The Islamic Republic is alive but not well

[Amianthus]

Apparently Canada likes the Honeycrisp (makes sense since it's a cold hardy variety):

"As a result of the Honeycrisp apple's growing popularity, the government of Nova Scotia has encouraged its local orchards to increase their supplies through the Honeycrisp Orchard Renewal Program. From 2005 until 2010, apple producers in Nova Scotia can replace older apple trees with Honeycrisp trees at a subsidized rate. Many orchards in the Annapolis Valley on the Bay of Fundy have mature trees and plentiful supplies of Honeycrisps throughout the harvest season."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp

[Christians4LessGvt]

Economics 101:  Nobody walks any more in international trade.  
The seller ships to the buyer.  The cost of shipping is included in the buyer's
cost of goods.  

Yes shipping is a cost, but not really that important in today's world....see internet sales...hello?
There are lots of different costs involved in conducting business...shipping is one.
Michael it's not 1800....donkeys have been replaced...it's not even 1950...except in Cuba!
Obviously in today's international trade shipping is an easily managed business cost.
Examples all over the world show shipping cost is a very minor factor in success or failure.
Unless you are a backward country that cant overcome such a minor obstacle.
The world has advanced past makets being just next door.

Economics 101:  The farther the seller has to ship the goods to market,
the more it costs the buyer.

And countries all over the globe deal with this super minor problem and prosper....
except cry baby Cuba!...."It's the US fault" but China ships more all over the
world than to it's neighbors.

Economics 101:  The farther that perishable goods have to be shipped,
the higher the cost of refrigeration, which is also added to buyer's landed costs.

The Netherlands is the world's largest flower exporter....PERISHABLE....to all over the world.
Plus...if you're not a dumbaass...you don't limit yourself to perishable goods.
You create and attract investment...diversification...maybe dats Business 101 too!

The "failure" that the World's Onliest Superpower has been trying to bring down
for half a century and hasn't done so yet?  THAT "failure?"

LOL...we're doing just fine last time I checked....we're not a failure like Cuba is!
The world is passsing Cuba by.....several lost generations and still counting.

The only whining I hear is from the World's Onliest Superpower - -
the evil Iranians and their evil bomb, the evil Iraqis will destroy us
if we don't invade them first, the evil Islamofascists and how terrible they are.  
Give me a fucking break.  Nobody whines like Amerikkka whines,
and it is really nauseating.  The Cubans aren't whining.  

LOL....can we say false dichotomy!
Plus we didn't just whine about Saddam...we did something about it.
Even if the US was whining.....
We at least prosper....Cuba whines and produces miserable results....DOUBLE NEGATIVE!

They blame the U.S.A. for their economic hardship and it should be obvious
to any thinking person that a massive boycott like that by the closest market
and the closest supplier is going to hurt.  

LOL..."economic hardship"....booo who....we cant go next door....so we cry
and suck except other countries prosper because they overcome their obstacles.

if the embargo isn't hurting Cuba economically, why the fuck does the U.S. government
insist on maintaining it even as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling for an end to it?
Why?  Use your fucking head for christ sake

My "fucking" head? What exactly does that mean?
I am not really a big supporter of any embargo on Cuba...
But I do think it is super lame & just plain stupid to blame Cuba's miserable results on a one country embargo.
HOWEVER I think usually the best way to get rid of communists is to not embargo them.
Nixon started the Commi's eventual extinction in China by opening up to China.
China is less Communist today because Nixon opened the Chinese door.
The same strategy should have been used against Cuba because it would
also hasten the Communist extinction there too.
Hell Cubans could not even have a cell phone or a computer until less than 2 years ago!
It was illegal to own a cell phone!
As soon as you lift even the smallest restriction the opportunities around it mushroom.
It wont be long...until the Cuban people are free to reach their true destiny!

Good advice.  Try it some time.

I look in the mirror every day and love what I see. I thank God to be in a very successful free
country that has the highest immigration rates in the world because everyone wants to come here!
I live in a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world and whose population lives
better than most human beings that have ever walked the face of the earth.

Bullshit, Big Talker.

No Michael...not talk...action....BS walks.....I like countless others...made it on my own

If the California State Government passed a law forbidding you to do any business in the U.S.A. and told you to find new customers but they had to be in Latin America, you'd be out of business the same fucking day that the law was passed.  

No I wouldn't.....I would immediately find a new business and new customers....believe me Michael I am
not going to sit around and whine....in fact California and New Jersey have sorta done that to business...
those two liberal states are running off business and the business men just leave...Cya!WouldntWannaBeYa!

Take Olhausen Pool Tables...one of the best pool table companies in the world....after being in California for
over 50 years....recently the owners....Butch and Don Olhausen had enough of the California taxes and regulations
and moved the entire operation to Tennesssee....they didn't sit around "woe is me"....they told liberal
California "F-YOU". Olhausen Billiard sells almost 30,000 pool tables a year....and Cali is going BROKE!

For most of the past 50 years, they traded sugar for Russian oil, they built hotels for European and Canadian tourists and they developed medical schools, a medical profession, and medical product lines which they do in fact sell in alternative markets.  

And how has the worked out?....LOL
Overall...bottom line...piss poor results.
Piss poor results that got much worse after Russians took away the huge subsidies.

No matter who you blame....your score on the scoreboard shows "WE SUCK".
You may not suck as bad as some....but the results are what they are.

It's an AGRICULTURAL country.  

Why is that?.....thats 1800's talk.
Countries are not limited by what kind of geography they happened to inherit or steal.
This 2010 Michael Tee....
If you create a business friendly environment in the middle of the desert the rising tide
will produce results.

No actually it is that DESPITEe the embargo, they are still able to produce a higher
standard of living for their citizens than most other Caribbean nations.

So you are bragging that Cuba stinks, but they just dont stink quite as
bad as other lame ass countries....

You should skip the 'LOL" since it's obvious you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

It's quite funny watching you attempt to defend what is obviously miserable results.

Which I suppose accounts for the dramatic improvement in public education,
literacy, health and housing for the Cuban people following the Revolution.

Thats whats really sad...if the Cuban provided stats on say education are anywhere near the truth...
how sad...to have so many educated and produce so little and have such horrible results.

Yeah, actually I would.  Maybe you think every creative intelligent person has to be
a greed-driven selfish self-centred animal bastard working only for his own benefit,
but you are dead wrong.  

So show me examples of countries that don't allow free enterprise that lead the world
in innovation and standards of living?

<<When news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was hailed as a "miracle worker", and the day "almost became a national holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?">>

Do we really wanna compare numbers on life-changing medical breakthroughs and medical technologies
from free market countries to Commi Workers Paradises?

Capitalism is founded on selfishness and greed.  

Yeah and obviously if you look around the world....that works much
better than Communism. Reality is what it is.

Your country produces tons of worthless shit

It PRODUCES period!
Your way produces shitty results!

In no way does your public health match the public health of most other industrialized nations.  

what a bunch of baloney!
http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/

In no way do your public schools match the public schools of most other industrialized nations

Oh really?....Well the facts do not show that to be true.
But I do think the US public schools need to be phased out.
They are a vestige of the past and are another indicator of failure of our gvt.

Capitalism results in the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many.  

Oh really? Ummm how many Commi countries are in the top 20?
http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/

Look in your own fucking mirror!  
Look at the wealth of the wealthiest, look at the poverty of your poorest.  

Yeah and those numbers are superior to most countries on earth!

Look at 47 million Americans who don't even have health insurance and the tens of millions
of others who are underinsured.

47 million Americans is a lie.
Millions of that BS number are illegals and not Americans.
Millions of that BS number choose to not have health insurance.
And all of that BS number has access to healthcare.
Healthcare is not health insurance.

millions who have turned to crime because of the
poverty that is their only alternative.  

what a load of crap
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/recession-shatters-myth-of-poverty-causing-crime/

Capitalism is what has fucked you up .....capitalism is what is still fucking you up.

LOL....compared to who?
What Communist country has a higher standard of living than the United States?

[Plane]

  Another thing to consider is that the US has a lot more buying strength than other potential customers.

    Being cut off from American cigar buyres is not like being cut off from 10% of the world for a cigar seller , it is like being cut off from 60%.

    So what makes it smart to drive off your best customers? Castro never really needed to pick this fight. Right after the success of his revolution he visited New York , and I suppose after that decided to throw in with the Soviets.

     What if he had not ?  Would success have been impossible for Cuba with a Freindly US?

[Christians4LessGvt]

Being cut off from American cigar buyres is not like being cut off from 10% of the world for a cigar seller , it is like being cut off from 60%.

Not really....Germany is a huge cigar market....but boo who we cant send our cigars there...too much shipping! 

Plus why is sugar and cigars their only options?
Because they have a system incapable of incentivising other industries developing.
Many countries dont have the best natural resources, but they overcome that with producing things people want
They (communist) are so obsessed with not allowing anyone to "get ahead" they keep everyone behind!

[Michael Tee]

    <<So what makes it smart to drive off your best customers? >>

What made it smart in Castro's case was the immediate benefit that the Revolution could offer to the Cuban people.  Castro was once asked in an interview how Cuba would have fared had they not antagonized the U.S.A. but accepted financial aid under the prevailing rules of the game (capitalist developing and financing. World Bank and IMF guidelines followed.)  Castro's answer was that he supposed that in perhaps twenty or thirty years, Cuba might start to show the benefits of its alliance with the U.S. but that it would require the sacrifice of an entire generation of young Cubans, who would have to grow to maturity in the same conditions of poverty and illiteracy and need that their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had always known.  Castro was determined that the Revolution would produce immediate benefits for all Cubans, not just the next generation. He refused to betray Cuba's then-newest generation.

<<Castro never really needed to pick this fight. Right after the success of his revolution he visited New York , and I suppose after that decided to throw in with the Soviets.>>

How and why Fidel took his country into the Soviet sphere is no mystery.  The U.S. tried to restore Cuba to its former subservient status, Cuba refused to play along and an escalating series of moves and counter-moves led to Eisenhower breaking off diplomatic relations, one of the last acts of his administration, so as to tie the hands of the incoming JFK administration.  Although JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs planning and commitments, he allowed the plan to go forward, thereby effectively burning any bridges that could have led to Cuba staying within an American orbit.

[Plane]

   The U.S. tried to restore Cuba to its former subservient status.........

Oh?

[Michael Tee]

CU4, I've got a very busy day today so I'd like to respond to you in a lot more detail, but the one thing I thought I could reply to your post very quickly was that you seem to be confused as between the mobility that's possible for an individual or a single business operation with the mobility of an entire country.   Cuba and China both have experimented with diversification, Cuba particularly at the beginning of the Revolution.  There was a lot of naive dreaming, "Oh we don't HAVE to be an agricultural country, oh our agriculture doesn't HAVE to be a monocrop culture," and similar bullshit like that, but the facts of life are that geography is virtually inescapable.  A country with a large land mass and a huge population has opportunities that are denied to countries with small landmass and small population.  Cuba is as a country way LESS adaptable than you personally or the Olson Brothers Pool Table Manufacturing Corporation are.  Geography is very important and it's just foolish to deny that by claiming that it's the 21st century.  The Netherlands has always been an exporter of flowers and flower bulbs, but we don't buy Dutch flowers in Canada, we have plenty of Dutch florists here, and a lot of their exports go to other EU countries.

You keep writing how Cuba sucks, but actually they do better than most of the rest of the region, all of whom are to some extent prisoners of their geography but none of whom are double-penalized by the embargo.  They still enjoy cradle-to-grave free medical care (and EXPORT their surplus doctors all over Latin America) free education to the highest levels and decent housing for every Cuban without the God-awful slum areas that I saw in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, two NON-communist countries. 

So your posts are wrong in assuming that Cuba sucks AND wrong in claiming that the embargo doesn't hurt.

Tell me this - - if the U.S. embargo is nothing more than a pin-prick annoyance, how come the U.S. leaders are always threatening and trying to organize an embargo on Iran?  Why do they go to Russia and China and hope to enlist them in an embargo?  Iran has land borders with many nations as well as seaports, yet every day we hear threats from Hillary and other evil-doers that they want to force Iran to comply with their orders and that the way to force them to comply is by an embargo?  How silly would such a threat be, if the embargo on Cuba produced no more pain than a mosquito bite?  How could they possibly approach intelligent, sophisticated people like the Russians and the Germans and plead with them to join them in a process that they know is going to accomplish absolutely nothing?

Your problem is that despite all the bluster - - they coulda done THIS, I woulda done THAT - - all of your "coulda, woulda, shouldas" are just a bunch of blathering bullshit.  Cuba can't pick up its assets and move them to Tennessee or Russia or anywhere.  Doesn't mean jack-shit how many flowers the Dutch can export.  Your comparisons, quite frankly, are totally ridiculous.  ALL of them.  They make no sense at all and you just can't explain why the U.S. is threatening an embargo if it knows the whole thing is such a big failure.  You're just talking crazy talk, throwing shit at the walls and hoping some will stick.

[Xavier_Onassis]

An embargo on Iran would not be like the embargo on Cuba, as Cuba imports almost anything it wishes from the US or anywhere, so long as payment is in cash. The embargo on the Republic of South Africa, together with the strategic bombing of the coal-to-gasoline refineries by the ANC, forced the RSA to capitulate and cede power to the majority there. Embargoes CAN be useful, but the one against Cuba is more of a joke than an embargo. As I said, it is a special favor to a small number of very wealthy Cubans here who profit by the fact that the embargo gives them a monopoly on various goods and services.

[Michael Tee]

I wondered about that.  I thought the embargo would have had more effect in some areas than others.  Parts for the American-build sugar mills, for example.  I dunno. 

I did kinda wonder about the embargo when I met an American tourist (from Tennessee as it happens) outside a Cuban cigar shop in St. Martin and we were discussing machine-rolled Partagas cigars, which we both liked.  I told him they cost (at the time) about $6 and change in Toronto, and he said, "Yeah, that's about what they sell for in Tennessee."   No shit.  Apparently there are several stores in Memphis that sell Cuban cigars which this guy swears are the real thing, and they cost as much ILLEGALLY in Tennessee as I pay for them LEGALLY in Toronto.  I just figured the guy was being scammed by Dominican or even US-made cigars with Cuban labels and stamps, but who knows?  It could be that this is a very porous embargo.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"So your posts are wrong in assuming that Cuba sucks"

Yeah sure Michael.....

The average Cuban monthly wage remain less than 20 U.S. dollars....Cuba is a poor 3rd world country with rationing of food, electricity, toilet paper, and other basic necessities. Many Cuban farmers still use oxen to prepare the land for crops instead of modern oil-burning machinery. Cuban ranks alomost last in the world in freedom of the press. (scared of the truth!)

The embargo is not responsible for the disasters in the communist Cuban economy. The US is not responsible for economic growth and prosperity beyond their boundaries. Any country has the right to chose how and who they want to trade with and in what terms.

Just a little history...US companies were arbitrarily intervened and nationalized after 1960 with no compensation to their shareholders who chose to invest in that country. The embargo has been used by the Cuban government as an excuse for why their economic model haven't work but if we look for comparisons, just take Venezuela, one of the wealthiest country of the world, with abundance in Oil, Gold, Silver, Aluminum and multiple other natural resources, with a great amount of trade with the US that until Chaves got into power had the US as their main economic partner.

Hugo Chavez is using these resources to promote a political agenda and preserve absolutism and abuse of personal, economic and other liberties. Venezuela has become as mismanaged as Cuba, and now Venezuela is suffering shortages of essentials like toilet paper and milk in Caracas.

Who is to blame the US?...The Embargo?... Yeah sure....Cuba was the largest producer of sugar cane of the world.
By not using their resources appropriately now they hardly rank in the 10 first exporters of sugar.

Cuba has large reserves of Nickel and Cobalt, both strategic commodities, that they chose to sell not in the international commodity markets to which they have access but at a discounted price to countries like Iran or North Korea so that they can develop missile technology...what can you do?...it is not the embargo...The brutal Commi regime in Cuba believes that is entitled to promote social unrest in Latin America countries or just incarcerate people whose crime is wanting democracy instead of doing whats best for it's people.

Look who is #1 and who is #98!

http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/rank/PNB2.html

[Xavier_Onassis]

just take Venezuela, one of the wealthiest country of the world, with abundance in Oil, Gold, Silver, Aluminum and multiple other natural resources, with a great amount of trade with the US that until Chaves got into power had the US as their main economic partner.

==================================
Venezuela is hardly "one of the wealthiest countries in the world". But the US is STILL its major trading partner most of the year. When agricultural crops are in season, Colombia is occasionally first.

Venezuela's economy is still a mess under Chavez, but it has always been a mess. Land that could feed many times the population is used to graze Brahama cattle for Mickeyburgers, and Venezuela imports most of its food from the US.

No one has successfully carried out agrarian reform anywhere in Latin America, not capitalists, not Communists, not anyone. Taiwan and Japan were most successful, but that involved high tariffs, and the US will not permit this in Latin America. You can't get World Bank loans unless you obey.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Venezuela is hardly "one of the wealthiest countries in the world"

In terms of natural resources it sure is.

Venezuela's extensive resource base includes proven crude oil reserves that are
the largest outside the Middle East and the sixth largest in the world.

Venezuela has the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. The country's reserve
in natural gas are extensive, and Venezuela has huge iron ore reserves as well.

Venezuela is South's America 3rtd largest coal producer. Venezuela's gold is
estimated to represent more than 12% of the entire world known gold reserves.