What’s Next for Cuba?

The following is an excerpt from CNBC:

Now that the decision has been made in Washington to reset Cuban-American relations, it’s a good time for an outside perspective on where things may go from here. Bottom line: Cuba may well become a rising star in the region and an attractive economic partner for the U.S. if things are managed well. In financial terms, Cuba will be a “buy” when the time comes. A recent visit revealed some impressive strengths buried not far below the surface.

The Cuban experiment with Socialism was doomed from the start. It assured Cuba’s position at the nadir among the world’s economic underperformers. Cuba’s form of collectivism was abandoned long ago by almost all who attempted it – the attempt to improve social welfare by working against human nature rather than with it. You can push water uphill, but only by wasting enormous amounts of human and physical capital. And even people who are true believers will still try to do what’s best for themselves in their daily lives, regardless of any economic command and control structure.

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Eleven million people, comparatively well educated, with unusually strong extended family ties and sufficient entrepreneurial vigor to be explosive once preoccupation with working around the “dead hand” of the state gradually fades away. The few sectors already liberalized show plenty of sprouts, like a long-vacant lot after a spring rain, suggesting the latent power of lifting price and wage controls sometime down the road – there’s a reason farmers, budding restauranteurs and taxi drivers are among the best-off Cubans today.

Read the full article published by CNBC