End The Embargo?

Just curious if everyone feels the same as I do.

asking cigar smokers probably isn't fair

It's like asking a kid if they want a bar a chocolate in a candy store......

Its going to take ALOT to get that to happen.

As has been stated in the past.............The quality of the cigars may suck for awhile ???

But I guess I'm up for it!!

If the embargo is done away with and the market dictates the price, the demad is there, Opus X and Padron Anniverario's will be moderate priced smokes.

I think lifting the Embargo would throw cuban smokes into a slump in quality and a hike in price. This could last YEARS.I don't want to see that happen. ??? Again

I think the embargo should remain in place so long as that no good SOB Castro remains in power. When the time comes that he dies or gets overthrown, we'll have to see how the new regieme is.

If Castro continues his human rights violations, terrorism and other "bad" things that he does, then the embargo should remain in place no matter what my personal feelings are about wanting to be able to obtain Cuban cigars easier or the pros and cons concerning cigar quality are.

PuroBrat said:

I think lifting the Embargo would throw cuban smokes into a slump in quality and a hike in price. This could last YEARS.I don't want to see that happen. ??? Again

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I will have to agree with this in gen.

-If, all of a sudden Cuban cigars are available in the US, there will be another cigar-boom and I am pretty sure they are not keeping a nice supply standing by with "For sale in US" standing by [might be wrong on this tho].
-It will be like it is in Cuba, with everyone and their mother selling 'genuine Cuban' cigars! :0 , :sign: .
-The prices wil go up higher than in Canada and the UK since everyone will want them [or to at least try them] and then Altadis will do the Fuente tyhing and only ship to some places and not others.
-Of course we will also have cigar-makers doing what they do now, saying it has 'real Cuban tobacco', a/k/a one piece of a leaf was thrown in for good meas.
-Not to mention that Bush will tax the h*ll out of them so his tobacco friends can stay in buiusness. :angry:
-I mean, outside of The U.S., how many of the brands we smoke are reg. found? Have been abroad a few times, and while yes, some brands can be bought, most cannot. With Cuban cigars available, many brands will be forced to close down. Not all mind you, but a bunch.
-There will be a lot of crap over brand names. Yeah, most do not like the Cohibas we can buy here and do not like the others, but I do like the Domestic HdMs, what will happen to them?
-Not to mention that many of the Cuban brand names are already accounted for in the US as per distribution and such.


On the plus side [now that I am done ranting ]
-Cuban cigar wil be available.
-Yeah, it will prob. suck for a bit, but things will bounce back eventually, they always do.
-If you like the Fuente BTL, how about a BTL with a cuban wrapper thrown in and some nice ligro?
-There will be a great chance for mixes of current cigars with some cuban as well, Padron, Fuente, Davidoff [this is a maybe]. :thumbs:
-Going downtown in a big city, you could walk into a LCdH and be greeted by a great staff.
-Again, this will take a little, but, you will also get a bunch of people becoming more informed about the product.
-Altadis will put things into place to cut down on most counterfits like many other domestics have already done.



yeah, so that is my rant for today.
There are good and bad things cigar-wise, right now, will not work, in the future quite poss.

golfgar said:

If the embargo is done away with and the market dictates the price, the demad is there, Opus X and Padron Anniverario's will be moderate priced smokes.

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Oh, I highly doubt that. More likely is that once state sales tax and state tobacco tax is added to the price of Cubans, they'll be rather expensive.

I think Padrons and Opus X's can stand on their own toe to toe with what Cuba has to offer... but of course, your tastes may vary.

sir-smokes-a-lot said:

Not to mention that Bush will tax the h*ll out of them so his tobacco friends can stay in buiusness

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I'm not aware of any federal tobacco tax on cigars (perhaps there is one, I'm just not aware of it) -- but regardless, which of Bush's "friends" are in the cigar industry, and how would taxing the sales of cigars aid any purported "friends"? Taxes are a negative when it comes to sales, not a positive, and the money goes to the government, not to the companies selling said product.

This statement doesn't make sense.

Perhaps you mean his non-Cuban tobacco friends? Which ones are those? Statement still doesn't make any sense to me, even parsed that way.

moki said:

I think Padrons and Opus X's can stand on their own toe to toe with what Cuba has to offer... but of course, your tastes may vary.

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Ditto here ! :thumbs:

Of course, there is also the non-cigar aspect to things
[guys I may be waaaay off in what I write, if so correct me on it]

Yeah, it is a crap communist govt. that should be democratic like us, then we can come in and strip-mine the place then serve nice coconut drinks w/ little straw hats in them for $20 to go with out $5 McDonald's Hamburgers and $50 Cohibas [hey, supply and demand]

well, not that far, but IMHO it is not like he goes around and kills people in the streets for fun.
yes, it is a communist country, just like China and Russia [for the most part].
yes, both are starting to get some capitalist ventures going, but they are still communists.
If we do things with them, why not Cuba?
I am pretty sure Cuba doesn't have one of the largest standing armies in the world [China] or tons of push-button nukes [Russia. yeah we are 'disarming', but really now ...].

I think that the embargo was put in place for a good reason back in the day. I do not see the need for it now.
Cuba is still around, Castro is still in power, the people are still alive.
Not to mention Cuba still does buisness with almost all of the rest of the world [of the countries that take part in international trade]

So, maybe we wait for Castro to die.
Some new guy comes in, we offer to slowly lift a few things and start to ease our way back in.
It will be exactly like China, where they are still communist, but are also becoming capitalists as well.
With the exra boost from the U.S., Cuba's streets will be a little cleaner, a few more of the broken-down buildings will be repaired for offices and apartments.
And tourism will get a boost as the people who currently go in, will travel thru the US instead and our airlines will get a little extra boost.


So, yeah, these are my opinions on this for the moment. May be way off, maybe not.
But, would not see the harm in seeing the ban eventually lifted. only thing now is how the Cuban-Americans will vote. but really, I think many will want to go back home again and see their families.

moki said:

sir-smokes-a-lot said:

Not to mention that Bush will tax the h*ll out of them so his tobacco friends can stay in buiusness

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I'm not aware of any federal tobacco tax on cigars (perhaps there is one, I'm just not aware of it) -- but regardless, which of Bush's "friends" are in the cigar industry, and how would taxing the sales of cigars aid any purported "friends"? Taxes are a negative when it comes to sales, not a positive, and the money goes to the government, not to the companies selling said product.

This statement doesn't make sense.

Perhaps you mean his non-Cuban tobacco friends? Which ones are those? Statement still doesn't make any sense to me, even parsed that way.

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By this I mean the import taxes.
I am assuming, right or wrong, that IF Cuban cigars were available, the govt. would put a nice import tax on them.
It is similar to Japan and the 1000% import tax on foreign rice coming in or how we have import taxes on foreign cars.
IMO, to help keep afloat some of our cigar companies, the govt. would place a hefty import tax so they would cost more to get.

for example,
in WI, have seen domestic Montie #2's for $15 [tax incl.]
and [let's say for arguement] Cuban Montie #2's are $10.

now, if you could get a cuban cigar for 5 cheaper than the domestic one, which would you choose? ???


Now,
the U.S., puts a nice tax on them, now instead of $10, they are $16, once you add the WI tobacco tax of 25%, they are now $20 each and that is without any store profit.
So you will be able to buy them, but now some will think twice about getting 3 Cubans or 4 domestics.

coventrycat86 said:

I think the embargo should remain in place so long as that no good SOB Castro remains in power. When the time comes that he dies or gets overthrown, we'll have to see how the new regieme is.

If Castro continues his human rights violations, terrorism and other "bad" things that he does, then the embargo should remain in place no matter what my personal feelings are about wanting to be able to obtain Cuban cigars easier or the pros and cons concerning cigar quality are.

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Although I understand your point, I disagree. Whatever the reasons for the embargo it obviously hasn't worked. Castro has not been affected at all. The Cuban people are the ones that are suffering.

Is lifting the embargo going to make everything all fine and dandy?
I don't think so.

But any improvement in the qulaity of life of the Cuban people is a good thing. It's a tough topic for me because I have a grandmother over there. I have aunts,uncles (who send me some great handrolled cigars from the street) and cousins overthere. It's tough for me to make a stand on principle when its family that is being affected. If ending the embargo provided just a chance that their lives would improve, then I say take that chance.

I voted yes, but my reasons have nothing to do with cigars and everything to do with bringing down a dictator. The embargo has not hurt Cuba. The fall of communism in Eastern Europe is what has hurt Cuba. Our embargo against Cuba was justified in the early 60's-70's. It is just a political pivot point for ex-patriates now and while they may have some point in their views, so did the American Indians, when we took over their land.

ricmac25 said:

Although I understand your point, I disagree. Whatever the reasons for the embargo it obviously hasn't worked. Castro has not been affected at all. The Cuban people are the ones that are suffering.

Is lifting the embargo going to make everything all fine and dandy?
I don't think so.

But any improvement in the qulaity of life of the Cuban people is a good thing.

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Agreed, but with a Communist government over there, where everything is funneled through the state, will lifting the embargo really help the Cuban people, or just cement Castro's power (and whomever he hands it to)?

With the strength of the citizens, communism can be demolished. Until the citizens of Cuba get to feel some real freedom, they will be content with what they have. Lifting the embargo and the influence of American business, could bring this in a very quick manner.

Matt R said:

With the strength of the citizens, communism can be demolished. Until the citizens of Cuba get to feel some real freedom, they will be content with what they have. Lifting the embargo and the influence of American business, could bring this in a very quick manner.

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I had a nice long chat with a guy from Cuba about this while down in Puerto Rico. What he told me that I did not, and likely could never understand the control Castro has over the people there. He said they were told since birth what to do, what to think, and that shaped the people there in a very distorted way. It wasn't a matter of not being able to overthrow Castro for lack of weapons, but rather for lack of will, and not fully understanding their situation relative to the rest of the world.

He also agreed with you, Matt, that lifting the embargo would inevitably mean letting information into Cuba that would otherwise not be available to them, and could influence change there quicker than anything else.

I doubt that will happen until Castro kicks off; then it can be used as an excuse to lift the embargo, even if little to nothing changes in the country immediately.

I think it has less to do with Castro passing as it does with the political stronghold that ex-patriates in Florida and other parts of the country have on our politicians. But, Castro passing would open the door a crack. It would depend on how quickly action was taken because when one dictator leaves, it's pretty easy for another to step into the shoes of the former.

...........AND, all indications point to Little Brother taking over, which, very well could be worse than Fidel.