Cayman is absolutely thriving actually, our biggest political issue is currently whether we should throttle growth. (Projections have us growing by 10%/yr in population, which is a bit scary.).
Our biggest business here isn't tourism, it's finance and professional services. Our differentiator is being one of the only "legit" tax neutral locations with strong legal protections. If you want to be able to send large amounts of money anywhere in the world quickly and legitimately, without tripping a million anti-laundering provisions, this is almost your only choice.
There are very few Americans here because there's practically no corporate veil - a Cayman company is far more transparent than a Delaware company. This is a terrible place to hide funds.
There are more Canadians here because Canada doesn't tax overseas income for non-residents, but Canadian-resident individuals don't get much out of a Cayman shelter. There's a bit of a "loophole" if you own a property here through a shell company, in that you can rent that property and keep the funds here tax-free. But that only works if the rental is generating and using the majority of the funds, and it's totally transparent if CRA comes knocking, so it's pretty limited in utility.
It used to be a bigger thing in the 80s/90s, before the world started cracking down on "tax havens", but the biggest change has been in enforcement. I wouldn't be surprised if some "old money" on the island for decades is grandfathered in to better tax treatment, I've heard as much, but that's a CRA thing and not a Cayman thing. In general, Cayman has never been a place to "hide" funds, it's been a place to legitimately put funds if your country of tax residency privileges that. Tax loopholes aren't on the Cayman side, they're on the US/Canadian/UK side. Don't drag us into that mess.
Also Cayman rum beats Jamaican any day of the week. That's going too far.
I don't think he read the article. The article basically repeats what you said: Cayman success is due to its connected-ness to the major Angloshpere economies.
Haiti mostly makes rhum agricole which is made from sugar cane juice, as opposed to the rhum traditionnel which is made from molasses. I would describe rhum agricole as more fruity and rhum traditionnel as more heavy.
The major styles of rum are more or less history lessons in which European power colonized the country—England, France, or Spain. Former English and Spanish colonies produce rhum traditionnel, former French colonies produce rhum agricole.
Go to a liquor store in the US and you’ll see rums categorized as “light” and “dark” which is useless, because you are more interested in flavor than appearance. I think this has something to do with the kind of loose regulations defining rum in the US, compared to the much stricter definitions for different types of whiskey. (IMO the US legal definitions of whiskey are too strict, and the definitions of rum are too loose.)
Our biggest business here isn't tourism, it's finance and professional services. Our differentiator is being one of the only "legit" tax neutral locations with strong legal protections. If you want to be able to send large amounts of money anywhere in the world quickly and legitimately, without tripping a million anti-laundering provisions, this is almost your only choice.
There are very few Americans here because there's practically no corporate veil - a Cayman company is far more transparent than a Delaware company. This is a terrible place to hide funds.
There are more Canadians here because Canada doesn't tax overseas income for non-residents, but Canadian-resident individuals don't get much out of a Cayman shelter. There's a bit of a "loophole" if you own a property here through a shell company, in that you can rent that property and keep the funds here tax-free. But that only works if the rental is generating and using the majority of the funds, and it's totally transparent if CRA comes knocking, so it's pretty limited in utility.
It used to be a bigger thing in the 80s/90s, before the world started cracking down on "tax havens", but the biggest change has been in enforcement. I wouldn't be surprised if some "old money" on the island for decades is grandfathered in to better tax treatment, I've heard as much, but that's a CRA thing and not a Cayman thing. In general, Cayman has never been a place to "hide" funds, it's been a place to legitimately put funds if your country of tax residency privileges that. Tax loopholes aren't on the Cayman side, they're on the US/Canadian/UK side. Don't drag us into that mess.
Also Cayman rum beats Jamaican any day of the week. That's going too far.