Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Free Cubans by Dropping Trade Restrictions

Fr. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI argues in today's Detroit News that if we really want to make Castro squirm in his hospital room and help revive the museum-like economy of Cuba, the U.S. should lift trade restrictions.

9 Comments:

At 2/26/2008 11:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eerily, quite on the "inflation is not a problem" front today. Hmmm, is the Fed trying to inflation us out of the mortgage mess.

By that I mean are they making the losses on houses and the debts owed on mortgages seem less by increasing inflation?

 
At 2/26/2008 12:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

..


Always thought that free Trade with Cuba , would change them into Capitalists..... it would be the best way to break that Communist ideology

 
At 2/26/2008 1:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have thought for a long time that the best way to change Cuba would be a shock to their system of unrestricted trade all at once. Total barrier today, completely open tomorrow. I just wonder what the consequences to their economy would be, like what happened to East Germany once it was unified with West Germany. Cuba will suffer from the quality of the imported goods and the efficiency of foreign competition.
This would change Cuba, but how is the question.

 
At 2/26/2008 2:55 PM, Blogger Marko said...

Don't they do alot of trade with the EU now? That hasn't changed anything.

I used to be pro sanctions, until I saw first hand the effects of sanctions on a country (it raised support for Milosevic in Serbia, for example, while strengthening organized crime and weakening the democratic opposition). But at the same time, I don't want to help out an evil dictatorship. Supposedly sanctions helped in South Africa (helped socialist take over, anyway). I just don't know what to do.

What does the opposition in Cuba want us to do? In China, the oppositing wants us to trade. I suppose the opposition in Cuba have mostly been tortured to death though, and the few remaining have drowned on their way to the U.S. or are in Florida begging us to do something to free their oppressed countrymen. Too bad we didn't fully support the Bay of Pigs invasion.

 
At 2/26/2008 3:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_CI

Another new high

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d6

Another new low.

Daggers in the heart of the US empire.

 
At 2/26/2008 7:06 PM, Blogger Craig Howard said...

The Cuban government controls all foreign investment. For example, if you were to open a business in Cuba (assuming you had permission), the bureaucracy would determine which architects would design it, which contractors would build it and which Cubans would get to work there.

You would pay the government for its "services" and it would, in turn, pay the architect, the contractor and the employees whatever amount it wished. In all likelihood, they would receive almost nothing and Raul would pocket the no doubt enormous difference to enrich his entrenched police state.

Normally, I'd be all for trading with Cuba -- but Cuba is anything but normal. Too many of us still have an excessively benign view of the island prison.

 
At 2/26/2008 7:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ernest Hemingway: “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

I think he was referring to the US.

 
At 2/26/2008 8:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Craig...cite your sources please. :)

 
At 2/26/2008 9:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4SSvVbhLw&feature=related

What they need is the American dream

 

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