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Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
The Obama administration announced Friday a new round of executive actions designed to increase trade and travel with the communist island. And this is the one many Americans have been waiting for — no more restrictions on the island’s famed rum and cigars.
Which means, in specific terms:
Under the new rules, which go into effect Monday, travelers can purchase unlimited quantities of Cuban rum and cigars in any country where they are sold so long as they are for personal consumption. Sorry American couch potatoes: You can’t order Cuban rum and cigars online and have them shipped to your home.
Which is, for a cigar-lover like me, basically good news. And I think it’s also good news for the Cuban cigar industry. But not because they’re the best cigars — they’re not anymore, in my opinion. The best and most reliable brands are now made all over Central America. Some are even made in Florida. Castro’s brutal and incompetent leadership, along with the structural and inescapable failures of any Marxist experiment, have driven a collection of once-magnificent brands into mediocrity. Communism does that. Lada automobiles, Montecristo (Havana) Cigars…everything Marxism touches it turns into an inconsistent and mostly disappointing product.
So, yes, celebrate. I will, with a Cuban cigar. But I’ll be celebrating the (eventual) end to communism and Castro-ism in Cuba, which will enable the great Cuban brands to once again compete and succeed in the world marketplace, without an insane and economically perverted system destroying the product and the people behind it with a brutal and irrational government.
Published in General
A tad premature. I don’t expect to see any changes until long after both brothers are in the ground.
When the Soviets relinquished control over eastern Europe, few who were members of the former puppet governments, Romania being an exception, wished to hand on to communism and authoritarianism. The infrastructure of the Cuban government is populated by those who are invested in keeping the system in place.
The best Cigar I’ve ever had was actually from Nicaragua.
Rum and cigars are fine. What I want to know is if I can go to Cuba and bring back a Cuban who doesn’t want to live there anymore
Indeed. Were we not already sold this song and dance with regards to the PRC?
These actions will do nothing for the people of Cuba but will certainly ensure the brutal thugs running this open air jail have sufficient funds to maintain a more modern security infrastructure. Rum and cigars sold to wealthy social justice dilettantes in order to provide the dollars that tighten the grip of the state. The old stereotype of the fat cat oppressing the masses has never been more true, what irony for the Left.
The best cigar I ever had is the one I didn’t smoke.
Note: Cubans aren’t as good as they used to be. In the 90’s, when cigars became really popular, Cuba wanted to get a piece of the action so curtailed their aging process to speed up production.
If I were a smoker, I wouldn’t want to give one cent of my money to that brutal dictatorship.
I used to smoke a pipe. Not only does it smell better than most high quality cigars, but it gives one that studious, intelligent yet paternal look that I can’t pull off on my own.
Preferably a slick-fielding middle infielder with high OPS potential.
“The best and most reliable brands are now made all over Central America. Some are even made in Florida.”
Don’t leave a member hanging, Founder Rob. What’s on your list?
In retrospect, I am not persuaded that that the Cuban embargo was a very good idea. I understand that desire to punish Castro for the communist confiscation of American property. I do not question that the Castor regime and and is evil.
However, I believe that trade smooths out tensions that otherwise exist. Maybe not completely, but both trading partners have an incentive to work out differences peacefully. To be sure, wars have erupted in history between countries (or kingdoms or regimes) that were engaged in trade. But strong trade relationships discourage armed conflict. Certainly, those nobles/elites/merchants with political influence will work to influence the sovereign/government to avoid conflict.
Look at China. We are now too entwined to think seriously about an all-out war. Sure, there is the possibility of limited conflict in the South China Sea. But I have to think that trade is a major reason China never carried out its threat to invade Taiwan.
I wonder how different things might have been if we have not had the 50 year embargo. Sure we had no wars (forgetting the Bay of Pigs), but I wonder if trade would have ameliorated the communist economic tendencies as it has in China.
[Before you jump on me about China, it has a long way to go, but because of our strong trade relationship, there is entrepreneurship unexpected in the truly communist country.]
I learned about the Montecristo #2 when I worked in Guangzhou, China in the mid-late 1980’s. We would travel into Hong Kong on the weekends and invade the walk-in humidor at The Peninsula. It was fun to light one up in the beautiful lobby of that hotel.
In 1992, when we were drilling onshore Trinidad, the Cubans sent a contingent to Carifesta V. Most of the Caribbean nations would show off the trinkets they would export but the Cubans sent these two old men, case upon case upon case of rum (which wasn’t as good as the T&T rum) and about 10 bales of tobacco. The old gents would spend the day in the Queens Park Savannah and we would cross the street after work and drink a few rums with the boys while they would roll a cigar for us. Now that was the best cigar I ever had.
America will go Marxist before the Commies give up Cuba.
And we’re almost there. Hillary is your hand maiden.
Hard to state the obvious without taking a swipe at Rob. Sorry Rob, but you’re wrong.