Fidel Castro:Cuban Model Not Working
- Thread starter the iron horse
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Some are slower than others 
but people usually come around to the truth.
but people usually come around to the truth.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Slow is the operative term.
hiphop
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
No shock there. 
OP
OP
the iron horse
Rock n' Roll Doggie
It would be nice if the U..S. would lift the
boycott on Cuban cigars.
Why should Castro only smoke the best?
boycott on Cuban cigars.
Why should Castro only smoke the best?
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
The U.S. has enough cancer. 
OP
OP
the iron horse
Rock n' Roll Doggie
The U.S. has enough cancer.
Have you googled "the danger of aspartane"?
Aspartane is the most controversial food addictive that has ever been introduced for consumer use.
Do a Google search and start a thread on it. (if you like)
I know about cancer.
I watched my mom and dad and several friends die from it.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Perhaps the government should do something about the aspartane issue?
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
I was responding to your cigars comment that's all.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Coming back to the subject matter, much as I enjoy the odd punt on the markets, the capitalism model doesn't seem to have worked out too well either.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
^ If that is the best argument in favour of capitalism, then it's a crap system, and will fail. It already very nearly did, as we know. To give him his due, Marx was at least partially right. We can actually date the near-death of capitalism to within a few hours in Sep 2008. The phone conversations, the emails, the panicked trades, are all on the record. Most people have no clue how close to the abyss we actually came, because they'd rather not know, they don't want to know.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/fink-201004?currentPage=4
It's a pity that the Marxian creed is ultimately dry, arid and sets people against people. But so does the system he critiqued.
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/fink-201004?currentPage=4
It's a pity that the Marxian creed is ultimately dry, arid and sets people against people. But so does the system he critiqued.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Sorry I don't believe that for one second. Everytime it fails it comes back. Government can also be responsible for bad policies that capitalism gets blamed for. There's no reason to have 3% reserves at banks and there's no reason to have eternal low interest rates. It's the only system that allows people to make mistakes and pay the consequences until they learn because we are talking about humans right? We are also talking about new generations having to be introduced to civilization every time. It's better than philosopher kings running the show. How much history of despotism going back millenia do people need to learn that? Marxism is dry yes, but voting people out is much less violent than constant revolutions. There's just no comparison. The west developed a system that allows EVERYONE to take part because no leaders can concentrate all known knowledge in their heads to run our lives. You must be in some depressed mood of some kind that conservatives usually get into and you need to drink some coffee or something.
If there's a weakness to capitalism is that it was so successful and expanded human living standards beyond anything ever before in human history and now many ignorant people are taking it for granted but are even more empty because they have no solution. There has never been a system that didn't involve some competition and effort required. It's in humans already. The government has to make the rules and needs the private sector to fund it and if the rules are broken then reform is needed. It's always this way.
You have to look at examples of people who actually perform to break the cynicism you're in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx723c9uBr0
See it's not all lost. There are still intelligent people left.
If there's a weakness to capitalism is that it was so successful and expanded human living standards beyond anything ever before in human history and now many ignorant people are taking it for granted but are even more empty because they have no solution. There has never been a system that didn't involve some competition and effort required. It's in humans already. The government has to make the rules and needs the private sector to fund it and if the rules are broken then reform is needed. It's always this way.
You have to look at examples of people who actually perform to break the cynicism you're in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx723c9uBr0
See it's not all lost. There are still intelligent people left.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Oscar, are you serious with that post?
Do you really believe that capitalism allows EVERYONE to be involved?
DO NOT answer this question with "social programs" bullshit.
Be honest in your answer and tell me how EVERYONE gets to involved.
Also, tell me how the hell that video makes sense to you? Pretend I'm an 18 year old that's about to go to college to be a teacher and explain how that makes sense to you.
Do you really believe that capitalism allows EVERYONE to be involved?
DO NOT answer this question with "social programs" bullshit.
Be honest in your answer and tell me how EVERYONE gets to involved.
Also, tell me how the hell that video makes sense to you? Pretend I'm an 18 year old that's about to go to college to be a teacher and explain how that makes sense to you.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
What do you think a market is? My point is that philosopher kings can't know how to run a power plant, be a lawyer, be a farmer all at the same time. They can't know people's minds and what needs to be produced at the exact time and quantity. That's why central command economies don't work and especially in the complex world we live in now. Why is that so hard to understand unless you're a progressive troll that doesn't want to understand? Did you even read my post? I believe in limited government. The rest is up to us.
The fact that you have to ask tells me you are a troll and have NO intention of understanding the video. I've already explained balanced budgets, debt and economics many times to you but it doesn't sink in because I don't think you care or have any intention of understanding. It's so much easier to demand entitlements and when there's no money left just keep going over the cliff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPLz4RKwces
If you can't understand this video you have a lot of reading to do which I don't think you want to do. When countries over spend at some point there will be a backlash and crying out and using scare tactics to make the public think government is being slashed and burned will not fool them. Bankruptcy is not an option for governments. It's like gravity. At some point there are no governments in the world left that can bailout everyone else.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Step away from the rhetoric for awhile and answer my question.
How does EVERYONE get involved?
For example how do you suggest we get the disabled, poverty strickened, and ill involved? Answer that without going on a tangent.
This video had to do with TEACHERS paying 1.5% for health benefits. Now talk about that. Stick to the topic, please.
You really must be naive if you believe this to be true.
And I say this as a member of a profession that contributes a lot of its time to precisely exclude certain segments of society from equal participation by squeezing them out.
hiphop
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Unfortunately, those two arguments are what rich people tend to repeat, while nothing is further from the truth.
Capitalism was successful only for a small group of people - the ones that got rich. Sometimes with hard work, most of the time with stealing resources from the poor, from nature. Capitalism is a system of exploitation that divides the workd in classes. Fraternity is not possible in capitalism.
Also, capitalism (or competition, if you meant that) is not "human" at all - our body, soul and mind work well without it. Capitalism per se isn´t vital. No one needs capitalism to survive, but mankind basically needs food, water, a roof or a place to stay, education, electricity and medicines. Capitalism´s wealthy individuals continue to rob billions of people of those basic needs. Mankind doesn´t need borders or nations or political worldwide economic systems - not so long ago mankind and the planet as a whole were much better off without all that crap.
It´s the society we live in that forces us to be part of capitalism. No other race uses political and economical systems like capitlism or communism to divide the world into classes.
The effects of capitalism are devastating for the majority of mankind. The majority of people are poor and capitalism continues to create poverty.
Here´s a study about the global distribution of wealth:
"The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University.
The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.
The research finds that assets of $2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, and more than $500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%.
Wealth levels across countries
Using currency exchange rates, global household wealth amounted to $125 trillion in the year 2000, equivalent to roughly three times the value of total global production (GDP) or to $20,500 per person. Adjusting for differences in the cost-of-living across nations raises the value of wealth to $26,000 per capita when measured in terms of purchasing power parity dollars (PPP$).
The world map shows per capita wealth of different countries.
Average wealth amounted to $144,000 per person in the USA in year 2000, and $181,000 in Japan. Lower down among countries with wealth data are India, with per capita assets of $1,100, and Indonesia with $1,400 per capita.
Per capita wealth levels vary widely across countries. Even within the group of high-income OECD nations the range includes $37,000 for New Zealand and $70,000 for Denmark and $127,000 for the UK.
Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe, and high income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90% of total world wealth. (note: while they don´t hold 90% of natural resources but continue to rob them)
Although North America has only 6% of the world adult population, it accounts for 34% of household wealth. Europe and high income Asia-Pacific countries also own disproportionate amounts of wealth. In contrast, the overall share of wealth owned by people in Africa, China, India, and other lower income countries in Asia is considerably less than their population share, sometimes by a factor of more than ten."
According to the Human Development Index, the average dairy cow in Europe in 2000 received $913 in subsidies, compared with an average of $8 per person in sub-Saharan Africa.
Here´s the effects of capitalism that are not frequently reported my mass media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsJ2oNlzkg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfOnQptZKlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIsLqkuATY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6TSlQFHlK4
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
My last post answered that. I don't need a government to tell me what to buy. Can't you understand the difference between a market economy and a command economy?
It's about balancing budgets. I'm on topic. You're just trying derail the argument from this thread like you always do.
I was responding to FinanceGuy trying to say that capitalism is almost as big a failure as communism and I answered that fully and gave an example of conservatives in the U.S. that are actually doing a good job. Obviously Democrats like you disagree so you can't have that thread continue. You had to interject, nevermind that New Jersey is usually Democrat but out of necesscity they needed a Republican to rein in spending because that is a real NEED. There are even Democrats that agree.
I didn't say everyone had equal results or equal power. In Cuba you have much less control over your pay and what you get and in countries with limited government you have more control over your resources. That's the decision making process in a market versus what you have in Cuba.
If you want to believe in Marxist class warfare that means you haven't learned any of the lessons of the 20th century. The countries that aren't wealthy don't have the same private property rights we do and support lots of trade barriers and have lots of corruption. Mercantilism and Colonialism don't have to be a part of Capitalism. Most of what you talk about has to do with the fact that in the West we still support lots of trade barriers and don't live up to our promises completely. Two wrongs don't make a right.
You can't have personal freedom without control of a majority of your own pay cheque. The poor countries need to get on board because Capitalism is about human nature and to expect all politicians to always be altruistic is the naive point of view. People in all countries regardless of culture look out for themselves and when they join governments they try and feather their nests even quicker if they have a captive taxpayer to pay for it.
What Castro is doing is simply saying is that he wants to go towards a Chinese model because as long as he still has his dictatorship he can use markets to increase his funding because the state will in turn gain more power. A rich dictatorship is much more powerful than a poor one.
This fraternity you talk about is of course vague and that's why it hasn't be created in the real world. What equality exists between Fidel Castro and the general Cuban?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Why can't you ever answer a question of mine? Are they too difficult for you? None of this had anything to do with what I asked or that stupid video you posted.
I give up once again... when you want to have an adult conversation, I'll engage again.
I find that video pretty uninformative and relatively useless as evidence for your case. It shows a guy complaining about the people who oppose him - he doesn't mention anything at all about balancing budgets. To me it just seems like petty partisan bickering. Could you explain how it illustrates your point of balancing budgets?
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
He's fighting the teacher's unions who didn't have to pay for their pensions and now he's making them. Dealing with government unions isn't that easy. New Jersey has a debt problem (much like California) and in order to balance budgets you have to lean the bureaucratic pay to keep it sustainable. Yes there's partisan bickering. As all the governments in the West grapple with debt they've accumulated, especially after the worldwide stimulus spending it will be inevitable that special interest groups that get wage freezes, cuts or increased pension premiums will complain. I simply used Chris Christie as an example to hearten FinanceGuy that there are responsible people in government and that not all is lost for the conservative cause.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
The conservative case of excluding the best and brightest from becoming educators because of untenable working conditions?
You are the beneficiary of a social democracy (Canada). I don't understand how you can rail against public spending to no end without a thought for the impacts on the public good. Education is a long term financial investment - if you have good teachers and improve the education system then the country will produce innovators and high earners who will pay their taxes and reinvest into the system.
That American politicians attack teachers unions while ignoring runaway defence spending and pork barreling doesn't make a particularly good case for conservatism.
You are the beneficiary of a social democracy (Canada). I don't understand how you can rail against public spending to no end without a thought for the impacts on the public good. Education is a long term financial investment - if you have good teachers and improve the education system then the country will produce innovators and high earners who will pay their taxes and reinvest into the system.
That American politicians attack teachers unions while ignoring runaway defence spending and pork barreling doesn't make a particularly good case for conservatism.
hiphop
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Marxist class warfare? Nothing to do with Marx. I simply stated that the world is divided into classes, in rich and poor. Of course, saying that simple truth, the warning light in your brain automatically flashes and you lump me together with Marx, Stalin and the Red Brigades.
Everyone saw that the world is divided into classes in the recent crisis, it happened in the U.S. Banks got bailed out with horrendous sums of taxpayers´ money, a gigantic exchange from poor to rich, while thousands of simple Americans got kicked out of their houses without mercy.
This division between poor and rich exists a) on a level that includes the whole globalised planet and b) on a national level. For example Angola: visit an oil-exporting country with offshore drill oil platforms, maintained by a) the international players. Luanda, the capital of Angola, boasts the most expensive real estate in the world, topping London, Tokyo, New York. Rent a flat there and see how long you can stay.. the oil managers live in a safe, walled compound so they´re not touched by poverty or crime. b) Angola´s political leadership is corrupt like shit (the point you mentioned, to which I reply: in reality it´s not a racial or national difference that divides people, but the separation into rich and poor class - you can see that in every country and yes, there are corrupt, black African leaders who play the game) and funnel billions to Switzerland, Liechenstein or remote Carribean islands. They don´t use the billions Angola earns (by giving away natural resources) to help the poor, to stabilize the country, but for their own wealth.
Just around the corner from the rich Chanel boulevards you´ll see the shacks of the slums. Here´s an article on Angola´s oil tycoons
Developing countries don´t have any power to impose trade barriers. Trade barriers are maintained by Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Developing countries are always forced by international bodies (IMF. World Bank et al) to accept trade barriers where they fit the rich, stealing countries (who export their agricultural/ industrial goods, but do not import from developing countries - while maintaining heavily subsidized agro-business). I guess you didn´t get it, buddy: trade barriers are an integral part of capitalism nowadays, regardless of what your theory books say.
You say Mercantilism and Colonialism don´t have to be a part of capitalism? Well, either you are completely naive or you are kidding me. Fact is that colonialism was an integral part of capitalism,and fact is that without colonialism capitialists would have not been able to start plundering all the planet. You wouldn´t get any cheap bananas, coltane or coffee or chocolate or sweat-shirts or jeans (produced in Pakistan) without colonialism. Capitalism drives its "success", as you call it, from colonialism.
One thing Castro, or the USSR, if you wish, didn´t do on such a large scale was plundering the rest of the planet. Latin America and most parts of Africa were always plundered by the capitalist world, not by communists. Colonialism was capitalist ways of subordinating the rest of the world, not communist ways. While most people in the USSR were living under miserable conditions, most people in the Western capitalist centres were only able to afford luxury because their multinational corporations plundered Latin America, Africa, and large parts of Asia.
The result is that you, living in a rich nation, are an easy going advocate of capitalism, while you fail to see the damage and pain it brought and continues to bring to most poor people, and, of course, to nature, to wildlife, to the planet as a whole. You choose to enjoy the fruits of someone else´s labor (did you plant the coffee yourself? no. is your crop ruined because of a sandstorm? nope. are your children dying of malnutrition and diseases? no.), while you ignore the miserable conditions of the poor.
This fraternity you talk about is of course vague and that's why it hasn't be created in the real world says it all. You say fraternity is a wishy-washy theory ("of course, vague"), possibly what those weird tree-huggers, smiling dalai-lamas and stupid french revolutionists believe in, while of course, it doesn´t exist in the real world. After all, in your opinion, the "real world" is cruel and everyone steals from his neighbor - and that´s just natural, isn´t it?
By the way, one equality between Fidel Castro and the general Cuban is that they go to the same hospitals for free (and they´re good!).
Despite a 50-year trade embargo by the United States and a post-Soviet collapse in international support, the impoverished nation has developed a world-class health care system. Average life expectancy is 77.5 years, compared to 78.1 years in the United States, and infant and child mortality rates match or beat the U.S. rates. There’s one doctor for every 170 people, more than twice the per-capita U.S. average.
While not everything is perfect in Cuba (serious shortages of medicines, the best care is reserved for elites) it’s still a powerful feat. In Cuba, a little over $300 per person is spent on health care each year. The U.S. doesn´t even provide free health care for everyone and as soon as the President (!) tries to make a first step, the rich class accuses him of abandoning the principles of health care. What a sad cartoon U.S. politics have become! In the U.S., you´re spending over $7,000 per person each year. Cubans are able to achieve great health outcomes on a modest budget.
Except the actual clip in that video did not make your case (which is what BVS called you out on originally). One guy making fun of his opposition ≠ a responsible person balancing the budget. Had your video actually included him talking about why he wants the teacher's unions to pay for their pensions, then perhaps. As it is in the video the pensions appear to be almost tangential to yet another politician ridiculing the other side.
I was in Angola recently (June), and it's a very good example.
I've traveled a lot and I've never been to a place that included such a high concentration of luxury cars. I mean some of the neighbourhoods in Angola would put Beverly Hills to shame. And if you spend any time in northern Namibia, all you see are basically $200K cars driving around with Angolan plates. They can roughly be placed in one of two categories: tycoons or criminals (or I suppose, both). It is an absolutely stunning sight to see, among people who live on a dollar a day in huts made of cow dung and don't have paved roads.
Capitalism comes with very high costs for very many people but it's easier to scream about Communists than accept this.
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
Go move there then. I love how people use class warfare the way Marx does in their arguments but say "Hey I'm not a Marxist". The fact you think Cuba has a great healthcare model definitely rings the warning bells for me, but hey different strokes for different folks.
BTW Capitalism and Mercantalism are different and to equate the two is just an excuse to ignore capitalism. If the current market situation has too much mercantalism then the solution would be to lift barriers and we know that we can't trust the left to do that. We even have trouble with some of the right on that. I just wish people actually criticized accurately. At least there would be some development beyond blaming the West for everything. All I see is vague blame and squirming. Capitalism can exist in non-colonial countries. Capitalism is simply not consuming all your resources and saving them to lend those resources out to others for future consumption. Poor countries like Taiwan became rich because of that freedom to pursue that model. Getting the general public to be educated on how to take part in markets in the West and to have that same education along with private property reform (and Democracy) in poor countries is the challenge that has to be faced.
Classic post that completely tries to put words in my mouth. Conservatives aren't eliminating the education department in New Jersey.
There was more than one video and making fun of the excuses teachers use in the first video is just entertainment for conservatives which again was aimed at FinanceGuy not BVS.
hiphop
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
What does a blind man see when the sun is sitting next to him?
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