A Cuban-American was arrested at Tampa airport smuggling $100,000 dollars out of Cuba. She had done so on multiple earlier trips.
As Martin Gurri reports, dollars are materializing in the workers’ tropical paradise—only to vanish into safe havens abroad:
Where does the money go? Some of it buys what passes for the good life in Cuba. The vast majority of the island’s inhabitants, we must remember, subsist in conditions of abysmal poverty, enduring constant power blackouts and food shortages while stuck in housing that is literally crumbling into ruins. But a thin crust at the top can afford to live in modern comfort.
This resembles how the Soviet empire disintegrated, too, as Karen Dawisha described in extravagant detail in Putin’s Kleptocracy (2014). There were claims that East Germany’s secret police and communist rulers also managed to smuggle hundreds of millions out of the country along with upper echelon members of the hyper-wealthy ruling classes. But no one bothered to look all that hard to find out where all the (purported) money ended up.
Anyway, as usual, it’s a worthwhile read from Martin Gurri.
I know I’m not alone in hoping for the end of the dictatorship in Cuba as soon as possible, preferably peacefully.
It was a beautiful morning for the rebels' prayers.
I think Lewis is the one who brought it to my attention.