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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

#241

Post by jeffwass »

wcummings wrote: post #81
ghayes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note: Americans could previously go there; you just couldn't go directly from America.

Americans could previously go there, they just couldn't spend money there and no airlines offered flights from the US.

Not true. I went to Cuba twice from the USA, legally as a student with an OFAC license. This was in 2002 and 2003.

First time via Toronto (Baltimore -> Toronto -> Havana).

Second time we took one of they very few available IIRC American Airlines flights from Miami. Baltimore -> Miami -> Havana.

Believe it or not, the Canada trip was much easier. In Miami we encountered a lot of hostility from the Miami Cuban immigrant community. Eg, the gate to fly to Havana was really hidden in an obscure place between two terminals, and we felt people were jerking us around when we asked how to find it (we were literally sent to both extreme ends of the airport a couple times). Returning we had some aggressive questions from an immigrations officer when he found out we weren't visiting family there, and sent us to the line for getting our bags fully inspected for farming produce contraband.

So yeah, it is possible to fly there from the USA legally, but in our opinion flying waaaay out of the way to Canada was actually easier and less stressful.

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

#242

Post by Shivetya »

I figure the last two years of President Obama's term are going to be one wild ride. He has clearly shown he could not if he harms others in his party politically and he certainly could care less what the Republicans think.

Freed from any need to cooperate; now that Republicans are in control; with Congress its going to be fun. Why do I say no need, with Reid in charge of the Senate he had to play by party rules, he is free of that.

Some moves will definitely be for the good, some may not be. Regardless it should be chaotic if not fun to watch

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

#243

Post by Retric »

rgbrenner wrote: post #220
Retric wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has a lot of welfare fraud which inflates their life expectancy numbers. It also has a fairly low level of income inequality relative to their per capita GDP which helps things. (AKA few poor people.) And to top it off universal healthcare which significantly increases a population’s life expectancy. Edit: Arguably the high food prices reduce obesity which is really important.

You're focusing too much on Japan. Japan was just an example. This number that Cuba excels on has little relation to health. So what is the point that Cuba has this great number? It's just a number. Canada, which has even fewer physicians, has a life expectancy only 2 years less than Japan.

Ehh, just pointing out that having more doctors is not that important from a public heath perspective. Plenty of people in the US for example only really see/need a doctor at birth for vaccinations and then suddenly die in there late 80's or early 90's. For much the same reasons that some people actually lived into there late 90's 2000+ years ago.

If nothing breaks there is little need to fix anything.

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

#244

Post by WildUtah »

WalterBright wrote: post #212
WildUtah wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicians per capita figures are misleading. The US figure reflects very long careers; late retirements; investment in large teams of trauma specialists due to high war, car crash, and gunshot wound rates; a high percentage of women physicians working part time; and a high concentration of expensive specialists with no documentation that they improve outcomes and paid for by large federal government subsidies. The a…

The last vaccinations I received were from the pharmacist at the drugstore.

Licensing practice is mostly at the state level (aside from certain DEA pharmacy regulations). States that promote licensing, liability, and practice regulations that encourage more pharmacists and nurse practitioners to practice more independently have much lower overall health care costs (also dental hygienists, opticians, &c).

Your pharmacist is part of a system that got your health care right this time.

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

#245

Post by jeffwass »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #40
sremani wrote: post #14

In 2008 G W Bush has removed North Korea from Embargo list, and embargo has to be renewed every year based on "some" Enemy Act of 1917. Cuba is the only country in US embargo list, I understand it is personal as Cuba is just few miles away from US, but still the embargo is inhumane and people are suffering. John Oliver has a very interesting piece on his HBO show.

Sorry but the embrago doesn't stop them from trading with many of their neighbors. I'm getting sick of the left giving the horrible Castro regime a free pass by hysterically yelling, "embargo" everytime Cuba comes up. Cuba's main problem is its leadership. The US coaxing it to a free market system that respects human rights and property rights is only good for Cuba. The Castros were more than willing to continue to s…

You are mistaken, the US embargo with Cuba does prevent Cuba from trading with other nations, as other nations are restricted in their USA trade if they do trade with Cuba.

Iirc, any vessel that trades with Cuba is restricted from trading with the USA within some time window. So clearly most Caribbean nations choose to focus their trades with the big USA partner.

Regarding human rights, as others have mentioned, we don't embargo countries that have far worse records.

The Cuban embargo is nothing but an antiquated relic of the Cold War that hurts the citizens of Cuba without having much impact on causing change in the government. And ironically it only serves to strengthen the government by giving the people an easy scapegoat for its problems.

Have you been to Cuba? I've been twice. Incredible experience and I highly recommend it.

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

#246

Post by WildUtah »

chimeracoder wrote: post #240
WildUtah wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicians per capita figures are misleading. The US figure reflects very long careers; late retirements; investment in large teams of trauma specialists due to high war, car crash, and gunshot wound rates; a high percentage of women physicians working part time; and a high concentration of expensive specialists with no documentation that they improve outcomes and paid for by large federal government subsidies. The a…

> It's not an accident; medical societies have blocked medical school expansion for decades until recently as the population grew. Sort of. There are a lot of very common misconceptions around this. The AAMC ( not AMA!) limited the number of medical school students until about ten years ago, at which point they announced an explicit goal of expanding the number of graduates from medical school. However, this doesn't…

Thank you for adding detail.

In this case, the bureaucracy eventually overcame institutional resistance of the wealthiest professional Americans to reform of a system that limited doctors and thus vastly expanded their incomes. I expect that same government and institutional bureaucracy to eventually increase significantly the residencies, but it will move in that typical slow motion of bureaucracy eventually doing good.

When it eventually adds to our production of new doctors, it will have a bigger impact than ten Obamacares or single payer plans or HIPAAs.

The debit of American medical students is as legendary as the vast incomes of doctors, both wildly out of proportion to the rest of the first world. Hazing practices during residency are also still crazy, though much reduced after glacial bureaucratic reforms.

I don't know if there's any better idea there than to hire and appoint good administrators to plan better. A violent revolution like the one in Cuba that built a better health care system seems too extreme.

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

#247

Post by jeffwass »

jpatokal wrote: post #213

The line about opening an embassy in Cuba as soon as possible is a bit funny, since the US has long had an embassy in all but name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Interests_Sectio... And while that's technically only a "section" of the Swiss embassy, a glance at a photo of the place makes it pretty clear that there's a bit more going on.

I've been to the Cuban interest section in Washington DC several times. It's not really an embassy in that diplomatic functions and freedoms don't exist like proper embassies.

The ambassador's freedoms are quite limited. Eg, at some point he was not allowed to leave the confines of the DC beltway. Diplomatic immunity be damned. Really sucked for us planning an event in my Baltimore uni for him to speak at, where the travel restriction came into effect just days before and we had to resort to video conf.

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

#248

Post by l0c0b0x »

mistermumble wrote: post #206
hyperbovine wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in Cuba, a lot of people I talked to were obviously in favor of lifting the embargo, but others expressed misgivings about what it would do to their culture and society. 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, say what you will about how they achieve that. They are very p…

> education health care and the arts flourish Yes. Music also. THIS is the Cuba I'd like to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tozhe0yTAqo

Heck yeah! The simple Cuba, I wish to make it there before it becomes westernized.

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

#249

Post by jbooth »

adventured wrote: post #235
jbooth wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was making an economic argument, not a political rights argument. How come nobody hit the ceiling when we didn't close our embassy with China today?

His economic argument is just as wrong as a political argument would have been: Cuba is a complete failure economically and has been for the last 50 years. Cuba is third world poor. A country where the average person earns $300 to $500 per month, is a slave pen. State sponsored slavery is the only way you can repress people to such an extreme extent as to hold their standard of living that low for 50 years. Given the…

Compared to their neighbors? After adjusting for a worldwide-unique embargo?

Honestly, I'm not into communism and am very surprised that their figures are as good as they are. It's dumbfounding.'

I guess it's more a statement of how hard it is to come up from the bottom whatever your system is. Russia and China both showed great results in their first couple 5-year plans before communism petered out and didn't deliver further gains.

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

#250

Post by ars »

hcentelles wrote: post #202

I'm from Cuba, living in Spain right now. The Cuban government is reluctant to open internet access to the people, despite of they already have the needed bandwith through a submarine cable from Venezuela. Is really fascinating how the Cubans have developed a higly optimized offline distribution channel to share dowloaded content like websites, software, video games, tv shows, movies, with almost the same comsuption…

> loable

The word you are looking for is laudable BTW.

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