A complex web: Cuba’s financial system
CUBA’S LEADING NEWSPAPER, Granma International, publishes ‘Fidel’s reflections’ daily. On September 28, as the US financial crisis unfolded, Castro wrote: "No-one can doubt the destiny of the developed capitalist world and the fate it promises to billions of people on the planet."
Fidel’s words have a particular resonance, given what’s going on in the US. Change is afoot in the world’s biggest economy. So too in Cuba, where Fidel’s brother, Raul, is now at the helm.
Raul, like his brother, is a socialist at heart. But he is more pragmatic than Fidel. In his first July 26 speech, marking the revolution’s anniversary, Raul said the government was "conscious of the great quantity of problems that Cubans face". Earlier that month Raul started to embrace overdue economic change – Cubans...
