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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

When I was there, some Cubans offered us a lobster meal. Some fisherman had brought them in, and of course they knew the tourists could pay for it. So since this seemed to be illegal, they arranged for us to drive to their house, and then immediately boarded up the garage so our car wasn't visible from the street.

Inside we got the lobsters as promised, maybe the only good food we had apart from the resorts. It came with some extremely stringy mangoes that I don't want to try again.

They also had friends come over to offer cigars and those peculiar Cuban shirts, I think taken from a factory. At least that was their story.

On the other side, they seemed to have a desire to buy clothes, in particular sports clothes like basketball tops. We didn't have that with us but we were told they'd swap the cigars for a top easily. Even just a shirt like you might wear for working in the City would fetch a lot of cigars, apparently.

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And what you are describing is part of the misery they are condemned to by the regime. They cannot trade normally, everything is treated as trafficking and the hihger layer has privileges, control and are corrupted and live from spoiling the rest.

You want to do something by yourself? Brive me, because it is illegal or you will have trouble. And anyway, if I want, you can have trouble any day, because you did something illegal. Also, the brived people are also in trouble, because receiving a brive is illegal also. Now you have a system where anyone, at any time can be arbitrarily accused of criminal actions. Criminal actions that the government allows to happen depending on their interests.

They do not allow the right to have dignity for the people there. It is really sad. The only truth is that the system imposed there works because of corruption, literally. It is the way it works: I do not let you eat bread, but you need bread. So I give you whatever I want, if there is scarcity you can do nothing, except illegal things to survive, such as trading.

Crazy what a blockade by the worlds largest economy 90 miles away for decades can do huh?

They could end the blockade at any time.

False claims. First, it is an embargo. Second, not all products are blocked at all. Food and medicines can be freely bought. But wait... who blocks the entrance of those? Oh, yes... the customs.

Try to send dollars: the regime will keep them and will give CUPs to relatives of cubans.

I have heard (not confirmed data) that in the customs they can take as much as half of what you send. But yes, the embargo is the problem. Thieves.

I tell you from the point of view of a person that knows what happens there.

You are welcome.

The Cuban regime is responsible for its sins. The US is responsible for the consequences of its embargo. The whole point of these sanctions it to put pressure on the sanctioned economy; the more pain the economy experiences, and by extension the people who live there, the better. It is disingenuous to claim that US policy is not leading to economic suffering there.

The original reason for the embargo was because when the lands were expropiated the americans forbid to basically trade with cubans to not trade with stolen property due to the revolution.

I tell you if you are not aware of the original reason. The original reason makes sense.

I understand that normal people is who suffer. That is true and sad.

Given that pre-revolution Cuba was not exactly democratic either, and had insane concentration of wealth, it's arguable whether that stolen property can be considered legitimately owned in the first place. A government of robbers announcing that what they robbed is legitimately owned doesn't make it so.

(The same, of course, applies to the post-revolution government - I'm not trying to claim that it's somehow better.)

Cuba in the 50s was the 3nd wealthies country in Hispanic America. I think it was after Argentina, not sure if Venezuela. Now it is in the poor side of things, and Hispanic America is not too wealthy...

A country can be wealthy as a whole while still having a large part of the population leaving in squalor if wealth inequality is great enough.

Or they can have most of the population in really deplorable conditions, which is what happened after the revolution.

What makes you think it’d be any different if the embargo were lifted?

What makes you think that the US would blockade Cuba if it would have no effect?

To be fair, doing things for show - basically, to placate one's potential electorate - is par for the course in American politics. In case of Cuba, the embargo is there to placate the Cuban expats in Florida, mostly. Any actual effects that it does or does not have is secondary to that goal.

The US doesn’t block other countries from trading with Cuba. Only the US itself doesn’t trade with Cuba. Embargo, not blockade.

It also bans ships that anchored in Cuba from anchoring in the US. Who's gonna choose lil Cuba over the US right next door?

Blockade seems appropriate.

The U.S. does prevent trade with other countries.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

“In 1999, President Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo by also disallowing foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to trade with Cuba.“

“The United States has threatened to stop financial aid to other countries if they trade non-food items with Cuba.”

I was there in the brief time when U.S. citizens were permitted by the U.S. government to visit on cruises. During my stay, I was constantly reminded that I was disallowed to spend money there on unsanctioned activities.

How is this any different from the U.S., except the level of material available is slightly greater?

Who's the last government official you had to bribe?

We call it "lobbying" here and it's only available to people far richer than most of us.

This is pretty much also how government works in San Francisco.

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