Cuba used to be fairly wealthy as well, not quite as wealthy as Argentina (which used to be among the wealthiest countries in the world in per capita terms), but more than a number of other countries that are a lot richer than it. One thing about Argentina's wealth is that it was, more than most fairly wealthy countries, based on agriculture and natural resources. They never did develop quite the same level of manufacturing or services that equivalently wealthy countries had, so they where starting at a disadvantage compared to many of them, even before all the government mismanagement that drove them down in relative terms (at at times even in absolute terms).
Other countries like Nicaragua and to a greater extent Haiti, never really developed the wealth in the first place. Both have histories of conflict. Both have had leaders who looked out for themselves and their friends above the well being of the country (even to the extent of having less for themselves because they helped keep the country from developing enough to have more to steal). Haiti was probably worse in this regard than Nicaragua, plus it was forced to pay a lot of money to other countries in its early history, but Nicaragua in recent decades had a bigger push towards socialism, and other bizarre economic policies (while Haiti at times has had no policy, just factions trying to grab wealth and power, and occasionally getting very violent about it, combined with a lot of natural disasters, most recently and probably worst the earthquake)
Venezuela doesn't have quite the history of horrible economic policies that those countries have, but its certainly been moving in that direction. |
