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Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

bloomberg.com

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Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#141

Post by toomuchtodo »

mudil wrote: post #137
toomuchtodo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how that's any different than the US when you can't afford medicine or care? It makes little difference whether the shortage is due to no physical supply vs not being able to afford it. If you can't get healthcare, you can't get it. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/2014/03/26/medical-ban... “In 2013 over 20% of American adults are struggling to pay their medical bills, and three in five bankruptci…

I am an anesthesiologist. I worked in some of the best hospitals in the country in residency (UCSF and Harvard's BWH), and I worked in Detroit and I work now in a small Catholic hospital. And I can tell you that quality of care poor get is the same as rich ones get. Then I also grew up in Soviet Union, where supposedly great healthcare was developed. And I can tell you they had a horrible health care like they have i…

> If Cuban health care is so great, where is their great health research and studies? When did they publish the last time in Lancet on in NEJM? Where is that?

Cuba invests heavily in cancer research.

"Even in times of economic hardship, the Cuban Government has remained constant in its political and financial support for biotechnology. In the last 20 years it invested around one billion US dollars in research and development. Today, the Cuban biotech industry holds around 1200 international patents and markets pharmaceutical products and vaccines in more than 50 countries. Exports are soaring and generate yearly revenues of several hundred million dollars."

http://www.who.int/features/2013/cuba_biotechnology/en/ http://investmentwatchblog.com/cuba-develops-anti-cancer-tre...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/255830.php

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#142

Post by valarauca1 »

tarekmoz wrote: post #123
johnward wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding, as a non cigar smoker, is that the quality of Cubans has decreased and they are only popular because of illegality of them.

Nope. I smoke cigars weekly and I can tell you Cuban cigars are the bests (they are allowed in my country). In the U.S. you will find the same brands like Partagas, but they're made with blends from other countries than Cuba, and they are really inferior. I tried a bunch of them and Cubans wins everytime.

Have you tried Sumatran tobacco?

Its actually been catching on in the US. Its not as good as Cuban, but its far superior to most Caribbean varieties I find. Has an oddly cinnamon spicy flavor (I'm in the US so Cubas are rare unless you hunt for them) rather good.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#143

Post by pmelendez »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #34
quonn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might have been your impression, coming straight from Canada. I visited Cuba a decade ago, having traveled in Latin America for > 1 year. I can't say that Cuba seemed to be worse off than many of these other countries.

This is true as well. I've seen worse conditions in both Costa Rica (a relatively successful country) and El Salvador.

>" I've seen worse conditions in both Costa Rica ... "

It depends on your definition of worse. In Cuba there was a general shortage of several basic items (toilet paper, eggs, meat... etc.) were most people (the only exception is the political class) have to face rationing and long lines. As far as I know that is inexistent in Costa Rica.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#144

Post by AnthonyMouse »

termain wrote: post #82
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cuba is an indescribably weird place where almost everybody is (on paper anyways) poor, yet education, health care and the arts flourish. Violent crime is virtually unheard of I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, I was in college when the revolutions happened. Now I live in the US. When I describe the life under communists to people who grew up here, I mention, of course, the lack of political freedom, the demagoguery, e…

Unemployment is such a funny thing. In a free market economy, unemployment is a necessity but seems to be treated as a universal evil.

Unemployment is a feature of a regulated capitalist economy. The primary source of unemployment is the minimum wage. There are a nearly unlimited source of jobs available if you would accept $1/hour as payment, and if you have no other employment then at least it gets you experience/recommendations and enough to buy some food.

The minimum wage is a trade off. You create e.g. 10% unemployment so that the ~4.3% of people who make the minimum wage (and still have jobs) can make $7.25/hour instead of $5 or $3. There is a legitimate question as to whether this is the right trade off, but people seem to be in favor of it.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#145

Post by Hello71 »

pdeuchler wrote: post #132
xyahoo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: - average life expectancy in Cuba is almost the same as the USA (and higher than Mexico, Belize, Bahamas, Brazil, etc.). - literacy rate in Cuba is higher than that in the USA - Physicians per 10,000 people: Cuba has 67, USA has 24 In the Ebola crisis, Cuba has been leading from the front.

Comparing statistics from small, homogeneous populations to statistics from larger, heterogeneous populations is fraught with peril. Doubly so for metrics on education and health. (I like to call this the Scandinavian Fallacy) As engineers we would never compare uptime statistics from a small, niche startup serving a couple thousand people to uptime statistics from, say, Google. Why do we immediately ignore these pri…

small, niche startups usually have poor uptime on their services. we commend them if they have a year up (hell, if they still exist after a year), but criticize Google for being down once every few years.

therefore, if you want to bring in the analogy of startups and Google, it should be even more impressive that small countries (viz. people in small countries, viz. Cuba) live longer than Google (viz. people in large countries, viz. United States).

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#146

Post by philwelch »

happyscrappy wrote: post #131
lazyant wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ownership != sovereign soil

Again what are the practical differences? All I can find is stuff about mineral rights.

The practical difference is that any laws regulating the kinds of things that can be done on US soil do not apply to Guantanamo Bay.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#147

Post by rgbrenner »

xyahoo wrote: post #103
iandanforth wrote: post #7

I've visited Cuba on a Canadian passport. Aside from the beautiful beaches the thing that struck me most was the desperate poverty of people living in shacks outside the 5 star resorts. While I hesitate to predict that this change will be all for the good, I do believe that the poorest in Cuba will benefit significantly from increased trade.

On the other hand: - average life expectancy in Cuba is almost the same as the USA (and higher than Mexico, Belize, Bahamas, Brazil, etc.). - literacy rate in Cuba is higher than that in the USA - Physicians per 10,000 people: Cuba has 67, USA has 24 In the Ebola crisis, Cuba has been leading from the front.

> - Physicians per 10,000 people: Cuba has 67

2nd highest in the world, behind Monaco (70): http://kff.org/global-indicator/physicians/

For comparison: Sweden (38), UK (27), Japan (21), Canada (20)

Makes you wonder if that number has any significance at all. Japan has 1/3rd the number of doctors, but the highest life expectancy in the world.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#148

Post by aaron-lebo »

pdeuchler wrote: post #132
xyahoo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand: - average life expectancy in Cuba is almost the same as the USA (and higher than Mexico, Belize, Bahamas, Brazil, etc.). - literacy rate in Cuba is higher than that in the USA - Physicians per 10,000 people: Cuba has 67, USA has 24 In the Ebola crisis, Cuba has been leading from the front.

Comparing statistics from small, homogeneous populations to statistics from larger, heterogeneous populations is fraught with peril. Doubly so for metrics on education and health. (I like to call this the Scandinavian Fallacy) As engineers we would never compare uptime statistics from a small, niche startup serving a couple thousand people to uptime statistics from, say, Google. Why do we immediately ignore these pri…

I really like that term. Is that your own?

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#149

Post by xster »

iandanforth wrote: post #7

I've visited Cuba on a Canadian passport. Aside from the beautiful beaches the thing that struck me most was the desperate poverty of people living in shacks outside the 5 star resorts. While I hesitate to predict that this change will be all for the good, I do believe that the poorest in Cuba will benefit significantly from increased trade.

I'm also not sure whether the flooding of subsidized US agricultural products will benefit the poorest in Cuba. Take Haiti for instance that went from self sufficiency to a net importer of rice when local producers can't compete with US subsidies.

Re: Cuba and the U.S. will begin to normalize relations

#150

Post by IB885588 »

xster wrote: post #149
iandanforth wrote: post #7

I've visited Cuba on a Canadian passport. Aside from the beautiful beaches the thing that struck me most was the desperate poverty of people living in shacks outside the 5 star resorts. While I hesitate to predict that this change will be all for the good, I do believe that the poorest in Cuba will benefit significantly from increased trade.

I'm also not sure whether the flooding of subsidized US agricultural products will benefit the poorest in Cuba. Take Haiti for instance that went from self sufficiency to a net importer of rice when local producers can't compete with US subsidies.

How was that for people who buy food, though? You have to look at the whole system, not just at one group that might lose out.
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