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A day using money in Cuba

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Re: A day using money in Cuba

#161

Post by meerita »

pjc50 wrote: post #153
meerita wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The communists don't believe in world commerce, why an embargo will affect them after all if they don't want people to trade or have private property?

It's a pretty elastic word these days, especially given China. And of course they do want overseas trade. The US embargo of using the power of the state to make it as difficult as possible for even non-US companies to trade with Cuba is hardly a pro-freedom one. So far as I can tell it's this way because 95% of the US doesn't care one way or the other but there are Cuban exiles in Florida who care a lot about punishi…

That's a proof their system was a lie. Che Guevara gave an speech about how Cuba would thrive without global trading, without private property. Well, the results speak for themselves. No communist regime could survive with its own production. It seems i triggered some communism fans.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#162

Post by meerita »

worik wrote: post #123
jariel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'Elephant in the Room' is 100% Fidel Castro Inc. and his militarized island empire, and totalitarian suppression of everything and everyone. A more extreme but reasonable comparable would be North Korea. List of dictatorships [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regimes

The dictatorial regimes in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan are not facing the same problems. Nor the hideous racist regime in Israel. Castro and I would not get along, I am a dissident by nature, so I cannot bring myself to support his regime. But we cannot blame the economic failures on Castro, now dead, RIP. The Cubans have done well to survive more or less intact for this long in the face of the sanctions. It is my belie…

It is not the dictatorship, it's the economic system they're into. But people still believes communism makes countries thrive into wealth and freedom. They never give any example of successful communist country.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#163

Post by bonzini »

dogma1138 wrote: post #160
bonzini wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobster is illegal to sell to tourists. Camarón (large shrimps) is also illegal but they can find it more easily on the black market.

I thought it was the other way around, Lobsters and Shrimp could only be sold to tourists and for export in Cuba.

Indeed I wasn't accurate. The parent comment seemed to talk about a self-owned restaurant (paladar); since it is not legal for the owner to buy the lobster and shrimp in the first place, paladares and self-owned guestrooms cannot sell it to tourists either.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#164

Post by fennecfoxen »

empath75 wrote: post #67
fennecfoxen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random over-generosity is not a particularly effective charity pattern. If you feel that Hacker News denizens like ourselves happen to have too much money, there are a variety of organizations which can transmit sums of money to those in need: not just a one-time $15 at random with a special tax diverted to prop up the Cuban government, but on a recurring basis, every month, as part of a program to help eliminate wor…

Who cares if it’s an effective form of charity. It’s nothing for you and a big deal for that person. Not everything needs to be minimaxed to death. Same deal with haggling in the developing world. It’s just a gross thing to do when there is a big wealth inequality.

With respect, sir, my anecdote is rather being minmaxed to death, and there’s no need for you to do that either, as it is well in the past.

Are you trying to adjust my attitude or something? Lay off, chill out.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#165

Post by fennecfoxen »

fit2rule wrote: post #158
fennecfoxen wrote: post #31

Went to Cuba with my girl. (She really wanted to go; I was the skeptic.) Walking around the ruins of the Centrum, and someone invites her in to get a haircut. Sure, she says, why not? $5 (convertible), but all we had on hand was a $20. Little Cuban girl heads out running through the neighborhood to scrounge up change for a $20 because that’s almost a month’s salary.

Serious question: why didn't you just pay $20 for a haircut?

Señor, mi Español is la Español de la escuela secondaria por solo un año, y en el mundo? Nada. Y porque, mi comprehensíon de la actividad de otros, en Cuba y en otros con Español, es muy tanto. Y la niña con la dinero es muy muy rapido.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#166

Post by fit2rule »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #165
fit2rule wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why didn't you just pay $20 for a haircut?

Señor, mi Español is la Español de la escuela secondaria por solo un año, y en el mundo? Nada. Y porque, mi comprehensíon de la actividad de otros, en Cuba y en otros con Español, es muy tanto. Y la niña con la dinero es muy muy rapido.

Bastante justa.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#167

Post by 082349872349872 »

m0zg wrote: post #44
throwlaplace wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands o…

I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться". My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but…

Out of curiosity, ребята, three questions about Иван Васильевич меняет профессию: (a) which currency would Shurik have used when buying transistors (~45 minutes)? I'm assuming he would've used regular rubles if he'd managed to find them in a shop, but since he was buying from a dubious looking source (Бери шинель?) would he have needed other currency? (b) when Иван Грозный discovers the elevator (~24 minutes), is his sign of the cross period, or anachronistic? (c) as for the pen Милославский gives to the ambassador (~1 hour) ... were those available for rubles?

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#168

Post by ceejayoz »

WalterBright wrote: post #113
ceejayoz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a dual currency today - when you pay a "convenience fee" for using a credit card instead of check or cash, that's what is going on (as the credit card taker gets charged 3% for those transactions, and passes it on to the credit card user). Barring a few gas stations that give a cash discount, that's very much not the way it works. It's the cash users getting screwed; they pay the same price as credit card u…

Oh, many times I've seen the same price for cash or credit, asked for a "discount for cash", and got it. The times they won't give a discount, I pay with the credit card and get the "cash back". The proprietor, though, will nearly always give a discount for cash, because it's money ahead for him.

That may be an attribution error.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/515/good-guys

> Producer Ben Calhoun tells Ira about a secret move his friend uses all the time — the "good guy discount" — that gets Ben's friend money off all sorts of items when he's shopping. (6 minutes)

More often than not, if you ask someone with the power to give one for a discount - for any polite reason - there's a decent chance they'll do it.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#169

Post by guythedudebro »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #59
guythedudebro wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid either of you let them keep the change

Random over-generosity is not a particularly effective charity pattern. If you feel that Hacker News denizens like ourselves happen to have too much money, there are a variety of organizations which can transmit sums of money to those in need: not just a one-time $15 at random with a special tax diverted to prop up the Cuban government, but on a recurring basis, every month, as part of a program to help eliminate wor…

Is this also your response when someone asks you to grab them a drink since you're already up and in the kitchen?

It isn't about creating an effective charity pattern. It is the fact that these people have to now additionally go out and look all over town for an amount of change that probably isn't even worth the tourists' time spent waiting.

Re: A day using money in Cuba

#170

Post by kmonsen »

Taniwha wrote: post #146
vinay427 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> socialist (the Scandinavian kind) Surely there exists better terminology for this than a highly regionally contextual qualifier. Perhaps democratic socialist, or social democrat, or something involving welfare? Overloading the word with other meanings just adds fuel to the fire of inaccuracy and hyperbole in political discourse, perhaps recently most often in the US.

I think the word you wanted to describe the USSR was "communist", there west is full of countries with socialist social welfare systems that genuinely care for their citizens

I totally agree with you, but it is not useful when talking in the US today. Socialist/socialism means communist here and is mostly just a swear word. The distinction between capitalist socialism and authoritarian communism is often ignored although the systems really have nothing in common.
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