Puerto Rico - A Recipe For Collapse

Puerto Rico – A Recipe For Collapse

      When one thinks about Puerto Rico, the image of beautiful white sand beaches and scenic mountain passes comes to mind, an idealic vacation getaway. The mainstream media here on the American mainland has done a fantastic job of both downplaying and completely ignoring the last two decades of Financial turmoil and civil unrest. During this time period the global cabal has orchestrated a very careful campaign of pushing Puerto Rico into the collectivist model. This however has had many ill effects on both the financial stability of the island and the society. Here I will provide some statistics that will better help you understand the situation.

     This year, on February 5th, Standard & Poor’s rating services downgraded Puerto Rico’s bond status to “Junk” with possible further downgrades looming. At this current time Puerto Rico has incurred three times the debt of Detroit before the city went into bankruptcy. Leading up to this, for the last 10 years Puerto Rico has experienced several budget crisis years which has forced the island to lay off thousands of Government Employees. Now so that you can better understand the importance of this, and also the link to collectivism, it should be noted that the Government on the island is Puerto Rico’s second largest employment sector behind the Service Industry. 

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia  

“At the macroeconomic level Puerto Rico has been experiencing a recession for 8 consecutive years, starting in 2006 after a series of negative cash flows and the expiration of the section 936 that applied to Puerto Rico of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.“

“Academically, most of Puerto Rico’s economic woes stem from federal regulations that expired, have been repealed, or no longer apply to Puerto Rico; its inability to become self-sufficient and self-sustainable throughout history; its highly politicized public policy which tends to change whenever a political party gains power; as well as its highly inefficient local government which has accrued a public debt equal to 66% of its gross domestic product throughout time.“

“In comparison to the different states of the United States, Puerto Rico is poorer than the poorest state of the United States with 41% of its population below the poverty line.“

(Wikipedia – Economy Of Puerto Rico)

Since the time this information has been posted on Wikipedia, Puerto Rico’s debt has jumped to 70 Billion dollars which is 5 Billion dollars over the GDP of the Island pushing Puerto Rico dangerously close to default and pushing unemployment to 14.7% I implore you to follow the link provided to the Wikipedia article this excerpt was taken from so that you can understand the breadth and scope of the current economic situation on the island. 

A current obsticle that is rarely covered when Puerto Rico is spoken of, is that the Government of the Island owes 37 Billion dollars in Public Employee Pensions alone which at this time are completely unfunded. 

The largest social impact this has had, in my view, having been born and raised there, has been the crime rate. Large numbers of the islands youths have turned to crime to try and pull themselves out of poverty. This has led to increased drug trade and trafficking along with drug related homicide levels that rival Colombia. 

In 2011 there were 1,130 homicides on the island which is roughly 26.2 murders per 100,000 residents. Compare that to The United States mainland rate of 4.7 per 100,000 residents in the same time period, and Mexico’s 23.7 per 100,000 (even with its drug cartel fueled blood baths) and you can clearly see what the effect of the economy have been on the islands Society. 

This has had the added effect of causing an Exodus of youth from Puerto Rico, which has a total population of 3.6 million people. Between July 2012 and July 2013 there was a population decline of 1% which is roughly 36,000 people, this however is growing and the final numbers for this year wont be out for quite some time so one can only imagine that this number will most likely double or triple if the Economy goes into further collapse and default.

I am a firm believer that this situation has reached snowball effect and that there is no longer anything that can be done to prevent Puerto Rico from sliding into complete social and economic collapse, with that being said, I am also a firm believer that any outside intervention or “Aid” from the Federal Government will only make the situation worse.The residents of the island tend to have a strong distrust and dislike for America’s Federal Government, which has allowed Big Pharma companies to test new drugs on unsuspecting residents; also testing Agent Orange there (to be used during the Vietnam War) which has caused a spike in birth defects on the island over the last 30 years. It is quite painful for me to say that a reset is very much needed so that at some point when all the pieces have fallen, things can re-organized and any real change is possible. The current political situation on the Island has done nothing but squander what little resources they’ve had and created a bi-polar policy that can no longer be allowed and tolerated by Puerto Rican’s as a whole. 

This sounds like a grim outlook, but, it is unstoppable. 

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