Can Fidel Castro Really Be Worth $900 Million USD?

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Can Fidel Castro Really Be Worth $900 Million USD?

by Arnaud
(Montreal)

If this is true it is absolutely outrageous.
When you consider the poverty that the average Cuban has to endure while scraping by on the equivelent of $15 a month.

Admittedly, they receive free healthcare, free housing and education etc.

But when you consider the state of the roads, the schools, the crumbling buildings, the way the Cuban men scams, deceives, and cons the older chubby foreigners at resorts in order to escape and get a passport to prosperity, then it surely is preposterous that the former President can have a personal fortune of $900millon stashed away.

According to the Celebrity Net Worth website this is what the dictator/former president is worth.
Vic. Is this true?
ANSWER by Vic webmaster Havana-guide.com
The supposed wealth of Fidel Castro is a difficult story, and much becomes clear when we see who is the source of the story.
The originator of the story is Forbes Magazine, that included Fidel Castro in a list of what they call richest "kings, queens and dictators". They spread the message that Fidel Castro has a net worth of 900 million US dollars. This message was copied by several newspapers and websites.

Is this story right? Is Fidel Castro the richest communist?

We all know that Forbes magazine and Fidel Castro represent two extremes. Water and fire, so we can safely doubt about the objectivity of some facts.
How does Forbes calculate the net worth of Castro? Well this is rather a joke one should
not expect from a serious business magazine. They count all income from the Cuban state companies,
the tourist hotels, shopping malls, convention hall, etc, etc. as property of Castro and suggest
that the profits end in his pockets. Sounds a bit simple and easy, control over Cuban State property does not mean ownership. The US president does not own the White House. Fidel Castro does not own Cuba. Forbes magazine forgets that the majority of this funds is used to pay workers, pensions, subsidized food rations, electricity production etc.
There are rumors that large amounts of money are parked on Swiss bank accounts.
Is this money personal property of Fidel Castro? We don't know. The Cuban government claims that
it protects its assets for US interference by investing money in foreign banks. Is the money abroad Cuban State property or Fidel Castro's personal property? Difficult to say for outsiders. Fidel Castro himself insists that his financial net worth is zero.
Facts are that he is living in a confortable villa but certainly not a luxurious palace. According to his personal cook he eats simple meals and rarely drink wine or spirits.
I have the impression that Castro is not attached to money, I guess that his ideology is more important to him and that money is only a tool to support his ideology. Fact too is that despite all the social benefits in Cuba a lot of
Cubans still live in poverty. The biggest criticism that one can make to Fidel Castro is that he has neglected the economy and leaned too much on foreign loans (former Soviet Union, credits from other countries)
Other communist leaders have understood this. In China, the former communist leader Deng Xiaoping has directed his country into another direction, and we all know that China is becoming a huge economic power.
Fact is, that there is a lot of gossip and to much uncertainty to say something for sure about the money of Fidel Castro.

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Can Fidel Castro Really Be Worth $900 Million USD?

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Aug 08, 2010
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Castro To Publish His Memoirs
by: Donna

Following a public appearance yesterday, Fidel Castro appears to be back in good health and has unveiled plans to release the first volume of his memoirs.

The book, called The Strategic Victory, will be published in August.

It will focus on the story of how just a few hundred revolutionaries under his command defeated the Cuban army in 1958.

Mr Castro, 83, has spent months working on the book since falling ill in 2006 and handing power to his brother Raul.

Among the many titles the former revolutionary said he considered for the 25-chapter book was: How 300 defeated 10,000.

The volume includes photographs, maps and plans of the guerrilla war against the dictator Fulgencio Batista.

There will also be a detailed account of the final offensive, which he said lasted 74 days.

After Batista's army was defeated at the battle of Las Mercedes in the first week of August 1958, he writes, "the fate of the tyranny was sealed".

"Its military collapse was imminent," he says.

The rebel army suffered 31 deaths, while the government lost 300 troops and saw many more taken prisoner, according to Mr Castro. The rebel army seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition.

From then, the rebel army was in a position to launch its final, strategic offensive, the veteran communist writes. The war engulfed the whole country and Mr Castro's rebels took Havana on the first of January, 1959.

Fulgencio Batista then fled Cuba.

The Strategic Victory will also include a short autobiography in which the former president remembers his childhood and describes how he became a guerrilla fighter.

"I did not want to wait to respond to the numerous questions about my childhood, adolescence and youth and how I became a revolutionary and armed combatant", Castro writes.

After a long period of seclusion since his illness, Castro, who turns 84 next month, has made seven public appearances in recent weeks, including three televised speeches.

He said he will continue working on a second volume of memoirs, to be called The Final Strategic Counteroffensive.

Aug 02, 2010
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He's An Idealist!
by: Donna from Toronto

I doubt very much that he's attracted to either wealth or materialism.

Castro has the nearly mystical conviction that the greatest achievement of the human being is the proper formation of conscience, and that moral incentives, rather than material ones, are capable of changing the world, and moving history forward.

He's been one of the greatest idealists of our time. and this, perhaps may be his greatest virtue, but also been his greatest danger.

Aug 02, 2010
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Happy To Hear He's Not A Multi Millionaire
by: Arnaud

What a relief when you consider the communal struggle that is happening in Cuba it would be sacriligious if the Forbes slur were in fact true.

I too think he is one of the greatest idealists of our time, and this perhaps is his greatest virtue. A typical Aries!.

I read once that a friend was visiting him, said he arrived home late, opened the refrigerator to eat a piece of cheese, the first thing he'd eaten since breakfast, then telephone a friend in Mexico to ask for for a favourite, write it down amidst the chaos of unwashed pots and pans, while eating spoonfuls of ice cream.

The friend spoke of how he was 'overwhelmed by the weight of the destinies of so many people', So removed from himself, for a moment seemed so different from the man he had always been.

When asked what he'd most like to do in this world, he answered..

"Hang around on some street corner".

Hardly the aspiration of a multi- millionaire.

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Can Fidel Castro Really Be Worth $900 Million USD?

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Can Fidel Castro Really Be Worth $900 Million USD?