Important headlines for January 23rd
Bottom Line: These are stories you don't want to miss and my hot takes on them...
Excerpt: “The Cuban GDP stands at 23 percent below the pre-crisis level of 1989 and 35 percent below the 1985 level,” says the study conducted by a team directed by Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist teaching at Javeriana University in Colombia.
A new study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) shows that Cuba's GDP, in fact, dropped by “more than 50 percent” during those years, and that the impact of the crisis is still being felt.
The study also shows that Cuba is much poorer than its government's data would indicate, because it overestimates the value of the Cuban peso by artificially making it equal to one U.S. dollar.
The government issues two currencies – the Cuban peso and the Cuban Convertible Peso (known as CUC) – and uses different rates of exchange depending on the type of economic activity. One dollar could be roughly counted as one peso or 24 pesos, depending on the sector.
The study estimated per capita GDP for 2014, the last year calculated, at “$3,016, much lower than the $7,177 that could be derived directly from the Cuban national accounts using the official exchange rate.”
Hot Take: Well gee imagine that...The evil Castro dictatorship vastly over-reported the well-being of its country and citizens. To quickly catch you up to speed here's the way it works in Communist Cuba. You get your Communist stipend but are literally only able to earn and keep an average $25 per month! Now the narrative for some previously was yeah but the government takes decent care of them. That was always nonsense as just about any South Floridian from Cuba can tell you but now you have the full gist of the big lie. Let me put Cuba's economy in perspective for you.
The US GDP per capita last year was $52,195. Cuba's economic condition is literally 1/17th of the American economy on a relative basis. Imagine for a moment if you had all but a 17th of what you have to your name and ongoing lifestyle. Pretty unimaginable right? Welcome to Communist Cuba.
- The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017 - Oxfam International
Hot Take: According to a new report from Oxfam International, more than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.The organization also estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.
People like those at the Oxfam International group are everything that's wrong with the absurd state of education establishments. Let me first address the 50% of the world population thing and boil it down to brass tax for the average American. The greatest wealth creation machine in the history of the world is the US stock market. The average annual rate of return is 10.1%. Last year stocks were up an average of 25% really helping juice investor returns and create over $8 trillion in new wealth for investors. 52% of American adults are invested in stocks. That means that just over half participated but just under half didn't. Rather than taking the opportunity to advance to cause of upward mobility and wealth creation by encouraging investment in stocks - the organization takes the exact opposite path. It's not complicated, if you're smart with your money and invest in stocks over the long run you'll be better off as compared to any other use of your money. Period. Here's another not-so-secret antidote. The more you have invested the more you'll make on your investments when they perform well! Imagine that!
Virtually every high net worth individual earns more off of their investments than they do income from working. Take the world's richest man Jeff Bezos for example. Here's what his 2017 looked like:
- Total compensation from running Amazon.com: $1.7 million
- Gain from investments: $36.1 billion
Any questions? Every American had the same opportunity to invest in Amazon.com alongside Bezos and benefit in a relative way. But why educate and inspire when you can demonize, dis-educate and slander?
Until tomorrow...