Is Cuba Bankrupt?

Is Cuba on the verge of bankruptcy? Reuters reported on Yahoo Argentina that Cuba head was on the verge of financial collapse and had to stop honoring large wire transfers from foreign companies as their cash reserves are almost depleted. The Castro Cartel blames the hurricanes that hit the island last year, but in reality Cuba had been negotiating with its lenders prior to both hurricanes in order to lower their interest payments so they could meet their financial obligations to the foreign nations that had lent them money.

The real reality is that the economic crisis in Cuba started long before these two hurricanes and long before Reuters wrote about it. The truth is that the economic crisis in Cuba started the day that Castro marched into Havana and assumed power and deepened the day the Soviet Union imploded. The island nation has never really recovered from the Special Period, or from 1959 for that matter.

As a tourist in a hotel last October it was hard to tell that there had been two major hurricanes that had hit Cuba but the second I left the hotel and got on the bus the effects of the storms were instantly visible. The little stands and restaurants in the cities had doubled the price of food and halved the portions; short crops were being grown in a fruit producing province; the houses that were already battered and nothing more than shacks looked like inhabited rubble.

Cuba truly is on the verge of financial collapse and is trying to avoid bankruptcy...

If I was Raul today I’d be worried:
History has shown us famine leads to dissent and rebellion.
The people are hungry, literally hungry for something to eat...

But what their stomachs and their souls are rumbling for is something much bigger than a meal, they are starving for Change.

Muchacho Enfermo