I must be missing something.

It is astounding and a wonder to me how rediculous some bootlickers can be.
Whenever anyone in any blog, brings up the real conditions inside Cuba, there is always some nut out there that brings up the embargo as the end all reason for the inhuman conditions.

First off, why is the American Embargo in place? Well, contrary to most people’s belief, the American Embargo was not placed by the angry Cuban exile community in Miami. It was put in place long before there were any Cuban-American political officials, by the American government in response to the unlawful appropriations of American properties in Cuba. These properties were valued at 1 billion dollars in 1960, as of 1996 it was estimated to be 7.7 billion dollars, I can’t imagine what it would be worth today.

Through the years the embargo has been modified so that today what exists is a whisper of an embargo, basically prohibiting the extension of any credit by an American bank and The World Bank to the Cuban Government. Cuba can purchase all kinds of agricultural, and medical supplies among other thingsssss. Don’t take my word for it, visit THIS site and you’ll see it for yourself.

These very same people that cry about how the situation in Cuba is like it is for Cubans because of the embargo fail to explain to me how the following is the fault of the embargo.

• Cubans not allowed on properties for foreigners, unless they work there.
• Cubans not allowed to travel without expressed government permission.
• Cubans not granted exit Visas when foreign countries have extended entrance visas to same individuals
• Cubans not allowed in hospitals for foreigners.
• Cubans not allowed to study what they want.
• Cubans rotting in jail for having a different ideology than that of the government.
• Cubans rotting in jail for writing news articles.
• Cubans not allowed access to the internet.
• All Cubans in general treated as second class citizens while foreigners are treated as first class citizens
• Cuba doesn’t have more than one political party.

Tell me what any of those things have to do and how they’re related to the US embargo on the island. Now as for the food, lets review all the things purchased by Cuba from the US with regards to food.

Keep in mind these are values in the “thousands of dollars” so that when the number is 59,228, we multiply that value by 1,000 as in the case of meat and poultry. These numbers do nott include the items purchased from other countries or the 100,000 barrels of oil a day being imported to Cuba from Venezuela.


(In thousands of dollars)

product

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

Wheat

22,789

36,736

57,516

50,705

47,199

Rice

6,266

10,778

64,048

39,204

40,999

Meat,poultry

23,350

37,034

63,034

65,788

59,228

The list is much much longer. Where did all that food go?

And here’s an EYE OPENER,here you'll see $7,000 in pleasure boats and motors last year, and under Toy, games, sporting goods you'll see $13,000. As far as I know, none of that is digestable. There are other curious items like these, you'll see.

Did you have a look see what interesting items have been purchase by the Caribbean crybabies? So what’s all the crying and bitching about on the part of the Cuban Government? It is about credit folks. Goods and products on credit that the Cuban Government has absolutely no plans in paying once it is given.

Cuba has one of the lowest country ratings in the world, barely ahead of Sudan, and Haiti. Euromoney Magazine rated Cuba the riskiest country to invest in out of a survey of 167 countries.

The Soviet Union tubed up to $4 billion dollars a year into Cuba before the Soviet collapse. The Cuban Government defaulted on most of its international debt in 1986 and does not have access to credit from international financial institutions like the World Bank, which means Havana must rely heavily on short-term loans to finance imports, chiefly food and fuel. Because of its poor credit rating, an $11 billion hard currency debt, and the risks associated with Cuban investment, interest rates have reportedly been as high as 22%. In 2002, citing chronic delinquencies and mounting short-term debts, Moody's lowered Cuba's credit rating to Caa1 -- "speculative grade, very poor." Dunn and Bradstreet rate Cuba as one of the riskiest economies in the world. You can read the above stated here


Below a list of Cuba’s foreign debt:
FOREIGN DEBT SNAPSHOT
(All amounts are converted to U.S. dollars.)
EUROPE: $10.9 billion. Paris Club creditors (Source: Banco Central de Cuba.) In 1986, Cuba suspended payments of the debt. Despite on-going negotiations, Cuba has yet to service its debt to the Club since issuing a moratorium in 1987.
Eastern Europe: $2.2 billion.

Russia: Estimated at roughly $20 billion.
Canada: $73 million (Excludes short and medium-term commercial debts to Canadian suppliers.)
ASIA
Japan: $1.7 billion (Japan is Cuba’s principal creditor, excluding the former Soviet Union.)
China: $400 million.
LATIN AMERICA
Argentina: $1.58 billion. (Cuba’s second largest creditor behind Japan.)
Mexico: $380 million.
Chile: $20 million.
Venezuela: $266 million. (Mostly in unpaid petroleum purchases, even under highly favorable terms.)
South Africa: $85 million
Folks that is over 39 billiong dollors in debt!
Now with all of this why should the US lift the embargo and extend Cuba any credit?


If you’re interested, here’s some more background on Cuba.