Will Native Cubans end up living on reservations?

[moondust]

I support ending the embargo but would not approve of armies of corporate lawyers or expatriates invading Cuba with contracts in hand designed to cleverly part Cubans from their property. Those beaches would make a nice playground for the rich and famous, you know. Big bucks! Steve Wynn!???

Is it inevitable?

[a la izquierda]

1. Doubtful...Cubans are fiercely independent.

That's part and parcel of why they had a revolution in the first place. The US lording over them in an assortment of ways (including propping up the puppet dictator Batista) became so problematic that it pushed more and more Cubans toward the uprisings that would lead to the Revolution.

Big hotels already have their place on the island, they're just not owned by Americans. And remember, Havana and other parts of Cuba drew enormous amounts of US tourist dollars in the past.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Not For A Long, Long While

I rather doubt that island Cubans have anything to worry about from foreign corporations taking their homes and property. As long as the Castro brothers and other true believers in Cuban state socialism are still in charge, foreign-financed resort hotels and other developments are at risk of being expropriated at a whim. No responsible corporation is going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of their investors' money down such a drain with such risk.

The same is true for individuals' housing. Rich foreign bugesos seeking Cuban pieds-a-terre also risk losing whatever money they may wish to pour into renovating Cuban property to expropriation at a governmental whim.

Moreover, there is the matter of very cloudy property titles. A lot of Cuban emigres (And their descendants) have pre-1959 property titles and took their documents with them. At least some of those property titles are still valid, and courts in their current country of residence might well rule against international corporations who run up developments without paying the original owners' heirs (Which is why a few forsightful corporations are very quietly buying out the claims of the original pre-1959 heirs to forestall such litigation).

Think that lenders or most shareholders want to deal with that can of worms? Guess again.

I suspect that in the near-term, Cuba will be an interesting place to visit (Cuba needs more hotel space and probably could do well to open KOA-style camp grounds for the younger and friskier tourists), but I, for one, wouldn't want to build anything there or try to buy property on the island.

[moondust]

3. Are younger generations of Cubans

"true believers in Cuban state socialism"?

Some experts would probably say that the hunger of deprived Soviet young people for the material goods, music, culture, etc. that Western kids were enjoying in the 70s and 80s played a significant role in the eventual collapse of the Soviet state. Could this bit of history repeat itself in Cuba?

[Vogon_Glory]

4. They may, BUT

They may--but, as some of the tees you see here but probably not yet in Cuba "Old guys rule!"

Time will show what time shows.