.S., thus making Cuba not worth their attention might be part of it.
Indeed, when dealing with a regime on the wrong side of an embargo or blockade, it's always the one at the bottom of the power slope that is responsible, right?
They're angry because their property was seized - but their kids don't generally care. On the other hand, the Cuban government released a bunch of political prisoners in the past week or two, which at least suggests that Raul and the party are at least cognizant of the changes coming down the pipe.
Thats how the law has always worked. Don't blame Obama, blame the founding fathers. (Not that they'll hear, being dead and all that)
Well within his legal rights, as envisioned by the founding fathers.
The whitehouse *IS* the oversight, as envisioned.
Why be troubled. The system is working as it was designed. Its not like Obama invented this, its how its been done since independence.
Why do you say that? Obama has done nothing here that every president before him hasn't done.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Going from many of the comments in the place it's how a lot of Americans think their country is run anyway. "Why hasn't the President done X? Why hasn't he done Y?" ignores that there is a government and not a King.
So since a lot of people are thinking they are run by a King already, well that makes it a whole lot easier for the executive branch to act like it is. The tea party dumbing down has backfired in a way that would horrify them. Be pretending they are opposing a harsh and all powerful King they have enabled him the act like one.