Comment by birdymcbird | Hacker News Reader

Comment by birdymcbird | Hacker News Reader

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-> “Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy.”

cuban here. please dont pretend america care about democracy. america have interests. when they need new regime they suppress democracy as needed or push for democracy. main idea to get some regime subservient to american economic interest.

why america has so many migrants at border but america do nothing or even talk about what crisis happening in central or south america country? instead they fighting proxy war in ukraine. why? more lucrative and profit opportunity in ukraine. south america not have resources or proxy war opportunity.

and given state of American government..race issues..economic issue..growing gap..unaffordable housing..America last country to dictate how other country should run.

i not favor cuban government, but your post bullshit. you idea that you know more about cuba like you on some pedestal.watch as you infrastructure crumble you homeless and drug population rise

This is all smokescreen. Cuba is perfectly capable of trading with Canada and it does. The citizens are still destitute due to government corruption.

This is true, but with a catch. Other companies and individuals in other countries can trade with Cuba... provided they can keep their operation separate with the operation that interacts with us customers/companies. And even if they manage to do so, they still are at risk to be flagged or to cause their costumers to be flagged as non compliant by the us banking systems. So to burden this risk to trade with a small and poor island might not be as attractive even to people not directly subject to the US embargo.

There is a huge portion of China that doesn’t care about being flagged by US banking and they make a perfectly fine trading partner.

The US is no more responsible for the abused citizens of Cuba than the abused citizens of North Korea.

From '96 - Role of the USA in shortage of food and medicine in Cuba https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8942780/

> The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States has informed the US Government that such activities violate international law and has requested that the US take immediate steps to exempt food and medicine from the embargo.

Exempting Food and Agriculture Products from U.S. Economic Sanctions: Status and Implementation - https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33499.html

> In approving the FY2001 agriculture appropriations act, Congress codified the lifting of unilateral sanctions on commercial sales of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical products to Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan, and extended this policy to apply to Cuba (Title IX of H.R. 5426, as enacted by P.L. 106-387; Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, or TSRA). Other provisions place financing and licensing conditions on sales to these countries. Those that apply to Cuba, though, are permanent and more restrictive. TSRA also gives Congress the authority in the future to veto a President’s proposal to impose a sanction on the sale of agricultural or medical products.

I'm from Sweden, not USA. I think there are many problems with USA, but it isn't capitalism at least, I'd say the major problem is that their democracy doesn't properly represent the will of the people. Sweden isn't perfect, but I don't see many countries that does a better job, and Sweden is very capitalist, we voted about going towards communist but people didn't want to. Instead we have a strong capitalism, but with relatively high taxes and high government benefits, but other than that governments doesn't meddle much with companies, so freedom to do business is very high.

If Cuba was a democracy then I would disagree with the sanctions, but I don't think it is wrong to pressure a government into giving proper voting rights to its people. If Cuba actually implemented democracy and USA still sanctioned them then that would be bad, but that isn't the situation we are in.

The issue with Sweden is that it taxes work, not wealth.

You easily hit the 56% rate on income tax and even the poorest workers pay 25% VAT, meanwhile wealthy landowners and shareholders pay no inheritance tax and minimal capital gains and property tax.

So it impedes social mobility and encourages hard workers to move abroad - this has been made much worse with the refugee crisis too, as they're practically discouraged to work hard. And now look at the healthcare crisis, etc. as wages are a pittance compared to the USA, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, etc.

Taxing work instead of wealth greatly encourages Swedes to start companies. I think that is a big reason why we have so many successful start-ups from Sweden. Sweden discourages the corporate climbers, it is a very bad way to make money here, I don't think that is bad in itself, it means that smart people will try to do something outside of existing companies, either by moving abroad or by starting a company.

But I am not stupid, I too moved to Switzerland to work since it netted me many times more money per hour worked. That is why I said that Sweden isn't perfect, I'm not sure what the perfect system is, but Sweden is still pretty good.

Capital gains tax in Sweden is 30% and property tax is around 0.75% IIRC. I don't think they are that low - they're higher than most of Europe in fact.

And VAT is a double-edged sword... It's the only tax that essentially nobody can avoid, and thus the only tax that also applies to people who are already wealthy and could otherwise live their life without paying any tax.

>strong capitalism, but with relatively high taxes and high government benefits

So, communism, at least according to US conservative perspective.

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