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How Dumb is Senator Jeff Flake?
Che looks on proudly, his victory complete at last
Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and the Gang of Eight is one of two Republican senators accompanying President Obama to the socialist gulag of Cuba. (The other is Nevada’s Dean Heller.) Here’s Senator Flake’s explanation:
“We’re not embracing Cuba,” he said. “We’re actually, finally, imposing a get tough policy, because we’re going to expose them to American values and commerce.”
Flake said he hopes the Cuban trip will inspire the country’s leaders to adopt policies that help it move closer to a more capitalist society and help Arizonans realize what a Communist country is truly like.
“(They can see) what happens when the government controls not just the commanding heights of the economy, but the entire economy,” he said. “It’s a pretty sobering thought. For those who value socialism, or want to move closer to socialism, that’s a pretty good deterrent.”
Does he really think his visit is going to reveal the evils of socialism instead of being portrayed as a propaganda victory for the Castro regime?
And these “get tough” policies on Cuba, are they anything like the “Get tough” border security policies in the Gang of Eight bill that amounted to nothing more than politely requesting that Obama Administration prepare a border security plan and promising to spend a lot of money?
Update: The Marriott Corporation is one of Jeff Flake’s largest corporate donors. Also on the guest list for Obama’s Cuba trip … the CEO of the Marriott Corporation.
Published in Foreign Policy, General
Price levels would fall because of Supply & Demand. More stuff (which comes because of trade) means lower prices.
The Castro regime can steal money, but they can’t steal lower prices. They could lower wages to compensate for the lower prices, but then the demand would cease and so would the supply.
China reformed out of necessity. Obama’s actions are telling Cuba that it isn’t necessary for Cuba to reform. So why should Cuba reform?
Well the story of China’s thaw is quite interesting. But perhaps the biggest factor in China’s market reforms was the ability to trade with the West, which encouraged the Chinese to allow foreign investment and Free-Market Zones to take advantage of lower prices and opportunities to produce for foreign markets.
Basically, the Chinese government saw an opportunity to increase the prestige of China by making it wealthier with foreign trade a freer markets. It took that opportunity, and the Chinese people became much wealthier as a result as well. This opportunity was given to China by the lower of trade barriers with China in the 1970s.
Because allowing for the people of Cuba to become wealthier will allow for the Cuban government to become wealthier as well. To acquire this wealth, the Cuban government will have to relax it’s iron grip. The same as has happened in China and Vietnam.
Has it occurred to you that supply & demand doesn’t result in lower prices in a command economy?
The Castro’s actual can and do steal the benefits of trade. They really are communists. This seems to be the point you are missing. That’s why your theory is completely without merit.
Are you really equating the tax system in a republic–overbearing or not–with the methodology by which the Cuban dictatorship helps itself to an enormous portion of monies paid to it for wages? You can’t be serious.
This type of doctrinaire, by the numbers libertarianism is a prime example of why it’s so difficult to communicate with the true believers. The market “works” properly when both sides are in relative equipoise. Being anti-sanctions is fine if the other guy recognizes a free, or more or less free, market. It does not work at all when the game is rigged. You and Senator Flake are welcome to sit back and convince yourself that the minute benefits that will “trickle down” to the populace are worth enabling a police state that does not tolerate dissent. But the bottom line is that Cuba remains a police state, people stay in jail, and the populace gets another few pennies any hour. If they’re lucky.
I stated
I mentioned South Africa quite clearly.
I believe that you left out this part in the context of a specific discussion of Marriott and Cuba:
So really, let’s agree that you fudged that and leave it at that.
I understand that you have some allegiance to the Senator. But he’s wrong on this one, and the Cubans are the losers. As time will prove. I appreciate the discussion, however.
Cause and effect reversed. Cubans would become wealthy only if the regime allowed that. The regime already reaps the benefits of the peoples’ labor because of it’s iron grip.
Restating one’s thesis does not make it true.
Command Economies live in the same world of scarcity that we do. If they were able to manipulate the costs of goods in the way you suggest they are able to do, then they wouldn’t have these problems. By allowing trade with Cuba, you put more goods into Cuba. These goods are not all guns and nukes, but commodity goods. Allowing goods to move freely into Cuba means that goods that are cheaper to produce outside of Cuba and ship in are able to do so. This means Cubans can less capital and labor into producing those particular goods, and produce more as a result.
You seem to be under the impression that the government of Cuba will intercept all incoming wealth and trade it for guns, tanks and nukes. History simply does not bear this out, nor does logic. The purpose of the Cuban regime opening up is to gain more means of production and long term investment. The same as what happened in China.
And the Cuban Regime has a vested interest in allowing the Cuban people to become wealthier, because the wealthier the people are, the wealthier the government of Cuba is as well. Again: China’s government is getting much wealthier as a result of loosening it’s grip and allowing China as a whole to get wealthier.
wait a minute. supply and demand:When your service or product is in demand you can charge more for it. When no one wants/needs it you drop the price. What am I missing?
When the quantity supplied of a good increases, the price of the good decreases. Opening relations and dropping trade barriers will result in an influx of trade (goods) to Cuba. Increased Quantity Supplied.
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The Cuban Government wants money, it gets that money through the production of the people of Cuba. Cuba will be able to produce more if it has more open relations with the rest of the world, and access to cheaper goods and markets to sell to. The government will undoubtedly take a large portion of this new wealth when it is created, but at the same time a lot of it is reinvested in Cuban infrastructure and Cuban living standards. I repeat myself again: The same as has happened in China and Vietnam.
Re: #73:That’s why iProducts are so inexpensive, yes? And what does Cuba export and to whom ( I really am asking)?
The US is the only country to have trade sanctions with Cuba. North Korea only trades with China, Iran and a little with South Korea. Both countries are failures. If we could get Canada and Europe to stop trading with Cuba (and stop vacationing there) the Castro government would be long gone.
Well, my senator is a useful idiot.
Just like North Korea’s dictatorship has collapsed due to its isolation?
North Korea is the most totalitarian state on the planet, what about it’s situation suggests to you that isolation weakens the control of dictators?
Cuba exports mostly agriculture. More importantly however are the goods it will be importing, which lowers prices in Cuba
I can’t believe some here say prices will fall because there will be a greater supply of goods. Goods that come in independently of the state are called contraband, that still will continue to be the case although since the state will be able to buy from the nearest and biggest source and not just the rest of the world, which includes China, there will be some goods on which the state can make their usual mark up. Ordinary Cubans can’t smuggle goods unless they have a source of foreign exchange. The do not but the opening will create some opportunities to earn some, prostitution and narcotics come to mind but the State also has a monopoly on those things which it tries to guard. By the way which are those consumer goods that the US is producing that aren’t available in the free trade zones in nearby Panama or San Andres? The opening will have no impact on Cuba as the opening extracted nothing from the Cubans.
Again, we are not trading with the Cuban government, and giving them weapons of war.
The government of Cuba may be very powerful, but it can’t grind wheat into gunpowder.
In order for the government of Cuba to become more affluent, it has to produce things and sell them abroad; so the wealth of Cuba’s government is dependent on the success of its production sector. However the standards of living of the Cuban people is also dependent on this. This production sector becomes more productive if Cuba has open relations with the US. While it is true that the Cuban government is an intermediary between the Production Sector and its people, more supplies will be provided to the people of Cuba because the scarcity of those supplies is lower.
This isn’t theory, it is what has happened in every communist country the west has opened up to. And it leads to more freedom for the people, because the government gets in the habit of having a slightly looser grip so that it doesn’t kill the people it is gripping on to, and then they can produce more.
re: “grinding wheat into gunpowder”…Actually, Obama’s policy gives the Castro regime increased foreign exchange which can be spent to purchase weaponry from their axis of evil friends. Only a fool would believe that the Castro regime will prioritize on the well-being of Cubans. It never has. It has no reason to. Obama has given the regime license and resources to enable it to continue it’s oppressive ways.
re: “Cuban government is an intermediary between the Production Sector and its people”… No, the Cuban government is not an intermediary. It is the principal. The outside world deals with Cuba exclusively through the regime. The “productive sector” has no say on how the benefits of increased production are distributed. The regime determines that.
re: “This isn’t theory, it is what has happened in every communist country the west has opened up to” … I addressed your theory of determinism several comments ago. Cuba isn’t China. Cuba isn’t Vietnam. Freedom is not an inevitable consequence of opening up to a communist regime.
I will add, gratuitously, that the arguments you’re making here are extremely naive. To the extent that these ideas are representative of libertarian thought, they speak poorly of libertarianism. There are several thoughtful Ricochet libertarians that I suspect could make a better libertarian case. I’d be interested in hearing it.
Libertarian arguments must make assumptions that do not exist in a gulag. Correction, I suppose King Rat is a counter example, but he was dependent on rats that wandered into the camp. Our friend here is like the economist on the island island with a chemist and a physicist, “assume we have a can opener” So assume there is a free productive sector. This isn’t naiveté it’s ignorance. The place is held together because those who might object are in jail or in Miami and the popularity of the Castros. When both Castros are dead, their mystique and charisma won’t be around to hold it together. Only repression will remain. It won’t endure unless the price of oil recuperates, the Maduro regime survives and the Venezuelan subsidies continue. Obama has extended the regimes life, but probably not for long. We should have opened relations but gotten some political prisoners released and free movement for our embassy. We got nothing. It’s disgusting.
Naivety is believing that the Obama’s only foreign policy goal is to arm communists and terrorists. Naivety is also glossy over tremendous amounts of detail to just say “Cuba = Communist = Bad.” In doing so, you are ignoring very important aspects of trade, in doing so, you are mistaking trade for a subsidy.
The Cuban regime, in order to buy weapons, must sell products. The Castro’s don’t have totalitarian control outside of Cuba, so they can’t force people to give them stuff. In order to sell things, Cuba has to produce things to sell. Cuba simply can’t buy weapons unless it produces things to sell on the foreign market to get the funds first. This is why Cuba must use the incoming benefits of trade to improve their means of production, and part of improving the means of production is improving the standards of living of the workmen, i.e. the populace.
The arguments regarding China and Vietnam forget that those countries once looked much the same way Cuba looks now. They weren’t forced to liberalize their economies because of administrative pressures anymore than Cuba is being forced to, once you get to the size of a nation-state the difficulties of managing a socialist economy level off at a level at which regional units are required; it is a factor, but a factor that is not nearly as relevant when the opportunity to trade on foreign markets is closed.
…as if I said any of this.
I didn’t say anything about a Free Production sector. The fundamental laws of supply and demand are not exclusive to free markets because they are dependent on the truth of scarcity. It is usually socialists who assume that the state, by manipulating prices, also manipulates the costs.
But I cannot argue a lame point, so I will ask you to elaborate on the specific difference with s command economy that makes things not change value based on supply. Because if this is the case, Castro needs only to print massive amounts of Cuban Pesos, and because inflation & deflation apparently don’t exist in Cuba, his people will become rich.
Well, at least you’re admitting that the regime has nefarious aims. But your conclusion (bolded) is pure conjecture, and yes, naive.
I suspect this might be at the heart of our disagreement about your “all communist states share the same destiny” theory, but I’m not quite sure what you’re saying. Please feel free to elaborate.
Explain why. Healthier and better off people are much better workers than emaciated ones. The Cuban Government doesn’t seek to starve its people, it is simply ambivalent to their suffering excepting when it affects them. And it does affect them to have an emaciated workforce.
I have no good feelings about Castro, I think the Cuban government is a parasite living off the Cuban people. But understand that a parasite doesn’t want the host to die, but actually wants the host to be somewhat healthy, at least to the degree that there is more for the parasite to eat from. This is not out of compassion but because the parasite’s health is dependent on that of the host.
Neither did I.
Yeah, that explains it. I guess this is just a waste of time.