Posted on 05/12/2015 6:44:14 AM PDT by cll
Summary
•Puerto Rico's borrowings represents an exceptionally complex set of credits in the (already arcane-enough) municipal bond market.
•The Legislature's recent rejection of the Governor's tax reform proposal leaves fewer options to balance the budget and raises liquidity concerns.
~ snip ~
Puerto Rico released its most recent quarterly financial report on May 7. The report's list of risk factors includes the possibility of the Commonwealth running out of cash and defaulting on debt payments as soon as September. As organizations go, state and local governments are hideously illiquid. Even in the best of times, their political constituents do not tolerate a government's building up meaningful cash reserves... Government revenues are generally uneven during the year while expenditures are more constant. Many governments rely on short term financing to bridge these gaps. RANs and TRANs have been a fixture of the short term municipal market for time immemorial.
~ snip ~
As investors contemplate this situation, perhaps with a sense of panic, it might be worth asking one of Ken Fisher's "only three questions that matter": "What do I think I know that I don't". Following is a list of "facts" about Puerto Rico that have been repeated so often in the media, everyone knows they are true, followed by a little additional information that may help put things in perspective.
1. Puerto Rico's government debt is unsustainably high.
Reality: Puerto Rico's government debt as a percentage of its economy is significantly lower than for the mainland US.
~ snip ~
4. Anyone with the resources to do so is emigrating, leaving behind a poorer, less educated population.
Reality: Those recently leaving Puerto Rico are less educated and poorer than those who are choosing to remain on the Island.
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
The money quote:
“Puerto Rico’s economy is going through a painful transformation that will likely leave it less reliant on government intervention”.
Puerto Rico has the highest percentage of people scamming Social Security Disability. Higher than Baltimore...
“Puerto Rico has the highest percentage of people scamming Social Security Disability. Higher than Baltimore...”
Can you provide the data to back up that claim?
“Puerto Rico has the highest percentage of people scamming Social Security Disability. Higher than Baltimore...”
Can you provide the data to back up that claim?
Adjunct to that, your implication that Baltimore is in the top end of SS scamming.
“Puerto Ricans who can’t speak English qualify as disabled for Social Security...”
Can’t find the ones posted here a few years back... just google the stuff...
Time is long overdue to part ways with Puerto Rico and give it its independence as we did to the Philippines in 1946.
Nothing in the article you have cited, nor the audit report it refers to describes PR as the largest scammer of SS or even refers to Baltimore. It does refer to a serious probblem with the SS system in PR, but it is a leap to take it to PR being the largest scammer of the system.
Don’t make claims you cannot back up.
Problem is, almost no one here wants independence. We are citizens of the United States, not some bunch of alien natives to be cast away because of the Navy’s sour grapes. That overbearing and arrogant attitude by the Navy was what caused it to lose its resort in the Caribbean, which is all that Rosey was.
According to the agency, there is no system in place to monitor the number of beneficiaries who currently receive disability insurance for being unable to speak English. The OIG was able to identify, however, 218 cases between 2011 and 2013 where Puerto Ricans were awarded disability benefits due to “an inability to communicate English.”
In addition, 4 percent of disability hearings on the island involve dealing with the person’s inability to speak, read, write and understand English.
According to the report, 95 percent of islanders speak Spanish at home.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that the SSA told the OIG that the rules for claiming disability are one-size-fits-all in the U.S.:
“SSA managers at various disability decision levels stated Social Security is a national program, and the grids must be applied to the national economy, regardless of local conditions,” the audit said.
The people running the Social Security offices in Puerto Rico that took the applications - and the boards that approved those applications - knew right from wrong. They went with the scam.
A system that allows people to claim ‘disability’ for not speaking English on a Spanish speaking island are corrupt. You know that Steven.
“‘Not speaking English’ is NOT a reason to be ‘disabled’ for people living on an island where the dominant language is Spanish.
You don’t think that’s outrageous? A scam?”
Yes it is a scam, but nothing you have posted backs up your claim that PR is the worst scammer of SS. Or that it is worse than Baltimore (notwithstanding the fact that SS probably does not even maintain such stats by city).
You are throwing all sorts of crap about the issue, none of which backs up your claims.
I've visited Puerto Rico twice. As a ‘mainlander’ I was made to feel very unwanted and uncomfortable by the majority of Puerto Ricans I came into contact. My reaction was, if Puerto Rico disliked America so much, then it should be given full independence so it could follow the path of Cuba and Venezuela.
Sorry that that happened to you. That’s unusual. Puerto Ricans are generally very hospitable. And we don’t dislike America, we are its citizens. We get over 5 million visitors every year, most from the mainland US and many of those are regular, repeat business. Puerto Rico voted for statehood in 2012. There are over 200,000 living veterans of the US Armed Forces on the island.
So, again, if in your context your experience with the islanders was negative, my apologies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.