Slashdot Mirror
Cubans Allowed To Export Software and Software Services To the US
lpress writes In an effort to support Cuba's nascent private sector, the Treasury Department announced on Friday that Americans can now import goods and services produced by "independent Cuban entrepreneurs." Will the Cuban government allow that? Cuba is a communist nation, but they have a list of 201 job categories in which self-employment is permitted. Most of those jobs are goofy things like magician and pedal-taxi driver, but one is not – computer programmer. Will the Castro regime let private individuals and organizations export software and software services to the United States and the rest of the world?
... call centre.
... I'll be forced to question their intelligence. Communism or no, exporting services means the country gets an intake of money, without this transaction resulting in the country having less resources as a result. Making additional copies of software is virtually free.
Why not just say it out loud? Call center...
Not a bad way to get the average Cuban into the 21st Century.
It worked for India, first call centers, now they OWN the US development market.
We will start seeing an influx of Cubans up here in Washington State on the Microsoft campas as soon as they can swing the politics...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
$60,000 is $28 US an hour salary. Here in Australia thats what we pay kids shifting boxes in supermarkets. As a programmer I wouldn't get out of bed for a wage that low.
Trust me, if your country is uncompetitive, its not wages.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Low wages?
Have you seen how much it costs to become a graduate of anything in the US?
Perhaps the High tech companies should start training people. Even starbucks can train people to make coffee. Coding to the standard these companies seem to want is not that expensive and they may earn some loyalty.
You've got it wrong. Even in Europe where they're legal, a good cuban cigar can go for upwards of $10 a stick.[1]
Good cigars take years to manufacture (mainly due to the fact that you have to cure the tobacco for years). Even though the cuban government might (and has been known to) rush out cigars that have not properly cured, people who smoke cigars will generally still want ones that are properly aged (unless you're aging them yourself). And I should add that cigars that have not been cured long enough taste like cleaning products, and are very unpleasant because the chemicals you are getting rid of by the curing process are what make them a joy to smoke.
So, all of a sudden, people who would never before dream of buying cuban cigars will start buying them[2]. And the increased demand without an increase in supply will cause a RISE to the price of cigars.[3]
[1] Don't tell me about the cheap stick you smoked that someone told you was made. Brands like Montecristo, Punch, Trinidad, Hoyo de Monterray are the quality ones I'm talking about
[2] Yes many smokers who are wise to the ways of the world know how to get smuggled cigars, but there are plenty of people who won't smuggle -- either out of fear or principles.
[3] If you live in somewhere cubans are legal, this might be a good time to start stockpiling boxes. If cigar prices do go through the roof you can make a tidy profit. And if they don't, well, you have a humidor full of delicious cigars. Win Win
Thus doing what little they can to help finance Castro's regime. Good job!
Perhaps I have fewer problems with Castro than the unrealistic and venomous wing-nut expats in Miami (where I lived for a few years before the hurricane took out Homestead AFB...).
If you want to keep living in the 1960's or the "Cold War", not much anyone can do. But many people have moved on and are looking for actual real solutions that lead to peace and normal relations.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'm a computer scientist who moved from Cincinnati to Melbourne and worked for a year there. Even with the cost-of-living, I worked a contract for $75k/year and could live very comfortable in Melbourne. I even left with more money than I arrived with (and I didn't even work the entire time; really only about 4 months total with some remote work still coming in from the US).
Minimum wage is Victoria was $14 an hour. Oh yea, and citizens got free medicare.
Don't confuse cost of living with cost of cheap electronics. They're two very different things, and the US gets one to keep the middle class complacent and ignorant
Thus doing what little they can to help finance Castro's regime. Good job!
You're probably typing this from a PC made in China. Financing the Chinese regime... the biggest threat to America. Why do you hate America?
And every time you fill up the tank of your car, you help finance the Saudi Arabian theocratic dictatorship Good job!
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
The answer is likely yes. Well, to a point.
The US embargo was the US and US companies only. Other countries ignored it Cubans went to other countries to become educated and Cuba imported educators as well. That being said, only a small portion of the population will have access to computers. It will not be like other countries but possabilities beyond ancient soviet tech will exist.
All of this not taking into account the rather large decline of smoking in general in the US since the cold war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Though it seems it's highest among those living in poverty (and among homosexuals, for reasons I am in no position to guess) which means that not many of those few that do smoke are likely able to fork out the money.
Smoking Cigarettes and Smoking Cigars are not equivalent.
Cigarettes are highly addictive and yes the lower class and poor do seem to be disproportionately affected.
Cigars are something enjoyed by the upper class, and generally people don't smoke a pack a day. You have one or two for a special occasion.
It's two completely different things. If you don't believe me try bringing back a box of expensive Cuban cigars and handing them out. Plenty of people who don't smoke will take one because they enjoy experiencing something new.
'BUT' the Mafia wanted their casinos back and guess who had a significant role in running the US government.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
They're only illegal in the US. Drive North to Canada, or South to Mexico, and you can buy them.
Getting them back is the tricky part. While anyone who has been through a border crossing can tell you it's pretty unlikely you get searched, the penalty is quite severe (something like $50k per incident). And while customs generally won't throw the book at you for a box of cigars, to make it worth while to drive to mexico you'd need to buy an awful lot of boxes.
FYI: Fidel isn't dead; he just gave his brother more power.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
That gasoline in your car most likely comes from Saudi Arabia, and we are openly allies with other Gulf Arab states.
I've seen this repeated a bunch of times, but it's simply not true. Canada was far and away the largest source of foreign oil to the United States. In November 2014, the USA imported an average of 3.443 million barrels per day from Canada, and only imported 1.014 million barrels from Saudi Arabia. If you add up all the gulf states, and other less friendly nations, that the total imports to the US total 2.630 Mbpd (I totalled Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq, Angola, Russia, Kuwait, and Algeria in that). Additionally, the United States extracts 9.020 Million barrels per day of crude.
The long and short of this is that the gasoline in your car most likely came from domestic crude, followed by Canadian crude, or crude from other friendly nations, and not from Saudi Arabia, or other less friendly nations.
Sources:
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/i...
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pe...
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
And who would that be? I can only think of North Korea, who are worse than Cuba...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And who would that be? I can only think of North Korea, who are worse than Cuba...
Countries worse then Cuba? Most Arab allies is a good start. Cuba is a far better place to live than Saudi Arabia humans rights wise, to give one obvious example. The US has had close ties to countries and dictators far worse or equal to Cuba - historically, the US has supported some pretty bad dictators in Latin America.
"$60,000 is $28 US an hour salary. Here in Australia thats what we pay kids shifting boxes in supermarkets."
No we don't. That's a night filler position, current award pay rates:
Casual: $23.15/h (At current exchange rates: US$18/h)
Casual Saturday: $25.01/h
Casual Sunday: $37.05/h
Casual Public Holiday: $50.94/h
Part-time/Full-time: $18.52/h (At current exchange rates: US$14.40/h)
Part-time/Full-time Saturday: $23.15/h (Some types of retail excluded and get base rate)
Part-time/Full-time Sunday: $37.05/h
Part-time/Full-time Public Holiday: $46.31/h
(Additional overtime rates apply)
Actual pay rates based on hours worked can vary between AU$18000 (starting) to AU$36400 (senior) per year
(http://www.open.edu.au/careers/retail-consumer-products/night-fillers)
For comparison: http://www.job-applications.com/walmart-stock-associate/
~ US$14/hour, or pretty much the _same_ as in Australia, despite the higher cost of living.
Higher income in Australia is a myth. It's only supported by comparing Apples to Oranges, or just making things up. It's a myth that the local distributors like to push as an excuse for their profiteering on product prices.
Background:
Casual means there's no guarantee of any number of hours at any time. Casual employees get paid extra to make up for not receiving annual leave, personal (sick) leave and notice of termination. In Australia we generally have three types of employment:
- Full-time (~40hours a week)
- Part-time (Minimum of 10+ hours a week, usually to a schedule set well in advance)
- Casual (No guaranteed hours unless specified by award, work scheduled at short notice or adhoc)
You can look at the current awards here: http://paycheck.fwo.gov.au/PayCheckPlus.aspx
Per Annum pay rates here: http://www.open.edu.au/careers/retail-consumer-products/night-fillers
there's plenty of countries that are ran worse than Cuba.
some of them are pretty near Cuba as well, some of them in the middle east and so forth..
If you seriously think Cuba is worse than Syria you're pretty unconventional or Burma and Laos for most part of their history - or even Sri Lanka. Cuba hasn't been doing wholesale genociding or discriminating at all, unlike many countries USA is giving war support.
it's just the "OMG COMMIES on our doorstep" that kept it on the embargo...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
the situation in cuba only happened because of the USSR. an embargo made sense when the ussr was trying to smuggle nukes to cuba to use against us.
The situation in cuba only happened because of the USA. The USSR had to smuggle in nukes to use against the USA because the USA had positioned nukes in Turkey, targeting Moskow. Doing the embargo against cuba was a move driven by domestic politics; it ignored cause and effect.
And then puke because it absolutely smells disgusting.
Even with quality cigars and even when smoking properly (i.e. not like cigarettes or joints).
Thanks for the comments. It remembered me of the pyramid of the needs of maslow that I first heard about in faculty. I have lived in Africa 6 years, and the scenario is exactly the same, the elites oppress the people for their own profit, and 50 years down the road, the fault is still on the former settlers. Or "settlers" on the case of South Africa (you will have to have an idea of SA history to understand why I choose to use ").
Saudi Arabia also requires exit visas to leave the country - which can only be obtained with permission from your employer. For many foreign nationals in the country, a large fraction of whom are domestic servants, it is essentially impossible to leave as a result. It's made even worse by the fact that work visas are also specific to the employer, so they can't switch jobs either. This is a country that didn't even officially outlaw slavery until after Castro's revolution, but even so they've kept slavery in all but name. (Not even going to start on their sponsorship of Salafi Islamist nutters across the globe.)
Besides, Cuba did finally allow foreign travel starting in 2013 (of course, most of its citizens are probably too poor to afford it, but the embargo certainly doesn't help). And we kept diplomatic relations and some commerce open with the Warsaw Pact at a time when they also restricted travel, which didn't stop their system from collapsing under its own weight.