Posted on 07/05/2015 3:52:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The debt crisis in Puerto Rico could potentially cost financial institutions in the United States tens of billions of dollars in losses. This week, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla publicly announced that Puerto Rico’s 73 billion dollar debt is “not payable,” and a special adviser that was recently appointed to help straighten out the island’s finances said that it is “insolvent” and will totally run out of cash very shortly. At this point, Puerto Rico’s debt is approximately 15 times larger than the per capita median debt of the 50 U.S. states. Yes, the Greek debt crisis is larger, as Greece currently owes about $350 billion to the rest of the planet. But only about $14 billion of that total is owed to U.S. financial institutions. But with Puerto Rico, things are very different. Just about the entire 73 billion dollar debt is owed to U.S. financial institutions, and this could potentially cause massive problems for some extremely leveraged Wall Street firms.
There is a reason why Puerto Rico is called “America’s Greece”. In Puerto Rico today, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty, the unemployment rate is over 12 percent, and the economy of the small island nation has continually been in recession since 2006.
Steven Rhodes, the retired U.S. bankruptcy judge who oversaw Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and has now been retained by Puerto Rico to help solve its problems, gave a blunt assessment on Monday.
Puerto Rico “urgently needs our help,” Rhodes said. “It can no longer pay its debts, it will soon run out of cash to operate, its residents and businesses will suffer,” he added.
This is why I hammer on the danger of U.S. government debt so often. As we see with the examples of Greece and Puerto Rico, eventually a day of reckoning always arrives. And when the day of reckoning arrives, power shifts into the hands of those that you owe the money too.
It would be hard to understate just how severe the debt crisis in Puerto Rico has become. Former IMF economist Anne Krueger has gone so far as to say that it is “really dire”…
“The situation is dire, and I mean really dire,” said former IMF economist Anne Krueger, co-author of the report commissioned by the U.S. territory, which recommended debt restructuring, tax hikes and spending cuts. “The needed measures may face political resistance but failure to address the issues would affect even more the people of Puerto Rico.”
So who is going to get left holding the bag?
As I mentioned at the top of this article, major U.S. financial institutions are very heavily exposed. Income from Puerto Rican bonds is exempt from state and federal taxation, and so that made them very attractive to many U.S. investors. According to USA Today, there are 180 mutual funds that have “at least 5% of their portfolios in Puerto Rican bonds”…
The inability of the U.S. territory to repay its debt, combined with the financial crisis in Greece, would have far-reaching implications for financial markets and unsuspecting American investors. Morningstar, an investment research firm based in Chicago, estimated in 2013 that 180 mutual funds in the United States and elsewhere have at least 5% of their portfolios in Puerto Rican bonds.
It is important to keep in mind that many of these financial institutions are very highly leveraged. So just a “couple of percentage points” could mean the different between life and death for some of these firms.
And unlike what is happening with Greece, the private financial institutions that hold Puerto Rican bonds are not likely to be very eager to “negotiate”. In fact, the largest holder of Puerto Rican debt has already stated that it is very much against any kind of restructuring…
U.S. fund manager OppenheimerFunds, the largest holder of Puerto Rico debt among U.S. municipal bond funds, warned the island it stands ready to defend the terms of bonds it holds, a day after the governor said he wanted to restructure debt and postpone bond payments.
What Oppenheimer is essentially saying is that it does not plan to give Puerto Rico any slack at all. Here is more from the article that I just quoted above…
OppenheimerFunds, with about $4.5 billion exposure to Puerto Rico according to Morningstar, said it believed the island could repay bondholders while providing essential services to citizens and growing the economy. It said it stood ready “to defend the previously agreed to terms in each and every bond indenture.”
“We are disheartened that Governor Padilla, in a public forum, has called for negotiations with other creditors, representing and including the millions of individual Americans that hold Puerto Rico municipal bonds,” a spokesman for Oppenheimer said in a statement.
But Puerto Rico simply does not have the money to meet all of their debt obligations.
So somebody is not going to get paid at some point.
When that happens, those that insure Puerto Rican bonds are also going to take tremendous losses. The following comes from a recent piece by Stephen Flood…
Now, bondholders are at risk as are the funds which hold Puerto Rican bonds and, more importantly, those who insure them in the derivatives market.
Dave Kranzler, from Investment Research Dynamics has warned that there are signs that the Puerto Rico situation may not remain a local crisis for much longer.
He points out that share prices of MBIA, the bond insurers, have been plummeting. MBIA are valued at $3.9 billion whereas their exposure to Puerto Rican debt is around $4.5 billion. Kranzler reckons their exposure could even be multiples of that figure. A default could wipe them out.
He also points out that the firm’s largest shareholders are Warburg Pincus, the firm to which Timothy Geithner went after his stint as Treasury Secretary, when he helped paper over the chasms opening up in the financial system.
Did you notice the word “derivatives” in that quote?
Hmmm – who has been writing endless articles warning about the danger of derivatives for years?
Who has been warning that “this gigantic time bomb is going to go off and absolutely cripple the entire global financial system“?
When Puerto Rico defaults, bond insurers are going to be expected to step up and make huge debt service payments to investors.
But this just might bankrupt some of these big bond insurers. In fact, we have already started to see the stock prices of some of these bond insurers begin to plummet. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…
Bond insurers MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. are down again Tuesday as concerns over Puerto Rico’s ability to repay its debt multiply.
Investors fear that both firms face the potential for steep losses on their promises to backstop billions of Puerto Rico’s $72 billion of debt.
MBIA’s stock closed down 23% Monday, and fell more than 10% before rebounding Tuesday. By late afternoon, the stock was down 6%. Ambac’s stock fell 12% Monday and was off 14% Tuesday.
Of course Puerto Rico is just the tip of the iceberg of the coming debt crisis in the western hemisphere, just like Greece is just the tip of the iceberg of the coming debt crisis in Europe.
So stay tuned, because the second half of 2015 has now begun, and the remainder of this calendar year promises to be extremely “interesting”.
have the puerto ricans started burning all their sh*t down because they’re unhappy? no? hmmmm.
compare the debt per capita between PR and the US.
PR’s debt per capita is half the US.
The government of Puerto Rico has been running a Ponzi Scheme.
The first ones into the scheme do OK.
Coming into the scheme now is just asking for a shellacking.
The Puerto Ricans are lawless, try driving over there sometime.
This is Clinton and the democrats fault.
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/tax-policy-helped-create-puerto-rico-s-fiscal-crisis
I. Section 936 and Puerto Rico’s Nine-Year Recession
Throughout the modern economic history of Puerto Rico, one of the central drivers of its economic growth has been the United States tax code. For over eighty years, the federal government granted various tax incentives to U.S. corporations operating in Puerto Rico, in order to spur the industrialization of the island. Most recently, beginning in 1976, section 936 of the tax code granted U.S. corporations a tax exemption from income originating from U.S. territories.
In addition to section 936, the Puerto Rican corporate tax code gave significant incentives for U.S. corporations to locate subsidiaries on the island. Puerto Rican tax law allowed a subsidiary more the 80% owned by a foreign entity to deduct 100% of the dividends paid to its parent. As such, subsidiaries in Puerto Rico had no corporate income tax liability as long as their profits are distributed as dividends.
When section 936 was in effect, U.S. corporations benefited greatly from locating subsidiaries in Puerto Rico. Income generated by these subsidiaries could be paid to U.S. parents as dividends, which were not subject to U.S. corporate income tax under section 936, and were deductible from Puerto Rico’s corporate income tax.
Because of these generous tax incentives for business, Puerto Rico grew rapidly throughout the 20th century and developed a substantial manufacturing sector, though it remained relatively poor compared to the U.S. mainland. However, because section 936 made foreign investment in Puerto Rico artificially attractive – creating, in effect, an economic bubble – it left the island vulnerable to a crash if the tax provisions were ever to be repealed.
As it happened, section 936 became increasingly unpopular throughout the early 1990s, as many saw it as a way for large corporations to avoid taxes. Ultimately, in 1996, President Clinton signed legislation that phased out section 936 over a ten year period, leaving it to be fully repealed at the beginning of 2006. Without section 936, Puerto Rican subsidiaries of U.S. businesses were subject to the same worldwide corporate income tax as other foreign subsidiary.
Since they forced the closing of our naval base down there, what exactly are we getting out of our relationship with them? We already subsidize them to the tune of tens of billions a year. I would tell them to either become a state or bye bye.
Nothing a Democrat hates more than losing out on some tax money.
You have to understand how derivatives work.
If I bet you $10 that the Dow will go down tomorrow, that is a derivative based on billions of dollars in trading in Dow stocks.
However, the most I can win or lose is only $10.
Always look at the value at risk, not the notional value of the underlying assets.
What is “notional value”?
The base closure was another CPUSA operation facilitated by the Clinton crime cartel and unopposed by the hapless Bush dynasty.
From wiki:
Protests against U.S. Navy 1999
U.S. Navy officials dismantling makeshift buildings erected by protesters.
On April 19, 1999, a civilian employee named David Sanes Rodriguez was killed when military ordnance was dropped too close to his security post. According to a Congressional research report, a Marine Corps F-18 dropped two 500-pound bombs striking the security post killing Rodriguez and injuring four others. The F-18 was on a training mission when the incident occurred. The Congressional report states the ordnance was dropped “within the overall range perimeter.” After this incident the range was temporarily closed.[9]
The death of Rodriguez triggered a wave of protests from local residents. Then U.S. President Clinton promised, later reiterated by his successor George W. Bush, that the Navy would leave Vieques by May 2003.[10]
The “Navy–Vieques protests” is the name given by the English-speaking media to a series of protests starting in 1999 on the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques. The protesters were against the use of the island by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps for bombing target practice. The protests led to the U.S. military ending the use of its facilities on the island in 2003.
President Clinton 1999-2000
President Clinton asked Secretary of Defense William Cohen to establish a special panel to study the situation. The four-member panel was chaired by Frank Rush, the then-acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for force management policy, and is consequently sometimes called the Rush panel.[11] The panel laid out history and legal situation, and released its report with 11 recommendations on October 19, 1999.[12]
In January 2000, President Clinton and then Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosselló, together called for a referendum on Vieques. This was first scheduled for November 2001, and then rescheduled for January 2002. The referendum would let voters choose to either end the military’s use of the range by May 2003. Alternatively, they could vote to allow military operations to continue indefinitely.[
Massive occupation of practice range
On May 4, 2000, civil disobedience encampments inside the practice grounds were evacuated by U.S. Marshals and Marines.
Five days later, in an internationally covered event, hundreds of protesters and supporters from all over the world and with different ideologies, penetrated the military practice grounds. Natives of Vieques, many Puerto Ricans, Hollywood celebrities, priests, pastors, friars, athletes, and politicians including U.S. Representatives Luis Gutiérrez[15] and Nydia Velázquez[16] were among them. The incursion had been well publicized and resulted in the arrest of the protesters by Marshals, as both sides of the struggle wanted to avoid brushes with the military.[citation needed]
If PR were to become a state, it would be the Welfare State. You cannot condemn a third world invasion via illegal immigration while also advocating making a third world congenitally corrupt place like PR a state. Independence now, no matter what their “people” say.
Hedge funds as an asset class have about $3-$4 trillion in assets or 3,000 billion dollars. There may be a few hedge funds that go under or experience heavy redemption’s but $72 billion is not that much money in the final analysis.
If they’re gonna default, they should be put into receivership—and straightened out that way.
It’s not a threat. It’s more of a small distraction. And unfunded liabilities do count (see Greece).
Where is that illusive US Treasury? Can you say Puerto Rico??
http://ppjg.me/2010/04/28/where-is-that-ellusive-us-treasury-can-you-say-puerto-rico/
Note: This article originally appeared 4-28-10. In the brief time that has passed,27 CFR 250.11, cited as the legal definition of the Treasury Secretary has somehow mysteriously and without explanation, been wiped from the Code of Federal Regulations. It has also been wiped from all legal websites carrying copies of CFR and USC. 250.11 was titled “definitions” and described the Secretary of the Treasury as one in Puerto Rico, and the IRS as an enforcement arm of the IMF>>>>>>>
See also: Treasury Secretary does not work for the United States
THERE IS NO US TREASURY! The US Treasury office, the enforcement agency of the IMF/World Bank, is actually located in Puerto Rico and is not a US agency.
http://ppjg.me/2009/03/24/treasury-secretary-does-not-work-for-the-united-states/
Long ago, I saw a Puerto Rican child in the sixth grade (and very large for that grade) fighting with a much smaller American child. He open his mouth wide and bit the American child in the top of his forehead. The crunch was very audible. He took a large chunk out of that kid’s head and spit it out. I chased him away. Blood squirted for at least a couple of feet from the victim’s head, and he stumbled toward home, only a couple of houses away, crying, shirt, pants and shoes already soaked in blood and leaving a trail.
In my simple example, it is the billions of dollars in trades that occur every day for the 30 Dow stocks.
In a real derivative, such as a bank would actually sell to a customer, it is a little more complicated.
Let’s take a vanilla interest-rate swap. A bank customer wants to hedge against high interest rates. The customer agrees to pay the bank 4% on a notional principal of $100 million, and in turn the bank will pay the customer the LIBOR + 1% on the same notional principal. The contract is for a fixed term of years, and the amounts are netted with every monthly payment. So if the LIBOR is 2%, the respective rates are 3% and 4%, so the first month the customer pays the bank about $83,000. But suppose that next year, the LIBOR goes to 3%. The amounts due net out, so there is no payment. If, the year after that, the LIBOR goes to 4%, then the bank has to pay the customer $83,000 every month.
The important thing to note is that the notional principal, $100 million, does not exist and cannot be lost by either party. The customer might end up paying a couple million during the life of a four-year contract. The bank’s liability is theoretically unlimited, if interest rates rise dramatically.
The customer enters into this contract, presumably, because they would lose money in their business if interest rates rose. They transfer this risk to the bank, which is better able to manage it because they have (a) tons of money on their balance sheet, and (b) are in the business of managing risk. They may well make more money if interest rates go up, allowing them to pay the customer what the contract calls for.
I hope this helps.
Helps a lot!
RE: I would tell them to either become a state or bye bye.
This is just great, another Democrat state, which means 2 more Democrats in the Senate and more Democrat congressmen in the Lower House.
The problem with just throwing them out is that none of our politicians would have the balls to do it.
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