American businesses preparing to flood Cuba
Source: USA Today
American businesses preparing to flood Cuba
Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EST January 27, 2015
MIAMI American diplomats completed their first high-level meetings with their Cuban counterparts in Havana last week. Now come the suits.
A wave of U.S. business leaders are preparing to flood the island to explore new opportunities and to learn about a market that has been largely closed for 50 years.
As part of the deal between President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro to normalize relations, the two sides agreed to open new trade channels for farming equipment, construction materials and a wide variety of other resources for Cuba's emerging private entrepreneurs.
That interest has been so intense that membership in the United States Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, a group of businesses that want to increase trade to the island, has doubled to 50 in the month following the announcement.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/01/27/cuba-american-business-trips/22362883/
arcane1
(38,613 posts)There are so few frontiers left for multinationals to exploit. Is Cuba at risk of being carved up and sold off to private foreign interests too?
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)and the US gov't has been sponsoring people in S. Florida universities to create their own Post-Castro plan for Cuba. which even includes destroying their national free health system which has wrought miracles for people not only in Cuba but throughout the Americas, and their fantastic education system which stamped out illiteracy at a great price: people from the U.S. were going into
Cuba and trying to murder the young teachers the Cuban government had sent into the rural communities, and into the mountains, etc. to teach everyone to read and write. They would go into the villages and wait until those who were working returned from their work and sit up with them, with lanterns in all the places without electricity.
They fanned out all over the island, and were enthusiastic workers, succeeding at bringing knowledge to a vast majority of Cuban people who had never had access to education any time before the revolution. In the meantime, the "exiles" and others of their mercenary brigades were hard at work digging in and trying to murder them.
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Over 270,000 teachers went throughout the country, some of them teenagers. Now Cuba has the 2nd highest literacy ratio in the world, .9 percent higher than the U.S. They have sent teachers throughtout other countries, teaching the same method.
~snip~
"Yo Si Peudo" is the name of the Cuban Literacy Program that is now implemented across the world. The program works with coutnries such as New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, and Boliva. In 2006 UNESCO recognized Cuba's innovative methods and recognized its work with over 15 countries to improve social conditions through literacy.
More:
http://nhtoy2011.blogspot.com/2011/10/examining-cuban-literacy-aka-reason-for.html
What a damnable shame it would be if U.S. efforts to control Cuba resulted in depriving the people of their hard-won advantages, and returned the masses to the hideous privatized hell they overthrew in the first place.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)"They don't need that fancy education just to flip burgers at McDonald's Havana, or gluing soles onto Nikes" you can almost hear them say
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)But I know damn well how much hungry drooling is going on, too
Zorra
(27,670 posts)snooper2
(30,151 posts)little judgmental?
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)It's a country of mandated mediocrity.... Except for the selected political elites, of course, the ruling dynasty lives just fine.
Response to Adrahil (Reply #42)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Hopefully they have learned the lessons of other Caribbean nations (I'm looking in your direction, Dominican Republic) who sold off ownership of prime real estate/national industries up front for the short-end money
olddots
(10,237 posts)the scammers are licking thier chops .
Diclotican
(5,095 posts)Judi Lynn
I guess it is still the Cuban authorities who decide who is to do business in Cuba - and not the american business companies ?
And I doubt that Cuba will be a colony like Cuba was before 1959 - and that american business, if they choose to doing business - have to do it on Cuba's terms - not on their own terms...
And hopefully Cuba would be able to build on what they have managed to build - without being another disaster in the caribian...
Diclotican
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)not the benefit of the corporations, instead.
I hope so much, like you, that the Cuban officials will stay strong, and true to their country, and refuse to be pressured or bribed into serving U.S. business interests, instead.
That would be evil.
Thank you, Diclotican.
Diclotican
(5,095 posts)Judi Lynn
I think it is important if the cuban government is able to stay strong - true to their country - to their revolution so to say - and not to be preassured and forced into anything that is not to the benefit of the cuban pepole...
That would absolutely be evil...
Diclotican
Myrina
(12,296 posts)nt
Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
moondust
(20,006 posts)At which point I would remind people that the communists sometimes used to claim that the Berlin Wall was built to keep out aggressive capitalists--salesmen, exploiters, con artists, swindlers, crooks, etc. (Or something like that.)
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)The Soviets were a little more forthright about it being built to both prevent a brain drain and make it harder for western spies to enter, but Erich maintained until the thing fell that it was there to keep McDonalds out.
moondust
(20,006 posts)Rather than keeping its citizens in, the East German government claimed it erected the Berlin Wall to keep Western fascists, spies and ideas out. Two weeks after ordering the construction of the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, East German leader Walter Ulbricht claimed, We have sealed the cracks in the fabric of our house and closed the holes through which the worst enemies of the German people could creep.
http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-berlin-wall
That may provide some leads to anyone interested in pursuing it further. My own memories are admittedly vague after so many years. Of course the Cold War propaganda was mind-numbing. The communists needed an alternate story to explain the presence of this wall.
madokie
(51,076 posts)but one day in the future Cuba will be a state in the USA.
Bank on it, because its coming
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)If they do, then what's the issue.
Too many here think they have to "protect" the poor Cubans from their own choices.
Fuck that paternalist superior attitude.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)Castroistas: "The Yankee embargo is what is keeping Cuba in poverty!"
U.S.: "OK, you are right. Let's end the embargo so the Cuban people have access to the stuff they need for a modern life."
Castroistas: "Whoa, hold on a minute, you capitalist swine! You are attacking socialism by selling stuff instead of just giving it to Cuba!"
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)You are attempting to trivialize and attack "Castroistas" (your way of commie-baiting) by attempt to claim progressive posters want the U.S. to "give" "stuff" to Cuba. How unbelievably odd.
If you even paid any attention to actual communications, to the point you could understand them, you would be less likely to make such bizarre, and irresponsible remarks.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Remind me of the Campus Communists back in the 80's trying to convince everyone of how great Cuba is. If it's so great, why does the country forbid people from leaving?
arcane1
(38,613 posts)MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)Since when has America been a true broker for fair trade in the Americas? History is rife with imperialist aggression. What now we are supposed to believe we're the good guys?
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)However, most Cubans want open trade with the US, so who are you to say you know better?
It comes off as paternalistic.
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)Paternalistic is hardly the word.
You want to attack someone but have nothing sensible to say.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)And you do have a "I know what's best for the Cubans" attitude.
Most Cubans are looking forward to better trade with the US
Ykcutnek
(1,305 posts)Watching people with that kind of mindset talk out of their asses hurts my head.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)The Vampire Banksters must be drooling.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Either one believes the Cuban people and leaders know how to self-govern and have the wisdom to protect their best interests or one doesn't believe they can.
After all these years and their experience in many countries, they know exactly what to do. I'm not worried.
hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)for out of country business
obnoxiousdrunk
(2,910 posts)now it is 20 a month.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)The workers would be some of the most well paid Cubans on the island.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)Cuba: say hello to...
crime
unemployment
drugs
corruption
Americanization of local culture
megaslums
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I am honestly shocked at the apologists for a totalitarian state here.
Next we'll see sympathy for the PRK.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Xithras
(16,191 posts)Cuba's relative isolation from the rest of the world has led to it being dubbed the "Accidental Eden". While the lowlands were cleared for farming centuries ago, much of its mountain and hill regions, and nearly all of its coastal areas, have seen minimal disruption and have been managed in a fairly sustainable fashion. The island has a well integrated bicycle culture, and the government actually enshrined the concept of sustainable development right into its constitution in 1992.
As American money and values flood the nation, it will be interesting to see whether the Cubans can maintain the status quo, or whether they fold in the face of profit.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)The Puerto Rico islands of Vieques and Culebra are also "accidental Edens" as the US military had bases there which stopped tourists and locals from destroying the reefs.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Then careful management of the opening of the society could create a pretty awesome place.
We'll see what they really want.
JI7
(89,264 posts)hughee99
(16,113 posts)loaded with high fructose corn syrup.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)That alone would be worth restoring trade relations with Cuba.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)holding the passports of the workers, keeping them in squalid huts, cut off from civilization, paying the sugar barons rent for the hideous primitive hovels offered them, paid at slave wages or worse, to start with, and using them up like toilet paper, while they suffer grotesque injuries, and are returned home used up and destroyed, if they are lucky.
There have been federal cases taken to court and won after the workers suffered so wildly so long they were drivien to make that desperate call for help.
Their plight was even the subject of a long, long news special on CBS years ago.
So damned ugly, so wrong.
hunter
(38,326 posts)The U.S.A. is last to the party.
Judi Lynn
(160,620 posts)A British DU'er has told us he's met tourists from other European countries, and of course, Latin Americans have always been able to go there, and I've found photo blogs on the Internet of tourists from Australia, Asia, etc.
A lot of right-wing trolls like to gibber that Cubans couldn't come to the U.S., while people in Florida have known Cubans have made trips to Florida on vacation, also for years, and Cubans have gone freely all over Europe, Australia, etc., etc.
Very very strange when political hacks simply shout down people with real information, or harass them until they explode, and get banned, as the trolls alert the moment they blow up, or they leave because it's just not worth it any longer putting up with their B.S.
A lot of real information concerning Cubans seems to hardly ever make it beyond Florida, unfortunately. They intend to keep their war on Cuba going as long as they can, and the truth reveals always that we've been duped regarding Cuba.