[HN Gopher] 10% of Cubans left Cuba between 2022 and 2023
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10% of Cubans left Cuba between 2022 and 2023
Author : apsec112
Score : 152 points
Date : 2024-07-20 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.miamiherald.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.miamiherald.com)
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Looks like the main reason is - Cuba's two main benefactors
| stopped supplying fuel on the cheap, as they have their hands
| full with their own crises.
| anovikov wrote:
| I see it as complete opposite. They did it because they could:
| for a long while, U.S. admitted virtually everyone as a refugee
| without even an attempt to cook up a plausible story. That
| happened only in 2022-2024.
|
| It's a no brainer to see no one ever wanted to live in Cuba.
| Trick is having a place to go. Until the politically
| opportunistic immigration loophole was closed this year, they
| had.
| paleotrope wrote:
| Cuba would be quite a desirable place to live if it wasn't a
| socialist authoritarian state
| inglor_cz wrote:
| As the old joke from behind the Iron Curtain said...
|
| Q: "What would happen in Saudi Arabia if Communism
| triumphed there?"
|
| A: "First, shortage of oil, later, shortage of sand."
|
| Edit: for all the downvoters, shortages were our daily
| lived experience when I was a kid. I still remember chasing
| such rare stuff as "kid's sneakers" or "toilet paper".
|
| And Czechoslovakia was still better off than neighbouring
| Poland, where you could walk into a shop and find literally
| nothing in the shelves.
|
| The black market was the only thing that reliably worked.
| logicchains wrote:
| It's funny because Saudi Arabia's neighbour Yemen is the
| only gulf state that had a (Soviet-sponsored) socialist
| government, and maybe not entirely coincidentally is an
| order of magnitude poorer than the other gulf states, and
| has done a terrible job of tapping its oil resources.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Now that you mention it, this really looks like more than
| just a coincidence.
| OJFord wrote:
| Wasn't that deliberate oppression though? Not that I'm
| pro-communism as an ideal or anything (I favour free-
| market conservatism) I'm just not sure it can be blamed
| for ineptitude/mismanagement there as the joke implies?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| It was mostly incompetence mixed with a lot of corruption
| and petty theft.
|
| Publicly owned businesses had no incentives to compete on
| quality, had to fulfill centralized plans designed by
| distant bureaucrats that weren't completely attached to
| reality. Western products were mostly unavailable or
| extremely costly, so no substitution possible. Lots of
| ossified monopolies. Factory leaders were often chosen on
| the base of being someone's nephew or protege rather than
| expert.
|
| If you applied for a phone line (plain old copper wire),
| you could wait up to 10 years before you actually got it,
| as there was a waiting list of 300 000 applicants in a
| country of 15 million ... ugh. The mess.
|
| It is hard to describe the omnipresent dysfunction of
| everyday life back then. Communism was a theoretical
| system dreamed out by intellectuals who never engaged in
| any commerce. All the violent oppression aside, economic
| side of Communism was just crazily inefficient.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Conditions have deteriorated drastically in recent years,
| food production down 70% from a few years ago.
| Quarrel wrote:
| > Trick is having a place to go. Until the politically
| opportunistic immigration loophole was closed this year, they
| had.
|
| What loophole changed?
|
| The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 still applies. They get
| automatic Green Cards. Not sure it is fair to call
| legislation implicitly giving them work permits and a path to
| residency a loophole.
| amunozo wrote:
| This is almost Ukraine's levels.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _Marrero insisted that the Cuban government would not deviate
| from a centrally planned economy where "socialist state
| enterprises" are predominant._
|
| Same as it ever was...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I wonder what a sensible way forward for Cubans is, and their
| government. What would it take for the US to lift sanctions (I
| assume a radical shift within Cuba's government), and for Cuba
| itself (as a whole) to restructure their government in a way that
| would benefit them and everyone.
|
| Cuba would be a great travel destination.
|
| Their cigars aren't as on par anymore as far as I know, but
| there's potential there, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic
| basically make the best ones last I checked.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Why does the US still have sanctions on them anyway? The
| missile crisis was 50 years ago. It's time to forgive.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Politics. Florida used to be swing state in Presidential
| Elections. The Cuban community in Florida loses their shit if
| President talks about lifting the sanctions and will vote
| other way. If all Cubans had settled in California or
| Wyoming, we likely would have lifted sanctions a long time
| ago since they wouldn't have as much political power. It's
| why we lifted sanctions on Vietnam so long ago. Vietnamese
| who fled mostly immigrated to California and can't impact
| California voting Democrat.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| It almost seems the Cuban exiles want the people they left
| behind in Cuba to suffer as much as possible. What else
| have the sanctions achieved?
| stackskipton wrote:
| There seems to be a belief that if sanctions remain THIS
| YEAR, regime change will come to Cuba. It didn't work.
| Well, NEXT YEAR they will, they have to! Repeat for 50
| years.
|
| Most people fleeing Cuba blame current regime for their
| suffering with good reason. So they have a desire to see
| it overthrown.
| labrador wrote:
| I'm surprised at this take. It seems readily apparent
| that Cuban exiles want their countrymen and women to be
| free from state communist control and have the ability to
| speak their mind, practice economic freedom and their
| religion, which is I understand is very Catholic from
| Spanish influences. I don't know how you can say Cuban
| exiles want the people they left behind to suffer.
| more_corn wrote:
| People who left want to put pressure on the government
| that they hate and they don't mind sanctioning the people
| to do it.
| vundercind wrote:
| A bunch of Floridians who are, or are descended from, folks
| who had their land and businesses seized during the
| revolution are holding grudges and won't let go of them until
| they're given their stuff back or a ton of money, which, this
| far on, isn't happening.
|
| Florida is important in Presidential elections.
|
| US elections are structured such that dumb stuff like a
| relatively small--but loud--and also hopeless interest in a
| single US state can influence policy and make a whole bunch
| more lives worse for no good reason.
|
| AFAIK that's basically the story.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I think that's really underselling the political
| persecution that many have suffered in Cuba. It's far and
| away from just wanting reparations for land grabs.
|
| We have sanctions on Cuba for the same reason we have
| sanctions on Russia and Venezuela now- we don't want to
| fund what their government is doing, and allying with them
| gives us little to nothing in return.
|
| That said, it's pretty obvious that economic sanctions
| aren't bringing about regime change. I don't think anyone
| has the stomach for putting boots on the ground, though.
| joshlemer wrote:
| It may not in the short or medium term cause regime
| change, but sufficiently large sanctions on a country do
| stop it from growing in influence, wealth and power.
| Eventually, after some number of generations, Cuba could
| be so poor in comparison to the rising tide of the rest
| of the world, that it's not even able to defend itself or
| maintain government control. At some point, the disparity
| in power becomes overwhelming and you have super high
| tech society surrounding stone age cave men.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Can that really happen? Won't one of the visiting
| tourists bring news of the wheel or what have you
| eventually?
|
| Seems more likely sanctions would cause a steady state
| where the sanctioned country is some n months/years
| behind where it would otherwise be, speaking as a
| complete geopolitical layman anyway.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Not OP but the problem is not awareness of modern
| solutions that prevents sanctioned societies from
| modernizing, the isolation from trade prevents local
| industry from growing which keeps society living at
| subsistence levels and when everyone is poor you don't
| have a class of people with spare time or the resources
| necessary to build up local industry that brings about
| capital that brings about infrastructure modernization
| etc.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The problem is that not enough nations are participating
| in the sanctions. Multiple generations should have been
| plenty of time, especially given the harms done to the
| population in the interim.
| tuxoko wrote:
| > That said, it's pretty obvious that economic sanctions
| aren't bringing about regime change.
|
| On the flip side, you have China, where US pretty much
| helped build up their economy and hoped for a peaceful
| and democratic outcome. How well did that go?
| ImJamal wrote:
| The USSR and China and prime examples of sanctioning vs
| opening up. One is still around and persucting its people
| and the other is on the dust bin of history. The problem
| with the Cuba sanctions is that a large chunk of
| countries aren't sanctioning Cuba. If everybody got
| behind the sanctions regime change would happen. Half
| assing it won't cut it.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Do you own anything of value? What about your family?
|
| Now let's try practicing some empathy: How would you feel
| if I just took that from you?
| vundercind wrote:
| Oh, I get it. It's just not gonna get them anything. That
| ship sailed decades ago. On a policy level, all this is
| doing is causing harm.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Ah. So uk should sanction the whole USA, on account of
| that revolution that costed some people something?
| brigadier132 wrote:
| They did and it took a war and a long time for relations
| to be reestablished
| rgbrenner wrote:
| Not true. After the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed,
| trade between the US and UK resumed almost immediately;
| and diplomatic relations were reestablished in 1785.
| Shortly after the war (1793), when France and Britain
| went to war, rather than back up the French, the US
| signed the Jay Treaty to maintain trade and positive
| relations with the UK... angering France who helped us
| gain independence.
|
| Other than the revolutionary war from 1776 to 1785, the
| other break we had was from 1812-1815 during the War of
| 1812.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom%E2%80%93Unit
| ed_...
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Ah ok so other than the war and the tarrifs and the
| piracy and the blockade it isnt true
| valicord wrote:
| In this scenario, should everyone born in the same city
| as you be punished for your crimes?
| beaglesss wrote:
| This is foundational to American legal system in many
| cases. If your local cops for instance unjustly beat say
| Cubans and get sued for it the inhabitants will pay and
| possibly even their children through debt.
| dantondwa wrote:
| Sorry, but I don't think families who escaped in those
| times were exactly just innocent property owners.
| tpm wrote:
| Sorry, but that does not matter. If they did anything
| illegal, they should be prosecuted by and in the country
| it happened, but you are presuming collective guilt here.
| That is always, universally, the wrong thing to do.
| coooolbear wrote:
| We are talking about the descendants of the wealthy or
| dissident people who were escaping the Cuban revolution,
| where Cuba at the time was largely owned by foreign sugar
| plantations which was perpetuated by the the brutal
| military dictatorship of Batista, which was supported by
| the US government as well as organized crime (and where
| one ends and the other begins is sometimes unclear...)
|
| It's a tale as old as time!
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Depends; were I or my family aligned or complicit with a
| military dictatorship?
| wordsinaline wrote:
| I would still hold a grudge. I hold historical grudges
| going back centuries.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| Right. I still want back Constantinople.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| Native Americans called, they want their land back.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Florida was relevant in US elections. When was the last
| time it was up for grabs?
|
| It is actually interesting, a state converting to single-
| party rule significantly reduces the electoral leverage it
| has.
| Quarrel wrote:
| > When was the last time it was up for grabs?
|
| Obama won it in 2012.
|
| That isn't that long ago in electoral cycles.
| vundercind wrote:
| Obama did start warming relations, probably due to that
| shift. Trump reversed it. I expect it'll continue to, at
| best, see-saw until Republicans are comfortable enough
| with their advantage in Florida to ignore the Cuban vote.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > A bunch of Floridians who are, or are descended from,
| folks who had their land and businesses seized during the
| revolution are holding grudges
|
| They should've learned from the French making sure there's
| nobody left to hold a grudge.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Killing people who did nothing wrong always puts you on
| the right side.
| epolanski wrote:
| Fun fact, I'm a grandchildren of poles who lived in what
| was polish land but given to Ukraine after WW2 when Stalin
| moved Ukraine westwards (and compensated Poland with former
| German land).
|
| I received a compensation 60 years after WW2, but it was
| few thousand euros (many generations have passed). And by
| the way it was the polish, not Ukrainian government that
| compensated us.
| jorvi wrote:
| > US elections are structured such that dumb stuff like a
| relatively small--but loud--and also hopeless interest
|
| I can tell you, not just the US.
|
| See: farmers having an absolute chokehold on the EU despite
| virtually everyone hating them, and them only being a tiny
| percentage of population, votes or GDP.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Obama began easing them and opened up travel and then Trump
| put them all back to win Florida.
|
| Democrats took an L for freedom, prosperity and common sense
| and Republicans capitalized to win back the presidency.
| joshlemer wrote:
| 62 years ago.
| ks2048 wrote:
| The message is: if you refuse to be our puppet state and play
| by our rules, we will destroy you for as long as it takes.
|
| Anyone who believes the US acts to punish evil authoritarians
| in defense of freedom and democracy is delusional. Look at
| our allies in the middle east.
| riffic wrote:
| more than 60 years ago actually.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| https://thehill.com/opinion/4723678-cuba-russian-
| relations-c...
| sremani wrote:
| A hostile regime 90 miles from US mainland will be treated
| differently. Cuba is not some vanilla leftist regime that has
| no love for America. Cuban intelligence and elite for the
| past 50 years have been active subverting US interests. A
| unilateral withdrawal of sanctions would mean rewarding bad
| behavior. Do not let the small size of Cuba underestimate
| them, they are behind all major anti-American activity in
| Latin America. They were are major force supporting Maduro in
| Venezuela.
|
| Why does not the Communist regime in Cuba "open up"? Because
| they know the day Cuba becomes a multiparty state with
| elections -- they have to run out of the country. Both Cuban
| and Venezuelan elite along with many Caribbean states are
| active in Drug Dealings and Money Laundering.
|
| Yes, the hawks in US have a role but they are not only active
| players, there are hawks in Cuba too.
| rubytubido wrote:
| > A unilateral withdrawal of sanctions would mean rewarding
| bad behavior.
|
| Do something horrible to your neighbour - be surprised that
| he doesn't keep good behaviour torwards you.
| dakiol wrote:
| Why did the US drop 2 nuclear bombs on Japan? Why the US is
| keeping Israel as their toy? Why the US entered the Vietnam
| war (hint: no, not to avoid the spread of communism). US is
| the bad boy of this planet, just because they can.
| rubytubido wrote:
| But they did it to protect the planet. We need to enforce
| "democracy" and spread capitalism.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Cuba would be a great travel destination.
|
| It's been a while since I visited places outside the US, but
| one of the shocking things was travel ads for Cuba everywhere.
|
| From what I can tell, US-Cuban relations seem to be at the whim
| of the US President. Most of the US population doesn't care;
| most of the rest of the world has fine relations with Cuba, but
| isn't going to pressure the US. Nobody is sending missiles to
| Cuba anymore.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Nobody is sending missiles to Cuba anymore.
|
| Or are they?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/12/americas/russian-navy-cuba-
| in...
| astromaniak wrote:
| Still no. Just a visit, doesn't look like Cuba has any wish
| to become Russia's military fortress. From Russia side all
| decisions are made by a single person who is not thinking
| big. Cuba would be quite expensive. Ukraine is more then
| enough for Putin, unlikely he wants a new 'adventure'.
| rubytubido wrote:
| > Ukraine is more then enough for Putin
|
| What about propaganda where he will capture the whole EU
| after Ukraine?
| nradov wrote:
| It's not just the President. Some aspects of US-Cuban
| relations are written into federal law and would take an Act
| of Congress to change.
|
| As a practical matter, Americans can travel to Cuba without
| much trouble. Several of my friends have gone.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The people who _really_ care are Cuban exiles around Miami.
|
| When Florida was a swing state, that was enough to make every
| presidential candidate be pro embargo.
|
| Now that Florida is a red state, it might be different.
| paxys wrote:
| The Cuban population of Miami is heavily republican and
| pro-embargo. This is why Obama got rid of it and Trump
| reinstated it.
| stefan_ wrote:
| > What would it take for the US to lift sanctions
|
| Florida to stop being a swing state? We are almost there..
| bee_rider wrote:
| I have only seen Florida disappoint Democratic candidates. It
| is a trick state. Should basically be ignored.
| ashconnor wrote:
| > Cuba would be a great travel destination.
|
| Careful visiting if you want to use the ESTA to visit the
| United States.
|
| https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/u-s-visa-...
| astromaniak wrote:
| > Cuba would be a great travel destination
|
| There are many similar destinations, and all of them are still
| poor. Besides, Cuba has already tourists from Canada and
| Europe.
|
| My guess their best chance is to start manufacturing for cheap.
| Close to US makes them more competitive. But for this to happen
| commies government has to go.
| abernard1 wrote:
| > What would it take for the US to lift sanctions (I assume a
| radical shift within Cuba's government), and for Cuba itself
| (as a whole) to restructure their government in a way that
| would benefit them and everyone.
|
| It's irrelevant. Hard-line socialist countries don't
| voluntarily decide to change their government: their countries
| collapse and start over again.
|
| While sanctions on Cuba are irrelevant to the US these days, it
| doesn't change the fact that Cuba would be a dysfunctional
| society in any case. Venezuela was a resource rich nation and
| 7.7 million people fled (>20% of the population). The Soviet
| Union was one of the most resource-rich entities in the world,
| with similar failures.
|
| I find it somewhat astonishing that people in tech--an industry
| built around the belief that well-built systems can produce
| good results--are so dismissive of the role of agency when it
| comes to these issues. Somehow it's America's fault that people
| are leaving Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico... and left to their own
| devices, those places would be paradise.
| standardUser wrote:
| Obama opened up travel to Cuba. I went just months after his
| historic visit. There were still limitations, such as with
| currency, that made it a somewhat complicated travel
| destination. It would require more significant changes to make
| it a go-to vacation spot, but it's generally believed that is
| within presidential power.
|
| Trump reverted the relationship back to Cold War status when he
| took office.
| V__ wrote:
| > Most of those migrants have come to the United States in what
| experts call the most significant migration wave in Cuban
| history.
|
| With the destabilization that a population drop of 10% has, the
| potential for more migration in the long term and the associated
| costs... Wouldn't it make sense for the U.S. to invest and help
| Cuba? It would also have the additional benefit of maybe
| depriving Russia of an ally.
| chaorace wrote:
| The current U.S. position towards Cuba continues to puzzle me.
| Their geopolitical stance is nowhere near being on the same
| level as North Korea or Iran. Given Cuba's proximity and
| relative productive capacity you'd think that we'd be easy
| allies if only they hadn't upset a bunch of dead politicians 60
| years ago.
| seniorivn wrote:
| They are a hostile dictatorship, with zero resources but
| their oppressed people. Why would USA be interested in
| allying with them?
| atlas_hugged wrote:
| Their government is hostile like a friend's chihuahua. It
| will make it known it doesn't like you, but it ain't going
| to do anything about it because it can't.
|
| The people on the other hand are truly wonderful human
| beings that would love to be able to have visitors or visit
| other countries themselves.
|
| Who cares if some politicians feelings get hurt. People
| want to be free to do what they want in a supposedly free
| country.
| spiderice wrote:
| What does any of what you said have to do with the US
| though?
| joshlemer wrote:
| > it ain't going to do anything about it because it can't
|
| And, it can't because it's too poor to be able to do
| anything, which is partly a result of the sanctions.
| ImJamal wrote:
| If you open up trade they will become stronger. Look at
| China before and after we opened up trade with them. What
| happens of Cuba becomes more powerful and is still
| hostile while being so close to the US?
| energy123 wrote:
| The US should oppose expansionist dictatorships that
| attempt to alter the status quo via forceful revisionism.
| That's Russia in Ukraine and China in Asia.
|
| I don't see how opposing Cuba achieves anything in the US
| interests.
| fjdjshsh wrote:
| I keep seeing this "expansionist dictatorship" applied to
| China when the USA is discussed. The USA has invaded
| plenty of countries in the last few decades, has a
| history of colonialism (Cuba, Philippines, Puerto
| Rico...sure, less than some European countries, but
| still).
|
| Which countries has China invaded in the past few
| decades?
| energy123 wrote:
| Did you say "last few decades" to conveniently exclude
| their invasion of Vietnam? Not that it matters. Policy
| should not be made based on a naive extrapolation of
| historical track record. Culture, interests and
| leadership are all things that change over time.
|
| Modern China, like Russia, but unlike other autocracies
| such as Cuba or Saudi Arabia, is a revisionist power -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_state
|
| Their publicly broadcasted intention is to change the
| status quo, forcefully if needed. That's a euphemism for
| invading Taiwan. They keep saying it, over and over.
| Beyond that, there's a militarism, nationalism and
| irredentism that permeates Xi's leadership and the
| culture he has created in his country, which did not
| exist to the same extent under Deng. The confluence of
| such factors have historically been a bad omen.
|
| This does not mean that the US should start a war with
| China. It means the US should pivot its focus to Asia and
| continue the policy of containment, which is a
| maintenance of the peaceful status quo through a
| combination of sticks and carrots. It means the US should
| be aware that there is a rival there who may start a war
| on their own terms and on their own schedule when they
| believe they are capable of defeating the US.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| > Which countries has China invaded in the past few
| decades?
|
| Well, all of their neighbors for starters.
|
| If we include sending warships to violate maritime
| sovereignty under that definition, we can add dozens more
| in Asia and South America.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Cuba _was_ in the "attempt to alter the status quo via
| forceful revisionism" club. They had literally thousands
| of soldiers and "advisors" in various hot spots, trying
| to export the revolution.
|
| That was the 1970s, though. Cuba was allegedly involved
| in the coup in Venezuela in 1992; arguably, the
| _chavismo_ government would not have happened without
| Cuban involvement. That government still rules Venezuela.
|
| Are they still trying to stir up trouble? If not, how
| long ago did they stop? I don't know. But there
| definitely were reasons to impose sanctions on Cuba.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| While Florida was/is a swing state in US elections, whoever
| secures the ex-Cuban vote wins a massive amount of electoral
| votes. Republicans are fine jockeying against Cuba "because
| communism", and so the Democrats are in a pickle in that the
| right thing to do would be to improve relations with Cuba but
| it guarantees to hand Florida over to the Republicans who
| will then have the presidency and proceed to treat Cuba as-
| is.
|
| If Florida remains reliably Republican anyway, it's possible
| the Democrats may get enough electoral support from the rest
| of the country to still win future presidencies and ease up
| on Cuba without caring about the Florida ex-Cuban vote.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Cubans who emigrate vote relatively conservatively, so
| perhaps it's in the interest of the Democratic Party to
| make it more attractive to stay if most existing anti-Cuba
| Floridians are not marginal/swing voters.
| topkai22 wrote:
| Yeah, this is basically the answer- Cuban American lobby is
| solidly against the current regime. Less so than they used
| to be, but there are still plenty of voices strongly
| opposed to normalization and few strongly for it.
|
| Without a strong counter vailing lobby there is little
| reason for politicians to risk alienating the Cuban bloc to
| normalize relations with a fairly repressive government
| that still remains broadly anti-American and opposed to US
| interests.
| eZpZpi wrote:
| Current position is easily explained; most active US voters
| are >50 yo and elect 50+ year old pols.
|
| All of those 50+ year olds were weened on "Cuba bad."
|
| Leadership is mostly ossified and low effort adults who
| rarely update their opinion; they just engage in their
| routine, recite the spoken pageantry, idle about like brain
| dead tourists of reality and die down the road.
|
| Murican Civic Life has taken hold of the same biology
| religion stumbled upon. Time to "blink" and accept physical
| statistics just keeps enough stuff on shelves the majority
| don't riot and mv /human/story/mode /dev/null
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also Florida is a large swing state, and the Cubans who
| have fled there are the ones who hate the current
| government.
| adolph wrote:
| Change is the hardest part of changing US policy towards Cuba
| because the legal and regulatory elements are old and thus
| deeply baked in to ongoing operations. Potential alignment of
| Cuba for other adversaries isn't a serious enough threat nor
| engagement a sufficient benefit to overcome government inertia.
| Cuba isn't as much of a mess as Haiti and also isn't a tiny
| success like Singapore.
|
| Here is hoping that Cuba will be able to help itself out of a
| perhaps weakening despotism but the default hypothesis is not
| to hold one's breath.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "Wouldn't it make sense for the U.S. to invest and help Cuba?"
|
| Part of the reason Cuba is in the shape it's in is because of
| previous US investment and "help".
| InTheArena wrote:
| That stopped being true 70 years ago, and it was the
| withdrawal of American aid that brought Castro to power (he
| still pretended to care about human rights then).
| bonzini wrote:
| "Aid" is a bit of an understatement considering that Castro
| was fighting against the US-and mafia-backed dictator
| (Fulgencio Batista). The withdrawal of American support to
| Batista happened because the corruption and violence had
| reached unsustainable levels even for an anti-communist.
| InTheArena wrote:
| People make this argument - but it's consistent through
| history with moderates as well as non-moderate
| government. Withdrawing support is always seen as
| weakness an established state and leads radicals to
| overthrow governments. Germany 1931(bankers withdrew
| funds), Afghanistan, Cuba, Vietnam.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| Welcome to America. I mean that. The Cuban American community is
| awesome and has created a great culture in Florida and elsewhere
|
| protip: if you see any Ivy League graduates fetishizing
| communism, just say "been there, done that"
| ein0p wrote:
| If I were Xi Jinping, I'd step in quite heavily at this point. A
| few billions in investment would do wonders there. I'm sure a
| hypersonic nuke base could also be negotiated in return.
| InTheArena wrote:
| He'd much rather the USA just invaded it, subjugated all its
| people while proclaiming that it is a long held part of the
| post-Kennedy American empire.
|
| Fits his narrative better.
| ein0p wrote:
| I think he'd much rather have a permanent and painful boil on
| America's ass, like what the US has in Taiwan. Mexico isn't
| cooperating, so maybe Cuba will. There's precedent for that
| kind of thing, as well as for US military getting its ass
| handed to it while trying to "subjugate" Cuba.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Thankfully even CcP authoritarians have more sense than
| this. China is and will continue to foment unrest in South
| America to play the same role, but after watching china
| rape Africa's resources for the last decade, they are far
| less likely to capitulate.
| mr90210 wrote:
| Well it turns out Xi is smarter than such idea because he's
| learnt from history. Does the name Nikita Khrushchev ring a
| bell?
| ein0p wrote:
| Kruschev got what he wanted. Nukes were removed from Turkey
| at the time. They're back now, but only "stored", not
| "deployed".
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| I guess communism doesn't live up to the hype.
| westpfelia wrote:
| I mean when there is mass embargoes against your country so
| much so that normal everyday things we take for grated are hard
| to get things can become tough.
|
| But we could also just say "lamo commy dont werk" without
| understanding the geopolitical reasons for why a country might
| be struggling.
| MaxPock wrote:
| Neither does capitalism
| atlas_hugged wrote:
| I know right?
|
| Why are we continuing the arguments of dead people? "...but
| my dad fought against communism blah blah blah"
|
| All forms of government suck because nobody has figured out
| how to keep power hungry sociopaths from taking government
| and financial power in any form of government thus far in
| human history.
|
| Markets / trade have always been the best treatment because
| the moment the sociopath of the day tries to pull the plug on
| all their citizen's businesses, they get their heads on a
| spike. It forces the hand of the sociopaths in charge to
| comply with the will of people and find a compromise between
| their own hurt feelings from the neighboring sociopath across
| the border that called their mom fat or whatever, and the
| demands of their citizens...usually.
|
| In this case, the US sociopaths have realized they continue
| to be butthurt by the little neighbor because not enough
| people are complaining. When Obama tried to briefly open up
| this pathway, the Cuban govt was quick to agree to allow
| American tourism. Didn't last long of course.
|
| The problem isn't Cuba.
| seniorivn wrote:
| it would help a lot if you all stopped calling the mess
| implemented in practice without any ideology behind it by a
| theoretical model name.
| rexpop wrote:
| Ah, yes: "nothing can be known; words don't mean things,
| and things don't have names."
| slater wrote:
| But enough about communism! /s
| pasquinelli wrote:
| china's doing good.
|
| or is china not doing good, somehow?
|
| or are they not communist, somehow?
|
| meanwhile, america is a farce...
| atlas_hugged wrote:
| Everything is a farce.
|
| Everything is made up.
|
| People in power are always just the most high functioning
| sociopaths that clamor for it, communism or not.
| olalonde wrote:
| > or are they not communist, somehow?
|
| How are they? They have a market economy. Plus, the US has
| greater government spending (as % of GDP) than China.
| energy123 wrote:
| Their system is quite capitalist since Deng, and they're not
| doing that well compared to Taiwan which is as close to an
| A/B test as you'll get.
| dang wrote:
| Maybe not, but please don't take HN threads on generic
| ideological tangents.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| basisword wrote:
| It's interesting reading the opinions in the comments on this
| thread. As a non-US person, I don't have a strong opinion on
| Cuba. I'd like to visit someday but don't know much about it
| other than the headlines. Reading the comments here it sounds
| like a pariah state on the level of North Korea. With 1m people
| leaving in a year, it clearly has its issues - but lots of the
| comments here are a good example of how your country's media and
| propaganda can significantly colour your opinions. I don't get
| the feeling many other countries continue to have such a negative
| opinion of Cuba.
|
| Are there any countries other than the US that has a strong
| negative opinion on Cuba?
|
| I'm also curious if anyone comes from a country that has a
| significant negative opinion on another country that others might
| find surprising?
| rightbyte wrote:
| If anything Cuba is heavely romanticized outside the US I
| believe.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > Are there any countries other than the US that has a strong
| negative opinion on Cuba?
|
| It appears that Cubans have a strong negative opinion on Cuba.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Most Americans don't think about Cuba at all, and it definitely
| isn't in the news very much (as far as I know, I cut most TV
| years ago). However, there are lots of Batista supporters and
| their descendants in Florida. They are politically influential
| given Florida is an important swing state.
| SR2Z wrote:
| The title of the article is literally that 10% of Cubans left
| Cuba between 2022 and 2023. Are they Batista supporters too?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Cubans leaving Cuba today are taking advantage of
| immigration openness that anti-Cuba policies pushed for.
| Why would they not take advantage of that? They are
| literally the only refugees who can come to America and get
| automatic asylum. Why does that exist? Political power from
| Florida stemming from Batista supporters.
|
| I don't have any interest in this argument, but the
| situation between America and Cuba is fairly artificial and
| politically related.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > Political power from Florida stemming from Batista
| supporters.
|
| Last I heard Batista's daughter is homeless, support
| doesn't look so great lol:
| https://www.local10.com/news/2017/06/21/ex-cuban-leader-
| fulg...
| martindbp wrote:
| > With 1m people leaving in a year, it clearly has its issues -
| but lots of the comments here are a good example of how your
| country's media and propaganda can significantly colour your
| opinions.
|
| What? 10% of a country leaving in one year tells you what
| Cubans think of Cuba. That's not propaganda, that's fact. On
| the contrary, it seems like you have some kind of preconceived
| notion of that life in Cuba is in fact not that bad (poor but
| laid back perhaps?), but if that were true people would not
| leave would they?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > but if that were true people would not leave would they?
|
| Not to dig into whataboutism but the same could really be
| said about the US's island possessions:
| https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/10/census-pacific-us-
| territor...
|
| Fact is populations will leave if they see chance at a better
| life elsewhere, even if they aren't living in an active
| warzone or under some some government the US doesn't like.
| luckylion wrote:
| 10y vs 1y, internal migration vs moving to a different
| country with a different language.
|
| It's really not comparable.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > moving to a different country with a different
| language.
|
| The US doesn't have an official language, there are areas
| that speak almost exclusively spanish. All government
| shit is available in spanish. Puerto Rico speaks spanish.
| Over a fifth of Floridians speak spanish at home.
| nailer wrote:
| I mean yes people wouldn't want to live in a US island
| possession either. That doesn't invalidate the parent's
| point.
| brundog wrote:
| Things are not so simple as Cuba bad, USA good. Wage
| differentials easily explain why so many come to the USA.
| Maybe they like Cuba but cannot come for better wages. Cuba
| has its problems, but definitely the USA/cia is targeting the
| regime with negative publicity. Who knows maybe you work at a
| cia troll farm.
| SR2Z wrote:
| > Reading the comments here it sounds like a pariah state on
| the level of North Korea.
|
| The only reason it's NOT North Korea is the fact that it
| "allows" its people to flee to the United States, where by law
| they may become American citizens.
|
| Cuba has extremely effective propaganda - folks forget that
| it's actually a dictatorship which severely limits freedom of
| speech and brutally cracks down on protest. Wikipedia has a
| great page "Foreign interventions by Cuba."
|
| Not all that much worse than China, but with the misfortune of
| bordering the US and not being powerful enough to stand without
| access to regional trade.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Comparing Cuba to North Korea makes no sense at all. You
| could compare it to the USSR or East Germany, but not North
| Korea.
|
| North Korea is effectively a caricature of a totalitarian
| state, ruled by a cartoon villain. Cuba is more like an
| ordinary country unlucky enough to have a totalitarian
| government. There are plenty of equally bad countries in the
| world even today.
| mbrubeck wrote:
| The US has by far the world's largest ex-Cuban population (well
| over 1M people). Those communities are a big part of what
| shapes US perceptions and policy toward Cuba.
| hobotime wrote:
| Cuban-Americans telling us what Cuba is like sounds ok to me.
| From what I've heard, they hate Socialists.
| ithkuil wrote:
| How much is that a selection bias (they are the ones that
| left and went to the US after all)
| silisili wrote:
| That's a fair point. One thing I will say, having lived
| near many in FL at one time, they are some of the most
| patriotic and pro USA people. I always appreciated that
| in a way, as I think a lot of us take it for granted.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Definitely selection bias but well-founded.
|
| The unmotivated masses tend to follow the de-facto system
| that entrenches the successful few. The remaining
| motivated and competitive people on the other hand leave
| for better pastures.
|
| People who emigrate from countries whose governments
| micromanage the population tend to have the worst opinion
| about them. Not that dissimilar from people who ditch
| bosses who micromanage =).
| jeffbee wrote:
| Cuban-Americans are literally revanchists. You might not be
| getting the straight scoop from this self-selected
| subpopulation.
| fdsafdsafdsfsd wrote:
| Maybe ask the Cubans who left the country?
| bawolff wrote:
| People who leave a country tend to leave it for a reason. If
| they liked their life in Cuba presumably they would have
| stayed. They are probably not a neutral source on Cuba.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Who is a neutral source when asking for the opinion about a
| dictatorship?
| swexbe wrote:
| Most immigrants don't have anywhere near as bad an opinion
| of their home country as Cuban-Americans.
| ImJamal wrote:
| The hatred towards Cuba by Cuban immigrants is much higher
| than most other immigrants. This indicates that Cuba is
| worse than most countries.
| snowpid wrote:
| On German media (including heavy left leaning Taz) you find
| various reports about human right issues in Cuba. It's a
| typical socialist dictatorship doomed to fail as its
| predecessors.
| bawolff wrote:
| As a canadian its pretty weird. Normally we get all the same
| media as usa and have relatively similar opinions. However cuba
| has always been much more popular here and is a common tourist
| destination. Its sad they are having problems.
| j-bos wrote:
| There are a lot of Cubans in the US, their experiences tend to
| affect the larger American perspective of the country.
| throwup238 wrote:
| For the most part, the only Americans that really care enough
| about Cuba to form a negative opinion are Cuban immigrants and
| their descendants. They happen to be a powerful voting block in
| Florida, a swing state, so they have an outsized effect on
| national politics.
|
| If not for them, the embargo would have been dropped years ago
| and relations would have been normalized.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| I visited Cuba several times between approximately 2005 and
| 2015.
|
| The Cuban people I met were lovely and would give you the shirt
| off their back if you needed it, even though they might not
| possess many more of them.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| It has also has an extremely low fertility rate.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Cuba's economy is not doing well because of the illegitimate and
| illegal US embargo. End the blockade. Take Cuba off the
| completely farcical State Sponsors of Terror list. Let Cuba live!
|
| Cuba developed its own COVID vaccine but couldn't give it to its
| own people because they could not buy metal for syringes. Its
| fucking crazy.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| > illegitimate and illegal US embargo
|
| Illegitimate and illegal according to what authority? Unless
| you believe in God, there is no higher authority than the US
| government and its military might.
| bawolff wrote:
| International law?
|
| That said, i don't think sanctions violate intl law. You are
| under no obligation to trade with people you dont like. A
| blockade probably would be (generally blockades are an act of
| war which is only allowed in defense or if un security
| council approves) however america isnt blockading it.
|
| Things can morally wrong without being illegal.
| matrix87 wrote:
| international law in itself means almost nothing, it's just
| a convenient excuse for the more powerful to threaten the
| less powerful
| bawolff wrote:
| So like normal law then?
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| International law isn't real. You can tell it's not real
| because if it were real there would be real repercussions
| for violating it. There aren't, so it isn't. It's just
| words made up for politicking and persuasion.
| tehjoker wrote:
| this is literally an imperialist and fascist sentiment. most
| countries around the world condemn the blockade and vote it
| down yearly at the un. the only holdouts are the US and
| Israel (both currently committing genocide in Gaza). Ukraine
| abstained.
|
| https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112
| samatman wrote:
| There is no blockade, and there hasn't been since the Cuban
| Missile Crisis. An embargo prohibits US citizens and US-owned
| businesses from trading with Cuba. A blockade would be the US
| Navy preventing anyone else's ships from entering Cuba to
| trade.
|
| Cuba is poor because Cuba is Communist. The US is not the only
| trading partner in the world, but a country has to have
| something to trade in order to engage in trade, and Cuba has
| nothing.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Cuba is poor because Cuba is Communist.
|
| Is Cuba even _that_ poor, though, compared to its Latin
| American peers, and is communism the reason?
|
| Aside from the recent weirdness with their GDP spike in World
| Bank's numbers, Cuba's GDP per capita is basically the same
| as Mexico's, and it's higher than Brazil's, neither of which
| are communist.
|
| Furthermore, aside from raw GDP numbers it's higher in the UN
| Human Development Index rankings[1] than Brazil and Colombia
| along with a slew of other very capitalist countries.
|
| If you make apples to oranges comparisons in demographics,
| you can make any country look bad. The UK is basically
| Mississippi if you take out London. The US also fares poorly
| if you don't count the wealthiest 15% of the population. The
| median Cuban isn't well off, but they aren't wildly different
| from others in their region.
|
| [1] https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks
| paxys wrote:
| There is no blocade. Cuba is free to trade with whoever it
| wants, as is the US.
| choeger wrote:
| Well, that explains why Cuban cigars are impossible to get since
| a couple of years...
| jmyeet wrote:
| I really want people to understand that a sterile term like
| "economic sanctions" really means "starving them to death". It's
| not just food. It's the infrastructure necessary to grow food and
| to have clean drinking water. It's basic medicines, life-saving
| stuff.
|
| What we, as a country, have done and continue to do to Cuba is
| absolutely unconscionable.
|
| It affects us too. Over the last 60+ years there have hundreds of
| thousands or even millions of Cuban migrants to the US. This [1]
| claims 2.7 million but includes US-born descendants. Cuban
| migrants aren't a random sample of Cubans. They skew very much
| anti-Castro, which means by extension they skew very pro-Batista.
| Definitely right-leaning or even pro-fascist [2[.
|
| Importing fascist or fascist adjacent people who ultimately
| became voters has changed US politics where Florida is now a
| safely red state. Here's more on the demographics of Cubans in
| Miami in particular [3].
|
| I find it interesting how this aspect of immigration is so often
| missed or glossed over.
|
| There is absolutely no justification for continuing 60+ years of
| sanctions just because our puppet was deposed.
|
| [1]: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/cuban-immigrants-
| uni...
|
| [2]: https://time.com/archive/6762287/cuba-batista-backfire/
|
| [3]:
| https://latinostudies.nd.edu/assets/95278/original/grenchun....
| jimmar wrote:
| The UN, UK, and EU have no sanctions imposed on Cuba [1]. Why
| has no other country prevented Cuba from "starving to death?"
| Honest question. Is the United States so powerful that our
| trade is the only thing keeping countries alive?
|
| [1] https://globalsanctions.co.uk/region/cuba/
| Devasta wrote:
| Secondary sanctions. If your company trades with Cuba, then
| companies that want to trade with the US also violate the
| sanctions by trading with you.
|
| So even something as basic as opening a bank account in such
| circumstances isn't possible, as no bank will cut themselves
| off from the entire worldwide banking system just to provide
| you an account.
| jimmar wrote:
| It's a complex issue, for sure, and I admit to not being
| well informed. I did a quick search, and Biden's
| administration allowed Cubans to open accounts with U.S.
| banks, but the Cuban government does not like giving up
| control. Cuba passed laws "forcing businesses to use Cuban
| banks for payment" [1].
|
| [1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
| world/world/americas...
| samatman wrote:
| This is wrong. There are no secondary sanctions against
| Cuba.
|
| Cuba is poor because Cuba is Communist. They can trade with
| everyone except the United States, if they had anything to
| trade with.
|
| The US sanctions do serve as a wonderful excuse for the
| Cuban government to blame the poverty they inflict upon
| their own citizens on the United States. Plenty of gullible
| people outside the country fall for it as well.
| Devasta wrote:
| So if I, as an Irish citizen, decided to start a business
| that traded with Cuba, US companies would have no legal
| issues doing business with me?
| xienze wrote:
| > Importing fascist or fascist adjacent people who ultimately
| became voters has changed US politics where Florida is now a
| safely red state.
|
| And on the flip side, importing Central and South Americans who
| are socialist or socialist adjacent and ultimately become
| voters has changed US politics where California and other
| states are now safely blue.
|
| > I find it interesting how this aspect of immigration is so
| often missed or glossed over^W^W^W^Wdismissed as a right wing
| conspiracy theory.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| South and Central Americans fall back to their catholic
| roots, rejecting the communism of their home country within
| two generations.
| greyvddhb wrote:
| > There is absolutely no justification for continuing 60+ years
| of sanctions just because our puppet was deposed.
|
| Two weeks ago Russia landed an armada there in a show of force
| right off the US coast. It's not an easy black and white
| situation where you can just say "USA bad."
| mordae wrote:
| It is, though. If US did not sanction Cuba, there very much
| would be no Russian visit. When US decides you are an enemy,
| you don't get to pick your friends.
| labrador wrote:
| I support immigration and oppose the Republican anti-immigrant
| platform because it seems to me there is significant brain drain
| from many countries to the U.S. and that contributes to our
| success.
|
| For example, in this article is about white collar crime, it
| points out that many Somali-Americans were professionals back in
| Somalia. I'm not concerned about the crime because that seems
| like a somewhat higher tendency until the 2nd and 3rd generation
| is able to make it into established society.
|
| A Somali-American former investigator: why you're hearing about
| fraud in my community
|
| https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/07/17/a-somali-american-i...
| greenchair wrote:
| correction: anti-illegal immigrant platform. the 3rd worlder
| influx of criminals is negative for the country not positive.
| _heimdall wrote:
| What is and isn't legal immigration is always a moving
| target. A majority of US history included open borders where
| it was legal for anyone to get off a boat, provide some basic
| info, and go on to try and make their way here.
|
| The idea of closed borders, immigration caps, etc is
| relatively modern and driven more by the fact that social
| entitlement programs cost money than a fear of dangerous
| people coming here.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Modern civilization has entitlements, if we get rid of
| entitlements, sure we can have open borders. We just can't
| do both or the system collapses.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Agreed. That's where the question is really interesting,
| and important, though. If we can only have one or the
| other, and if a majority of Americans view our southern
| border as an untenable situation, can we maintain our
| entitlement programs?
|
| Entitlement programs only work if we can secure our
| borders. If we can't secure our borders it seems to be
| clear that we can't have the entitlement programs.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The original immigration laws were explicitly racist. They
| were long before the entitlement programs existed.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I don't know enough about the specific racial factors in
| our older immigration laws, I'll take your word for it,
| but there isn't anything linking the two. We could have
| open borders without entitlement programs _or_ racist
| immigration laws.
| jfengel wrote:
| An easy way to reduce illegal immigration is to raise quotas.
| People would rather migrate legally.
| apsec112 wrote:
| Trump supported a plan to reduce legal immigration by half:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/politics/trump-
| immigra...
| pton_xd wrote:
| > the Republican anti-immigrant platform because it seems to me
| there is significant brain drain from many countries to the
| U.S. and that contributes to our success.
|
| Explain how unskilled illegal immigrants contribute to our
| success. I'm open minded but I've yet to hear anything
| convincing.
|
| No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers.
| torpfactory wrote:
| There's a very sizable number of low paying, dirty,
| dangerous, and/or boring jobs that we can't find enough
| locals to do. Think farm hands, home care aides, meat
| processors, etc. Unskilled immigrants do those jobs because
| that's what is available to them (I.e unskilled). If they
| weren't doing those jobs, we'd have to pay significantly more
| for the goods and services that labor depends on. Immigrant
| labor is disinflationary or at least prevents or ameliorates
| it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| These jobs are low-paying _because_ they 're broadly
| unproductive. If some of them weren't doing these jobs, the
| wages paid for them at the margin would increase. We are
| vastly better off importing more skilled immigrants to
| high-income countries, compared to unskilled ones.
| lrem wrote:
| How can you call literally feeding the people "broadly
| unproductive"? It's low margin, but you can't have a
| society supporting your margins without someone doing the
| bottom jobs.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Labour productivity has a specific meaning
| gertlex wrote:
| Enlighten us, then?
|
| And does "broadly unproductive" have a specific meaning,
| too?
| s0rce wrote:
| If we didn't have lower wage workers doing farm work food
| would be way more expensive and less diverse. I'm not
| sure how you judge the productivity of the worker...
| energy123 wrote:
| That's an economically illiterate comment. You're
| confusing scarcity of labor, which determines price, with
| the utility that that labor generates.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They're not all unskilled. Well-paying construction jobs,
| which used to be a path to the middle class, have been
| gutted (in the western US at least).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| lowering cost of labor expands our economy, agglomeration
| effects, etc.
| windowshopping wrote:
| Why would we be opposed to unskilled immigrants? The majority
| of the people who came here from Europe in the 1700s and
| 1800s were laborers, factory workers, farmers, and other
| simple occupations. Why are we pulling up the ladder behind
| them? Did you want to freeze the US as it was circa 1950?
| Things change man. The US isn't forever, anymore than Rome
| was. You gotta stop trying to fight the current and
| pretending that by preventing "unskilled immigration" you can
| maintain the US in some hypothetical idealized state
| completely specific to your imagination.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Did you want to freeze the US as it was circa 1950?
|
| That's exactly what we're doing (in Europe and East Asia
| even more so than the U.S.) by opposing skilled migration.
| Increasing legal skilled migration is much more critical,
| though other concerns such as asylum rights for those
| fleeing from an oppressive government or a war-ravaged
| country also matter quite a bit.
| gottorf wrote:
| > The majority of the people who came here from Europe in
| the 1700s and 1800s were laborers, factory workers,
| farmers, and other simple occupations. Why are we pulling
| up the ladder behind them?
|
| The welfare state did not exist in that time, so the cost
| of absorbing immigration was confined to acculturation.
| Immigrants had to quickly start generating value or perish.
| The incentives are radically different now and the marginal
| cost to society of absorbing each additional immigrant is
| much higher.
|
| US government spending as a percentage of GDP remained low
| single digits until WW1; it is roughly 35% today.
|
| > You gotta stop trying to fight the current
|
| You must also remember that the natural state of everything
| is decay, and the natural state of mankind in particular is
| "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". The current
| grinds everything down to sand. It is incumbent upon
| everyone to fight the current in the way that affords the
| greatest benefit to society.
| cm2187 wrote:
| That was when those countries were going through their
| industrial revolution. Those same countries are now
| desindustrialising.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled
| workers
|
| I can assure you that's not true, but we hear the most about
| illegal unskilled immigration because everyone agrees on
| that.
| hyperpape wrote:
| > No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled
| workers.
|
| Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist in 2016, argued that
| the quantity of Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley undermined
| "civic society" https://web.archive.org/web/20161117164322/ht
| tps://www.theve....
|
| There absolutely are a lot of people who want to restrict
| legal immigration. If you deny that, you're just pretending
| that you're not helping them out.
| ponector wrote:
| > No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled
| workers.
|
| That is not true. If no one is opposing immigration of
| skilled workers then why getting a visa is a lottery?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled
| workers.
|
| Is this why I keep reading "THEY TUKK ER JERBS!!!!!!" as a
| knock-down argument against H1-B and other legal visas here
| on HN?
| aegis4244 wrote:
| Economists say every immigrant is a net economic positive to
| the nation. They eat,buy food clothing, cars. Every immigrant
| child is a net negative to the state,at least until they turn
| 18. But it isn't even. Net neg per kid of maybe 800 a year,
| positive of each adult of 1200-1600 are the numbers I've
| heard on freakonomics podcast. Their guests proposed solution
| was to have the feds pay the states per an immigrant child to
| offset who bears the costs. I don't think it's even a
| debatable position that each immigrant is a net economic
| positive, in the long term. Some political groups worrying
| about losing their culture is a completely different kettle
| of fish.
|
| https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-
| century/b...
| j-krieger wrote:
| > Economists say every immigrant is a net economic positive
| to the nation
|
| This isn't true in general and depends on the local economy
| and the immigrants country of origin. MENA migrants are a
| net loss for Germany, for example.
|
| Even if economists agree, the money these immigrants spend
| lands in the pockets of rich capitalists.
|
| The entire topic is far more nuanced than you make it out
| to be.
| gottorf wrote:
| > I'm not concerned about the crime
|
| You may not be concerned about the crime, but many voters are.
| The author of the article you linked to also exhorts the Somali
| immigrant community to not engage in crime.
|
| > because that seems like a somewhat higher tendency until the
| 2nd and 3rd generation is able to make it into established
| society.
|
| History and data from various European nations suggest that
| some immigrant groups aren't able to integrate with the host
| society after multiple generations, and remain ghettoized with
| low employment and high crime rates (vastly higher than the
| native population, for certain categories of crime).
|
| It's clear that the national interest is in accepting skilled
| immigrants who migrate legally and are able to integrate fully
| into the host society, a la Teddy Roosevelt's dropping of the
| hyphen. It is not desirable to have separate ethnic groups who
| "share the same language, culture and faith" distinct from the
| mainstream.
| spamizbad wrote:
| > History and data from various European nations suggest that
| some immigrant groups aren't able to integrate with the host
| society after multiple generations, and remain ghettoized
| with low employment and high crime rates (vastly higher, for
| certain categories of crime).
|
| I'm not sure that's true. For example, in the United States,
| it took numerous generations of German-Americans to fully
| integrate into society, with towns in Wisconsin speaking a
| dialect of German well into the 1940s. Despite this lack of
| cultural integration, these cities experienced very little
| crime.
| gottorf wrote:
| Different immigrant groups have better or worse outcomes,
| hence my saying "some immigrant groups". The cultural
| distance between the English progenitors of the US to the
| large wave of German immigrants in the 1800s is not as
| great as, say, that of Turkish immigrants to Germany post-
| WW2, or Syrian immigrants to contemporary Denmark.
|
| Another way to look at it is that immigrant groups bring
| parts of their old world with them; German-Americans left a
| high-social-trust, low-crime culture and established it in
| their new country.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| WWI also forced the issue in a way that hasn't quite
| applied to other "ethnic" folks in the US. German
| immigrants, by and large, have been pushed towards
| forgetting their national culture altogether and
| assimilating into a newly-manufactured (by early 20th-
| century Progressives, no less), unified "White" identity.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Crime among immigrants is largely correlated with
| unemployment rates. European countries with immigrant crime
| problems have high unemployment rates, the US does not.
| hurril wrote:
| This is not a good explanation without also looking at who
| is unemployed. In Sweden, the unemployment is low:ish but
| it is basically non-existent with the natives, but very
| high among immigrants. So it might be true that crime
| correlates with unemployment rates, but Sweden does not
| have a high unemployment.
| ponector wrote:
| Some are unable, other groups are successfully integrating.
| Like Ukrainian refugees into neighboring European countries,
| especially Poland.
| mrybczyn wrote:
| Ukrainians integrating into Polish culture is similar to
| the East and West German unification post wall, only more
| complicated by a few extra generations...
| dakiol wrote:
| > It is not desirable to have separate ethnic groups who
| "share the same language, culture and faith" distinct from
| the mainstream.
|
| Why not? Mainstreams are temporary. The Romans shifted from
| pagans to christians in just a decade (officially speaking).
| The German speaking region of Belgium was annexed in the
| 1900s (now the country has 3 different official languages).
| The whole latin america started speaking Spanish long before
| they became actual countries. Spain was mostly muslim for
| over 700 years.
|
| There's no mainstream. We are always changing and the mix is
| always better.
| guille_ wrote:
| Not every culture can integrate, not every culture is a
| step "forward". Also, your examples are quite weak 1.
| Paganism was not doing too well by the time Christianity
| became official. 2. Belgium is a joke country (sorry!) that
| still has a divided population based on the language they
| speak. Hardly a success case. 3. Americans speaking Spanish
| also resulted in losing native languages and cultures. It
| might be okay to accept it, but the implications in your
| case are obvious, and it definitely would deserve a fair
| bit of debate whether we're okay with that. 4. Right,
| because the Reconquista was famously a period of peace and
| prosperity...
|
| If these are the arguments FOR massive immigration then
| don't be surprised the vast majority of the public is
| against it.
| dakiol wrote:
| I don't know man. This idea of certain cultures being so
| distant that they cannot be integrated with others sounds
| a bit alien to me. If anything, we (all the different
| cultures in this planet) are the result of a vast amount
| of mixing over the centuries. We probably don't notice it
| anymore (proof that the mix has worked wonders) and we
| think we all are so good because "our" culture, "our"
| values. I mean, if something so profound such as religion
| was literally imported to America, anything is possible.
| Sometimes I wish we were invaded by aliens 100% different
| from us in every aspect, so that we realised once and for
| all that we all humans just are and feel the same.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| How do you define better if there is no mainstream culture?
| alluro2 wrote:
| Yeah, but it seems like some nations are only willing to
| invest a low amount of effort in it working out. I.e. if
| you're highly educated skilled worker who will integrate on
| their own, great. If you're a manual laborer who will do the
| work no one wants, for less money, pay tax and integrate
| their kids, great. But if the host society needs to invest in
| their education, social programs and integration, then screw
| it, let them ghettoise and hope the resulting jump in
| nationalism and animosity towards them will balance things
| out.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| "The mythical tie between immigration and crime"[1]
|
| 1. https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-
| immigra...
| Xen9 wrote:
| Slightly tangentially, there exists huge amount of
| immigration studies that have failed (intently or not) to
| take confounders into account :(
| jeffbee wrote:
| Isn't that the opposite of what the stats tell us? Immigrants
| are the most law-abiding Americans, and their descendants
| converge to typical amounts of lawlessness in 1 or 2
| generations.
|
| https://www.nber.org/papers/w31440
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Republicans are strongly anti-illegal immigration, and that
| appears anti-immigration to some.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| That's what they say, but then they oppose any effort to
| legalize the immigrants. Congress could legalize them all
| today if they wanted to.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| that's not my interpretation, the opposition party votes as
| a bloc against _everything_ until they aren 't the
| opposition party any more. democrats do that too. neither
| party can pass a filibuster in the senate so it doesn't
| matter, it isn't about any party position.
|
| republicans support setting H1B visas at the same standard
| it was created for in 1991.
|
| I support that. I support linking the standards of minimum
| compensation to inflation or some automatically moving
| metric. we already have several higher criteria work visas,
| H1B's is just the most popular.
|
| republicans support our education visas turning into
| residency or work visas more seamlessly.
|
| I support that.
|
| the party doesn't support the empathy arguments for people
| that are here without a visa. I think something more
| holistic should be considered than mass deportation.
|
| Its important to add nuance. We have many categories of
| immigration and many populations. As well as a porous
| mismanaged border.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| That's wrong on its face, since some legislation does get
| passed. They don't oppose everything, they are selective.
| It's strictly for political points.
|
| If Republican voters supported more immigration, it could
| happen. They just don't. And calling people brought here
| as children by their parents criminals is ridiculous.
| apsec112 wrote:
| Trump supported a plan to reduce legal immigration by half:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/politics/trump-
| immigra...
| j-krieger wrote:
| Good. Immigration is often a ploy to introduce highly
| skilled workers into the local population who are used to
| worse standards of living and lower wages.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Lowering wages and salaries for skilled workers has a big
| disinflationary effect and slashes inequality. (The bulk
| of inequality is indeed due to skill-biased divergence in
| labor income, not passive or unearned income from asset
| ownership.)
| j-krieger wrote:
| I agree if we look at through a purely economical lense,
| but you can't deny that this statement may sour some
| voters opinions.
| saagarjha wrote:
| So, you do understand how this exactly demonstrates how
| you are anti-immigration, not just anti-illegal
| immigration?
| j-krieger wrote:
| I am not the original commenter. I am not anti
| immigration. I am merely critical of it. We need skilled
| healthcare workers. Instead giant corporations are
| focusing on importing software engineers o drive down
| wages.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| anti-illegal immigration and pro-illegalizing immigration
| philk10 wrote:
| As an immigrant in the US I looked at the plans ( produced
| by Stephen Miller) and would not have qualified to be
| admitted.
| api wrote:
| Shutting off US immigration is national suicide. Immigration is
| our superpower. It's like a company deciding they don't want
| any more customers. Utterly beyond idiotic.
|
| As birth rates drop globally the countries that are magnets for
| the highest quality immigrants will explode and basically rule
| the world.
|
| The kind of immigrants we get are the envy of the world too. I
| am a little more sympathetic to European concerns because the
| immigrants they are getting are coming for different reasons.
| Many of them are refugees not people coming because they
| genuinely want to be there, and that is a different deal
| entirely.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The number of actual refugees in Europe is tiny (ukrainians
| excluded). What is large is the number of people who pretend
| to be refugees, like it is at the southern border of the US.
|
| And even actual refugees are really economic migrants after
| they crossed half a dozen countries where they wouldn't be in
| danger.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > it seems to me there is significant brain drain from many
| countries to the U.S. and that contributes to our success
|
| This enables wage suppression
| riffic wrote:
| perhaps it's time to normalize relations with their government
| and end the blockade.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| The problem commonly skated over is that two views cam be true at
| once. For example:
|
| - the "Batista" regime was dictatorial and repressive. The people
| fought back with Castro. The first wave of people to land in
| Miami were essentially the moneyed class who lost everything.
| Unsurprisingly they hate the Castro regime and its descendents.
| The US government were happy to accommodate them under the guise
| of anti communism.
|
| - the "Castro" regime is dictatorial and repressive. The people
| cant fight back so they leave. The people landing in Miami and
| their descendents hate the regime for taking everything. The US
| Republicans are happy to accommodate them under the guise of
| sticking it to the libs.
|
| I dont see any of this changing until the regime changes in Cuba
| to a more democratic one simultaneously with the Republican party
| imploding in Florida. Which basically means not in my lifetime.
| epolanski wrote:
| > the "Castro" regime is dictatorial and repressive.
|
| As someone whose family comes from the former Soviet union, and
| has friends that come from other repressive places let me tell
| you that this really doesn't matter.
|
| Economy and how you are doing are what matters in the day to
| day life of people.
|
| People really don't think about the oppression or lack of
| elections, they care how much they need to suffer to put food
| on the table, whether they can afford vacations on the beach,
| how expensive it's gonna be, etc etc.
|
| I consistently asked my grandparents and people from oppressive
| places whether they cared about politics and no they didn't.
|
| They knew that people across the borders lived the same lives
| they did, but they could afford a better car and better
| vacations that's all.
|
| The average Joe does not care about politics, even those who
| talk about it and share on social media don't care.
|
| The amount of people that campaign, try to get elected, try to
| do anything even in their own neighborhood has always been low
| and probably never as low as now.
| its_ethan wrote:
| They may not care about the politics, but if the politics is
| what contributes to the economy / shortages / difficulty in
| getting things like food... then the politics matter,
| regardless of if any given citizen is consciously aware of
| it.
|
| And as a reciprocal anecdote, I have family that grew up
| behind the iron curtain - and they were very much aware of
| and knew the importance of the governments politics
| surfingdino wrote:
| This plus low fertility rates paint a bleak demographic picture.
| What happens to a country whose population collapses? I don't
| think we have past data to reference here?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Again and again I've been arguing for access to information. Let
| Cuba land an underwater cable in Miami. Ever since I was young I
| was fed this line 'Glasnost helped accelerate the collapse of the
| Soviet Union, people wanted things their government wouldn't give
| them... free access to information not filtered by their
| government', but the US argues for some reason that Cubans can't
| have this.
|
| Is it fear of an even bigger migration? Why? Is it expat Cubans
| looking to kick out the ladder?
| nradov wrote:
| I agree with you, but if Cuba wants better Internet access
| there's nothing stopping them from landing an underwater cable
| in Mexico. It's about the same distance.
| epolanski wrote:
| Russians didn't give two shits about "free access to
| information", they cared to see that people in US lived richer
| lives that's it.
|
| Russians in Soviet union had to illegally trade and commit
| felonies to get their hands on some Italian mortadella. They
| had to go through insane lengths to buy a new tv.
|
| It wasn't glasnost but the oil crisis that ultimately killed
| the SU's economy and made people think that in democracy it was
| gonna be better.
|
| Is it better? In absolute terms, yes, but so is virtually
| everyone in the world compared to 1989.
|
| In terms of gdp per capita Soviet russia was 33rd in the world
| in that year. Modern Russia is 52nd.
|
| But you wouldn't be able to say that such a massive decline
| happened when modern Russia is far cleaner, richer and very low
| unemployment.
|
| Modern Russians are richer in absolute terms, but poorer in
| relative ones.
| abernard1 wrote:
| > In terms of gdp per capita Soviet russia was 33rd in the
| world in that year. Modern Russia is 52nd.
|
| GDP was also calculated based upon prices in a free market.
| The problem being, if you don't have a free market, you don't
| have an efficient way of knowing if the "value" of the goods
| produced actually mattered. The Soviet Union massively
| overproduced goods that nobody wanted, as this was efficient
| for production. But in terms of quality of life, it didn't
| matter. Overabundances and shortages were the norm.
| gottorf wrote:
| > richer in absolute terms, but poorer in relative ones.
|
| Off topic, but it's funny how big of a problem this turns out
| to be in real life.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Note that it's only the US that has an embargo against Cuba.
|
| The rest of the world trades pretty freely with them.
| wslh wrote:
| The article exactly says "US embargo".
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Sure, but a lot of people seem to think Cuba is cut off from
| world trade. They're only cut off from one country.
|
| Someone called it a "blockade" on this page.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Cuba's ability to trade with the rest of the world severely
| impaired by the US embargo.
|
| Most international banks get very nervous about
| facilitating transactions involving Cuba and even tourists
| who visit Cuba can have their travel to the US restricted.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa/entry-
| requireme...
| mgbmtl wrote:
| Cuba rarely stamps passports to avoid those problems.
| They give you a piece of paper with a stamp, that you
| return on your way out.
| berdario wrote:
| At minute 12:33 in this video it explains the 180-days rule
| and other details:
|
| https://youtu.be/WgWK6_AYq_o?si=5aqdt7DW-gYd7XdN
|
| it might not be completely cut off, but the embargo is
| harsh, especially for an island ot only 10M people
| pimpampum wrote:
| The sanctions also sanctions companies that trade with Cuba
| even from outside the US, so any company has to choose to
| either not trade with Cuba (which is a small market) or risk
| loosing the biggest market close by. So STFU.
| linearrust wrote:
| > Note that it's only the US that has an embargo against Cuba.
|
| And that's the only embargo that matters. Given a choice
| between an embargo by the US or embargo by the rest of the
| world, cuba and every country in the world would choose 'the
| rest of the world'. Especially so for cuba since it's just
| right off the coast of florida.
|
| > The rest of the world trades pretty freely with them.
|
| No they do not.
| pstrateman wrote:
| Cuba is our enemy until assata Shakur is returned to prison.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur
| windowshopping wrote:
| This happened 50 years ago. I think we can let it go and worry
| about more current matters. I can't imagine still being hung up
| on this.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i don't care about this at all
| trhway wrote:
| >Other factors were a high number of deaths, 405,512,
|
| With such a population churn the chances of dying at sea while
| trying to run away don't look that bad.
| greyvddhb wrote:
| Did US sanctions cause this? Why or why not?
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