Posted on 07/17/2007 4:24:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
Hypocrisy: When a billionaire dictator denounces cab drivers for making a little money and calls that "self-criticism," there's no doubt he's out of touch. But Cuba's Castro still gets away with it.
Mainstream media didn't make much of Fidel Castro's written diatribe a week ago against Cuba's poor. But he had plenty to say in the "self-criticism" that was directed not at himself, but at a scraggly, semi-legal Cuban private sector that he says makes too much money.
Cubans who run unlicensed taxi services, for example, were singled out for making "juicy profits" that cannot be countenanced when gasoline is so scarce. Using gas for profit, he said, "can compromise the independence and life of Cuba."
Castro also blasted Cuban housewives who receive remittances of just $1,200 a year from Miami relatives. This, the housewives say, is survival money in a country where per-capita incomes average $4,000 a year on a purchasing power parity basis and where goods have been rationed for decades.
But as Castro raved about inequalities, he left off the biggest one of all — his own massive wealth compared to the shriveled incomes of ordinary Cubans. At its last count in 2006, Forbes estimated Castro to control more than $900 million in cash and assets, something known to Cuban insiders as "the Commandante's reserves."
Cuba experts like Maria C. Werlau, who wrote a study called "Fidel Castro, Inc.: A Global Conglomerate" believe it's even more.
For every economic transaction in Cuba, Castro takes his "Commandante's reserves" cut. He shakes down foreign investors, overseas remittances, state corporations and drug traffickers to finance his vast empire.
He and his cronies have used that cash to buy land for descendants on the Chile-Argentine border, real estate projects in Shanghai, and conglomerates from Japan to Lichtenstein. Castro also controls banks, drug companies and shipping firms.
He claims he doesn't own a penny, but that's belied by how he lives. A string of mansions on tropical islands enable him to stay anywhere in Louis XIV comfort. He is ferried around in black limousines. His hands are manicured, and a traveling medical crew is at his beck and call.
His partying offspring can be seen in photos on Web sites such as TheRealCuba.com. He has a lifestyle that's the envy of any billionaire who's ever fantasized about owning his own island.
Castro's net worth of $900 million, compared to the $628-a-year incomes of average Cubans is particularly damning.
Yet he insisted in the "self-critical" essay published in state papers last week, "We're not a consumer society."
It's not just that Castro is an able thief. It's that he's also done everything to destroy the wealth of others in his country. Under his 49 years of rule, Cuba has gone from having the highest standard of living in Latin America to either the poorest or second-poorest.
The Heritage Foundation ranks Cuba rock bottom on economic freedom in the region, and second-worst in the entire world, topped only by another communist "paradise,"North Korea.
When Castro's day of reckoning comes, the fact that he lived like Plutus as he drained Cuba to penury will be one reality for which he will be cursed. For a communist "egalitarian" still clinging to absolute power, that's rich.
He claims he doesn't own a penny, but that's belied by how he lives. A string of mansions on tropical islands enable him to stay anywhere in Louis XIV comfort. He is ferried around in black limousines. His hands are manicured, and a traveling medical crew is at his beck and call.Those SUVs aren't mine. They belong to my family.
Hmm that quote sounds familiar.
Yup. Castro’s comrade in socialism. F’n is his middle name!
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