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Been a while, what on earth happened

It looks like Cuba raised their prices 4x since the last time I looked. Short supply, inflation, or both? This is insanity.
Both!

I'm not sure, but I'm thinking it might be a bubble that will burst. It may take 3-4 years to see any changes though.

Situation is really effed up with recent hurricanes wiping out plantations crops. Then the most experienced rollers have been leaving the island. So, we are seeing decreasing quality and quantity of cigars available right now.

Cubans control the production. Habanos is just a reseller. They are the ones jacking the prices up with greed being the key player since they don't want to suffer due to the lack of production IMO. Which is a really short sighted approach.
Only if we see privatization of plantations for brand prices will drop sooner than later, and that would take the Cuban government collapsing.
I feel sorry for all these LCDH owners who paid all this money to get in. Imagine now a La Casa del Habano shop that paid 250-300k Euros only for the franchise. And is supposed to sell Cubans. And Cubans are not supplying them cigars. Add on top that they take 15% of their gross income. Will they survive? Of course not. You will see many shops shutting down in the future I believe.


Now these poor guys will go directly to the Lebanese of Phoenicia for example and ask money as "loan". They will never return a cent back. Lebanese on the other side will take a massive chunk of the production current and future despite what Habanos is willing to give to them.
 
It's my hunch that this is why we are seeing the usual sources that we all know here are starting to really push NC "New World Cigars". You didn't see it at all six or so years ago. Then it was something they just had. To now, it's something they have been pushing successfully from what I hear. All about survival.
 
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