as seen on tv
Senator
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/business/dealbook/puerto-ricos-governor-says-islands-debts-are-not-payable.html?_r=0
Aye Carumba! It just keeps getting worse. I was going to make today’s top post about the Greek banks being closed all week, and Greek citizens restricted to 60 Euros a day, provided they can actually find a working ATM that still has cash in it.
But then fate intervened. Our prodigal Caribbean Island in the Sun – Puerto Rico – announced it can’t pay its bills. It has (over the years) borrowed $72 billion in “general expenses” ($20,000 for each of its 3.5 million residents, and owes another $35 Billion in unfunded pension liabilities for its enormous public workforce. Unfunded means either people go without pensions when they retire, or taxes get raised dramatically.
On the one hand, I’m in sympathy with the fine people of Puerto Rico. They were a simple cheerful folk, on a paradise-like tropical island, until we came along. Now their economy is evidently based on tourism, gambling, and prostitution. (I’ve been there – have you?). Oh, and borrowing money they can’t pay back. That’s how they’ve been making ends meet.
Compared to the USA – where the federal debt is $180,000 for every family, the Puerto Rican burden of $20,000 per resident may not seem insurmountable. But remember, wages in Puerto Rico don’t rise to the level of the USA. In fact, their minimum wage is $4 an hour. Which probably explains why some people make ends meet by braiding hair, peddling ganja, and selling themselves. American tourists are on a budget, after all, when they visit the Caribbean. They expect affordable prices to make the dollars go further.
If Puerto Rico can’t pay its paltry debt, what chance do the cities of Detroit, Chicago, DC, Stockton, etc. have? Let alone our nation's ability to resolve the $18 trillion in federal debt?
Kudos to Puerto Rico for admitting the truth, rather than pretending a miracle is going to happen. Catcalls and boos to Greece, which is stealing from its citizens by not allowing them to get their hard earned money out of the banks. The financial markets are taking note of your actions, and are in full retreat, even as some pundits on this site cling to the belief that "things have never been better".
FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) now rule the airwaves about America’s own situation. We’ve had over 6 years of forcing interest rates near zero, a doubling of the national debt, people tumbling out of full time jobs into part time ones with no benefits, stagnant wages, and politicians and the media lying to us, that everything will be made good somehow.
But I digress. The upcoming 2016 election will be fought over larger, more important issues like the confederate flag, gay marriage, and “equal rights for women”. Not the economy, taxes, the deficit, improving education, and runaway entitlement spending.
So, it's one, two, three,
What are we voting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
The next flop is by Uncle Sam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Full disclosure – dozens of stoners were videotaped in California signing a petition to ban the American flag, after they were told it was as bad as the confederate flag. This is the “base” of the Democratic Party, evidently.
