Cuba's Yoani Sánchez Speaks Out - Full Interview | MetroFocus

[MADem]

30. Bottom line, though, no matter how nicely Cuba trades with others, they are broke.

Well, surely not all of Cuba's pals are working at cross-purposes with them? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that, but ... I dunno. I don't see the exiles as having the clout they used to have, and there are fractures in their ranks, too.

I know their sugar (as sweet as Jamaican sugar, which is wonderful stuff) would make a big dent in that protected infrastructure (though Big Sugar could jump in with a partnership offer and help to set the price/rake in some of the profits with a modernization scheme), their smart population could/would make pharmaceuticals at a cheaper price, their doctors could do a lot of "closer to home with an easier flight/nicer vacation" medical tourism...there's a lot of money to be made.

Plenty of these pols are in bed with Big Sugar....but plenty are also in bed with Big Pharma and Big Fristian Medicine...so while I see competing priorities, I don't see any one group as holding sway anymore. Who has the best deal? Who has the biggest wallet?

And these Big Companies in USA do have a "reputation" such as it is, and they can open doors and facilitate access to markets...one hand washes the other, both wash the face, as it were.

I think the issues are more--pardon the term--"fundamental" than that. It could even be, if we want to flip the argument, that the "financials" are being used as cover for continued strife, not the other way round--because a political/ideological "insult" is just so Last Century.

The right deals can make money for all the "players" and I'd wager there are plenty of people, in the corporate world and in Cuban government and the small "private(ish) sector)" in Cuba, that would be more than willing to do business for cash on the barrel and an improvement in their GDP. I think the arc is well tilted towards that attitude.

I do think it's an unforgiven political insult (hey, George W. Bush knew how to hold a grudge--why should we think he's the only one?) that is holding all this "normalization" back. I don't have any insider knowledge, but from where I sit, it doesn't make sense, otherwise, because there's plenty of money to be made no matter which way we jump...and I wonder if I'll live long enough to see change--it's crazy, that it's been over a half century.