Discussion for article #231329
$7.5 billion is small potatoes. It will be an asterisk in the valuation going forward. The opportunity to help normalize relations to our mutual benefit is too great to let 60 year old claims get in the way.
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What they are not going to get back is their property.
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Reparations?
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I want my hair back, but that ain’t happening. Sometimes you have to write off your losses, and start over from scratch if you want to move forward.
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Soon after Castro nationalized Cuba, the US had its chance for reparations and blew it.
After removing Bautista for letting the US use Cuba as an offshore casino and brothel, Castro offered reparations to the foreign companies in a proposed ~20 year bond plan. He was refused by US hard liners, of course.
Just as the redistribution of property after the US Civil War was irreversible, so it is for Cuban expatriates. The Supreme Court has not seen fit to invalidate General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and I suspect no world court would entertain similar motions to void Bautista’s overthrow. This is euphemistically referred to as the Humpty Dumpty Rule.
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Unless there was a big bonfire, the evidence of how that property was acquired in Cuba will make fascinating reading when and if it comes to court.
And does La Cosa Nostra have any legal standing?
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Ha ha ha. Please. With such reasoning, the American Indians can now claim trillions in assets?
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This hits home, personally. My maternal grandfather had nearly a million dollars in a Cuban bank when it was nationalized. However, the only person he told about it was my father. My mother’s side of the family still don’t know.
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This is how the World Bank impoverished Haiti. It ruled that Haiti owed France for all the income it “lost” when the slaves rebelled, freed themselves and took the plantations. A suspect debt to keep people in virtual chains. When the western European goes to war and wins, it’s war booty. When slaves free themselves from the results, it becomes debt. Something is seriously wrong with pure capitalism and what’s wrong with it is going to come back to bite the people who think they’re winning by dying with the most stuff.
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The big players are going to either write off the loss or take a symbolic payment if they don’t want to be left behind in the corporate colonization of Cuba
Some foreign corporations have already established operations there but have been reluctant to expand given fear of US regulators then punishing their US based interests. Now with the US warming up foreign firms can go full tilt in operation - unlike US politicians corporations are fully aware there are other countries on the planet than the United States
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Yes, yes, yes. This.
If these corporations want the US govt to make this all about money, then sure, have this open the door to talk of reparations in EVERY sense of the word. They shouldn’t be allowed to just pick and choose which moneys get repaired in which direction. The feds should be very careful about “going there”, because they might not like where this conversation goes.
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Isn’t the obvious point missing here? What happened to the claims in “China, Vietnam and elsewhere?” Odd how the author points out these claims but never follows it up when the answer will clearly derive from what happened in the past.
But I guess that wouldn’t make a scary story. TPM is turning into the NY Post.
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If it’s been 60 years it seems like there should be some time limit that has expired and if the company is still in business and made it this long it’s not like it really needed it anyway. How much repayment was there when East Germany or the USSR opened up?
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What was the tax write-off these companies received back then? Was that factored into the equation?
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Are they really US Corporations, paying their full share of taxes? Because if not, they’ve already gotten their money’s worth.
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“It’s so hard being a major corporation these days. We can’t decide whether Resentment, Fear or good old-fashioned Greed drives us more”.
I think that in the case that any of those multinationals have moved their headquarters off-shore, the US Government should say “Sorry- you’re not an American Company any more, so we no longer represent you. Good luck with your new national government and their negotiations”.
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Looking at the list of companies it is very clear that the US corporations owned much of Cuba and the Cubans were renters in their own nation. Capitalism has its up side but what went on in Cuba and much of Central and South American was the US using its military power to control nations for the profit of it’s corporations. The list of assets is a statement of why Castro was capable to moving the people to revolt and take the country basically from the US. He did attempt to deal with the US government but as was the standard then the corporations did not want to deal they wanted the whole thing to go away and the profits from industrial slavery to continue to flow. Now these same corporations or the companies that now own them want their money back. Good luck. A good history is needed of this period that is devoid of an American bias. I think the general population of the US would have a totally different view of the situation if that were to happen; I will not hold my breath waiting.
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for having an outsized influence in internal Cuban affairs and for exploiting the country’s natural resources.
Yep, that sounds like US Corporations, only they’ve grown up big and strong to become multi-nationals over the last 60 years.
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A nice sausage making story. Well done.
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