Free Republic

The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico owes more than $70 billion—about $19,729.43 per resident—in debt to creditors and investors. First to note the territory’s fiscal problems were the credit rating agencies, which downgraded the territory’s bond status to “speculative,” the first of three steps along the junk-bond path to loan default. Over the summer, about a year and a half after insiders warned of the territory’s looming problems, Gov. García Padilla (PPD) announced, “[T]he debt is not payable.” “My administration is doing everything not to default,” Garcia Padilla said in an interview with The New York Times. “But we have...