Grassroots call for single currency

An apolitical criollo group has gone to the trouble of collecting and presenting 20,000 signatures to the National Assembley in favor of adopting one unified currency--something everybody & their mothers & all the most elite communist officials had already said would be a nice occurrence.

Trouble is its not that easy.

The peso is worth little and not traded outside the island. It is the backbone of the socialist aspects of the Cuban economy. The convertible is backed by foreign currency reserves and worth 24 times more than the peso. It is the money of the tourism, remittance, and certain industrial sectors.

The dual currency system was established during the special period to both partially engage with the global market and to retain the socialist morals and incentives achieved up to that point. It has always been known to be irritating--but deemed the least worse option available.

This interview in English with a Spanish economist explains very well the current duality, how it came to be, and the prospects of going to a single currency.

Here are simple critiques of the wild calls for economic reform that do not take basic economic consequences into account.