Puerto Rico

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Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:37 pm

Because it can't be all about Trump

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Photo: David Villafane/GFR/AP
PUERTO RICO REJECTS LOAN OFFERS, ACCUSING HEDGE FUNDS OF TRYING TO PROFIT OFF HURRICANES
David Dayen
September 28 2017, 5:17 p.m.
PUERTO RICO HAS rejected a bondholder group’s offer to issue the territory additional debt as a response to the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Officials with Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority said the offer was “not viable” and would harm the island’s ability to recover from the storm.

The PREPA (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority) Bondholder Group made the offer on Wednesday, which included $1 billion in new loans, and a swap of $1 billion in existing bonds for another $850 million bond. These new bonds would have jumped to the front of the line for repayment, and between that increased value and interest payments after the first two years, the bondholders would have likely come out ahead on the deal, despite a nominal $150 million in debt relief.

Indeed, the offer was worse in terms of debt relief than one the bondholder group made in April, well before hurricanes destroyed much of the island’s critical infrastructure.

Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority suggested that profit motive rather than altruism was the bondholder group’s real goal. “Such offers only distract from the government’s stated focus and create the unfortunate appearance that such offers are being made for the purpose of favorably impacting the trading price of existing debt,” the agency said in a statement.

Thomas Wagner of Knighthead Capital Management, one of the members of the bondholder group, admitted as much on Bloomberg TV yesterday, saying “What we’re trying to do is lend where our investors are not disadvantaged.” He added that the loan could be a “win-win” for the utility and the bondholders, “where the capital is not expensive.”

If the idea was to increase the value of PREPA bonds, that hasn’t really happened. The bonds were trading at 43.4 cents on the dollar Wednesday according to Bloomberg. Prices were at 52.5 cents in late August.

Hurricane Maria, and Irma before it, left Puerto Rico in shambles, particularly the electric utility. The island’s 3.4 million residents were without power in the immediate aftermath of the storm, and most continue without power today. PREPA has limited ability to restore the grid, given the island’s cash-strapped status.

Creditor groups should “refrain from making unsolicited financing offers at the expense of the people of Puerto Rico,” the fiscal agency said.

Despite growing calls for debt relief, no bondholder has said they would supply it in the days following the storm, nor have creditor lawsuits been withdrawn. However, David Tepper, the hedge fund manager behind Appaloosa LP, did pledge $3 million for hurricane relief from his family charity and the hedge fund. The money would go to Feeding America, a food bank network.

Tepper’s Appaloosa LP is the only non-bank creditor to so much as publicly donate to disaster recovery efforts. Three banks who hold Puerto Rican debt have donated $1.25 million.

The list of creditors:

Angelo, Gordon & Co. – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Appaloosa Management – Offered $3 million for hurricane relief

Archview Investment Group – no response

Ambac – no response

Aristeia Capital – no response

Arrowgrass Capital Partners – no response

Assured Guaranty – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Aurelius Capital Management – no response

Avenue Capital Group – no response

BlueMountain Capital Management – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Brigage Capital Management – no response

Candlewood Investment Group – no response

Canyon Capital Partners – no response

Carmel Asset Management – no response

Centerbridge Partners – no response

Cyrus Capital Partners – no response

Citibank – Donated $250,000 to the Red Cross.

D.E. Shaw – no response

DoubleLine Capital – no response

Farallon Capital Management – no response

FGIC – no response

Fir Tree Partners – no response

Fortress Investment Group – no response

Franklin Templeton Investment Co. – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Fundamental Advisors – no response

Golden Tree Asset Management – no response

Goldman Sachs – Gave $500,000 to “organizations assisting in immediate search, clean-up and recovery efforts” in the Caribbean after Hurricane Irma.

Highbridge Capital Management – no response

Knighthead Capital Management – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Mackay Shields – declined to comment

Maglan Capital – no response

Marathon Asset Management – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

MatlinPatterson Global Advisors – no response

MBIA – no response

Meehan Combs – fund shut down

Merced Capital – no response

Monarch Alternative Capital – no response

Och-Ziff Management – no response

Oppenheimer Funds Co. – Member of Prepa Bondholders Group, offered $1.85 billion in DIP loans and $150 million in debt relief

Perry Capital Management – fund shut down

Principal Global – no response

Redwood Capital Management – no response

Scotiabank – gave $500,000 for Hurricane Irma relief in the Caribbean.

Sound Point Capital Management – no response

Stone Lion Capital Partners – no response

Syncora – no response

Taconic Capital Partners – no response

Tilden Park Capital Management – no response

Vårde Partners – no response

Whitebox Advisors – “We have a policy of not discussing Puerto Rico or any securities in which we are involved.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/pue ... urricanes/

Capitalism is an abomination

No fan of The Intercept, a libertarian rag which probably has it's own rationale for publishing this but in this case useful to us.
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:07 pm

FEMA removes statistics about drinking water access and electricity in Puerto Rico from website
By Jenna Johnson October 5 at 3:08 PM

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President Trump talks with residents during a walking tour of areas damaged by Hurricane Maria in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

As of Wednesday, half of Puerto Ricans had access to drinking water and 5 percent of the island had electricity, according to statistics published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on its Web page documenting the federal response to Hurricane Maria.

By Thursday morning, both of those key metrics were no longer on the Web page.

FEMA spokesman William Booher noted that both measures are still being reported on a website maintained by the office of Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, www.status.pr. According to that website, which is in Spanish, 9.2 percent of the island now has power and 54.2 percent of residents have access to drinking water. Booher said that these measures are also shared in news conferences and media calls that happen twice a day, but he didn't elaborate on why they are no longer on the main FEMA page.

“Our mission is to support the governor and his response priorities through the unified command structure to help Puerto Ricans recover and return to routines. Information on the stats you are specifically looking for are readily available” on the website maintained by the governor's office, Booher said.

The statistics that are on the FEMA page, as of Thursday afternoon, include these: There are now 14,000 federal workers on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, up from 12,300 earlier in the week. All airports, federally maintained ports and post offices are open. More than 30 miles of roadway have been cleared, up from about 20 miles earlier in the week. About 65 percent of grocery stores have reopened, along with nearly all hospitals and dialysis centers. And 64 percent of wastewater treatment plants are working on generator power.


[A tale of two Puerto Ricos: What Trump saw — and what he didn’t]

Those statistics illustrate President Trump's assertions that the island is quickly making tremendous strides toward full recovery and that the media have exaggerated the conditions on the ground. He has noted that despite the force of the storms that hit Puerto Rico, the death toll is not as high as it was after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when about 1,800 people were killed. Officials have said that it could be months before power and water are fully restored to the island, especially in rural, isolated areas.

Trump, who visited Puerto Rico on Tuesday, has repeatedly noted that the infrastructure of the financially struggling island was already weak before the hurricane hit. In a series of tweets Sept. 25, Trump wrote that Puerto Rico was “already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt” and had an “old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape.” During his visit Tuesday, Trump told reporters that it's difficult to fix the power grid because it “was devastated before the hurricanes even hit,” and that federal workers have been bringing dozens of generators to the island to power hospitals, government buildings, shelters and other key locations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... f6b2fa3582

what ya don't know can't be blamed on the administration
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:03 pm

Masked and Armed With Rifles: Military Security Firms Roam Streets of San Juan
By Joel Cintrón Arbasetti

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Antonsanti Street in Santurce, Puerto Rico (Joel Cintrón Arbasetti | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo)

SANTURCE, PUERTO RICO — It’s the morning of Oct. 7 and a man stops traffic on Antonsanti Street in Santurce, behind the Ciudadela building. He is wearing a helmet, sunglasses, facemask, a vest with ammunition, gloves, plastic straps used for arrests, boots, camouflaged pants with knee pads, a knife and gun. There is a machine gun in his hand. He has no plaque or ID.

He works for a private security firm hired by Nicholas Prouty, the owner of the Ciudadela complex. Prouty turned to that service after Hurricane María, he told the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI in Spanish) last week.

“With a substantial reduction in the number of police officers on the streets [due to the government’s reallocation of resources to protect diesel and supply chains0, and most streets lights not functioning, Ciudadela has taken the necessary steps to make its residents and commercial tenants feel safe,” he said, without revealing the name of the security firm.

Who do you work for?, the CPI asked the armed man who was at Ciudadela.

“We work with the government,” he answered.

Which division?

“It’s a humanitarian mission, we’re helping Puerto Rico,” he said in broken Spanish.

And why the covered face?

“Because if I go with my daughter to eat at Burger King tomorrow and somebody identifies me, they could kill me,” he said.

Two other men dressed in military uniforms standing at another corner of Ciudadela said they worked for a private company, but also refused to reveal the name.

Why do you cover your face?

“Because we want to,” one of them said, pulling the facemask up to his nose to cover himself better. He had a rifle in his hand: a silver shotgun.

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(Joel Cintrón Arbasetti | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo)
The CPI asked Héctor Pesquera, secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety, if a special permit was issued to private security companies to carry rifles after Hurricane María made landfall. “We’re dealing with that,” he said as he left a press conference at the Convention Center. When we showed him the photo of the security men in Ciudadela, he said, “they could be military,” and scurried to the back of a room in the San Juan Convention Center where the government of Puerto Rico has set up its Emergency Operations Center (COE in Spanish) after Hurricane María.

Does the federal weapons law allow private security guards to carry long weapons?, the CPI asked Rosa Emilia Rodríguez, head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Puerto Rico.

“We go by federal law violations and they include long weapons, carrying an automatic rifle and so on, if they do not have the proper license.”

But are there licenses to carry long weapons?

“It depends [on] whether they are military. That is, it is very restricted. I’m surprised that this is happening. I don’t know if they are off-duty police officers, I don’t know, I would have to see the circumstances. A police officer can work in a private security company in their spare time.”

In that case, could they have long weapons?

“I don’t know, it has roused my interest, so I’ll check it out. But I’m surprised that they only have access to long weapons,” Rodríguez replied.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Olga Castellón said Pesquera is processing an executive order that will detail the rules for private security companies. Perhaps that’s what the Secretary of Public Security referred to when he said, “We’re dealing with that.”

Both federal officials agreed that the order should not allow private security guards to carry long weapons. “They would be going very far,” said Rodríguez.

The Puerto Rico Weapons Act says that “you can not…own, use, transfer or import a Semi-Automatic Assault Weapon.” This prohibition does not apply to “people whose license contains the category of target shooting, hunting or who possess an armory license, or for those assault weapons legally existing in the United States.” Or to people “with a gunsmith license, or law enforcement agents who use arms in the call of duty, or the government of Puerto Rico or the United States, or for the use of by armed forces of the Government of the United States or Puerto Rico.” The law bans arms such as shotguns and semiautomatic rifles.

Two members of the United States Air Force consulted by the CPI said that both the shotgun and the machine gun carried by the men of Ciudadela are automatic or semi-automatic weapons, after seeing a photo.

Image
(Joel Cintrón Arbasetti | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo)

“In terms of firearms, [private security companies] have to be governed by the Puerto Rico Weapons Act and must have a gun holding license. As far as I know, gun licenses granted here are for short guns. Long weapons are used solely and exclusively for the custody of securities transport, armored trucks, and is a special license provided by the government of Puerto Rico. All other armed services have to be with small arms. The only people who could use long weapons are those of the State. I don’t know of any legal authorization to carry long guns in private service in Puerto Rico,” said Adalberto Mercado, vice president of operations for private security company Ranger America.

“The State can provide provisional licenses, but they have to request them and the State has to grant them. If not, they would be carrying illegal weapons inside the territory of Puerto Rico,” Mercado said.

Security firm Academi —known by its former name, Blackwater, which won $21 million contract with the U.S. government to provide security services during the Iraq war in 2003— said that they already have offers from the local and federal government and by the Red Cross to come to Puerto Rico.

“We’re ready to go,” said Paul Donahue, Chief Operating Officer of Constellis, Academi’s parent company, in a phone interview with the CPI. He explained that if the government of Puerto Rico accepts the proposal made by Academi to respond to the government’s offer, they would be providing security services for water transportation. The company already operates in the Caribbean islands of Dominica and St. Martin, where they arrived after Hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall. This company, described as an army of mercenaries by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, has changed its name three times since its founding in 1997 by a former Navy Seal Officer (United States Marine, Air and Land Teams.)

Blackwater also operated in New Orleans after the passing of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There they worked under a federal contract and for millionaires who left the city before the storm passed. They were hired to protect their properties.

On the entry of U.S. security companies into Puerto Rico, Mercado, Ranger America’s vice president of operations, said, “We have signed service contracts with U.S. security firms that have hired us to in turn provide security to clients they have here in Puerto Rico… I would say there are large numbers (of companies), but we have seen hiring (of U.S. security companies) in the area of communications and in the hotel area. They are companies that we don’t really know about, they have no presence here in Puerto Rico, but they have come and we know they are serving some corporations and multinationals.”

Mercado said Ranger America has been recruiting more employees since the hurricane, to serve retailers, supermarkets, government warehouses, and “more recently,” FEMA. He did not mentioned the names of the companies or agencies that have hired them.

The Whitestone Group, another U.S. security company, posted an ad on the Monster job search site on September 29 seeking “retired officers with gun licenses for immediate response in Puerto Rico.” The ad said salary would be about $2,400 a week plus a per-diem and housing. The ad that indicates the offer says “FEMA-Puerto Rico.”

“I really don’t know the answer,” said Alejandro De La Campa, director of FEMA in Puerto Rico, when the CPI asked if the agency had hired private security companies to work in Puerto Rico and, specifically, The Whitestone Group.

“But we’re going to hire… all the hiring is done through Federal Protective Services, that’s the federal agency that does the hiring; they would be the ones who could answer you. That we’re going to need (private) security across the island, that’s true,” De La Campa said during a quick exit from the COE.

Whitestone Group currently has “several contracts” with the U.S. Departments of Defense, Engineering, Interior and Commerce, as well as with the Army, Armed Forces and Coast Guard. Its first contract with the federal government was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Treasury Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

People watching the military show behind Ciudadela on that Saturday morning did not seem safer. An elderly woman who was prevented by the man armed with a machine gun from going on Antonsanti Street looked anxious, nervous and frightened. But she still rebuked him through her car window. She asked him to let her pass because she was going to a street that was before where a truck was unloading merchandise. The woman was about to cry. The robot-looking man finally let her in and said, “Thanks for interrupting my work.”

Laura Moscoso contributed to this story.

http://www.latinorebels.com/2017/10/10/ ... -san-juan/
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 20, 2017 7:26 pm

HURRICANE MARIA


Mario Tama/Getty Images
One month later, most of Puerto Rico is still utterly destroyed. Since Hurricane Maria made landfall, the humanitarian crisis has devolved into one of the worst in modern American history. While President Donald Trump rates his own response to the crisis as a “10 out of 10,” the latest numbers show the situation is stark:
Nearly 80 percent of the island’s 3.4 million people are still without power.
Close to one-third have no access to running water, driving some to drink from toxic waste sites.
About 2 million people are missing meals each day due to inadequate food supplies.
CBS News correspondent David Begnaud, who has been in Puerto Rico almost continuously since before Maria struck, called the situation on the ground “an endless emergency.” He told the Lafayette (Louisiana) Daily Advertiser, his hometown newspaper, “It has surpassed anything I’ve reported on before in terms of devastation.”

Citing an “unacceptable” government response, Oxfam, an international humanitarian organization, has mounted a rare effort to assist recovery from a disaster in a developed country. One month in, Oxfam says daily life in Puerto Rico is “untenable.” Furthermore, the organization noted: “The United States has the resources and experience to overcome these obstacles to save lives now and to build the long-term sustainability of Puerto Rico.”

We’re waiting.

http://grist.org/briefly/one-month-late ... ign=buffer

Meanwhile Cubans have had basic services about entirely restored.
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 21, 2017 7:11 pm

Nearly 8 weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the struggle for basic supplies continues
RYAN MICHALESKO The Pulitzer Center Nov 19, 2017 0

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Rosalda Olma, a wife and mother to three kids, sorts through what remains of her home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, November 15. The entire home and contents were destroyed by the hurricane, and the family is living in a nearby school for the time being.
Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center

Editor's note: Ryan Michalesko is a student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a Carbondale Community High School graduate. He has freelanced for The Southern as a photographer for several years. He is currently reporting on the devastation in Puerto Rico with a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico — One after another, Carmen De Jesús Rodríguez, a 92-year Fajardo native, began listing all of the hurricanes she has survived: San Felipe Segundo, San Ciprian, Hugo and Georges. Now she adds Maria to that list.

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Carmen De Jesús Rodríguez, 92, of Fajardo, recounts all of the hurricanes she has lived through, including San Felipe Segundo, San Ciprian, Hugo, Georges and now Maria in her hillside home where she has lived for the past 70 years. 'This was the worst hurricane I have witnessed. It came with a different intensity.' Rodríguez said. 'The sound was horrific and the rain and wind remained violent for more than 12 hours.'
Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center

“This was the worst hurricane I have witnessed. It came with a different intensity,” Rodríguez said. “The sound was horrific and the rain and wind remained violent for more than 12 hours.”

Sitting high on a hillside overlooking the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico, her home of the past 70 years sustained roof damage. Several sections of tin roofing were torn off during the storm and are now covered with tarps that cast a bright blue hue into the home during the daytime. To her, that’s better than her home fared during the 1932 Category 3 Hurricane San Ciprian.

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21071115-008.JPG
Carmen De Jesús Rodríguez, 92, of Fajardo, recounts all of the hurricanes she has lived through, including San Felipe Segundo, San Ciprian, Hugo, Georges and now Maria in her hillside home where she has lived for the past 70 years.
Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center
When Rodríguez was just 7, she recalls spending the first hours of San Ciprian in school. Her parents' house, which was made out of wood and palm fronds, was completely destroyed during the storm.

Admittedly a happy person, Rodríguez says she doesn’t have much to complain about. At 92 years old, she can still think straight, walk short distances, and pass the time by sewing. She attributes God for her good health and continued survival.

“I don’t have woes anymore because I leave everything in God’s hands,” she said. “I have been more than blessed. He has let me live this long.”

Short distance, big difference
In Fajardo, Rodríguez doesn’t have any problems receiving food or water — a drastic difference from many other places on the island. Just 45 minutes down the road, in Loíza, the water service is just now beginning to intermittently work, according to one of the town’s librarians, Maritere Sanjurjo.

“We’ve struggled to get basic needs such as gas, food and water because it is so overpriced,” Sanjurjo said.

In Loíza, a 24-pack of bottled water is sold for as high as $21. In Las Piedras it is $34. However, in San Juan, where much of the city is quickly recovering, the same 24-pack is just $4.


Sanjuro said they haven’t seen Federal Emergency Management Agency visit the town since Oct. 28, and she attributes many of the ongoing problems to a lack of preparedness by all levels of the government.

“The government logistics were inadequate from the start,” she said. “I volunteered in a shelter, and the housing department didn’t provide any beds or drinking water. People had to bring their own bedding, and bathe in the rain.”

We’re not leaving

Image
Rosalda Olma, a wife and mother to three kids, sorts through what remains of her home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, November 15. The entire home and contents were destroyed by the hurricane, and the family is living in a nearby school for the time being.
Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center

Since the school doesn’t have functioning restrooms, they all have to walk home to utilize what remains of theirs — which is now covered only by a piece of scrap metal.

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Abdel Olma, 8, feeds the family pigs, Chape and Nopi while his mother, Rosalda Olma sorts through what remains of their Loiza, Puerto Rico home on Wednesday, November 15. Rosalda had to seek psychiatric help for Abdel following the storm.
Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center
“It’s hard getting used to these living conditions,” she said. “All five of us are trying to fit inside a single room.”

While many people have decided to flee the island, for Rodríguez, Sanjuro and Olma, the decision to stay in Puerto Rico was easy.

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Rosalda Olma, a wife and mother to three kids, opens the front door to what remains of her home in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, November 15. Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center

“I was born here, I grew my family here, I’m not leaving here,” Olma said. “We will rebuild it all.”


Ryan Michalesko, The Pulitzer Center

— Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

http://thesouthern.com/news/national/ne ... 7c463.html

Funny how something associated with the name 'Pulitzer' could produce such uninquiring reportage. For example, "Why is recovery in this US commonwealth so pathetic compared to that in poor little Cuba?"
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 01, 2017 5:59 pm

Poverty in Puerto Rico has risen from 44.3% to 52.3% since Hurricane Maria hit the island last September 20

Author: Digital news staff | informacion@granma.cu
december 1, 2017 09:12:06

Image
Photo: Prensa Latina

Behind images of the country’s lush natural landscapes, great highways or metropolitan cities, poverty was, until recently, a hidden reality in Puerto Rico - currently standing at 52.3% following Hurricane Maria.
According to some experts the destruction caused by the storm revealed the true face of poverty on the Caribbean island, subjected to the colonial rule of the United States for the last 119 years.
If there was any doubt about the country’s true socio-economic situation, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) recently announced that poverty levels have risen from 44.3% to 52.3% since the Hurricane hit on September 20.
According to statistics from the UPR Cayey Campus’ Census Information Center (CIC), 9% of people that lived on the poverty line before the storm had fallen below it, in the months following the natural disaster.
The situation has also been aggravated for many working people whose expenses have increased and incomes decreased, after hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the island, either because they work less hours due to power shortages or because they have lost their jobs.
Director of the CIC, José Caraballo, noted that Hurricane Maria exacerbated poverty levels in Puerto Rico, which is why more than half of the population is potentially living below the poverty line.
If recovery efforts in the country continue to be prolonged and more people lose their jobs and incomes, it’s possible that the 254,905 people earning 20 to 50% above the poverty threshold could fall below it, which could see the poverty rate increase to 59.8%, according to the economist.
Caraballo noted that the poverty rate among citizens 17 years of age or younger was the highest among all age groups, at 57% in 2016.
He also highlighted disparities in child poverty rates between different municipalities, such as Maricao (82%), Barranquitas and Comerío (74%), in the central mountainous region, as well as Patillas in the south, where indices are much higher, compared to those located close to the capital, like Toa Alta (35%), Gurabo and Guaynabo, both registering 37%, where poverty rates are lower.
The economist explained that despite the destruction caused by the hurricanes, when looking at poverty rates by age, children continue to be the most vulnerable.
Caraballo noted that municipalities where seven to eight of every ten children live in poverty should be prioritized during the recovery process.
These are marginalized boys and girls crying out for the same opportunities as privileged children, he noted.
Despite U.S. domination, with an economy that has been in freefall for the past eleven years, and a public debt of some 73 billion USD, the reality in Puerto Rico is one of total defenselessness. (PL)

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2017-12-01/po ... cane-maria
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 02, 2017 5:55 pm

Image

and keep in mind that 'generation' does not equate delivery, the real number proly more like 50%
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:14 pm

Hurricane Maria Leaves More Than 50% of Puerto Ricans in Poverty

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A man who lost his home during Hurricane Maria in September sits on a cot at a school-turned-shelter. | Photo: Reuters

Published 1 December 2017

More than half of the island’s population is now living in poverty, according to the University of Puerto Rico's Census Information Center.
Poverty levels have spiked in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in the wake of the Category 5 storm that battered the island on September 20.

Since Hurricane Maria hit, poverty levels have risen from 44.3 percent to 52.3 percent, according to University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Cayey Campus’ Census Information Center (CIC),

Economist Jose Caraballo, director of the CIC, said power outages have led to many job losses. If recovery efforts continue to be delayed, prompting more job losses, the 254,905 people earning 20 to 50 percent above the poverty threshold could fall below it. In that case, the poverty rate would rise to 59.8 percent.

Poverty is most rampant among children younger than 17, with a total of 57 percent. "These are marginalized boys and girls crying out for the same opportunities as privileged children," Caraballo said.

In response to the crisis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has refused to extend the waiver for the Jones Act, a 97-year-old shipping law that prevents non-U.S. ships from bringing cargo to and from U.S. harbors.

Lifting the law would have enabled Puerto Rico to receive aid more cheaply and swiftly via tax-free and readily available foreign-flagged ships.

In addition, U.S. President Donald Trump has reminded the island of its "massive debt," insisting that the U.S. territory owes "Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with."

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0023.html
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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:31 pm

Puerto Rico: 1M Without Power 100 Days After Hurricane Maria

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People who lost their homes during Hurricane Maria in September rest at a gymnasium of a school turned shelter in Canovanas. | Photo: Reuters

Published 29 December 2017

Though some basic necessities have returned to the island, residents are angry that they are still in “recovery mode.”
Puerto Rico is now in its 100th day since Category 4 Hurricane Maria struck the island, damaging vast amounts of infrastructure and nearly eliminating its electrical and running water systems.

Though some of these basic necessities have returned to the island, residents who have electricity say that "blackouts are part of life" and are angry that they are still in "recovery mode."

Clear statistics on electricity are hard to obtain on the island, a U.S. "territory." According to several news outlets, one million people are still without electricity. But according to Engineering and Agronomy High School President Pablo Vazquez, only 44 percent of Puerto Rico's nearly three million residents have reliable energy in their homes.

"We had to cancel our Christmas Eve dinner," resident Irma Rivera Aviles told NPR. The vast majority of the population on the predominantly-Catholic island was forced to spend Christmas in the dark.

While infrastructure in and around the tourism-dependent capital city of San Juan has returned, rural areas remain without adequate health care.

In terms of transportation, 27 sections along several highly-traveled highways are closed, 15 fallen bridges have not been rebuilt and hundreds of traffic lights are down.


Forty four public schools remain closed due to hurricane damage. The Secretary of Education recently announced that 179 education centers will remain closed, a move some suspect is intended to save the island’s administration US$7.7 million. Prior to Hurricane Maria’s landfall, the island's debt reached US$74 billion.

Puerto Rico remains a U.S. "territory" and Puerto Ricans are considered U.S. citizens. However, the U.S. government's emergency response revealed the lower status granted to residents there.

As U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing Leilani Farha put it, "We can’t fail to note the dissimilar urgency and priority given to the emergency response in Puerto Rico, compared to the U.S. states affected by hurricanes in recent months.”

Just weeks after the brutal storm hit, President Donald Trump tweeted, “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military and the First Responders, who have been amazing … in P.R. (Puerto Rico) forever! … Congress to decide how much to spend."

That same day, U.S. Congress decided to defer voting on disaster relief legislation for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, both of which suffered from severe hurricane and fire damage this year.

Democrats insisted Puerto Rico was not getting enough assistance, while fiscally conservative Republicans said the relief amount was too high.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0013.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Puerto Rico

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:28 pm

Ya hadda see this one comin'....

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Making a Crypto Utopia in Puerto Rico

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Brock Pierce inside the former Children’s Museum in Old San Juan, P.R., which he and his colleagues hope to make part of a crypto utopia where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public.CreditErika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
By Nellie Bowles

Feb. 2, 2018Leer en español
SAN JUAN, P.R. — They call what they are building Puertopia. But then someone told them, apparently in all seriousness, that it translates to “eternal boy playground” in Latin. So they are changing the name: They will call it Sol.

Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.

And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.

For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.


So this crypto community flocked here to create its paradise. Now the investors are spending their days hunting for property where they could have their own airports and docks. They are taking over hotels and a museum in the capital’s historic section, called Old San Juan. They say they are close to getting the local government to allow them to have the first cryptocurrency bank.

“What’s happened here is a perfect storm,” said Halsey Minor, the founder of the news site CNET, who is moving his new blockchain company — called Videocoin — from the Cayman Islands to Puerto Rico this winter. Referring to Hurricane Maria and the investment interest that has followed, he added, “While it was really bad for the people of Puerto Rico, in the long term it’s a godsend if people look past that.”


Puerto Rico offers an unparalleled tax incentive: no federal personal income taxes, no capital gains tax and favorable business taxes — all without having to renounce your American citizenship. For now, the local government seems receptive toward the crypto utopians; the governor will speak at their blockchain summit conference, called Puerto Crypto, in March.

The territory’s go-to blockchain tax lawyer is Giovanni Mendez, 30. He expected the tax expatriates to disappear after Hurricane Maria, but the population has instead boomed.


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Cryptocurrency investors have flocked to San Juan in recent months, hunting for property where they could have their own airports and docks, and taking over hotels and a museum in the Puerto Rican capital’s historic district.CreditJosé Jiménez-Tirado for The New York Times
“It’s increased monumentally,” said Mr. Mendez, who has about two dozen crypto clients. “And they all came together.”

The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.

“They call me up saying they’re going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world,” said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. “I can’t engage in that.”

The newcomers are still debating the exact shape that Puertopia should take. Some think they need to make a city; others think it’s enough to move into Old San Juan. Puertopians said, however, that they hoped to move very fast.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/t ... LaxvO9gaKA

When capitalists are't vampires they're vultures(with all apologies to the birds)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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