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Puerto Rico Will Officially Default on a $422 Million Payment Monday

Their unemployment rate jumped past 16% in 2008-2009. Back down to 12-ish now.

If recessions were measured by unemployment rate then sure, but they aren't. Maybe Puerto Rico should open their borders to foreign investment by non-Puerto Ricans by lifting their tax penalty on non-Puerto Rican businesses. Maybe then they'd solve their problems. Better to gather 10% of all new business in Puerto Rico than 30% of nothing.
 
Oh I know they are definitely not doing too well, their basket case government makes it hard to stick around. They're like a mini-California.

Also, I question the "nearly decade long recession" when their GDP has increased year over year all that time.

Look, as much as Cali government has long sucked PR is a lot worse. At least in Sacramento we see reality addressed occasionally.
 
Look, as much as Cali government has long sucked PR is a lot worse. At least in Sacramento we see reality addressed occasionally.

Well, Puerto Rico is getting a decade of reality all at once.
 
PR is a mess. 1/3 of its workforce works for the government and there are generous Welfare benefits for people who dont work so they have no reason to look for work. Sound familiar?

You live in Connecticut too?
 
i thought they could just print the money and that they didn't have to worry about it.
they issue their own currency I do believe that isn't tied to anything.

ol wait you mean this is a myth created by people.

They use U.S. currency in Puerto Rico. The island is a territory not a country.
 
If recessions were measured by unemployment rate then sure, but they aren't. Maybe Puerto Rico should open their borders to foreign investment by non-Puerto Ricans by lifting their tax penalty on non-Puerto Rican businesses. Maybe then they'd solve their problems. Better to gather 10% of all new business in Puerto Rico than 30% of nothing.

These things always get down to poor management. It is the price we pay for allowing politicians to run things.
 
Puerto Rico for decades refused to vote to become a state. Ive heard alot of reasons for it, the two main being. They didnt want to lose their culture and identity and they dont want to pay american taxs.

It seems to me that becoming a state would greatly help their position

The problem is, it will be impossible now to make Puerto Rico a state on a political level, it will be too solid Democratic votes guaranteed for forever in the Senate. The only way I see around this, is to create a 52nd state that is reasonably conservative simultaneously. "Jefferson" (Siskiyou, Del Norte, Shasta, Modoc and Humboltd counties in California) may be a good bet for this one
 
The problem is, it will be impossible now to make Puerto Rico a state on a political level, it will be too solid Democratic votes guaranteed for forever in the Senate. The only way I see around this, is to create a 52nd state that is reasonably conservative simultaneously. "Jefferson" (Siskiyou, Del Norte, Shasta, Modoc and Humboltd counties in California) may be a good bet for this one

From what I hear those people have been screaming to become a separate state for years.
however the downside is that there is little industry in that area and most of the wealth is further south.

they pretty much hate CA in general and feel they are getting screwed by their state government which they are.
 
Except Puerto Ricans are American citizens, they are Americans whether you like it or not.

The Philippines was a US territory until 1946 when the people voted to become a nation. So what is your point? Because the people in Puerto Rico couldn't?
 
The Philippines was a US territory until 1946 when the people voted to become a nation. So what is your point? Because the people in Puerto Rico couldn't?

Filipinos were US nationals, like American Samoans and if they were to come to the US they would have to go through the normal immigration process, they were never citizens. Although not American my friend can be used as an example she is a British national and has a British passport but she is not a citizen of the UK (she is only a Zimbabwean citizen living in Canada) and as such must go through the same process you or I would to get rights in the UK. The same situation applies to people born before 1997 in Hong Kong. Puerto Ricans however are 100% American.
 
The problem is, it will be impossible now to make Puerto Rico a state on a political level, it will be too solid Democratic votes guaranteed for forever in the Senate. The only way I see around this, is to create a 52nd state that is reasonably conservative simultaneously. "Jefferson" (Siskiyou, Del Norte, Shasta, Modoc and Humboltd counties in California) may be a good bet for this one

The people have voted down statehood every time it was brought to vote
 
Well, it's been more than a week since PR defaulted, and the world has not ended yet. Whassup with that? ;)
 
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