Does anyone in the MSM not see the delicious irony of fidel being worth a half billion dollars? Why is this not the main story when they write about him? It's hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Most of these rich, leftist niños bitongos ("spoiled rich kids") are the same as him: spouting socialist bullshit about equality and the fair distribution of wealth to the poor -- as long as it's not their wealth -- while making money hand over fist and holding on to it with dear life. "Keep your hands off of my stash."

If it weren't so maddening to see these leftist hypocrites do gyrations around the fact the their god is a half billionaire, it would almost be humorous.

Fact is certainly stranger than fiction.

What a wonderful gift fidel has inadvertently given us - the rice cooker as metaphor for the misery of the Cuban people. It's really quite amazing.

A most interesting post.

Last night cagastro had a two hours improvised class on how to use the rice cooker, broadcasted by Cuban National TV.... probably something worth the pain of seeing the guy, to those who, unlike me, can still stomach that sorrowful sight...

Rice cooker for you, $550 million (provable) for me! Oh, for a wealthy dictator's life!

When that bastard dies and the lid is blown off about all his evil and corruption, mark my words, that fortune is gonna be a lot bigger than the provable $550 mil. The signs are already there the money-laundry enforcer in the US fined a swiss bank recently for laundering a mysterious $3 bil in Cuba that no one knows how castro could have gotten hold of. Some people think it was drug money or chavez's oil money. castro also makes a lot of money off chavez's 56,000 barrels of daily 'free oil' selling it for millions to Central America at a handsome profit. Right there there's a source of income for fidel. Meanwhile, Cubans cannot turn their rice cookers on for lack of electricity!

I am sorry to say that only recently have I become aware of Cuba's true suffering. Thank you, (and Blackfive for pointing me in your direction), for putting it right here in my face with your blog.

I lived at Fort Clayton, Panama, Central America for 3 years and saw first hand what that country had looked like years before compared to what it was when I lived there. It was very saddening. So I'm asking a very serious and honest question, what can *I* do to help the people of Cuba?

Tough to pin down a net worth when somebody in effect "owns" a whole country.

I wonder what the odds are that Cubans will get the money back when he goes? Probably not likely. Even Arafat was supposed to be worth about $3 billion (or was it $11 billion?) and they can't seem to find any of that.

Good point, Jay. The fortune is calculated in assets - so all the factories castro owns and whatever - and you know they are run-down and undercapitalized - are what the fortune is based on.

If Cuba were to sell them on barbudo's death, $550 mil is all they'd get. What Forbes can't do - it's simply impossible - is calculate what kind of money is sitting swiss accounts. Usually, compared to assets, it's a lot smaller in any case. But I suspect not in the case of castro. That $3 bil money laundering fine is a sign of something going on, that's why I think the fortune is actually much larger.

I think you guys missed the best part of this article.

"Cuba is the only Latin American country that fights inequality and has the fairest income distribution in the world, the statement said".

12 dollars a month have never sounded so good. And the equality on the island. Man truly a wonderful paradise.

The day of reckoning will come for this meglomaniacal murderer, just as it has for so many other tyrants. I only hope that, as he lays on his deathbed, the faces of those he has murdered come to visit him. For all his protestations of marxist aetheism, that little Jesuit educated boy still hides inside there somewhere, and must tremble at the thought of approaching St Peter, the gate, and the book of life.

Veddy interestink. I had never given much thought to the Forbes list or how the people on it would feel about being included. But this makes perfect sense.

Castro's statement is just fascinating, because it just looks wacky for him to be complaining. There's nothing obvious for him to be complaining _about_ as far as ordinary observers are concerned, but clearly he's upset about something.

I had to explain this to a friend of mine: "Castro's made that Forbes is blabbing to the whole world how much money he's stolen from the Cuban people to amass into his personal fortune. It undermines his image as a man of the people."

*chuckle*

My only hope is that Castro does not die in his sleep, but rather in front of a firing squad, like Ceaucescu.

I think I'd prefer he went like Mussollini.

"The fortune is calculated in assets - so all the factories castro owns and whatever - and you know they are run-down and undercapitalized"

And obviously he hasn't "reinvested money in the business" so it had to go somewhere.

Ref the kidnapping/billionaire thing, back in the 60's? 70's? there was a minor stock market crash that hit Perot's EDS had, he went from something like 1.5 billion to 600 million or so almost overnight. The press asked him what it felt like to no longer be a billionaire and he said "fine with me, I'd still never be able to spend it all and it took me off a lot of kidnapper's lists".

castro can be correctly labeled under each category --- king, queen, and dictator.

To: Teri Michelle
I think we ALL agree that the fact you have been awaken to our true suffering is such an inspiration to any of us Cubans.
Believe or not that is one of our toughest battles. To combat a very effective propaganda machine with the few resources we have.
Combating ANY cult is an uphill battle that very few can sustain. And the Castro cult is one shrouded in myth, romanticism and populist bullshit.
VERY DIFFICULT TO COMBAT!
Sometimes our frustration can only be vented by preaching to the choir. When we reach someone like you it is of tremendous importance
YOU (and people like you) telling friends family (or any one else willing to listen ) the truth about our struggle is of TREMENDOUS importance.
I (and I am sure all of the Cubans in this forum) thank you for your offering BUT… you are ALREADY doing something to help.
As far as Castro's wealth...
How silly is this? How can he deny ANYTHING about his wealth? The man OWNS Cuba.
If Fidel Castro decides tomorrow that the HABANA HILTON (I refuse to call it by any other name) will be his next home.. Who is going to stop him?
Case in point : The Marina Hemingway was reconstructed by an entrepreneurial Spaniard who forked 20+ million of his families money into the project.
Two years ago, Castro got a wind of the guy’s profitability and decided he was making WAY too much money and the deal that had been made (between Cubanacan & the Spaniard company) was NOT a good one.
Resolution? The Spaniard is set up with ½ kilo of Coke and a couple of under age girls. His ownership confiscated and his ass thrown in jail. Then he is forced to sign a release. His freedom for his ownership in the resort. Doesn’t take a genius to see what the poor bastard was going to do.
Now he is suing Castro in international courts, yeap, good luck to him.

The money FORBES has reported is that which is attributed to him in hard liquid wealth in foreign countries. His TRUE wealth can be just summarized in one sentence.
Cuba’s GNP !

I appreciate both Kill Castro's passion and Teri Michelle's awakening. I am a gringo from New Jersey who moved to So. Fla. 25 years ago and didn't know nuttin' about anything Cuban when I first came here. My education in, and experiences with Latin American culture very much started with my exposure to Cubans in Miami. It fascinated me: the music, the food, the sense of family, the industriousness. Putting it in context really had a profound effect on my sense of freedom and my identity as an American. I have a very genuine respect for the accomplishments of exile Cubans and what they have done and the flavor and influence they added to make a more or less sleepy Florida city into a Latin American capital in a sense. Honestly, I wish more North Americans could see the travesty to humanity the the castro regime has inflicted on the Cuban people over the last 46 years. In 1994 daily pictures and reports came over the airwaves of people leaving their island prison. I remember seeing a picture of some poor guy on his hands and knees on only an over-inflated innertube with only a piece of burlap on his back. It broke my heart. I remember thinking: my god what kind of place is this that these people would leave whatever it is they had behind and the sense of desperation and their hope of, please God, there must be something better! The picture of that is as clear in my mind as it was ten years ago. It is a symbol of everything I have come to learn about castro's Cuba.

I hope the liberation of Cuba can begin before castro's death which I pray is soon and reconstruction of the pearl of the caribbean can begin very soon after.

I very much support the message of this blog, your humor and anything that can spread the truth about what is happening in Cuba and currently in Venezuela.

Best regards to you all.

Please take a look at this:

http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200503191128

Direct link to Hato piñero:

http://www.hatopinero.com/english/index.html

Querida Teri:

The one contribution that we all can do is spread the truth to as many people as we can. This means to research as much of what happened, and spread the truth through word of mouth, letters, emails, blogs (like Val!) and whatnot. The BIGGEST problem with what's facing Cuba is that either not enough people know the truth, or that not enough people care (think West Wing's fiasco). Teri, in a nutshell: get the facts and spread the truth.