Rubio: Trade With Cuba is "Trafficking in Stolen Goods"

capitolhillcubans

From Farm Futures:

Sen. Rubio calls trade with Cuba 'trafficking in stolen goods'

Sen. Marco Rubio shares his concerns over opening trade with Cuba with state Farm Bureaus.

Imagine if someone came in and stole your farm. The thieves are growing crops on that farm using your land, equipment and investments. Then 15 years later, they sell the crops to the country you used to market to for a profit.

This scenario will play out if the U.S. expands trade with Cuba, according to Sen. Marco Rubio. "Every single piece of farmland in Cuba today, every major agricultural crop was once owned by private owners including American companies," the senator from Florida explained. "They were stolen. They were confiscated. If you allow the import of agricultural goods from Cuba into the United States, you are allowing them to traffic in stolen goods."

While Rubio was not making any presidential announcements to the members of four state Farm Bureau delegations gathered at the Capital Visitors Center, he was talking ag trade with Cuba. Missouri has been on the forefront of petitioning Congress to lift the embargo on Cuba and pursue trade opportunities.

Just last month, Missouri 's First Lady Georganne Nixon, along with Missouri Director of Agriculture Richard Fordyce and members of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba traveled to Havana to discuss the possibility of opening trade. In all, 75 individuals accompanied them on the trade mission, of those, 30 represented Missouri agribusiness and agriculture commodity interests.

If the U.S. lifts the embargo, estimates show that $4.3 billion in goods could be sold to Cuba annually.

Fordyce said that Missouri wants to be there to capture some of those dollars. "Missouri's agriculture diversity gives us a real competitive advantage because many of the current imports into Cuba are exactly the things we are growing here in Missouri," he said. Missouri is a leading state in producing corn, soybeans, rice, beef, pork, poultry, apples and wine. "These same goods are top imports of Cuba," Fordyce added. "Missouri is well-placed to go into the country."

But despite the room being filled with farmers and ranchers from Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Texas, Rubio made it clear that the path some state Farm Bureaus want in regard to lifting the embargo on Cuba is not one he wants to take.

Cause for caution

Rubio's own family comes from a farming background in Cuba. "They were sharecroppers," he said. "They grew tobacco." However, that property his family relied on for a source of income today is completely under the control of the Cuban government.

Rubio shared how the Cuban government through its military's holding company named Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A. or GAESA owns the entire Cuban economy. "They own hotels. They own farms. They own everything," he said. "To do business with Cuba would require you to do business with a military dictatorship. And doing business with them is not a two way street."

Currently, there are agriculture goods sold to Cuba, but only on a cash basis, never on credit. "There is a reason why," Rubio told the group. "They don't pay. That is a big problem." He noted that there is $7 billion worth of American claims with Cuba that remain unpaid.

Changing lives

Rubio shared with Farm Bureau members that there is more than just agriculture trade at stake.

"What I primarily care about are the Cuban people," he said.

He explained that if the United States lifts the embargo against Cuba, it loses the political advantage to free the Cuban people from a communist dictatorship. It is a country where the average salary of a government employee is $20 per month.

The embargo serves as "leverage" to require the Cuban government to pursue a democratic society. Rubio wants to see things like independent political parties, individuals to be able to speak out openly and the ability to have freedom of the press. Without these changes, he said, the United States should not pursue trade with Cuba.

Quiero recuperar lo que Cuba le quitó a mi familia

EL MUNDO

El asturiano González Fernández abandonó todo lo que tenía. Su hijo Arturo sostiene su fotografía. DAVID BESORA

Martín Mucha

• Casas, palacetes, fincas...
• 57 familias españolas se unen con la Sociedad 1898
• Reclaman todo lo que la revolución castrista les expropió
• Habría 3.000 en total con derecho a devolución
• El valor de lo requisado rondaría hoy los 8.000 millones de dólares

La escapatoria era dejarlo todo atrás. De nuevo. Ese batallar por décadas, por media vida. El español Arturo González Fernández (Asturias, Trasona, 1905) emigró a Cuba con 14 años. Y le tocó. De nuevo. La Revolución Cubana, la que él mismo había financiado, le obligó a partir. Con lo puesto. El primer día de 1959, Fulgencio Batista, El Hombre, fue derrotado. Cayó su régimen. Y Arturo, quien apoyó a Castro y los suyos, poco a poco vio lo que deparaba ese cambio. Expropiaciones justas e injustas, con fusilamientos incluidos. Decidió regresar. Abandonó tres fincas rústicas y dos urbanas en Vitoria de las Tunas, además otra finca en La Habana. Se llevó los títulos de propiedad por lo que sucediera. Siempre quiso volver a por lo suyo: 55 años después hay una oportunidad. La Sociedad 1898-Compañía de Recuperaciones Patrimoniales en Cuba, con sede en Barcelona, está buscando en todo el país a las 3.000 familias que retornaron a España. Ya han firmado un acuerdo con esta organización 57 de ellas.

El inventario del patrimonio que dejaron tan sólo estas últimas es cuantioso: 255 viviendas, 71 solares edificables, 57 terciarios [propiedades dedicadas a los servicios, al comercio, a la industria] y 41 fincas rústicas [terrenos yernos, parcelas, tabaqueras, pastos, cañaverales]. El fin de su labor es exigir que Cuba devuelva los bienes o indemnice a los que escaparon. Cada uno de ellos con una vida de novela. En pleno escándalo por el relato sobre La Vie Cachée de Fidel Castro (La vida oculta de Fidel Castro) -donde se relata su vida «a lo Luis XV»» en la Isla- sus herederos exigen justicia. Reparar la herida.

Arturo dormía en un barracón, en la trastienda de un tío emigrante como él. Llegó de un pueblo pequeño. Se fue a Cuba en 1919, nació en 1905. Dormía en la misma tienda donde trabajaba con su pariente lejano. «Era la tierra de las oportunidades... Vendió periódicos. Limpió zapatos», cuenta a Crónica su hijo, Arturo González Olmedo, consejero de BYA -grupo Bosch Aymerich-, director de la agencia de transportes Trota y catedrático de la Escuela de Organización Industrial.

Ahorraba y ahorraba. Hasta que el dinero le dio para sus primeras escaramuzas empresariales. «Se estableció... Tenía negocios de ganadería. Llegó a tener sus propios grandes almacenes. Estaba ubicado en Las Tunas, ciudad en el oriente [capital de la provincia del mismo nombre]». El ya exitoso empresario, para los años 50 estaba bien asentado en La Habana. «Poseía una finca de ganado con 1.000 cabezas, negocios inmobiliarios... y era dueño de Almacenes Cayamas». Esta gran superficie era uno de los focos del comercio de Las Tunas, una zona geográfica también conocida como el Balcón de Oriente.

Ejemplo mundial

«Se llevó a tres hermanos más y juntos lucharon». Eran los tiempos en que Almacenes del Encanto, fundados por los asturianos Pepe y Bernardo Solís, eran ejemplo mundial de cómo desarrollar un negocio de venta al público. Precisamente uno de sus gerentes, César Rodríguez González, fue el primer presidente de El Corte Inglés y tío del fundador, Ramón Areces Rodríguez. Ellos fueron el espejo en el que se miró Arturo González para su negocio, los Almacenes Cayamas. Muy especialmente, Ramón Areces. «Eran muy amigos. Él fue testigo de la boda de mi padre... Ambos eran emigrantes asturianos y eran una comunidad unida».

Todo iba bien en 1959, cuando tuvo que irse. El balance que figura en Sociedad 1898 es cuantioso. Tres fincas rústicas y dos urbanas en Vitoria de las Tunas, más una vivienda en La Habana. Eso sin contar con lo que tenía dentro, que ya se da por perdido. «Hay unas 3.000 familias que pueden probar que fueron dueños de propiedades en Cuba. La valoración era de 350 millones de dólares del año 1968. En 1986, se podría decir que valían 2.991 millones. Es decir, 8.000 millones hoy», calcula González Olmedo. Una estimación de este economista a tomar en cuenta considerando que, además de ser un gran conocedor de la realidad cubana, es graduado del MBA por el IESE y además ha realizado estudios en el INSEAD, en la Universidad de Michigan y en Columbia.

Lo peor que recuerda era como dejó la isla, su hogar. «Se tuvo hasta que desnudar antes de viajar. Únicamente le permitieron irse con lo puesto y las gafas. Ni el reloj le dejaron llevarse... No es un caso único, hay muchos más».

Uno de 3.000, según estima el informe de la Universidad Creighton sobre las reclamaciones de propiedad entre Cuba y España, actualizado hace tres años, que utiliza la Sociedad 1898 como pilar para sustentar la enorme deuda económica que el Gobierno de los Castro tiene con esos españoles, con las 3.000 familias de Cuba expropiadas, las que salieron entre 1959 y 1962, el foco de su actividad. De ellos una buena parte está en Galicia, Asturias y Cataluña. Sólo entre los gallegos se contarían 600. Su reclamación esta semana alcanza otras dimensiones cuando se han hecho públicos nuevos movimientos en -o a favor de- Cuba para liberarlos de la precariedad económica que padecen sus habitantes.

El lunes se difundió que 40 personalidades firmaron una carta dirigida al presidente de EEUU, Barack Obama, para que acelere las medidas para la apertura económica de la isla. Léase, el fin del embargo. Entre ellos nombres de alcurnia como David Rockefeller, nieto del todopoderoso John D., el magnate venezonalo-dominicano-español Gustavo A. Cisneros... Y además, como bien explica el intelectual Moises Naim, también firmante de la carta: «Tres ex subsecretarios de Estado para el Hemisferio Occidental -Jeff Davidow, Alexander Watson y Arturo Valenzuela-, dos antiguos representantes de la sección de intereses de Estados Unidos en La Habana -incluido Michael Palmry, designado por el republicano George W. Bush- y el ex comandante supremo aliado de la OTAN y comandante del Comando Sur estadounidense (SouthCom) almirante James Stavridis». Casi nada. El fin del embargo y la apertura de la isla tendrían repercusiones mundiales. Por ende, obviamente, también en Europa. Desde febrero, por ejemplo, la UE aprobó charlar con Cuba. El primer paso sería mejorar las relaciones comerciales.

Precedentes

Pero, como en el caso de los países del antiguo bloque soviético, creen desde 1898 que Cuba deberá por fin hablar de compensaciones o devolución de los bienes confiscados. «La historia y los estudios confirman que la resolución del conflicto patrimonial será uno de los principales asuntos que se abordarán, independientemente del tipo de régimen en que nos encontremos», señalan desde esta organización.

«La historia de la caída de los países comunistas de Europa del Este, en su tránsito de una economía planificada a una de libre mercado, nos brinda la oportunidad de entender cómo se solucionó el problema patrimonial», extractan del informe de la Universidad Creighton. Se cita la experiencia tras la caída de los regímenes comunistas de República Checa, Estonia, Letonia, Eslovaquia, Hungría, o la República Democrática Alemana... En todos los países citados «se promulgaron leyes para su recuperación».

Ésa es la esperanza de las familias españolas que ven las propiedades de sus familias en fotografías sepia. Una esperanza retratada en canciones incluso. «Nunca podré morirme, mi corazón no lo tengo aquí./ Allí me está esperando, me está aguardando que vuelva allí./ Cuando salí de Cuba, dejé mi vida, deje mi amor./ Cuando salí de Cuba, dejé enterrado mi corazón...», cantaba Luis Aguilé, otro expropiado. A él se le quedaron cuando la Revolución triunfó 14.500 dólares, de los 16.000 que tenía, su disco de oro...

En la carta a Obama aparece uno de los reyes del azúcar mundial, Andrés Fanjul, miembro de los polémicos Fanjul Brothers, una familia que dejó gigantes campos de caña en su salida. Eran del grupo de los amos del principal producto de exportación del país.

Uno de los hombres que vendía el azúcar de Cuba era el reputadísimo Claudio Escarpenter. «Trabajó con Batista y huyó en una misión diplomática de venta de azúcar», cuenta María Teresa Escarpenter, su hija, responsable de Ediciones Nowtilus. Es la historia de una saga histórica. El padre de Claudio llegó a principios del siglo XX. «Con 16 años le mandaron a hacer fortuna y la hizo». No vio «el largo de la calle por dos años».

Trabajaba en una ferretería que después compró. «Montó con su familia una sociedad que se llamaba los Escarpenter Brothers». Tuvo tres hijos. Los dos varones, Claudio y José Emilio, se mudaron a Cuba. Claudio, tras graduarse en la universidad en Barcelona. Su éxito académico fue tal que además «inauguró la cátedra de Economía de Cuba». Llegó a lo más alto en el Banco Nacional de Cuba. «Dio la vuelta al mundo para vender azúcar para el Gobierno».

José Emilio optó por negociar terrenos. El abuelo de María Teresa se fue primero. Claudio y José Emilio, tras el triunfo de la revolución. «Salimos con cinco maletas». Para no regresar. Entre sus bienes, dejaron casas y apartamentos en La Habana, una residencia en Miramar, terrenos de playa y rurales... En algunas de sus propiedades hay ahora levantados supermercados o están alquiladas a extranjeros. «Y no éramos los que más teníamos», recuerda María Ángeles Escarpenter, hija de José Emilio. Tienen la esperanza de recuperarlo todo.

Nueva ley de inversiones

La necesidad de dinero de Cuba es enorme y puede complicar la misión de Sociedad 1898, que espera poder alcanzar el sueño de estos exiliados españoles en una década a lo sumo. Se acaba de aprobar por resolución del Ministerio del Interior una nueva visa para los extranjeros «que sean propietarios o arrendatarios de bienes inmobiliarios, así como de sus familiares extranjeros que lo requieran». Es parte del camino que surge tras la nueva Ley de Inversiones, promulgada en marzo, que permitía la adquisición de inmuebles a extranjeros inversionistas. De venderse bienes que antes fueron expropiados, el lío jurídico sería tremendo para los reclamantes [y para Sociedad 1898 que sólo cobra si tienen éxito las reclamaciones: se lleva un 30% de las posibles indemnizaciones].

Ya largo tiempo han esperado. Lorenzo Abascal, empresario, recuerda a la perfección el lugar donde quedaba la destilería de su familia. «La fábrica y alambique Ron Castillo era vecina de Ron Bacardi y de una cervecería».

Se ubicaba en Santiago de Cuba. La marca Castillo era propiedad de la familia por parte de su madre, Josefina, quienes también poseían la destilería Rovira y Compañía. «Nos fuimos porque el que se quedaba podía ir a la cárcel». Cuando fueron expropiadas todas las empresas de ron, otra de las exportaciones importantes del país, «el ron Castillo se convirtió en la alternativa para el consumo de los cubanos, en la marca para consumo interno». Lorenzo, que reside en Cataluña y con una agenda imposible, suelta un suspiro mientras recuerda la vida de sus padres. Donde sus abuelos hicieron fortuna. «Acabaron en Barcelona pensando que en poco tiempo volverían». Sus herederos esperan cumplir su voluntad.

Cuba, you owe us $7 billion

The Boston Globe

By Leon Neyfakh

If symbols could gather rust, the American trade embargo against Cuba would be covered with it. Enacted in 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro came to power, and expanded in 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the embargo has frozen the United States and its tiny neighbor off the Florida coast in a standoff that seems as dated as the classic American cars on Havana streets.

Leaders from around the world have been calling on the United States to dismantle the embargo for more than 20 years, and recent polls show that a majority of Americans are in favor of lifting it. With the repressive Castro regime seemingly nearing its end, a “normalization” of relations between the countries seems increasingly within reach. That would appear to spell an end sometime soon for the embargo, which in the popular imagination stands as a sort of political weapon that was designed to cripple Castro and stem the tide of communism.

What’s oftenforgotten, though, is that the embargo was actually triggered by something concrete: an enormous pile of American assets that Castro seized in the process of nationalizing the Cuban economy. Some of these assets were the vacation homes and bank accounts of wealthy individuals. But the lion’s share of the confiscated property—originally valued at $1.8 billion, which at 6 percent simple interest translates to nearly $7 billion today—was sugar factories, mines, oil refineries, and other business operations belonging to American corporations, among them the Coca-Cola Co., Exxon, and the First National Bank of Boston. A 2009 article in the Inter-American Law Review described Castro’s nationalization of US assets as the “largest uncompensated taking of American property by a foreign government in history.” 

Today, the nearly 6,000 property claims filed in the wake of the Cuban revolution almost never come up as a significant sticking point in discussions of a prospective Cuban-American thaw. But they remain active—and more to the point, the federal law that lays out the conditions of a possible reconciliation with Cuba, the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, says they have to be resolved. According to that statute, said Michael Kelly, a professor of international law at Creighton University in Nebraska, settling the certified property claims “is one of the first dominos that has to fall in a whole series of dominos for the embargo to be lifted.”

While the other dominos are clearly much more daunting—the overall point of the Helms-Burton Act is that Cuba has to have a democratic, America-friendly government in place before there can be any talk of lifting the embargo—experts say the property claims will be an intensely difficult problem to settle when it comes time to do so. For one thing, Cuba is unlikely to ever have enough cash on hand to fully compensate the claimants, especially while the embargo is still in place; to make matters even more complicated, many of the individual claimants have died, and some of the companies no longer exist.

With Cuba inching toward reform on a number of fronts over the past several years, giving hope to those who believe our two countries might reconcile in the near future, a number of Cuba experts have begun to study the question of how to resolve the property claims in a way that is both realistic and fair. The proposals that have come out of their efforts provide a unique window onto the potential future of the American relationship with Cuba—and point to the level of imagination that can be required in the present to turn the page on what happened in the past.

The Cuba that Castro took over in 1959 was a nation overrun with American business. Tourists could stay in American-owned Hiltons, shop at Woolworth’s, and withdraw money at American-owned banks. American-owned petroleum refineries sat amid American cattle ranches, sugar factories, and nickel mines, and an American-owned telecommunications firm controlled the country’s phone lines. According to a 2008 report from the US Department of Agriculture, Americans controlled three-quarters of Cuba’s arable land.

Cuba’s revolutionary leader swiftly signed several laws nationalizing what was previously private property. Though the laws required the government to compensate the owners, the payment was to be made in Cuban bonds—an idea that was not taken seriously by the United States. In 1960, the administration of President Eisenhower punished Castro’s expropriation of American assets by sharply cutting the amount of sugar the United States was buying from Cuba. “We kind of went ballistic at the thought that anyone would take our property,” said John Hansen, a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Center for Latin American Studies. Tempers ran hot in both directions: in a speech, Castro vowed to separate Americans in Cuba from all of their possessions, “down to the nails in their shoes.” The standoff culminated in a near-total embargo on American exports to Cuba and a reduction of sugar imports to zero.

Other countries that had holdings in Cuba—including Switzerland, Canada, Spain, and France—were more amenable to Castro’s terms, apparently convinced that there was no chance they’d ever get a better deal. But the Americans who had lost property wanted cash, and submitted official descriptions of what had been taken from them to the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission at the Department of Justice. Meanwhile, US relations with Cuba deteriorated. Diplomatic ties were cut. An attempt by President Kennedy to overthrow Castro failed, and a standoff over Soviet missiles in 1962 brought the world as close to nuclear war as it has ever come. The invisible economic wall—which by then had been expanded to ban virtually all imports from Cuba—had become part of something much larger.

Half a century later, the cash claims that started it all still sit on the books. And while a full list of claimants is maintained by the US Department of Justice, they have largely receded from view—in part because most of the claimants have become quiet about their hopes for compensation. According to Mauricio Tamargo, a lawyer who served as chairman of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission for almost a decade before going into private practice and taking on a number of claimants as clients, complaining about monetary losses associated with the Cuban revolution has become increasingly risky from a public relations standpoint. The embargo has taken on more and more political meaning, and Cuba has become more destitute. “The corporations that have these claims are very sensitive to bad press,” Tamargo said, “so they decide to keep a low profile and work quietly behind the scenes where possible.” (Of several corporate claimholders contacted for this story, the only one that provided a statement by deadline was Chevron Corp., which now owns the claims originally filed by Texaco, and considers “the claim to be valid and enforceable if and when there is a change in the Cuban government.”)

But regardless of how morally or politically sensitive it might be for America’s corporations and the wealthy executives who run them to claim money from Cuba, their claims will still need to be untangled in order for the embargo to be lifted, experts say. “The US government is obligated by law to defend the claims of US citizens and enterprises whose properties were expropriated by the Cuban government,” wrote Harvard professor Jorge Dominguez, a top Cuba scholar, in an e-mail. As for how that might be done, he added, “one can imagine a range of possibilities.”

One possibility has been put forth by Tamargo, who advocates for an approach that would compensate claimants—his clients among them—by imposing a 10 percent user fee on all remittances sent to Cubans by their American relatives, as well as all other transactions that are allowed to take place under the current embargo rules. (While this proposal can be seen as a tax on US residents, it is designed to come only out of money that is entering the Cuban economy.) Another proposal was presented several years ago by Timothy Ashby, a Miami lawyer, who started a company designed to buy claims at a discount from their original owners and then use them to broker a private settlement with the Cuban government. Ashby’s plan was thwarted when the Bush administration declared it illegal, but the prospect of a negotiated group settlement remains on the table—as long as it’s carried out by the US government, in accordance with existing law.

Perhaps the most ambitious and pragmatic solution that’s been laid out so far appeared in a lengthy report published by scholars at Creighton University, who were given a grant in 2006 by the US Agency for International Development to investigate the claims issue. “There was a hope that, if through God’s grace things improved and we were able to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with Cuba, we would be able to pull something off the shelf and say, ‘Here’s how we’re going to start dealing with it,’” said Patrick Borchers, the law professor who led the Creighton team.

Borchers and his colleagues found that untangling all the claims would be extremely complicated: “A lot of the original corporate claimants, through the process of 50 years worth of mergers and acquisitions, don’t even exist anymore,” said Creighton’s Michael Kelly, who also worked on the report. “But the claims don’t go away—they go with the mergers.” One of the largest claimants today, for example, is Starwood Resorts, a company that didn’t even exist in 1959, but received a claim on the ITT Telegraph Tower when it acquired another company. “Starwood Resorts doesn’t want an old radio tower,” Kelly said. “What they [might] want is beachfront property.”

This insight led to the proposal that the Creighton team ultimately submitted to the government. Under the team’s plan, some of those who had lost property during Castro’s nationalization campaign could be compensated in ways that didn’t involve the transfer of cash or bonds: Instead, they could be given tax-free zones, development rights, and other incentives to invest in the new Cuba. This, according to Borchers, would be a win for both sides, compensating the claimants while stimulating the Cuban economy.

No one is arguing that settling the property claims of Americans is anything like the first or most important step to normalizing the US relationship with Cuba: There are other, more formidable obstacles in the way, as well as significant wiggle room for increasing economic activity between the two countries without formally lifting the embargo.

“There’s a scenario that I see, which is bit by bit the fundamentals of the embargo are chiseled away by executive order, by the economic and family ties linking Cuba and the United States, and by non-enforcement,” said Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. In that scenario, the claims might someday be resolved, but wouldn’t hold the process of reintegrating the United States and Cuba hostage.

There’s another big complication, too: the thousands of Cuban families who fled to America after the revolution and had everything they owned confiscated by the Communist regime. These Cuban exiles and their descendants form the backbone of the most intransigent anti-Castro lobby in the United States. If and when Cuba does open up, they’re going to want their property back as well, which will likely result in extensive litigation in Cuba. (To address their interests, the Creighton report proposed setting up a special tribunal in Cuba that could try to compensate Cuban-Americans for their losses once the country had found its feet economically.)

What will end up happening—both for the American claimants and the Cubans who moved here after the revolution—will undoubtedly provoke debate about what is fair when it comes to setting right the wrongs of the past. How much debt is worth forgiving to help a country back on its feet? And how much should private citizens expect to give up to help a diplomatic resolution? But the provisional plans and proposals that have been made in the meantime—whether preferential development deals or a tax on cash flow between our two countries—reflect something else: visions of a new Cuba, in which American economic interests and Cuban ones are once again closely intertwined.

The top 50The largest American property claims against Cuba certified by the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, according to a 2007 report by Creighton University scholars.

Rank	Name of claimant	Amount certified	Assets include
1	Cuban Electric Co.	$267.57m	Corporate assets
2	Intl. Telephone & Telegraph Corp.	$130.68m	Corporate assets
3	North American Sugar Industries Inc.	$108.98m	Corporate assets
4	Moa Bay Mining Co.	$88.35m	Rural mining property
5	United Fruit Sugar Co.	$85.10m	Improved real property
6	West Indies Sugar Corp.	$84.88m	Rural farming land
7	American Sugar Co.	$81.01m	Urban beachfronts
8	Exxon Corp.	$71.61m	Oil refinery
9	Texaco Inc.	$56.20m	Corporate assets
10	The Francisco Sugar Co.	$53.39m	Corporate assets
11	Bangor Punta Corp.	$53.38m	Securities
12	Manati Sugar Co.	$48.59m	Corporate assets
13	Nicaro Nickel Co.	$33.01m	Corporate assets
14	The Coca-Cola Co.	$27.53m	Urban commercial buildings
15	Lone Star Cement Corp.	$24.88m	n.a.
16	The New Tuinucu Sugar Co.	$23.34m	Sugar mills
17	Colgate-Palmolive Co.	$14.51m	Corporate assets
18	Sinclair Oil Corp.	$13.20m	Corporate assets
19	Braga Brothers Inc	$12.61m	Securities
20	Boise Cascade Corp.	$11.75m	Urban commercial building
21	Claflin, Helen A.	$11.69m	Securities
22	American Brands Inc.	$11.68m	Debts and mortgages
23	Burrus Mills Inc.	$9.85m	Experimental farm
24	Pan-American Life Insurance Co.	$9.74m	Corporate assets
25	United States Rubber Co.	$9.52m	Corporate assets
26	Powe, William	$9.51m	Urban residential property
27	Estate of Sumner Pingree	$9.37m	Rural farming land
28	F.W. Woolworth Co.	$9.19m	Contents of 11 retail stores office building
29	Havana Docks Corp.	$9.18m	Commercial building, land
30	Continental Can Co.	$8.91m	Rural commercial building
31	Loeb, John L.	$8.57m	Securities
32	International Harvester Co.	$8.26m	Corporate assets
33	Owens-lllinois Inc.	$8.04m	Securities
34	Arango, Mercedes	$7.92m	Rural farming land
35	Order of Hermits of St. Augustin	$7.89m	Urban commercial building
36	The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A	$7.71m	Corporate assets
37	Firestone Tire and Rubber Co.	$7.65m	Corporate assets
38	Carl Marks & Co.	$7.33m	Securities
39	IBM World Trade Corp.	$6.45m	Corporate assets
40	Swift and Co.	$5.95m	Land, buildings, machinery
41	The First National Bank of Boston	$5.90m	Corporate assets
42	General Electric Co.	$5.87m	Corporate assets
43	Estate of Sumner Pingree	$5.81m	Securities
44	Libby, McNeil & Libby	$5.71m	Securities
45	The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.	$5.12m	Debts and mortgages
46	Procter & Gamble Co.	$5.00m	Debts and mortgages
47	First National City Bank	$4.97m	Urban commercial buildings
48	Lengyel, Olga	$4.87m	Apartments, art objects, cash
49	Davis, Arthur V.	$4.27m	Rural farming land
50	GMAC, South America	$3.88m	Corporate assets

What’s the Matter with Argentina?

Why Nations Fail/ By Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

One hundred years ago Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. For fifty years it rode a wave of favorable market opportunities and experienced one of the most successful periods of extractive growth in world history (sharing these honors with the Soviet Union and contemporary China or Sinagpore).

“I’m a head of state and not a hoodlum.”

But extractive growth can’t last and in Argentina it didn’t. When you have a combination of extractive political institutions but somewhat inclusive economic institutions as Argentina did (and China does now) there are two ways to go, but only one leads to sustained economic growth. You can open the political system and try to move towards an inclusive society, or you can go in reverse and clamp down on the inclusivity in economic institutions giving up prosperity for power.

Argentina did the latter. Around the time of the First World War the traditional elites in Argentina made hesitant steps towards opening the political system, but they quickly decided they did not want to run the risk of losing power. In 1930 came the first military coup. Opening the political system was off the table. Then came a series of coups, and the one in 1943 brought a military officer named Juan Domingo Perón to power as Minister of Labor. Perón used this position to build an extraordinary political machine which has dominated Argentina politics more or less ever since. There is only one effective political party today in Argentina, the Peronists (official name: Partido Justicialista). The Peronists were not the traditional elites. Quite the contrary. But they seized control of the society and its economic institutions, and have been every bit as extractive as the traditional elites.

This is a pattern we called, following the sociologist Robert Michels, the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Extractive economic institutions always create struggles for control, and they tend to attract would-be elites bent on extraction, and whoever comes to power takes over a system without checks on their power. The outcome is to re-creation of extractive institutions under a different guise.

In Argentina in the 1940s, the Peronists won the struggle for power and are still on top. And the extraction still continues (even if it often takes the form of distorting economic institutions to hold on to power rather than just for personal enrichment).

Latest evidence: this week the Peronist government under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner seized a 51% share in the oil company YPF, previously majority owned by the Spanish energy company, Repsol YPF. The government immediately ousted the Chairman Sebastián Eskenazi and replaced him with the Peronist Minister of Planning. A tribunal will be formed to decide on the level of compensation!

                                       “I’m a head of state and not a hoodlum.”

Insecure property rights are actually a well known phenomenon in Argentina. Grabbing the oil company is actually small potatoes compared to “El Corralito” in 2001 when the government effectively expropriated 75% of people’s savings in banks (as we discuss in Chapter 13 of Why Nations Fail).

The failure to make the transition towards inclusive economic institutions condemned Argentina to a century of economic stagnation.

Will the same thing happen in China? Singapore?

Cuba no cree que la expropiación argentina a Repsol la afecte

Expansión.com/

La Habana, 17 abr (EFECOM).- Cuba no cree que la expropiación de la participación de la petrolera española Repsol en la argentina YPF afecte a los trabajos que esa compañía realiza en sus aguas en el Golfo de México, según ha afirmado hoy el viceministro primero de Comercio Exterior e Inversión Extranjera, Antonio Carricarte.

"No tengo una impresión de que eso pueda afectar", ha indicado Carricarte en rueda de prensa en La Habana ante una pregunta sobre la situación cubana por el contencioso que se ha abierto tras la expropiación argentina.

El viceministro ha señalado que Cuba se mantendrá "al tanto" pero ha dicho que actualmente "hay un trabajo normal", al referirse a las operaciones que realiza desde enero la plataforma petrolífera contratada por Repsol-YPF para perforar en las aguas cubanas del Golfo de México.

Cuba calcula que las reservas de petróleo de que dispone en su Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) en el Golfo de México -cuya extensión ronda los 112.000 kilómetros cuadrados- es de 20.000 millones de barriles de crudo mientras que otras estimaciones sitúan la cifra entre 5.000 y 9.000 millones.

La ZEE de Cuba está dividida en 59 bloques, de los que 22 están contratados por varias compañías petroleras extranjeras como la venezolana PDVSA y la vietnamita PetroVietnam, además de Repsol-YPF.

La presidenta argentina, Cristina Fernández, decretó el lunes la intervención de YPF y envió al Congreso un proyecto de ley que establece la expropiación del 51 por ciento de las acciones que Repsol tiene en la compañía, un 57,4. EFECOM

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