U.S. going to normalize relations with Cuba

Parent Cafe
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<p>“Cuba and U.S. restoring diplomatic relations could lead to changes to Cuba Adjustment Act and other special treatments Cubans have received coming into the U.S.”</p>

<p>Good. It’s quite unfair that they have received such special treatment. Also, if they are treated like all the other illegal immigrants - perhaps that would spur on those who are against immigration reform. </p>

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<p>oldmom4896: From your lips to God’s ears!</p>

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<p>Can’t believe I missed this thread. I grew up in Miami during the Mariel boatlifts and have personally experienced both the growing dominance of the Latin (not only Cuban, anymore) culture there as well as the indefensible differences in treatment between Cuban refugees and their counterparts from Haiti. </p>

<p>The only people who seem to adamantly oppose this new policy are the older generation in Miami/South Florida and the politicians aligned with them (Rubio/Cruz, especially) who hope to gain from their stance on it. </p>

<p>Cuba is one of the most highly educated countries in the Caribbean and is also well-known for its thriving arts culture, particularly music and ballet. Some of the greatest dancers of our time come from Cuba. I am really excited to see what comes of the normalization of relations.</p>

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<p>And these dancers are deserting in droves. What a shame that the embargo the Cuban government has on its own people forces this highly educated population to flee or prostitute itself in the streets of Havana in order to survive. </p>

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<p>

Maybe for the job opportunity as well?
A generation or two ago, I heard that in a certain (better to be unnamed) country, a person even with two PhD degrees from that country very likely could not find a proper job. So the highly educated emmigrated as long as they could. It was of no use to invest more money in higher education when their highly educated would sooner or later leave the country.</p>

<p>

Creating jobs for all education levels is much harder than creating a well (sometimes overeducated) educated population. There are many countries which have too many colleges these days (likely including US as well.) After a certain point, more investment in education (especially in terms of number of students) is not necessarily a wise use of the financial resources of a country.</p>

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<p>Re: fleeing from a country (not necessarily Cuba only), from another point of view, it is interesting to know which countries have accepted more people fleeing from the countries where they were born.</p>

<p>To my surprise, Australia has absorbed the most foreign borns. Canada is not far behind. UK, US and Germany are the next 3 countries, in the low teens in term of the percentage. There countries may be considered as the “desirable” destination.</p>

<p>I do not think there are lots of job opportunity in Australia and Canada. Maybe just a better life quality? Less density in their population?</p>

<p>It is likely that Australia, Canada, Germany, US and UK are the top 5 major multicultural countries.</p>

<p>Data table for figure 1
%
Japan (2000) 1.0
Italy (2009) 8.0
Russian Federation (2002) 8.2
France (2008) 8.6
United Kingdom (2010) 11.5
United States (2010) 12.9
Germany (2010) 13.0
Canada (2011) 20.6
Australia (2010) 26.8
Sources:
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Migration Outlook 2012, OECD Publishing, 2012 and Statistics Canada, National Household Survey, 2011.</p>

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<p>Just thought of this evil and inhumane idea:</p>

<p>Because of the low birth rate in most countries with a higher living standard, these countries need to import working age people from other countries to support their aging population. However, it is costly to support both the very old and the very young, these “desirable destination” countries could do the following:

  1. import the working age people in their prime years (without spending so many years to raise and educate them first. - other countries have already helped us to do this at their expenses.)
  2. prevent these new working age immigrants from establishing their families and produce babies while they are working here (as raising babies and educating them could be expensive.)
  3. export the old and thevsick to other lower-living-cost countries to “optimize” the usage of our financial resources. It is unwise to allocate too much resources to support these old bags who are no longer “productive” - Wasn’t there a practice a long time ago that American Indians or some other tribes might send their very old to the mountain with a bag of food?! (Just look at how much Medicare drains our national financial resources in the coming years! Hmm…does’t Cuba have a surplus of doctors that WE can put them into good use?! It could help optimize our “retirement system.”)</p>

<p>Now, a new form of very “efficient” modern plantation is born, by optimizing the global work force and “non-work force” to our advantage.</p>

<p>Maybe 2) is a little bit too evil so let’s skip that. (But didn’t we do exactly that when we were building our across-the-country railroad?) It seems some booming countries in middle east may still be doing this today (import contractor workers and send them back when the contract expires. In a sense, they do not exploit them by forcing them to do this. They actually provide them the great opportunity to improve their lives.)</p>

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<p>You’d be wrong about the first. The recession of 2008 largely bypassed both countries and Australia has been having a long economic boom due to natural resource demands on the international market. </p>

<p>Australia’s been happily extending immigration Visa’s for folks with certain in high demand professional skills. </p>

<p>In fact, Australia’s armed forces was in the news recently for having a recruitment drive for military veterans in certain high-demand fields like mechanics to join their armed forces and get an immigration visa and higher pay. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.stripes.com/news/serving-down-under-australia-offers-military-jobs-to-us-troops-facing-separation-1.176622”>http://www.stripes.com/news/serving-down-under-australia-offers-military-jobs-to-us-troops-facing-separation-1.176622&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>One thing you’re correct about is both countries have relatively less population density in relation to the landmass they occupy. Granted, one key reason is large parts of central Australia is uninhabitable as it’s desert whereas large parts of Canada are in areas where the cold weather conditions and other factors make living there less than optimal. </p>

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<p>Thanks for the correction.</p>

<p>I guess those of us living in this most powerful country in the world could mistakenly believe that we are better than other countries. LOL. But still, I still believe we are among one of the best. (except maybe our kids’ test scores as compared to the counterpart in some other countries.)</p>

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<p>

ARE U KIDDING ME??? The middle east has to be THE most exploitive region in the world for contract labor.
<a href=“http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44604#.VKBnzP8AA”>http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44604#.VKBnzP8AA&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^^ Facepalm.</p>

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<p>The world is changing very fast. I used to think Germany did not like foreigners. Back to the 80s and 90s I heard some news that German youth attacked foreigners on the street and I was afraid to go there. When I was in Germany 4 or 5 years I was totally surprised. I saw a lot of middle east foreigners on the train platforms, in the restaurants, in the hotels,… Now Germany has the highest immigrant population in Europe. The largest part came from Turkey. And Germany is still trying to attract foreign workers.</p>

<p>I guess we cannot think the old way.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/for-qualified-professionals/working/prospects/foreign-skilled-workers-on-the-german-labour-market[/url]”>http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/for-qualified-professionals/working/prospects/foreign-skilled-workers-on-the-german-labour-market&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.dw.de/german-firms-still-struggle-to-attract-skilled-foreign-workers/a-16920639[/url]”>http://www.dw.de/german-firms-still-struggle-to-attract-skilled-foreign-workers/a-16920639&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Now there are street fights because some of those immigrants in Germany support ISIS and the establishment of an Islamic State. Most of the fights are with other Muslims, though there are growing demonstrations against “Islamists”, with one last week drawing 10-15,000 people. One difference is that back in the 1980’s most of the immigrants were Turks and newer immigrants come from less secular nations. Remember, it wasn’t until Maastricht took effect that Germany allowed Turks to become citizens even if born in Germany. </p>

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<p>

U need to distinguish between the position of the govt v. the people on the street. Ethnic Germans still don’t like the Turks & other muslim immigrants that make up the underclass.</p>

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<p>

This statement somehow reminds me of this:</p>

<p>The interests of the Wall Street or the business leaders is often different from that of the main street. The prosperity of one does not imply the prosperity of the other.</p>

<p>Remember that Steve Jobs once had some under-the-table deals with the executives at some other major companies so that a company would not hire employees of other company? This makes the job of management easier and efficient, the salaries of workers depressed, and the stakeholders’ interests protected.</p>

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<p>What i meant by the the govt having a different position than the people on the street is that the Iranian govt might be shouting “death to America!”, but the guy on the Iranian street would be standing in line for a visa at the US Embassy, if Iran had a US Embassy. </p>

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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-cuban-artist-tania-bruguera-released-now-back-in-custody-reports-20141231-column.html

Read about the results of Tania Bruguera’s attempt at performance art in Cuba 2 days ago.

Take “Animal Farm” and a lot of “1984”, add a shot of Havana Club, a sprinkle of a Cohiba ashes: and there you go: Cuba for the last 55 years and today.

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Interesting how President Kennedy didn’t sign original Cuba embargo decree until just after he got a personal stash of about 1000 Petit Upmann Cuban cigars delivered to his West Wing office by his press secretary Pierre Salinger. As soon as Kennedy saw the cigars he had requested sitting in his office he pulled decree from out of his desk drawer and signed the embargo papers.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/castro-cuba-tampa-recast/2212000

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One of Cuba’s most prominent dissident groups said on Friday that 36 opposition activists, including a popular hip-hop artist, have been freed in the last two days as part of a deal to improve relations between Cuba and the United States.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/09/us-cuba-usa-prisoners-idUSKBN0KI12N20150109

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Cuba has freed all 53 prisoners as agreed in U.S. deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-usa-cuba-prisoners-idUSKBN0KL10K20150112