Maroon Dawn said:

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Mas89 said:

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You are welcome to pay their bills but I don't want to. Would really like to go see it and fish there someday if it was Safe though.

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Cuba has a ton of potential to be an economic positive if it quit trying to make the failure of communism "work"

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They could make an absolute fortune on tourism alone.

I feel bad for the Cubans. They just didn't apply communism right. If we did it here, we could make it work.

YouBet said:

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Not that it wasn't already a failed state, but Trump may get a two for one special here with Venezuela. Cuba was only staying above water because of cheap VZ oil. Some of these stats are staggering.

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/u-s-oil-blockade-of-venezuela-pushes-cuba-toward-collapse-75289b5b?st=pJ6dRq&reflink=article_copyURL_share

VZ and Cuba's relationship:

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Venezuela has been vital for Cuba's economy since 1999, when then-President Hugo Chvez described the two countries as bound together "in a sea of happiness." Cuba deployed sports trainers, doctors and counterintelligence agents to Venezuela, the latter to root out traitors who might overthrow Chvez. Venezuela responded with 100,000 barrels of oil shipped to Cuba daily.

The heavily subsidized oil shipments have fallen to 30,000 barrels a day. Agents from Cuba's vaunted intelligence service remain in Venezuela, where they have worked to purge disloyal military officers and government officials, helping ensure Maduro remains ensconced in power.

Cuba's deep reliance on Venezuela means Cuba's Communist government is doing all it can to prevent Madurowho trained in Cuba as a young manfrom being forced from office in his greatest challenge after nearly 13 years in office. That means ensuring he is always surrounded by security and loyal aides, with no one carrying cellphones or other electronic devices.

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Was anyone else aware of the following? 25% of the population has left!! Note the year this started. Thanks Biden! Helpfully, a good percentage of those don't vote Democrat.

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More than 2.7 million peopleabout a quarter of the island's population, many of them young and ambitioushave fled the island since 2020, hundreds of thousands of them to the U.S., according to calculations of a Havana-based demographer, Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos.

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Here is your communist utopia Dems and DSA:

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Nearly 90% of people live in extreme poverty, and 70% go without at least a meal a day, said the Social Rights Observatory, a think tank that conducted a month of polling this past summer. For more than 70% of Cubans, their main concerns are the lack of food and the constant blackouts, which can go for 18 hours or more a day in some regions. The observatory found that 78% intend to flee the island.

Cubans who have fledas well as others on the island who spoke by phonesaid that garbage is piling up, communicable diseases like chikungunya and dengue are spreading, and many children aren't going to school. Water availability is intermittent, leaving Cubans sometimes unable to bathe, wash dishes or flush toilets.

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But never mind all that....loyal communists to the end!

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In Cuba's National Assembly this month, some legislators spoke candidly about the gravity of the situation, though there is opposition toward greatly expanding the small private-business sector.

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I believe the part about 25% of their population leaving.. a portion of that is in the Permian Basin. The amount of Cubans here has skyrocketed. Mainly delivery/truck drivers but also in the hospitality industries in West Texas.
It's is a known, almost ironic joke around here about the amount of Mexican community who complain about the number of Cubans in the workforce.

Cuba is the proverbial diamond in the lump of coal.

I don't think you guys are getting it … she's goes to Cuba to learn how to implement their policies in LA.

annie88 said:

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Most of my life I've been hearing so much crap about Venezuela and Cuba. They just always seem to be in such states of turmoil and bull***** It's exhausting.

I know America ain't perfect, but you look around the world and you see the **** shows in some of these countries especially the Middle East and such and you just ask yourself. What the hell.

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Ilhan Omar says the USA sucks:

Mas89 said:

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Sharpshooter said:

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Let's ship all of our Ivy League professors over there to show Cuba how to make communism work.

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And put plenty of Rice and Pinto beans on the boat with them. They can grow their own chickens, eggs, and vegetables. How can they be hungry surrounded by an ocean?? Do they not have fishing line and hooks? I just refuse to believe that nonsense. Should have plenty of vegetables, chickens, eggs, beef, etc.

Seriously, all the Liberals should be required to spend a week in Haiti and Cuba. To see how great Socialism works!!! Many would not stay the entire week I bet.

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as every communist since Marx in 1885 has stated:

communism works great, it has just never been implemented correctly

EX TEXASEX said:

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which ironically helped the economy because the people who came here send US dollars back to Venezuela.

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It also really helped the economy of Columbia by flooding the country with prostitutes. Which really reduced the cost and the amount of time it took for Columbian men to find love (temporary ). Allowing them to use all that extra time and money to better their country !!!

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I know this is actually what happened-

but it would NOT help the economy of Colombia

because they are Colombian pesos then being sent back to Venezuela.

"Note the year this started. Thanks Biden!"

It's mind blowing how Republicans don't remember who was president in 2020.

Queso1 said:

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I feel bad for the Cubans. They just didn't apply communism right. If we did it here, we could make it work.

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The just need some college kids to show them how to do it.

YouBet said:

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Ducks4brkfast said:

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YouBet said:

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Geez. Good thing I don't shop there either.

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Definitely don't check Amazon.

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I stopped consumerism some years ago.

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Many people don't realize that a lot of individual sellers use Amazon for their small businesses. It's not all from them. Sure they probably take a cut, but it's not just a big company getting all the profits.

I often wonder what we could do with countries like Cuba, poor South America countries, most countries in Africa if we were allowed to "gentrify" them.

I was watching a documentary about Blackhawk Down on Netflix and they showed video of the beaches and water in Somalia. It was gorgeous! Take those views and beachfront property and transplant it somewhere in the US and immediately you'd have million dollar homes, high tourist areas, etc. But Somalians have done exactly squat with it.

Can you imagine what we (capitalists) could make of those areas if truly allowed in those regions to invest, move to, build homes and infrastructure, etc? So much beautiful land in the southern hemisphere (S Amer & Africa) and in the Middle East that's available if we could just get a chance to do something with it. Instead, it either sits empty or in absolute squalor.

annie88 said:

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YouBet said:

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Ducks4brkfast said:

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YouBet said:

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Geez. Good thing I don't shop there either.

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Definitely don't check Amazon.

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I stopped consumerism some years ago.

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Many people don't realize that a lot of individual sellers use Amazon for their small businesses. It's not all from them. Sure they probably take a cut, but it's not just a big company getting all the profits.

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Unfortunately, Amazon intentionally makes it difficult to find and do business with those sellers. No easy way to search domestic vs international, Made in USA, Chinese companies running "sponsored" ads so that their cheap crap is pushed to the top of the search results. I've even tried to invest significant effort in reading descriptions, trying to find country of origin, etc and it's a wasted effort. It shows up and product is still stamped with the damn Chinese CE logo with instruction manuals obviously written by non-English speakers.

AJ02 said:

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I often wonder what we could do with countries like Cuba, poor South America countries, most countries in Africa if we were allowed to "gentrify" them.

I was watching a documentary about Blackhawk Down on Netflix and they showed video of the beaches and water in Somalia. It was gorgeous! Take those views and beachfront property and transplant it somewhere in the US and immediately you'd have million dollar homes, high tourist areas, etc. But Somalians have done exactly squat with it.

Can you imagine what we (capitalists) could make of those areas if truly allowed in those regions to invest, move to, build homes and infrastructure, etc? So much beautiful land in the southern hemisphere (S Amer & Africa) and in the Middle East that's available if we could just get a chance to do something with it. Instead, it either sits empty or in absolute squalor.

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If Africa could get their act together, they would rival every country in the world. Instead, they fight each other and have civil war every other 6 months.

Exactly. From the constant infighting to the absolute corruption from their "leaders" (even more so than ours). Just stuck in the mentality of centuries past. They have so much land and abundant resources that the rest of the planet needs. They could be the next Abu Dhabi / UAE if they'd just get their isht together and stop being so "tribal".

If Africa could get their act together, they would rival every country in the world. Instead they fight each other and have civil war every other 6 months.

In what ways?

Africa is not one I would put on that list.

I ordered things quite often from there, and I pay attention to who I'm ordering them from. It's not really that hard.

Zeihan did a video a year or two ago talking about how Cuba still uses very old oil-fired power plants and how difficult they are to maintain. IIRC they run on this type of heavy Venezuelan oil.

No one makes a better American than a communist refugee. Just make sure you aren't getting the ones out of prisons and insane asylums and don't let them freeload. They know what leftists policies do and will beat our resident communists over the head with facts.

annie88 said:

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I ordered things quite often from there, and I pay attention to who I'm ordering them from. It's not really that hard.

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Then you'll have to teach me your tricks. Because I can go buy a lamp from what appears to be an American company, then tracking comes through and it's on a slow boat from China. Or it shows up and it's got the CE on it. (Not to be confused with C E.)

Nowhere that I can find on Amazon's listings does it give you country of origin. Nowhere that I can find is there a search option to filter for "made in USA".

Aren't most of our refineries setup for heavy crude as well? We should be going after US refineries for not doing more to utilize the light shale produced in the USA. I'm sick of getting sucked into conflicts with countries whose sole relevance is oil.

Have a good friend from Cuba with family there. He told me as bad as it is there, the government propaganda (and Russia propaganda) is everything bad is the fault of the United States. That American policies and sanctions are what has destroyed their country. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an uprising there.

YouBet said:

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The other thing keeping it afloat for a while was sex tourism. It is/was one of the go to sex vacations for a long time.

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FIFY

MaxPower said:

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Aren't most of our refineries setup for heavy crude as well? We should be going after US refineries for not doing more to utilize the light shale produced in the USA. I'm sick of getting sucked into conflicts with countries whose sole relevance is oil.

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Consider the API gravity of the situation.

Can Cuba be far behind?

🚨 JUST IN: Russia's Foreign Ministry is now EVACUATING the families of diplomats from Maduro's Venezuela as President Trump ramps up military pressure - AP

👀

Welcome to the TRUMP DOCTRINE! Our adversaries know Trump doesn't play games 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/KYJqqCgHhk

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 22, 2025

"Going after us refineries" for not using the right kind of oil? Those guys are so regulated they can't change much, and good luck trying to build one. On top of the impossible regulations who is going to pay for it?
That had to be one of the worst ideas I have seen on this forum, which is full of terrible ideas.

Africa is a continent not a country….

To try to retool would be very expensive and the regulatory burden so high and construction delays so long it would not be profitable.

The best shot we have of accomplishing that would be under the Trump Administration but all it takes is one Chinese-sponsored environmentalist group filing suit and one federal judge to stop a project in its tracks.

(And yes I do believe the majority of these environmentalist groups who sue to stop all of our key infrastructure projects are being influenced by foreign intelligence agencies.)

aggiehawg said:

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Can Cuba be far behind?

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what do they have that we want?

Venezuela at least makes financial sense because it helps us and hurts the commies out east.

EFR said:

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"Going after us refineries" for not using the right kind of oil? Those guys are so regulated they can't change much, and good luck trying to build one. On top of the impossible regulations who is going to pay for it?
That had to be one of the worst ideas I have seen on this forum, which is full of terrible ideas.

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Sounds like a great opportunity for Trump's deregulation. Why is our trade policy to become less dependent on China but we are ok being dependent on whatever **** hole has heavy crude?

flashplayer said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Can Cuba be far behind?

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what do they have that we want?

Venezuela at least makes financial sense because it helps us and hurts the commies out east.

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The only thing the Soviets wanted from Cuba was a launch site against the U.S. After the Cuban Missile Crisis was over, why did they stay? Just to piss us off.

So yeah, getting now Russia out of Cuba would be a great thing. Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, Biden could never accomplish.

I hope so, Cuba used to be a casino / holiday Paradise before the spreading cancer of communism came in. Imagine if they made a new govt with no regulations - they could try and become the Singapore of the Gulf (of America) .

Cyprian said:

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I hope so, Cuba used to be a casino / holiday Paradise before the spreading cancer of communism came in. Imagine if they made a new govt with no regulations - they could try and become the Singapore of the Gulf (of America) .

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There might be a pop drain from Miami as Cubans would flock home. Could change political demos in certain areas were that to happen.