Posted on 07/13/2014 6:10:27 PM PDT by markomalley
Municipal bond mutual fund investors are panicking this weekend after the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Legislature passed a new law allowing public agencies to default on their debt.
Although part of the United States, Puerto Rico in the 1990s made Spanish the official language and now about 86% of the island does not speak English in the home. Democrat Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, who has difficulty speaking English, told Bloomberg News last year that Puerto Rico had a constitutional and moral obligation to not default on the island’s $73 billion of debt. But he just passed a law giving local court proceedings the power to cancel much all of the island’s bond debt.
Puerto Rico is the poster-child for multiculturalism with both Spanish and English as the official languages. US officials pushed for many years to make English the dominant language, but in 1991 the Puerto Rican legislature issued a bill making Spanish the official language in school and government use. The decision was reversed by a federal court in 1993, but the Democrat Party that has dominated politics for 100 years demanded that schools continue to shun English. Today only 1 in 8 families speak English as the primary language in the home.
Puerto Rico economy is now shrinking at a 6% annual pace and only 1.2 million, or 32%, of the island’s 3.7 million of the inhabitants employed. Among Puerto Ricans working full time, surveys reveal that 96.6% say Spanish is their first language, and 98.5% indicated that they are fluent in Spanish.
Because of its horrible economic fundamentals, the island’s high yield bonds have been a magnet for mutual fund investors, which hold at least $12 billion of the island’s debt.
Some politicians have argued that Puerto Rico needs to more fully adopt English…
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Uncle Sam will do what it always does: THROW more money at them. It will do them SO much good, won't it?
Get ready, here comes the request for statehood!
What they need is a massive influx of immigrants from Central and South America to help them solve their financial and cultural problems.
“Get ready, here comes the request for statehood!”
Nash. Doesn’t benefit them. As a Commonwealth, they can do pretty much whatever they please. They have to obey the US Constitution every now and then, but that’s about it.
As I understand it, Puerto Ricans are American citizens, can travel or move to the mainland without restriction, get public assistance benefits if qualified, but do not pay federal income taxes, because they are not a state.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong. Sounds like they have benefits of association with America without downsides, such as paying federal income tax.
What they need is a massive influx of immigrants from Central and South America to help them solve their financial and cultural problems
The resulting war from doing this may stimulate the economy
Most Spanish folks do not like other ethnic Spanish-language folks. In fact, the term “Hispanic” is a White Guilt Liberal term to make it look like all Spanish people are the same.
In other words its an island of welfare sucking at the teat of US taxpayers.
Great, just what we need - more ILLEGALS coming north.
(at least that’s what I would post on liberal forums, just to tweak them)
Hey! I know a great place to send all illegals from Texas!
No Worries, the Fed will guarantee those bonds.
They have been trying a different strategy lately which leverages their commonwealth status. They have drastically reduced some taxes, trying to get businesses and wealthy to relocate there. And they are trying to become a bridge between the US and Spanish speaking markets. If it works, they could become the US version of Hong Kong.
Who in the world loans money to these places?
Actually Putin and the ChiComs might come to the rescue.
At least they pay some taxes.
” In 2009, Puerto Rico paid $3.742 billion into the US Treasury.”
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Hispanic also makes them a larger group than counting each separately, to make whites a minority, and when that happens, no more care for minorities we will be majority rules. /sarc
They have been trying a different strategy lately which leverages their commonwealth status. They have drastically reduced some taxes, trying to get businesses and wealthy to relocate there. And they are trying to become a bridge between the US and Spanish speaking markets. If it works, they could become the US version of Hong Kong.
—
I’ve been reading about all kinds of jump-start ideas for PR in business publications for ages and obviously nothing has worked.
And maybe why this latest endeavor also won’t pan out is because PR is full of Latinos and not Chinese people.
I mean, something’s got to explain why nothing works there.
The American Quebec.
Oh wait - we already are a bilingual country.
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