Posted on 10/03/2017 7:30:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In an interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump said that Puerto Rico's debt will have to wiped out.
"They owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street and we're going to have to wipe that out. You're going to say goodbye to that, I don't know if it's Goldman Sachs but whoever it is you can wave goodbye to that," Trump said on Tuesday in an interview with Fox News, according to a Reuters report.
Trump visited the island on Tuesday, two weeks after Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's entire infrastructure system, leaving nearly 3.5 million residents without power, and tens of thousands without clean water.
The official death toll more than doubled to 34, a spokesman for Governor Ricardo Rosello said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Even before the storm brought Puerto Rico to a near standstill, the government there already struggled with an economy in shambles and a default on billions of dollars of public debt.
Today, the U.S. territory has nearly $70 billion in debt, an unemployment rate 2.5 times the U.S. average, a 45 percent poverty rate, nearly insolvent pension systems and a chronically underfunded Medicaid insurance program for the poor.....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Independence will empty Rykers island. I say go for it.
If it DID end up writing off at 100%, what an incredible growth opportunity PR would be. The ability to borrow and put all of that into upgrades and infrastructure.
“Next time the companies should be smarter as to who they loan their money to.”
Yeah, paying them with taxpayer money will teach them not to involve in bad investments. Please pass me what’s being smoked.
What will teach them is to hang they high and dry. Next time, they will re-think about loan money to deadbeats.
If, then Trump needs all PR pay something and have a rigid no over spending budget and stupid democrats can’t run things.
Only frugal spenders.
It won’t be wiped out.
All of us now get to pay it.
A really bad idea to let spending addicts off the hook. In a year they will be in the same place if they don’t face their irresponsible addiction and recover.
Dammit! He better not bail them out!!!
sipow wrote:
“*** that. Why should they get their debt wiped out? Can I get my mortgage wiped out? How about student loans and car loans.
This is complete bull****.”
Good analogy; good question- why —should— we bail em out?
When you owe the bank $100,000, you have a problem.
When you owe the bank $100 million, the bank has a problem.
What is wrong with you?! We don’t use filthy language around here.
“If done right, PR can be the jewel of the Caribbean, there’s no excuse for them not to be.”
Does the population have the smarts to be successful?
They are Democrats you know.
My take on it is that PR has been, in effect, bankrupt for some time now. The bond holders typically take a haircut, in those circumstances. I would be astonished if a big risk premium weren’t factored into PR bonds. (Unless they were being underwritten by the U.S. government.) If so, the banks took calculated risks, when they bought PR bonds. This time, the coin landed on the wrong side for the banks.
It’s best to get that all sorted out now (right now); before boatloads of US taxpayer dollars are shipped to the island.
It appears that Trump is tidying things up — and likely making it harder for the big banks to divert disaster-relief funds into their vaults.
The “bankruptcy” already started back in May:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/05/03/puerto-rico-bankruptcy/101243686/
Too true. :)
Exactly right. But if they're smart, the debt-holders will work out deal -- restructure the debt on more favorable terms for PR. Creditors take a big haircut, but not a total loss.
In return, PR would accept a severe austerity program, with massive cuts in government spending and a complete overhaul of the PR pension system, to include massive cuts in pension payouts -- even to current government pensioners (they won't starve; those public-sector pensions are generous).
they’ll never pay it back anyway so wiping the debt shouldn’t make much difference: anyone lending them money thereafter won’t get their money back either.
Thirty-four people out of 3.5 MILLION died due to this hurricane?
I got nothin’...
“Trump has bragged about using bankruptcy MULTIPLE TIMES to have clean slate. “
That’s a LIE.
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