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

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

#261

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sbov wrote: post #229
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

Unemployment wasn't that low before the minimum wage was established. What was the primary source of unemployment then?

> Unemployment wasn't that low before the minimum wage was established. What was the primary source of unemployment then?

The poor state of travel and communication at the time. You couldn't exactly hitchhike to the nearest city with a public library and find work via the internet in 1938.

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

#262

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Gracana wrote: post #175
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

> and enough to buy some food A food, anyway, provided you aren't spending your $8 a day on rent. How would social services work in this system without minimum wage? Would people making below a minimum wage deemed necessary to house and feed and care for oneself be eligible for benefits?

> A food, anyway, provided you aren't spending your $8 a day on rent.

When you have the choice between a job that pays $10 and a job that pays $7.25, you generally pick the one that pays $10. When the choice is between $7.25 and $4 or $4 and $1 the choice is similarly obvious. But so is the choice between making $8/day and buying eight pounds of pasta/rice/beans/etc. or being unemployed and hungry.

> How would social services work in this system without minimum wage? Would people making below a minimum wage deemed necessary to house and feed and care for oneself be eligible for benefits?

That's how it works already. People making minimum wage qualify for government benefits that phase out at higher income levels.

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

#263

Post by willholloway »

chrisdevereux wrote: post #179
willholloway wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cubans enjoy greater economic and medical security under socialism than their counterparts in capitalist neighboring countries, even without subsidies from Russia and even with a strict embargo with the US. The country is surprisingly politically free for a tiny nation facing an existential threat from a hostile super power that has invaded, attempted to assassinate it's leader, and funded militants dead set on viole…

> The country is surprisingly politically free for a tiny nation facing an existential threat from a hostile super power that has invaded, attempted to assassinate it's leader, and funded militants dead set on violent revolution for decades. Despite the fact that I spend much of my working life writing "if" statements, I am going to ignore everything after the sixth word of this sentence and express disbelief at how…

What everyone thought I meant:

if cubaFree

> True

What I meant:

Considering how much political freedom was jettisoned by the US after 9/11, I am amazed that Cuba sits as close to the free side of the freedom spectrum as it does considering its been under existential threat for five decades.

Cuba is not a completely free and open society, and I don't claim to be able to pinpoint with certainty where on the freedom spectrum it sits exactly. I have never been there, as a US citizen I have not been free to travel there.

We are not free to go see for ourselves, we just echo the dominant ideology.

From the reading I have done I know that Cuba is more free than I was led to believe in school. It is not an Orwellian state.

I cite a comment from this thread on the topic:

> When I was there I was struck by people saying how hard it was and how they had to get by on about US$2 a week - this was a while back now.

Cubans are free to complain, I've heard it's a national past time.

They are free to engage in politics within socialism.

They are not free to oppose socialism and work to end it.

Americans have never been free to undermine capitalism. Anarchist/Marxist revolutionaries in the US have always been monitored, harassed, imprisoned and sometimes killed. See the history of the FBI, the Palmer raids, the Wobblies, Joe McCarthy, the black panthers, SDS, etc...

The US has given the Cuban government justification to curtail rights. This justification would not exist if the US would have respected Cuban sovereignty and not tried to murder it's leader, invade and destabilize.

How do you tell the difference between a sincere citizen activist and a foreign spy when the most powerful empire the world has known is actively trying to sabotage your government?

In the US in the years after 9/11 we heard a dire meme repeated over and over that went something like "If we get hit again it will be martial law" and we mostly accepted that as inevitable.

I find the finger pointing at Cuba to be unfair and lacking historical context.

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

#264

Post by michaelbuddy »

veidr wrote: post #257
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.

> Arguably the high food prices reduce obesity which is really important I don't think it's the food prices, because the cheapest foods tend to be the ones that lead to obesity (among other health problems). Fast food burgers and white bread are not expensive here in Japan, but fresh fruits and vegetables are. I think there are many factors, but the pretty great universal health care system has to be a big one. As a…

my experience in Japan is they eat more vegetables more often. I think this helps in so many ways. They also eat too much salt, smoke too much and probably work too many hours, but apparently the vegetables and great tea are doing something right.

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

#265

Post by spydum »

jes5199 wrote: post #251
driverdan wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city of SF spends about $26,000/yr per homeless person ($167mm / 6,355 people).[1] It is not a money problem. 1: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-spendi...

We could rent them all apartments for that much

That they could starve in comfort..

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

#266

Post by hcentelles »

caente wrote: post #233
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…

You started revolico!? That's awesome man, I think that project "opened" the mind of a lot of cuban entrepreneurs. I know a few cool projects over there, I also know a lot of plastic artists trying to start projects that connect the "exile" with the people of the island. As you might know, even among those oppose to the regime, there is a lot of bias against cubans from America(unless they are family/friends). I'm al…

I can't get the email from your profile, but you can ping me on twitter @hcentelles, it will be nice to be in touch

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

#267

Post by Shivetya »

MichaelGG wrote: post #239
JSeymourATL wrote: post #62

> The changes follow a rare private intercession by Pope Francis, the Catholic Church’s first Latin-American pontiff, secret meetings between Cuban and American delegations at the Vatican. *Hit-tip to Pope Francis...bien hecho.

I found that the most odd thing here. Obama personally needed a Pope to remind him about Cuba? I mean, it's good a church is doing something beneficial but it sounds strange.

as with the phrase, only Nixon could go to China, only the Pope could go to Cuba, if not the US. Pope Francis's reputation is nearly unassailable currently. Cuba being predominantly Catholic gave him an edge no one else would have, him being the first Latin American Pope is icing on the cake

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

#268

Post by [deleted] »

veidr wrote: post #257
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.

> Arguably the high food prices reduce obesity which is really important I don't think it's the food prices, because the cheapest foods tend to be the ones that lead to obesity (among other health problems). Fast food burgers and white bread are not expensive here in Japan, but fresh fruits and vegetables are. I think there are many factors, but the pretty great universal health care system has to be a big one. As a…

[deleted]

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

#269

Post by termain »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #211
termain wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> In a free market economy, unemployment is a necessity Perhaps a "necessity" in the sense that it's a necessary outcome of a system designed like that. E.g., you build an engine according to the principles of thermodynamics in this universe, a necessary outcome is wasted heat. The engine would not work if you prohibited the waste; or it would become something else entirely (not a Carnot machine anymore, or whatever)…

I mean it's a necessity in that you need an elastic supply of labor to respond to the market forces that ostensibly drive a free market economy to meet the needs of its participants.

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

#270

Post by mudil »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #238
mudil wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatness of Cuban health care system is an urban myth, just like Jackalope.

Why repeat your comment from above word for word, when the facts clearly do not support your conclusion? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8764077

My conclusion is correct. Your conclusion comes from a propaganda perpetuated by dictators and their left-leaning sympathizers.

You can't describe Cuba's state of the art modern medicine by repeating a mantra that Cuba has more doctors, or Cuba delivers immunizations, etc etc.

When your grandma falls in the West and has a syncopal episode, she will get a full work up in the hospital. That includes a CT or MRI scan, Holter, maybe even cardiac EP study, pacemaker, and maybe cardiac ablation, etc etc.

The evidence is clear: Cuba does not and never had anything resembling a great health care system.

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