Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Cuban Studies Institute: “Cuba combines the worst features of underdeveloped and communist societies. It is probably the most inefficient among the former socialist nations. By far, it is also the poorest in terms of per capita income. Cuba’s economic decline in the last five years has reached catastrophic proportions, with no end in sight for the deflationary spiral. The island’s extreme dependence on foreign trade and the adaptation of its economy for nearly three decades to an unnatural and immense Soviet subsidy inflow, which created an artificial economy that has now disappeared, paradoxically has proved to be its own nemesis. Cuba does not have a viable economy of its own. There is no internal market to speak of. Consumption is limited by a strict and severe rationing regime. Whatever transactions take place outside it are in the illegal black market, which operates with scarce dollars and stolen merchandise. Meanwhile,…”