Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Island of Savagery, the Non-Culture of Cheating, Deceit and Extortion


ValueWalk: 

Puerto Rico's Debt Downgraded By Moody's, Outlook Negative:

"Shift from "revenue enhancement and budget tightening" to moving burden to creditors to accept debt haircuts cited as reason"

The Economist: 

Puerto Rico’s debt crisis: Neither a state nor independent: "Puerto Rico’s woes stem from a mix of structural weaknesses, external shocks and self-inflicted wounds."


The Wall Street Journal: 

Cash-Strapped Utility Drains Puerto Rico's Residents 

______________________________________________________________________

Mike Nova comments (first published on 7.3.14): 

The Island of Savagery, whose generally quite soft, sweet, sometimes charming and not very sophisticated people (but sometimes very sophisticated charmer-snakes too) allow themselves, as if they were indentured servants, serfs or slaves (too long of a collective cultural memory?!) to be ruled not by the government which has mostly 
decorative role and function, but by their KGB. And sometimes not by theirs only but by the original one also: the Soviets, and now Russians 

("According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Russian intelligence ..... has worked closely with Puerto Rican separatist and Latin American terrorist groups.")

and Cubans, and some others had Puerto Rico in their greedy sights and in their mischievous plans for quite a long time, probably since 1930-s; which is a very important although separate issue. 
Puerto Rico Secret Police, the former notorious "Las Carpetas", is the pervasive and perverse, omnipresent and grandiosely-illusionary omnipotent, pathological malignant parasite in the Island's body and mind, stealing its blood and resources and poisoning, damaging and destroying it. 

" ...the thousands of Puerto Ricans, largely pro-independence supporters... were spied upon by a commonwealth police intelligence unit. Over half a century the police unit built up a vast network of informers--everyday people like the victims themselves. Other governmental and private institutions also provided information for the files." 

The political persecution of "Independistas" is largely in the past, the excesses and mistakes were present on both sides, now they are included in the political process and can express their views openly and participate in the political process in a non-violent, legal and constitutional way. However, they do not have much of a general support, just about 5% of the votes in the last referendum. 
The interesting question is, what happened to PR Secret Police in this process, what kind of transformation they went through and what are they now? It is a fascinating subject for historical and political research. My impression is that they got stuck with the old primitive COINTELPRO methods and were almost imperceptibly subverted and converted by nationalists. I do not know much about it, would like to learn more and hopefully will. 
The so called "Intelligence Units" (the official names for Secret Police divisions) apparently exist in almost all police departments in some way, shape or form, especially in the large ones. However, the styles and methods of their work might differ from each other significantly and are affected by particular local factors, traditions, attitudes and cultures. 
With all my sincere (even if somewhat paradoxical and contradictory) sympathy for the Islanders, I want to say directly what my impressions are about some of their cultural attitudes which might be a part of their so called "national character" or collective mentality and psychology (and which in certain ways might affect police work also).
This is a Non-Culture of Cheating, Deceit and Extortion as the way of life, mentality and as the most popular sport on all levels, from the top to the bottom; and closer it is to the top, the more entrenched, institutionalized, vicious and brazen these qualities are. 
These stories with "Creole Bankruptcy Law" and Doral Bank are the illustrations and the cases in point. This is not a "buccaneering spirit", this is the primitive, predatory, criminal robber psychology combined with deep infantile dependency needs (by the way, this trait - the general infantilism, might be one of the reasons why child abuse of various types is so widespread on the Island), or in common parlance, a "sucker mentality" (maybe in reverse, but essentially the same: those who want to take others for "suckers" are "suckers" themselves - this is their mindset and modus operandi). 
This seems to be the prevailing political mentality of currently ruling PPD
To expect and to force the"creditors to accept debt haircuts" is an example of this. This type of uncivilized and inappropriate political-economic behavior (I do not know, where else this is practiced, outside the realm of the "Creole" mentality and traditions) shattered the creditors' trust and essentially cut off all future lines of credit
Is this not practically suicidal? The situation is very difficult but the wiser solutions could be found. The point is that the economic solutions cannot be divorced from the political ones. PPD does not want to see this. They are stubbornly stuck with their unrealistic childish demands. They want to practice their brand of "Caribbean Socialism" and expect that the party performed on borrowed money and borrowed time will go on forever. Will not happen. 

"Puerto Rico must come up with a new strategy; what has been done so far hasn’t worked…and won’t", warns the notable economist Robert Shapiro.

"To restore growth and raise living standards, it is critically important for policymakers to expand efforts to marshal the Island's considerable strengths - a bilingual and well-educated adult population, an open economy occupying a central position in the Caribbean, a wide experience as a host to multinational corporations, and close ties to the U.S. mainland economy."

But the Big Business will never come to Puerto Rico (temporary tax incentives are long over and there is nothing enticing on a horizon except huge investment risks) unless its political status is solved and there is a political stability here, namely: the Statehood. The similar case is with the military presence: it means jobs and prosperity; to reject it is to tighten the noose around your necks, not mentioning the moral issues and the simple, elementary decency as the U.S. citizens, and obligations and gratitude to your defenders.
Some further points on socio-cultural attitudes of some Islanders. They are quite fearful and insecure and project their fear and insecurity unto others. They are insularly "claustrophilic" and deeply, consciously and unconsciously xenophobic, fearing foreigners and "others" who, as they feel might threaten or destroy the little, archaic, stuck in the past existence of theirs and their way of life. 
They do not like and resent America intensely and just as intensely, eagerly, insatiably suck America's milk, with vengeance and the sense of entitlement; they want to be "independent" but to retain all the benefits and to continue getting the "special treatment". 
The best, most simple, natural and healthy, and the most realistic and only true Independence for Puerto Rico is the Statehood, when the individual liberties, freedoms and equal opportunities and social, political and economic fairness and justice will be guaranteed by the great America; that's where the true independence starts: in our minds and souls. And that's what the people of Puerto Rico clearly voted for in their collective wisdom. The alternative is a social and political catastrophe: widespread abject poverty, social unrest and disorder and inevitable destructive Haitization of the Island. 
I believe that Puerto Rico will eventually become one of the USA states; I also believe that it will not be a (shameful and shameless) police state, as it is now. These two entities are incompatible.
They jealously guard their Island from others and in the process and as the result lose the whole big World. They have nothing to offer and nothing to gain from the age of Globalization at this point.
This story is not only and not as much about the financial bankruptcy that the Island is facing but also about the bankruptcy political, social, historical and cultural. 
Generally speaking, PPD is thought of as affiliated with the U.S. Democratic Party. I do not know what they really have in common with it: Garcia is openly shunned and dissed by the U.S. Democratic Party politicians, PPD ideology stems from and is based on the outdated precepts of "national liberation movements", this is a leftist nationalist socialist party, from which historically it came from. 

"Dissidents expelled from the Liberal Party of Puerto Rico (then led by Antonio R. Barceló), founded the PPD in 1938.[2] Many of them were part of the old socialist movement of Puerto Rico." 

Apparently, these socialist credentials, thinking and tendencies were further strengthened with the influx of former members of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party after its demise

"The PSP was formally disbanded in 1993. Some of its members went to collaborate with the Popular Democratic Party (PDP)..."

They may have any ideology or any theoretical economic thinking they wish, unless it is anti-American, anti American government, totalitarian, violent, fanatical, fascist-inhumane or similar type of evil mentality, and unfortunately some fanatically nationalistic, violent and anti-American trends and actions were present in recent history of Puerto Rico. The issues of national identity are quite complex matters. Puerto Rican's national identity and their identity as Americans can and should be the harmonious organic whole, without much ambivalence and controversy.
Americans in general are very, exceptionally tolerant people, and naturally so. They always respect other people's thinking and views, even if they do not agree with them or if these views feel foreign to them. And they are very careful about not being prejudiced and not putting labels on others. I personally do not see anything particularly wrong with free thinking, but it should include at least some real and hopefully good thinking to be really "free". 
The problem in this case is that PPD leadership are not good and efficient managers, regardless of their ideology, or that's how they look and act. 
The problem with borrowing was piling up for decades, this is truth, and all recent Island administrations contributed into it. 
The "Creole Bankruptcy Law" provides, as some economists, including Sergio M. Marxuach of CNE argue, for at least some orderly way of dealing with this crisis, that's might be to a certain degree and extent the truth also. 

"The law for the reorganization of public corporations is not perfect but provides an orderly, logical process, and well structured to reduce the burden of debt service. We can not continue sacrificing our public services to meet the golden calf of the bondholders."

But the point is, it seems to me, about the trust, honesty and government's responsibility in meeting its obligations without deception or hidden intent to shift the burden to others, in this case, the lenders. 

Recently, some anti-climatic news came: 
"Lenders Agreed to Give Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority More Time to Repay Debt - NYT", 
and President Obama and Congress directed the Treasury Department "to provide technical assistance to Puerto Rico to stabilize and strengthen their public financial management and financial management systems." 
"The U.S. Department of the Treasury has made clear that it is not considering a direct bailout for Puerto Rico as the island works to shore up its finances.
The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, has been keeping a close eye on Puerto Rico as it gauges risk levels in the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market. However, the central bank has little recourse to step in to help Puerto Rico.
The White House has already dispatched federal advisers to concentrate on three fronts: fiscal strategy, optimization of federal funding, and economic development."
The arguments were presented for privatization and modernization of PREPA:
 "Unless the operation of Prepa's generating plants is contracted to private enterprise, with a requirement to convert to natural gas as soon as feasible, the high cost of energy will be with us for quite a long time! The Governor, the House and Senate have all failed to serve the people."

The questions about the link between Puerto Rico economic status and its political status do persist and they have to be addressed. The creditors lawsuit strikes at the very heart of this issue and raises the constitutional questions at the intersection of PR political and economic situation. 

"Investment funds, managed by Franklin Templeton Investments and OppenheimerFunds, have filed a lawsuit against the Puerto Rico government in federal court, arguing that only Congress can create bankruptcy laws." 

"The lawsuit claims the law “violates multiple provisions of the federal Constitution”... 
Under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Puerto Rico is treated like a state, which also are not eligible for Chapter 9 protection."

These events is another indication that political status of Puerto Rico demands a solution, and the sooner the better.
I think that the solution of PR political status is in clear identification, delineation and affiliation and true, unequivocal alignments of political parties in Puerto Rico. 
The U.S. Republican and Democratic Parties should establish their direct, firm and robust presence on the Island as their branches, not just for representations at the Parties' conventions, and should compete directly and aggressively with both PPD and PNP for membership and votes and/or absorb them. Eventually they should become the main political parties in Puerto Rico. 
Essentially, what it comes down to is the deadly fear of local elites, of all political colorings (they all are basically the same cozy bunch), of losing their political and economic powers, which are incestuously intermixed and cemented by corruption, and to their struggle for survival. The political schizophrenia with regard to the mainland parties' affiliations is a very convenient device for them in this struggle, device hypocritical and sneaky, as it is consistent with their general style (in their habitual passive-aggressive but quite a refined way), it serves to diffuse, neuter and neutralize the U.S. power; and they are most determined and very much invested in maintaining this schizophrenia, even if they might not be aware of this themselves. Cutting through this schizophrenic Gordian knot is the first step towards achieving some semblance of political health on the Island. 
The U.S. Congress should send a very clear and unequivocal message: Puerto Rico is the American territory and will always remain as such (until and unless it becomes a state); it is too strategically important to give it up. 
American big business should establish a much broader presence on the Island, the incentives should be created for mass migration to the Island of skilled workforce. 
English should become a bone fide second or first language, its use in all interactions and official documentations should be officially mandated. 
A program of bi-cultural and bilingual integration should be thought out and implemented. 
Puerto Rico will not become a state in one day or one year, it will take a lot of preparation and work, presently the Island is not quite ready for it. 
This work has to start, in a very systematic and carefully thought out way. 
And these are my observations and impressions, and this is my opinion. More details will follow later. 
___________________________________________________________

Barron's
Moody's Investors Service this afternoon dealt a blow to Puerto Rico's effort to preserve the credit standing of the central government with a surprisingly broad downgrade of every major Puerto Rican debt issuer. All Puerto Rican bond issuers now have ...
CNNMoney
The law's passage again raised fears thatPuerto Rico, still groaning under roughly $70 billion in debt, is inching closer to default. General obligation debt is supposed to be fenced-off from any lower-level restructuring efforts, but the market isn't ...
New York Times
Puerto Rico's electrical utility is running out of money and time to negotiate a deal with its lenders, part of a broad reckoning for an island that relies on Wall Street to finance some of its most basic functions. The Puerto Rico Electric Power ...
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Some bonds backed by Puerto Rico sales taxes plummeted more than 14% on Wednesday, as a new law in the commonwealth and subsequent credit-rating downgrade have pushed investors into dumping the debt. Tipping Wednesday's sell-off, Moody's on ...

Mike Nova's Shared NewsLinks Review

From The Major News Sources

» Puerto Rico governor signs $9.56 billion budget for 2015
03/07/14 13:23 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . SAN JUAN Tue Jul 1, 2014 3:51pm EDT SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla on Tuesday signed a $9.56 billion budget for 2015, a blueprint that cuts spending by $200 million from th...
» Puerto Rico’s Status: What’s Best for the U.S.?
03/07/14 13:21 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Puerto Rico Report. A majority of Puerto Rico’s “Commonwealth” party senators has proposed a new version of the Commonwealth  status proposal which has been rejected  in the pas...
» Commonwealth Enacting Bankruptcy Law for Some of its Agencies in One Day Despite Gov’s Full Payment Pledge
03/07/14 13:19 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Puerto Rico Report. Puerto Rico’s Senate this afternoon passed a bill proposed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla (“Commonwealth”) this morning to enable a number of the territory’...
» Commonwealthers Propose Nation with U.S. Benefits
03/07/14 13:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Puerto Rico Report. A majority of the ‘Commonwealth’ party majority of Puerto Rico’s Senate has proposed a definition of a new ‘Commonwealth’ political status (see below). The...
» Governor Says He’ll Sue National Bond Analysts, Challenges Them to Run for Office in Puerto Rico
03/07/14 13:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Puerto Rico Report. Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla late yesterday said that he had directed the Secretary of Justice to sue national government credit rating agency Moody’s after it do...
» Pierluisi: "Poco le dijo Moody's al Gobierno de AGP" - YouTube
03/07/14 13:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Published on Jul 2, 2014 Pedro Pierluisi, gobierno de Alejandro Garcia Padilla PPD es uno Irresponsable gastan más de $800 Millones en su primer presupuesto, patentazo nacional, quiebra criolla mal hecho...
» Cash-Strapped Utility Drains Puerto Rico's Residents
03/07/14 13:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . July 2, 2014 7:57 p.m. ET Francisco Esteves says his electricity bills were as high as $470 a month. José Jiménez-Tirado for the Wall Street Journal SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—To lower his electric...
» Departamento de Justicia prepara su artillería contra Moodys
03/07/14 13:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . El secretario de Justicia, César Miranda, reconoció que el gobierno de Puerto Rico incurrirá en costos altísimos por concepto de pago de abogados  y peritos para  las demandas qu...
» A Look at the Chikungunya Virus in the Caribbean
03/07/14 13:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from ABC News: Technology. A look at the inroads by the chikungunya virus in Latin America and the Caribbean: — WHAT IT IS: The name chikungunya comes from the Makonde language of Tanzania. It translates ...
» Virus strikes hard in Haiti’s crowded shantytowns
03/07/14 13:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Within a dense cluster of flimsy shacks made mostly of plastic tarp and wooden planks, a young mother cradles her sick, whimpering toddler while trying to guard against a fierce ...
» Puerto Rico’s Lifeblood Choked Off as Credit Access Ends
03/07/14 13:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . No state or city with a credit rating as low as Puerto Rico ’s has been able to access bond markets since at least 1990, a situation that may cut off the lifeblood of the commonwealth’s finances. ...
» El virus chikungunya golpea a los pobres de Haití – Metro
03/07/14 13:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Metro - Últimas noticias. PUERTO PRÍNCIPE, Haití (AP) — En un enmarañado conjunto de endebles chozas hechas principalmente de lonas de plástico y planchas de madera, una joven mad...
» Virus strikes hard in Haiti's crowded shantytowns
03/07/14 13:04 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Within a dense cluster of flimsy shacks made mostly of plastic tarp and wooden planks, a young mother cradles her sick, whimpering toddler while trying to guard against a fi...
» Puerto Rico Hits Back | Financial Planning
03/07/14 13:03 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Portfolio - Mutual Funds Puerto Rico Hits Back by: Robert Slavin Thursday, July 3, 2014 Print Email Reprints in Share 0 Partner Insights What's this? SourceMedia's Partner Insights program enables marketers t...
» Haiti Extremely Susceptible To Quick Spreading, Deadly U.S. Virus : News : Headlines & Global News
03/07/14 13:02 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Headlines & Global News : Top News. By Rebeka Silva r.silva@hngn.com | Jul 03, 2014 03:10 AM EDT Marqui Ducarme is aided by his wife after contracting the Chikungunya virus at his home in Port-au-P...
» Puerto Rico's Debt Downgraded By Moody's, Outlook Negative
03/07/14 12:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Comments on: Moody’s Wacks Puerto Rico’s Debt, Outlook Negative. Shift from "revenue enhancement and budget tightening" to moving burden to creditors to accept debt haircuts cited as reason Moody’s I...
» Catalogs Pierluisi the very negative outlook
03/07/14 12:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from El Vocero de Puerto Rico. By Stephanie Gomez Alvarez, THE SPOKESMAN - 6:40 a.m. Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi warned That if the government does not have access to the bond market and does not Have...
» Two union leaders see positive bankruptcy law Creole
03/07/14 12:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Two union leaders categorized as positive the "Creole bankruptcy law" because it would be the first time in the history of Puerto Rico faces a government bondholders and defend the public interest. "This, aft...
» Two union leaders endorse Creole bankruptcy law
03/07/14 12:52 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . By <a href="http://Primerahora.com" rel="nofollow">Primerahora.com</a> 07.03.2014 | 10:44 a.m. Two union leaders categorized as positive the "Creole bankruptcy law" because it would be the first t...
» CNE – Centro Para Una Nueva Economía – Center for a New Economy
03/07/14 12:51 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from CNE - Centro Para Una Nueva Economía - Center for a New Economy. No state or city with a  credit rating  as low as  Puerto Rico ’s has been able to access bond markets since at least 1...
» Caribbean Business - More Local News - Page2RSS
03/07/14 12:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Caribbean Business - More Local News. 03 Jul ' 08:19 Job drop drags on manufacturing index Issued: July 1, 2014 Rico’s vital manufacturing industry contracted in May, posting a second straight month o...
» Puerto Rico’s debt crisis: Neither a state nor independent
03/07/14 12:47 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Visit Puerto Rico and lose your shirt PUERTO RICO has put on a brave face during its year-long debt crisis. But on June 28th Alejandro García Padilla, the governor, made a belated concession to reality b...

Doral Financial wins round in Puerto Rico legal case, shares jump

July 2 Wed Jul 2, 2014 1:43pm EDT
(Reuters) - Troubled lender Doral Financial Corp said an appeals court in Puerto Rico reversed a lower court's ruling that it lacked jurisdiction to hear a case stemming from its tax dispute with the island's government.
Doral's shares jumped as much as 70 percent to $6.86 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Doral, one of the biggest Puerto Rican banks, sued the government in May for voiding an agreement that required the Treasury Department to pay the company about $230 million in tax refund.
The appeals court said the lower court erred when it ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and ordered it to hold a hearing in which the Treasury Department must prove the basis for voiding the agreement.
The company had received a letter from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in May stating that it must classify the tax agreement as a loss and write off the asset.

Doral, whose business has been affected by a slowing Puerto Rican economy, had said it could sell assets to meet regulatory requirements. (Reporting by Tanya Agrawal and Neha Dimri in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Puerto Rico governor signs $9.56 billion budget for 2015

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SAN JUAN Tue Jul 1, 2014 3:51pm EDT

SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla on Tuesday signed a $9.56 billion budget for 2015, a blueprint that cuts spending by $200 million from the previous year amid a continued contraction in the island's economy.

The development also comes as concerns among investors and analysts grow over the island’s ability to stay current on its $73 billion debt load, and about new legislation that appears to open the door for the island's public corporations to restructure their debt.

Also on Tuesday, Moody's Investors Service slashed Puerto Rico's credit rating three notches deeper into junk territory, and warned further cuts may be ahead. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have both downgraded Puerto Rico to non-investment grade this year.

The new budget is $75 million less than the governor proposed back in April, with the reduction coming as tax revenue fell short of estimates in the final months of the 2014 fiscal year, which ended Monday.

The spending cuts are being accomplished through an across-the-board-cut that averages about 8 percent for most government agencies, except for the Police Department and University of Puerto Rico. The plan includes $775 million for debt service.

While claiming to be the first balanced budget in two decades, the government will rely on $269 million in debt financing from a $3.5 billion March bond issue for interest payments due this year. Another bill approved as part of the budget would allow agencies to postpone payments due to the Government Development Bank, which will save $75 million this year.

An analysis by the Center for a New Economy, a local think tank, has identified $300 million in projected savings and revenue that it believes the government will not be able to realize.

This includes a plan to begin charging tax on goods delivered to island ports, a plan whose implementation has already been delayed a month until August.

As part of the budget process, the governor pushed through a fiscal emergency law that freezes salaries and cuts other benefits for employees across government agencies and public corporations.

Other savings are slated to be achieved by consolidating 25 government entities, closing more than 80 schools and putting towns in charge of providing school transportation.

Lawmakers passed a slew of new measures to shore up revenue, including changes to the gross sales tax. Under the changes, companies with gross sales under $3 million will be exempt and a sliding scale applies to other companies.

Lawmakers also passed a 2 percent tax on money transfers made from Puerto Rico to anywhere off island, including the continental U.S., and the government is looking to raise cash through changes to the capital gains tax and the basic alternative minimum tax.

The tax increases and spending cuts will make it difficult to return Puerto Rico to economic growth, according to economists and credit analysts.

In May, Puerto Rico’s economy shrank by 1.1 percent on a year-over-year basis, according to the Government Development Bank Economic Activity Index. It was the 18th straight month of decline.

Over the weekend, the governor signed enacted The Puerto Rico Public Corporations Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act, which allows financially distressed public corporations to enter a bankruptcy-like process to restructure debt and other obligations.

Two large investment groups, Oppenheimer Funds and Franklin Funds, immediately challenged the legislation with a federal lawsuit.

Rating agencies quickly downgraded several public corporations, saying the risk of default increases with the enactment of the new law. Public corporations account for almost 40 percent of the island’s total debt of roughly $73 billion.

(By Reuters in San Juan; Editing by Dan Burns and Diane Craft)
Read the whole story

· · ·

Puerto Rico’s Status: What’s Best for the U.S.?

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made in AmericaA majority of Puerto Rico’s “Commonwealth” party senators has proposed a new version of the Commonwealth status proposal which has beenrejected in the past by U.S. Government officials.
Among the elements of the proposal:
  • Puerto Ricans would be U.S. as well as Puerto Rican national citizens and could hold passports from both countries.
  • U.S. law would not apply and U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction in Puerto Rico.
  • The U.S. would be required to continue to provide financial support and services for Puerto Rico as in the past, for up to 60 more years.
  • U.S. taxes would not apply but the U.S. would continue to provide U.S. tax or other incentives for private investment in Puerto Rico.
  • Puerto Rico would determine its other foreign relations and be able to accept aid from other nations.
  • The U.S. would be responsible for the defense of Puerto Rico but could not draft Puerto Ricans, include Puerto Rico in declaration of war, or have nuclear or chemical weapons in Puerto Rico.
  • Puerto Rico would be outside the customs territory of the U.S. but Puerto Rican products would be able to enter the U.S. freely.
The “Commonwealth” party legislators want this proposal to be considered along with statehood and true nationhood as possibilities for Puerto Rico’s status, now that Puerto Ricans have rejected the current territory status.
Responses to our report of this plan in social media have repeatedly asked one question: why would the U.S. agree to this? One Twitter user asked, “Interesting, but why would US approve? 2 be nice?”
That is indeed the question. Discussions of the effects of Puerto Rico’s status or changes in status tend to focus on the effects on Puerto Rico. But how would changes in status affect the United States?
If Puerto Rico became a state…
Puerto Ricans would have equal tax responsibilities  to the Federal government. If Puerto Rico followed in the footsteps of Alaska and Hawaii, both of which were relatively poor territories but which have become prosperous States, Puerto Rico could become a valuable resource for the U.S.
The likely improvements in the infrastructure and the business environment could also make Puerto Rico more appealing as a site for industry, giving the re-shoring movement in American industry new opportunities.
The United States would also be spared the embarrassment of being a leader for democracy and yet having what looks to many very much like a colony.
If Puerto Rico became a nation…
The United States would be freed of that embarrassing colonial relationship, and would no longer have financial responsibility for Puerto Rico. The Philippines was a territory of the United States at one time and became independent nation. There have been no obvious negative consequences for the U.S. in terms of national security or loss of resources.
If Puerto Rico became a nation with benefits…
The relationship proposed by the “Commonwealth” patty senators would put the U.S. in the position of continuing to pay for Puerto Rico’s needs and to accept Puerto Rico’s goods while having no say in the governance of the islands. Puerto Ricans would still be citizens and Puerto Rican goods would still enter the U.S, market freely. The U.S. would be expected to provide incentives for investment in Puerto Rico even though there would be no benefits for the U.S. in doing so. Puerto Rico could have any relationship it wanted with other nations, even if those relationships were not in the best interests of the U.S.
Discussions of statehood sometimes use the idea of marriage as a metaphor, saying that the U.S. should go ahead and put a ring on Puerto Rico after a century of dalliance. The arrangement the “Commonwealth party senators have proposed sounds a lot like alimony, or maybe palimony — a requirement to continue to support Puerto Rico in the manner to which she is accustomed, without maintaining the current relationship.
Read the whole story

· · · ·

Commonwealth Enacting Bankruptcy Law for Some of its Agencies in One Day Despite Gov’s Full Payment Pledge

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Puerto Rico’s Senate this afternoon passed a bill proposed by Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla (“Commonwealth”) this morning to enable a number of the territory’s semi-autonomous agencies, public corporations and authorities, to reduce their debts and other obligations, including those under contracts and agreements with labor unions.
Its House of Representatives is expected to pass the bill providing bankruptcy processes for parts of the Commonwealth government tonight.
The legislation marks a sharp reversal in policy for Garcia Padilla. He has repeatedly said that the Commonwealth would meet all of its financial obligations; his administration has even published advertisements in national newspapers to assure bond buyers of full payment of interest and principal.
Puerto Rico’s economy has lagged that of the States for four decades and has particularly declined during seven of the past eight years — with the one year of growth being at .1%. Its economic problems are largely attributable to its territory status, which denies Puerto Rico about $10 billion a year in Federal funding and untold billions of dollars more due to minimal Federal government purchasing compared with the States and having no power in the making and implementation of national laws.
The Commonwealth government has tried to compensate by borrowing, primarily through issuing more bonds.  Its debts now total about $72 billion —  more than any State other than California and New York, which each have much larger economies and populations.
Much of the debt has been issued by the Commonwealth’s semi-autonomous agencies, which provide basic services such as electricity, water, sewer, highways, air and sea ports, land and sea mass transit, etc. These agencies generate revenue but have also been subsidized by the central government.
The ability of the agencies and the central government to borrow more to operate has been severely limited because of the amount of debt, failing economy, and falling population as hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have voted for equality within the country — statehood — by moving to the States, which they can do freely as U.S. citizens.
The legislation would permit the debt restructuring A) with the approval of some creditors (75% of 50%) with judicial review and a three-person implementation committee or B) through a plan developed by a public corporation with some creditors under the oversight of a special court.
The Electric Power Authority and Highway and Transportation Authorities are said to expect to not have enough cash to meet their obligations after next month.The cash position of Electric Power Authority (PREPA) has been reduced to as little as $4 million on hand on some days, according to PREPA Governing Board Member Agustin Irizarry.  The agency recently had to borrow $60 million raised from a bond sale to pay for new plants to pay its sole remaining fuel oil supplier so that it could obtain more oil. The Ports Authority is reportedly another prime candidate for a bankruptcy-type process.
The Federal bankruptcy code provides a process for government entities within States to declare bankruptcy but not for those under territory governments.
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Commonwealthers Propose Nation with U.S. Benefits

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A majority of the ‘Commonwealth’ party majority of Puerto Rico’s Senate has proposed a definition of a new ‘Commonwealth’ political status (see below). The senators have also proposed asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to include the definition in a process to resolve the question of theCommonwealth’s status.
The proposal would combine even more aspects of Puerto Rico’s known status options — statehood, independence, nationhood in an association with the U.S. that either nation can end, and continued U.S. territory status — than the party’s official status proposal would.
Since the party proposal was made in 1998, the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama Administrations and congressional committees and their leaders have said that it is impossible for U.S. constitutional and other reasons.
Led by Former President Antonio Fas Alzamora and Ramon Nieves, a total of 13 of the 18 ‘Commonwealth’ party members of the Senate — one short of a majority of the entire Senate — made the new proposal in a Senate resolution (number 891).
Included were Vice President Jose Dalmau and Alternate Majority Leader Rosanna Lopez Leon.
The resolution responds to a law enacted by the Federal government in January, which provides for a plebiscite on status options that can resolve the question of the territory’s ultimate status. Options for the plebiscite must be proposed by Puerto Rico’s Elections Commission and be determined by the U.S. Department of Justice to not be incompatible with the Constitution, laws, and policies of the U.S.
The Commission includes a representative of each of the territory’s three status-based political parties — parties advocating statehood and independence in addition to the ‘Commonwealth’ party. The Commission is led by a president appointed by the governor of the Commonwealth — currently the head of the ‘Commonwealth’ party.
The Commission has said that it lacks authority to propose options for the plebiscite despite the authorization in Federal law. It had been requested to act by its statehood party representative as well as by party President Pedro Pierluisi, the territory’s representative to the Federal government who has a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives with a vote in committees.
Pierluisi has also proposed that the plebiscite be on statehood, as he and 131 members of the U.S. House and three members of the U.S. Senate have proposed in legislation — and the ‘Commonwealth’ party proposed as late as 2010.
The Obama White House proposed the new plebiscite law and Congress enacted it because Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla and his party’s majorities in the Legislative Assembly refused to accept the results of a plebiscite held under Commonwealth law along with their very narrow election in 2012.
The plebiscite rejected territory status by 54% — despite Garcia Padilla campaigning for it — and choose statehood among the possible alternatives. Statehood won 61.2% of the vote and nationhood in a free association with the U.S. 33.3%. Pure independence got only 4.5%.
The Obama White House supported the plebiscite and hailed its results but proposed the Federal law concerned that lobbying by the Governor would stall congressional action on the people of Puerto Rico’s self-determination decisions.
The ‘Commonwealth’ party leadership refuses to accept the plebiscite and its results because the plebiscite did not include the party’s status proposal.
Under the proposal, Puerto Rico would be a nation but the U.S. would be permanently bound to it. The Commonwealth would have the powers to nullify the application of Federal laws and Federal court jurisdiction. It could also enter into international agreements and organizations that require nationhood.
The U.S. would be obligated to grant a new subsidy to the Commonwealth and most of its land in the territory in addition to current aid to individuals. It would also have to continue to grant U.S. citizenship and free entry to goods shipped from Puerto Rico.
Gov. Garcia has asked the Legislative Assembly to consider both the Federal plebiscite law and the party’s alternative proposal for a Commonwealth government status assembly during the legislative session that begins in August. He has also suggested that the law and the proposal could be combined in a status process.
Party leaders hope that they can structure an assembly to overcome popular support for statehood, particularly through a ‘back room’ deal with other nationalists.
They may formally discuss the issue in a meeting of the party governing board July 15th.
The proposal for a “Covenant Partnership” between a “Sovereign Commonwealth” and the U.S. offered by the 13 senators is a development of their party’s status proposal that Federal officials have rejected. It draws heavily from the compacts of free association between the U.S. and three former parts of the Pacific Islands Territory that the U.S. administered for the United Nations. It also includes elements of a “Commonwealth” bill for Guam that Federal executive and legislative branch officials rejected in the 1990s.
The following outlines some of the key elements of the proposal.
  • Puerto Rico would be a nation but Puerto Ricans would be U.S. as well as Puerto Rican national citizens. Both nations would issue passports.
  • U.S. law would not apply but a bilateral committee with Puerto Rican majority membership could determine the applicability of some U.S. statutes and Federal banking and securities laws would continue to apply pending review by the committee.
  • Puerto Rico would have exclusive authority in labor and telecommunications matters.
  • The Federal district court for Puerto Rico would be abolished and other U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction in Puerto Rico.
  • The U.S. would give Puerto Rico aid at no less than the amount it gives in the year prior to nationhood for 30 years, with aid for another 30 years to be negotiated but no less than during the first 30.
  •  The U.S. would capitalize a trust fund with annual contributions increased for inflation over 30 years.
  • The U.S. would continue to provide all existing services and programs to the Commonwealth and municipal governments, and services of the Postal Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and Fish and Wildlife Service. Puerto Rico would provide land needed by the U.S. for providing these benefits.
  • The U.S. would continue its Social Security system in Puerto Rico and consider continuing to provide other programs and services benefiting individuals. It would continue to provide Medicare, veterans, and other  benefits acquired before the nationhood of Puerto Rico.
  • U.S. taxes would not apply but the U.S. would continue to grant Puerto Rico Federal taxes on Puerto Rican products shipped to the U.S.
  • The U.S. would provide additional funds in the response to claims of residents of the islands of Culebra and Vieques related to military training.
  • The U.S. will enact U.S. tax or other incentives for private investment in Puerto Rico.
  • Interest from Puerto Rican bonds would continue to be exempt from Federal, State, and local taxes in the U.S.
  • Puerto Rican bonds payable from revenues of the issuer will not be considered a debt of the issuer.
  • Puerto Rico would determine its other foreign relations and be able to accept aid from other nations.
  • The U.S. would be responsible for the defense of Puerto Rico but could not draft Puerto Ricans, include Puerto Rico in declaration of war, or have nuclear or chemical weapons in Puerto Rico.
  • Puerto Rico would otherwise have exclusive authority up to 200 miles off its shores.
  • Puerto Rico would be outside the customs territory of the U.S. but Puerto Rican products would be able to enter the U.S. freely.
  • U.S. laws requiring the use of U.S. vessels for shipping between U.S. ports would not apply.
  • Residents of Puerto Rico would be exempt from certain U.S. taxes for inheritances from grandparents or great-grandparents.
  • A bilateral court would resolve disputes in the U.S.-Puerto Rican relationship.
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Governor Says He’ll Sue National Bond Analysts, Challenges Them to Run for Office in Puerto Rico

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Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla late yesterday said that he had directed the Secretary of Justice to sue national government credit rating agency Moody’s after it downgraded insular government bonds three notches because of the law he signed late Saturday providing processes for the debt and other obligations of a number of the government’s public corporations to be reduced.
He also said that other credit rating agencies — which are private analytical firms serving investors — would be taken to court if they reached findings similar to Moody’s and challenged Wall Street credit analysts to run for office in Puerto Rico “if they want to run” the territory.
Moody’s Investor’s Service downgraded Puerto Rico bonds further into to junk status hours after Garcia Padilla signed the law, saying, “By providing for defaults by certain issuers that the central government has long supported, Puerto Rico’s new law marks the end of the commonwealth’s long history of taking actions needed to support its debt. It signals a depleted capacity for revenue increases and austerity measures and a new preference for shifting fiscal pressures to creditors, which, in our view, has implications for all of Puerto Rico’s debt, including that of the central government.”
The Moody’s action is the latest in a series of negative credit rating agency actions in response to the law Garcia proposed a week ago and the Legislative Assembly passed that day.  The Governor said that the Government was taking legal action because Moody’s had spread untruthful information and was tarnishing the Commonwealth’s good name.
Explaining the law, House of Representatives Treasury and Budget Committee Chairman Rafael Hernandez said yesterday that “The Electric Power Authority [PREPA] is headed for collapse in the next 30 days. That’s why this law was passed in this session.” The session ended June 30th and the legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until August.
The PREPA board met Sunday in a closed session for a briefing on the utility’s finances. With a $10 million credit line loan payment to Citibank due tomorrow and a total of $146 million in payments to Citi owed this month and next and $525 million to be paid to Scotiabank next month, there are questions about PREPA’s ability to pay all of its obligations. The banks have not yet agreed to extend the credit despite extensive efforts by PREPA. The new law, however, could provide new incentive for the banks, which would face losses if PREPA takes advantage of its new power to have its obligations reduced through the law.
In late May, PREPA had to transfer $100 million in bond proceeds for infrastructure to its operating account to pay $60 million for oil, used to generate 69% of the electricity that it produces. The transfer was supposed to be repaid within a month. A board member said then that PREPA’s cash on hand was sometimes as low as $4 million. Its executive director primarily attributes the cash problems to non-payments by other government entities.
Secretary of Justice Cesar Miranda Monday expressed confidence that the restructuring law would withstand legal challenge in response to the suit filed in Federal court hours after the Governor signed the law by Franklin Templeton and Oppenheimer Rochester funds, which own $907.2 million and $821.4 million in PREPA bonds, respectively. The suit claims that it law violates the Bankruptcy, Takings, and Contracts Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. The Government had contracts with national law firms in drafting the law totaling $3.6 million for the past several months through, anticipating litigation that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court. The total does not include the $1.9 million in contracts with the firm specializing in restructuring guiding the process.
Officials expected credit rating agency downgrades of bonds issued by PREPA and other public corporations, such as the Highway and Transportation and Aqueduct and Sewer Authorities, in response to the law. They were not expecting negative action on Puerto Rico’s Government Obligation (GO) and sales and use tax (COFINA) bonds.
They had been hoping that the law and the Governor’s pledge that a balanced budget without borrowing would be enacted for Fiscal Year 2015 would instill greater confidence in the credit of the central government.  They are now touting the $9.565 billion budget enacted into law June 30th for the fiscal year that began yesterday as “balanced.” The budget is about $200 million less than last fiscal year’s with spending cuts of some $1.357 billion, increased taxes of approximately $500 million, and $550 million more budgeted for meeting bond obligations.  But the budget is also using $269.8 million of March’s $3.5 billion GO bond sale and delaying $75 million in agency repayments to the Government Development Bank (GDB) and payments to government retirement funds.
Analysts also say that the budget’s revenue projections are unrealistically high by what may be hundreds of millions of dollars, in part because the tax increases will put a further drag on the territory’s economy. The budget was revised from Gov. Garcia Padilla’s proposal April 29th when it became clear that Fiscal Year 2014 tax collections would be hundreds of millions of dollars short.
The FY 2015 revenue estimates are using the Planning Board’s projection of a .2% growth in the insular economy.  Most non-administration economists, however, estimate continued shrinkage in the economy of of between 1.5% to 2%.
The private economists’ more negative view seems to have been supported Friday night when the GDB released its Puerto Rico Economic Activity Index (EAI) for May. The number was 1.1% lower than in May 2013 after an April year-over-year decrease of 1.3% and 16 prior months of straight declines. Cement sales were the big drag on the EAI, although electricity generation and gasoline consumption were also down.  There was, however, a tiny increase in non-farm employment year over year due to private sector hiring.
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Pierluisi: "Poco le dijo Moody's al Gobierno de AGP" - YouTube

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Published on Jul 2, 2014
Pedro Pierluisi, gobierno de Alejandro Garcia Padilla PPD es uno Irresponsable gastan más de $800 Millones en su primer presupuesto, patentazo nacional, quiebra criolla mal hecho etc. Poco le dijo Moody's a este gobierno de improvisación de Garcia Padilla PPD. Pierluisi aclaró, que las campañas son para el 2016, y el, está trabajando DURO por Puerto Rico en Washington y dando soluciones al desgobierno PPD.
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Page 2

Cash-Strapped Utility Drains Puerto Rico's Residents

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July 2, 2014 7:57 p.m. ET
Francisco Esteves says his electricity bills were as high as $470 a month. José Jiménez-Tirado for the Wall Street Journal
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—To lower his electricity bills, Francisco Esteves runs the air conditioner in his three-bedroom apartment only briefly on hot summer nights, takes a cold bath before bed and sleeps with a cooling pad in his pillowcase. He stopped using a clothes dryer and replaced his electric stove with a gas-powered one.
His bill in May from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was still a whopper: $130. "I'm going to disconnect completely from the grid," says the exasperated Mr. Esteves, a 46-year-old paralegal, who earns $1,500 a month.
The government-owned utility charges customers more than double the U.S. average because it is plagued with problems that include nearly $9 billion in debt from issuing bonds to upgrade and replace power-generation plants.
Now those problems are spiraling into a crisis that could result in billions of dollars in investor losses, push power bills even higher and deepen worries about two other debt-ridden utilities here. The three utilities owe a combined $19.4 billion, according to Barclays PLC, slightly more than Detroit's total debt when the city filed for bankruptcy protection last July.
In a sign of the financial woes at Puerto Rico's electric utility, known as Prepa, it dipped into a reserve fund to make a $200 million bond payment Tuesday, analysts and investors say. Prepa owes $10 million to Citigroup Inc. on Thursday and another $136 million by mid-August, but a ratings firm has said the utility doesn't have the money to repay the bank.
With the deadline looming, the utility's financial advisers are trying to hammer out a proposal aimed at shrinking Prepa's debt load. Potential scenarios include postponing or canceling debt payments, persuading investors to take losses on their bonds or seeking relief in court under a controversial law signed last week by Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla.
People familiar with the discussions said they remain fluid, cautioning that any proposal is likely to face opposition from at least some investors.
The utility said in a statement that it is "committed to evaluating all potential options to transform our business." Prepa declined to comment on Tuesday's bond payment.
With high utility rates in cash-strapped Puerto Rico, Francisco Esteves has sought to minimize power use. José Jiménez-Tirado for the Wall Street Journal
The power authority's bonds continued to sink in price Wednesday, indicating the expected size of investors' losses. After trading at around 55 cents on the dollar last week, some of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority's longer-term bonds traded at about 40 cents on the dollar Wednesday.
Investors are more nervous about the outcome of the helter-skelter talks because they could become a template in ongoing efforts by Puerto Rico's troubled water and transportation utilities to restructure their own debts.
"The expectation is that Prepa was just the start," says Dan Solender, director of municipal-bond management at Lord Abbett & Co. Its municipal-related holdings of about $15.5 billion include some Prepa debt.
If Prepa goes to court, the utility is likely to face legal opposition from investors that could last for years. If it gets embroiled in a court fight, Prepa probably would be obliged to continue making payments to bondholders and other creditors, further straining its depleted cash reserves.
Financial statements filed by the electric authority show that it had about $122 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 2013, down from about $200 million a year earlier. More-recent figures aren't available.
The likelihood of a drawn-out battle over Prepa's financial obligations also means that sky-high electricity rates won't ease anytime soon. The utility's customers paid 23.5 cents per kilowatt-hour as of last year, much higher than the U.S. average of about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Rates have climbed repeatedly as Puerto Rico's electric utility scrambled to cover rising costs. Complaints about power bills are widespread, and a poll of residents last year ranked the issue behind only the sour economy and a spiraling crime rate in importance.
In addition to debt payments, Prepa must buy expensive imported oil for more than 60% of its energy production. Many of its plants are old and inefficient, and officials have been slow to convert facilities to cheaper natural gas.
For many years, Prepa took advantage of easy access to bond markets and investors' appetite for tax-free returns, sinking deeper and deeper into debt. The utility's long-term debt of $8.9 billion as of mid-2013 was up 30% from $6.84 billion in 2009, according to the utility's financial statements.
The electric authority's woes accelerated when Puerto Rico slipped into a recession, curbing residential and business demand for power. In the past five years, the utility has posted losses of more than $1 billion, and its junk-bond status essentially makes it impossible to sell more bonds.
"They need capital to upgrade their facilities and diversify their resource mix," says Shawn O'Leary, senior research analyst at Nuveen Investment Management LLC. That would be "much more difficult" if officials decide to default or restructure the power authority's debt.
Mr. Esteves says his electricity bills were as high as $470 a month before he spent more than $10,000 to make his apartment more energy-efficient. The improvements have made a big difference, but he often turns off his high-efficiency air conditioner and uses a ceiling fan instead.
Despite the 70% decline in the size of his typical monthly bill, Mr. Esteves is trying to decide whether to install $13,000 of solar panels on the roof because he has little faith in efforts to overhaul the electric utility.
"No one can save it," he says.
—Emily Glazer and Mike Cherney contributed to this article.
Write to Arian Campo-Flores at arian.campo-flores@wsj.com
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Departamento de Justicia prepara su artillería contra Moodys

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El secretario de Justicia, César Miranda, reconoció que el gobierno de Puerto Rico incurrirá en costos altísimos por concepto de pago de abogados  y peritos para  las demandas que pudieran ventilarse relacionadas con la Ley de Quiebra Criolla y el pleito que se proponen presentar contra la  acreditadora  Moody's.
Miranda, insistió de otra parte,  en que proceden las acciones legales que se proponen radicar contra Moody's  por los múltiples  daños ocasionados tras la degradación  a tres niveles, de toda la deuda del Gobierno.
Al inquirirle al Secretario en torno a los abogados que llevarán los pleitos, indicó que utilizarán recursos internos de la agencia,  que considera de excelencia. 
“Cuando necesitemos recursos externos, los buscaremos también”, dijo.
Cuestan caros, le planteamos.
Sí, cuestan caros. Todo es caro. Lo importante es que hay que hacer el trabajo y utilizar los recursos. La manera de economizar es lo que hacemos: tenemos recursos excelentes, buenos abogados y abogadas en el área  de litigio y de investigación. Hacemos todo el trabajo de base y solo contratamos abogados externos  cuando hay áreas de peritaje.
Hay quien sostiene que la demanda no procede. 
Quien lo cuestione debe saber que estas  compañías han sido objeto de demandas. Recientemente hubo una transacción con el estado de Conneticut, en la que Moody's, Fitch y Standar & Poor  fueron demandadas y han tenido que pagar sentencias a favor de los estados demandantes. Todo depende del fundamento bajo el cual se va a demandar 
¿Bajo qué fundamentos se demandaría?
Los fundamentos van a estar condicionado al efecto de acciones infundadas en este caso, porque causan daño. La acción de Moody's es totalmente infundada. No guarda una correlación lógica con la realidad de Puerto Rico y las acciones que toman.
En este caso, es una degradación  generalizada, en lo que se conoce como  across the board, de las entidades en Puerto Rico.
“No puede ser que todas estén en igual situación  económica  para tu degradarle a  tres escalas a cada uno. No tiene tampoco sentido lógico  que tú degrades a unas instituciones como es el crédito garantizado por Cofina y el crédito constitucional,  los go's (general obligations), que  tienen garantía constitucional, sabiendo que son valores que se están mercadeando bien y con un valor estabilizado. ¿Por qué las degradas?  No tienen ningún sentido de lógica esa acción”, reiteró.
Miranda insistió en  que  cualquier entidad que actúa irresponsablemente y que causa daño por esa acción, se le puede demandar.
“Eso es un proceso que conlleva un análisis jurídico muy extenso y es lo que estamos haciendo”, puntualizó.
En términos generales, ¿qué daños?
Con este tipo de acción infundada, daños múltiples. En la medida en que eso ocasiona un aumento en la prima de interés  que Puerto Rico tiene que pagar, nos está causando un daño a todos. En la medida que esa acción infundada e ilógica pueda ocasionar una baja en el precio de los bonos de Puerto Rico, pues  también se le está causando un daño individual a las personas que han adquirido los bonos de Puerto Rico.
La realidad de esta acción de Moody's, dijo Miranda, se centra  en la acción que ha tomado el Gobierno de Puerto Rico,  al aprobar la Ley de Cumplimiento de Deuda y Recuperación de las corporaciones  públicas.
“Ellos lo admiten. ¿Y qué  ha hecho Puerto Rico? Crear para su corporación pública un instrumento que les permita pagar bajo unas condiciones más favorables, pero  que en forma alguna, el Gobierno de Puerto Rico y sus corporaciones  públicas han dicho que no van a  pagar. Es un mecanismo de pagar bien, sin estrangular la existencia misma de esa corporación”, expuso.
En torno a la demanda federal radicada por un grupo de bonistas que impugnan la Ley de Quiebra Criolla, Miranda indicó que van a recurrir  diversos reclamos, pero no soltó prenda.
“No estamos en posición de anticipar”, apuntó.
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A Look at the Chikungunya Virus in the Caribbean

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Associated Press
A look at the inroads by the chikungunya virus in Latin America and the Caribbean:
— WHAT IT IS: The name chikungunya comes from the Makonde language of Tanzania. It translates as "that which bends up," referring to arthritis-like aches in joints that cause sufferers to contort with pain. The virus is spread by two mosquitoes, aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus, both of which also transmit dengue fever.
— WHAT IT DOES: Symptoms typically appear three to seven days after a mosquito bite and can include high fever, pain in the joints and back, and severe headache. Many sufferers can barely walk. It is rarely fatal, though there have been deaths among the elderly and people with other illnesses. Symptoms typically last about five days, but in some cases joint pain lasts for months or even years.
— WHAT CAN BE DONE: There is no specific treatment or vaccine. People with the virus should rest, drink large amounts of fluids and take acetaminophen to reduce fever and pain. The best strategy is to avoid being bitten by a mosquito, so authorities have stepped up pesticide spraying in the region.
— WHERE IT IS FOUND: The virus has been known for decades in Africa and Asia, but the first locally transmitted case in the Western Hemisphere was documented in late 2013 in French St. Martin. There have since been more than 260,000 suspected and confirmed locally transmitted cases throughout the Caribbean and in parts of Central and South America. The Dominican Republic has reported the most with more than 135,000 cases, followed by Guadaloupe and Haiti, each with around 40,000. The number of cases in Haiti, though, is likely much higher. There have been cases of the virus being contracted by visitors to the region from many other countries, including the U.S.
— WHY IT IS SO BAD IN HAITI: Many people in Haiti live in flimsy houses and have little protection from mosquitoes. There is a lot of standing water that creates breeding sites for mosquitoes.
———
Source: Pan American Health Organization

Virus strikes hard in Haiti’s crowded shantytowns

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Within a dense cluster of flimsy shacks made mostly of plastic tarp and wooden planks, a young mother cradles her sick, whimpering toddler while trying to guard against a fierce tropical sun.
Delimene Saint Lise says she’s doing her best to comfort her 2-year-old daughter and control her spiking fever during what has quickly become a familiar agony in their makeshift community of shanties by a trash-clogged canal in the Haitian capital.
“For the last three days, her body gets very hot and she’s hurting all over,” Saint Lise said as she sat on a mattress inside their sweltering home with flapping plastic walls in the capital’s dusty Delmas section. “I know because I had this awful illness before her.”
This latest scourge in Haiti is chikungunya. It’s a rarely fatal but intensely painful mosquito-borne virus that has spread rapidly through the Caribbean and parts of Latin America after local transmission first started in tiny French St. Martin late last year, likely brought in by an infected air traveler.
Haiti is proving to be particularly vulnerable because so many people live like Saint Lise and her neighbors, packed together in rickety housing with dismal sanitation and surrounded by ideal breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the illness.
“Chikungunya has been merciless in Haiti. Lack of basic infrastructure, poor mosquito control measures, and deep social and economic disparities hampered prevention and treatment efforts,” says a new report on Haiti’s epidemic by the Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank.
Since the virus was first documented in Haiti in May, there have been nearly 40,000 suspected cases seen by health workers, the Pan American Health Organization says. The only places with higher numbers are the neighboring Dominican Republic and Guadaloupe.
But there are many signs that the actual number is far higher in Haiti, a country of 10 million people that struggles with many burdens, from crushing poverty, lack of access to clean water and the fact that some 146,000 people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake still live in makeshift homes.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now assisting Haiti’s health ministry to confirm new cases. But statistics are notoriously unreliable in Haiti, and public health experts say the number of people with the illness is unknown. Many poor Haitians don’t bother seeking care at clinics so their cases go unrecorded, said Dr. Gregory Jerome of Zanmi Lasante, the Haitian program of the Boston-based nonprofit organization Partners in Health.
It’s clear the “attack rate of this infection is very high all over the country,” Jerome said. And it’s not just impoverished districts. People in wealthier areas such as the tree-lined Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville and the scenic southern coastal town of Jacmel are complaining of cases.
Instances of local transmission have been reported in about 20 nations or territories in the region, from the Virgin Islands, Dominica, Martinique and Puerto Rico to El Salvador in Central America and French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname on the northern shoulder of South America.
In Haiti, it’s gotten so bad so quickly that many people are resigned to catching the virus known in Creole as “kaze le zo,” or “breaking your bones,” for joint pain so intense some patients can barely walk or use their fingers for days. There is no vaccine and the only treatment is basic medication for the pain and fluid replacement for dehydration.
Painful symptoms of chikungunya generally dissipate within a week and people develop immunity after getting infected. But some patients can develop severe and even life-threatening complications including respiratory failure. It can also contribute to the deaths of people with underlying health issues. Just last week, former Haitian President Leslie Manigat died after a long period of illness and a deputy secretary of his political party said his condition might have been complicated by a recent bout with the virus.
Outbreaks of chikungunya have long made people miserable in Africa and Asia. In the Western Hemisphere, where the illness is new and advancing rapidly, health officials are working to educate the public and knock down the mosquito population. U.S. states are warily monitoring “imported” cases among residents who recently traveled to the Caribbean and were bitten by an infected mosquito.
Haiti’s government has stepped up fumigation and education campaigns. Public service announcements about the illness appear regularly on radio and TV stations broadcasting World Cup games. Officials also recently distributed free pain-relief medicine at public health facilities, especially because there were signs of predatory price increases by pharmacies and freelance pill vendors.
But Dr. Gretta Lataillade Roy, head of a small public clinic in Delmas who was ill with the virus last month, said the free pain-relief medication ran out at her facility within 48 hours as a surge of patients showed up. Most people with the virus are now opting to suffer at home, she said, and high prices for acetaminophen are back.
Many health clinic workers have been falling ill with chikungunya after being bitten by infected mosquitoes, resulting in temporary staff shortages.
Although other mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria and dengue exist in Haiti, simple precautions to deter bites are often not taken because many people can’t afford bug repellant and window screens. The Igarape group’s recent survey of 2,807 randomly sampled households suggested that treated mosquito nets, another recommended precaution, are seldom used.
Complicating matters, nearly one in five respondents told researchers they believe rumors that chikungunya was intentionally brought to Haiti by businessmen as a way to make money or possibly as a form of social and political control.
“There are some difficulties in many parts of the population to accept the reality that the virus is transmitted by a vector,” said Dr. Jean-Luc Poncelete, the Pan American Health Organization’s representative in Haiti.
In Delmas, Saint Lise and her neighbors say they’ve heard on the radio that mosquitoes spread the strange virus. But they say they are skeptical in part because the government has not been fumigating around their camp.
“They say it’s the mosquitoes doing this,” said Eliamese Derisier, whose 6-month-old son is struggling with the virus in a tent next door to Saint Lise’s family. “But I’m not sure if I believe them.”
___
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Puerto Rico’s Lifeblood Choked Off as Credit Access Ends

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No state or city with a credit rating as low as Puerto Rico’s has been able to access bond markets since at least 1990, a situation that may cut off the lifeblood of the commonwealth’s finances.
On July 1, Moody’s Investors Service cut the island’s rating to B2, five steps below investment grade. No local government has borrowed at that level, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Prices on its general-obligation debt yesterday plummeted to record lows.
“They’re done,” said Matt Dalton, chief executive officer of White Plains, New York-based Belle Haven Investments, which oversees $2.1 billion in munis. “They’re not going to be issuing any more debt on the island. I don’t see how they can bring people back to the trough at this point.”
Puerto Rico and its agencies have operated for years on borrowed money -- racking up $73 billion, Bloomberg data show -- and Wall Street made $910 million since 2000 by structuring its debt sales. If the government can’t sell bonds at affordable rates, it will have to curtail services for its 3.6 million residents, 45 percent of whom live in poverty.

Closed Classrooms

Like U.S. states, Puerto Rico can’t file for bankruptcy protection. Without the ability to issue debt, it will have to limit all spending to preserve money for health, public safety and education, said Sergio Marxuach, policy director at the Center for a New Economy, a research group in San Juan that focuses on economic development.
The commonwealth had already begun closing about 100 schools to help balance the fiscal 2015 budget.
“We need to have guards in prisons,” Marxuach said. “We need to have public-school teachers teaching.”
Anything else, he said, “could be fair game.”
Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla this week signed the $9.6 billion budget. Education consumes the largest portion, with about $2.1 billion of spending, followed by $885 million for health insurance for the poor, according to the commonwealth’s Office of Management and Budget documents. About $752 million will go toward police.

‘Onerous Terms’

Puerto Rico’s economy has contracted about 11 percent since 2006, according to its Planning Board. The unemployment rate of 13.8 percent is more than double the U.S. average.
Still, returns generated by the island’s risky debt made investors eager to lend and allowed the commonwealth to paper over budget gaps. The securities, which are tax free in all states, are held in two-thirds of muni mutual funds.
Puerto Rico securities lost 3.4 percent yesterday, the biggest one-day drop since Dec. 26, 2008, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Included in the decline were general-obligation bonds maturing July 2035. They originally sold at 93 cents on the dollar in March and traded yesterday at an average 84.8 cents, a record low, data compiled by Bloomberg show
Without the ability to borrow easily, Puerto Rico’s headwinds can only increase, said Dan Toboja, senior vice president of municipal trading at Chicago-based Ziegler Capital Markets.
“If you can’t access the capital markets except for the most onerous terms, it’s going to be a challenge that’s going to accelerate problems,” Toboja said.

Going Dark

The commonwealth is trying to put the brakes on. Garcia Padilla last week signed a bill that allows some public corporations to restructure debt outside bankruptcy. While the governor promoted the move as a way to protect general-obligation debt, creditors took it as an affront. Franklin Templeton Investments and Oppenheimer Funds Inc. are challenging the law. The Moody’s downgrade followed.
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, which provides almost all the island’s electricity and is a prime candidate for restructuring, may have to choose between paying bondholders and keeping the lights on, Marxuach said.
The utility, which carries $8.6 billion in debt, paid investors for maturing bonds July 1. It now faces $617 million of bank lines of credit that expire this month and next.
Prepa, as the agency is known, may have to implement rolling blackouts on residential customers so hospitals, schools and businesses can function, Marxuach said.

Live Wires

“That will be a shock to many people,” Marxuach said. “It will bring home to a lot of people the magnitude of the crisis we’re going through.”
Juan Alicea Flores, Prepa’s executive director, said in a prepared statement that officials would evaluate all options.
“Prepa will continue to produce and deliver power, just as it always has,” he said.
The Moody’s downgrade affected $14.4 billion of general-obligation debt. The New York company also dropped sales-tax bonds to junk, cutting senior-lien securities to Ba3, three levels below investment grade, from Baa1. It downgraded subordinate bonds to B1, four steps below investment grade, from Baa2. The change affects $15.6 billion of obligations and strips Puerto Rico of any way to borrow at investment-grade prices.
“Remember that this is the same credit-rating agency that said Enron was AAA,” Garcia Padilla said at a news conference yesterday in San Juan.
Solutions for the crisis on the island, which was ceded to the U.S. in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, aren’t easily forthcoming. In Washington, there is little zeal to help.

Unpromising Situation

Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors LLC and a former U.S. Treasury Department official, said there is little the agency or the Federal Reserve can do.
“They are looking at the existing programs to figure out what funds are available, but the problem is such funds are far outsized by the actual financing gap,” he said. “The only federal government assistance available and capable of staving off a restructuring in theory would be some special Fed program. But there is no indication that the Fed has any appetite to do that.”
Jen Friedman, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a prepared statement that the administration is cooperating with Garcia Padilla, “recognizing that in addition to the tough steps they have taken so far, economic growth will be important to the island’s long-term fiscal sustainability.”
Treasury spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine didn’t have an immediate comment on the island’s situation.

Futile Pursuit

Any congressional bailout would be difficult because of anger over federal rescues of Wall Street and the U.S. auto industry.
Pedro Pierluisi, the commonwealth’s single non-voting representative in Congress, said he hasn’t asked for one, nor does he plan to.
“I don’t see fertile grounds,” the Democrat said.
Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate have introduced legislation that would block the Treasury or Fed from bailing out municipalities. They are intended to cover commonwealths, too, said Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who sponsored the measure.
“By no means should the federal government be in the business of bailing out state and local governments that are in the red,” Vitter said on the Senate floor in April. “These governments must make hard choices.”
One choice would be to default on bond payments. Arkansas was the last state to do so, failing to pay in 1933 after taking responsibility for debt from hundreds of road districts before the Great Depression struck.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michelle Kaske in New York at mkaske@bloomberg.net; Brian Chappatta in New York at bchappatta1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net
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El virus chikungunya golpea a los pobres de Haití – Metro

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PUERTO PRÍNCIPE, Haití (AP) — En un enmarañado conjunto de endebles chozas hechas principalmente de lonas de plástico y planchas de madera, una joven madre acuna a su niña enferma, que llora intentado protegerse del feroz sol tropical.
Delimene San Lise dice que está haciendo todo lo posible para consolar a su hija de dos años y controlar su elevada fiebre en lo que se ha convertido rápidamente en una común agonía en esta improvisada comunidad de chozas ubicada en un canal atascado de basura en la capital haitiana.
"Durante los últimos tres días, su cuerpo se calienta mucho y todo le duele", dijo San Lise sentada en un colchón de su hogar, un lugar sofocante con paredes de plástico que aleteaban sin cesar en el polvoriento distrito de Delmas, en la capital. "Lo sé porque yo tuve esta horrible enfermedad antes de ella".
La nueva plaga en Haití se llama chikungunya. Es un virus transmitido por mosquitos, raramente fatal pero muy doloroso, que se ha extendido rápidamente por todo el Caribe y partes de América Latina desde que empezó a propagarse en la pequeña isla caribeña de French St. Martin el año pasado, posiblemente traído por un viajero infectado.
Haití está demostrando ser particularmente vulnerable debido a que muchas personas viven como San Lise y sus vecinos, hacinados en viviendas desvencijadas con terribles condiciones sanitarias, el caldo de cultivo ideal para los mosquitos que transmiten la enfermedad.
"Chikungunya ha sido implacable en Haití. La falta de infraestructura básica, las medidas deficientes de control de mosquitos, y las profundas desigualdades sociales y económicas obstaculizan los esfuerzos de prevención y tratamiento", indicó un nuevo informe sobre la epidemia en Haití presentado por el Instituto Igarapé, un grupo de estudios con sede en Brasil.
Desde el primer caso documentado del virus en Haití en mayo, se han producido cerca de 40.000 casos sospechosos atendidos por personal médico, según informa la Organización Panamericana de la Salud. Los únicos lugares con números más altos son la vecina República Dominicana y Guadalupe.
Pero hay muchos indicios de que el número real es mucho mayor en Haití, un país de 10 millones de personas que lucha contra muchas cargas, una pobreza aplastante, falta de acceso al agua potable y el hecho de que al menos 146.000 personas desplazadas por el terremoto de enero 2010 todavía viven en casas improvisadas.
Los Centros de Control de Enfermedades de Estados Unidos están asistiendo al ministerio de Sanidad haitiano para confirmar los nuevos casos. Pero las estadísticas son muy poco fiables en Haití, y las autoridades de salud pública dicen que se desconoce el número de infectados. Muchos haitianos pobres no se molestan en buscar atención médica, así que sus casos no se registran, explicó el doctor Jerome de Zanmi Lasante, el programa haitiano de la organización sin ánimo de lucro Partners in Health, de Boston.
Está claro que la "tasa de ataque de esta infección es muy alta en todo el país", dijo Jerome. Y no sólo en los barrios pobres. También hay casos en zonas más acomodadas como Petionville, un suburbio arbolado en Puerto Príncipe, o la hermosa localidad costera de Jacmel.
Se ha informado de contagios internos en unos 20 países o territorios de la región, de Islas Vírgenes, Dominica, Martinica y Puerto Rico a El Salvador en Centroamérica, al igual que en la Guayana Francesa, Guayana y Surinam en la zona norte de Sudamérica.
En Haití, la situación ha empeorado tan rápido que mucha gente se ha resignado a que padecerá el virus, conocido como "kaze le zo" o "rompe huesos" en idioma creole, debido a un dolor de articulaciones tan intenso que algunos pacientes apenas pueden caminar o utilizar los dedos durante días. No hay vacuna, y el único tratamiento es medicación básica para el dolor y líquidos para evitar la deshidratación.
Los síntomas dolorosos del chikungunya suelen disiparse en una semana, y la gente desarrolla inmunidad al virus tras padecerlo. Pero algunos pacientes pueden desarrollar complicaciones graves e incluso que pongan en riesgo su vida, como fallo respiratorio.
También puede contribuir a la muerte de personas con otros problemas de salud.
Los brotes del chikungunya llevan tiempo haciendo miserable a la gente en África y Asia. En el hemisferio occidental, donde la enfermedad es nueva y avanza veloz, las autoridades sanitarias trabajan para educar al público y reducir la población de mosquitos. Estados Unidos vigila con suspicacia los casos "importados" entre residentes que viajaron hace poco al Caribe a los que picó un mosquito infectado.
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Virus strikes hard in Haiti's crowded shantytowns

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Within a dense cluster of flimsy shacks made mostly of plastic tarp and wooden planks, a young mother cradles her sick, whimpering toddler while trying to guard against a fierce tropical sun.
Delimene Saint Lise says she's doing her best to comfort her 2-year-old daughter and control her spiking fever during what has quickly become a familiar agony in their makeshift community of shanties by a trash-clogged canal in the Haitian capital.
"For the last three days, her body gets very hot and she's hurting all over," Saint Lise said as she sat on a mattress inside their sweltering home with flapping plastic walls in the capital's dusty Delmas section. "I know because I had this awful illness before her."
This latest scourge in Haiti is chikungunya. It's a rarely fatal but intensely painful mosquito-borne virus that has spread rapidly through the Caribbean and parts of Latin America after local transmission first started in tiny French St. Martin late last year, likely brought in by an infected air traveler.
Haiti is proving to be particularly vulnerable because so many people live like Saint Lise and her neighbors, packed together in rickety housing with dismal sanitation and surrounded by ideal breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the illness.
"Chikungunya has been merciless in Haiti. Lack of basic infrastructure, poor mosquito control measures, and deep social and economic disparities hampered prevention and treatment efforts," says a new report on Haiti's epidemic by the Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank.
Since the virus was first documented in Haiti in May, there have been nearly 40,000 suspected cases seen by health workers, the Pan American Health Organization says. The only places with higher numbers are the neighboring Dominican Republic and Guadaloupe.
But there are many signs that the actual number is far higher in Haiti, a country of 10 million people that struggles with many burdens, from crushing poverty, lack of access to clean water and the fact that some 146,000 people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake still live in makeshift homes.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now assisting Haiti's health ministry to confirm new cases. But statistics are notoriously unreliable in Haiti, and public health experts say the number of people with the illness is unknown. Many poor Haitians don't bother seeking care at clinics so their cases go unrecorded, said Dr. Gregory Jerome of Zanmi Lasante, the Haitian program of the Boston-based nonprofit organization Partners in Health.
It's clear the "attack rate of this infection is very high all over the country," Jerome said. And it's not just impoverished districts. People in wealthier areas such as the tree-lined Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville and the scenic southern coastal town of Jacmel are complaining of cases.
Instances of local transmission have been reported in about 20 nations or territories in the region, from the Virgin Islands, Dominica, Martinique and Puerto Rico to El Salvador in Central America and French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname on the northern shoulder of South America.
In Haiti, it's gotten so bad so quickly that many people are resigned to catching the virus known in Creole as "kaze le zo," or "breaking your bones," for joint pain so intense some patients can barely walk or use their fingers for days. There is no vaccine and the only treatment is basic medication for the pain and fluid replacement for dehydration.
Painful symptoms of chikungunya generally dissipate within a week and people develop immunity after getting infected. But some patients can develop severe and even life-threatening complications including respiratory failure. It can also contribute to the deaths of people with underlying health issues. Just last week, former Haitian President Leslie Manigat died after a long period of illness and a deputy secretary of his political party said his condition might have been complicated by a recent bout with the virus.
Outbreaks of chikungunya have long made people miserable in Africa and Asia. In the Western Hemisphere, where the illness is new and advancing rapidly, health officials are working to educate the public and knock down the mosquito population. U.S. states are warily monitoring "imported" cases among residents who recently traveled to the Caribbean and were bitten by an infected mosquito.
Haiti's government has stepped up fumigation and education campaigns. Public service announcements about the illness appear regularly on radio and TV stations broadcasting World Cup games. Officials also recently distributed free pain-relief medicine at public health facilities, especially because there were signs of predatory price increases by pharmacies and freelance pill vendors.
But Dr. Gretta Lataillade Roy, head of a small public clinic in Delmas who was ill with the virus last month, said the free pain-relief medication ran out at her facility within 48 hours as a surge of patients showed up. Most people with the virus are now opting to suffer at home, she said, and high prices for acetaminophen are back.
Many health clinic workers have been falling ill with chikungunya after being bitten by infected mosquitoes, resulting in temporary staff shortages.
Although other mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria and dengue exist in Haiti, simple precautions to deter bites are often not taken because many people can't afford bug repellant and window screens. The Igarape group's recent survey of 2,807 randomly sampled households suggested that treated mosquito nets, another recommended precaution, are seldom used.
Complicating matters, nearly one in five respondents told researchers they believe rumors that chikungunya was intentionally brought to Haiti by businessmen as a way to make money or possibly as a form of social and political control.
"There are some difficulties in many parts of the population to accept the reality that the virus is transmitted by a vector," said Dr. Jean-Luc Poncelete, the Pan American Health Organization's representative in Haiti.
In Delmas, Saint Lise and her neighbors say they've heard on the radio that mosquitoes spread the strange virus. But they say they are skeptical in part because the government has not been fumigating around their camp.
"They say it's the mosquitoes doing this," said Eliamese Derisier, whose 6-month-old son is struggling with the virus in a tent next door to Saint Lise's family. "But I'm not sure if I believe them."
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Puerto Rico Hits Back | Financial Planning

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Portfolio - Mutual Funds
Puerto Rico Hits Back
by: Robert Slavin
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla came out swinging with a defense of his economic and fiscal programs after Moody's Investors Service lowered the island's credit ratings farther into junk territory.
The rating action, which affected $61 billion of debt, "is unfair to the people of Puerto Rico and disregards the hard work undertaken to date to get the finances of the commonwealth in order," Gov. Alejandro García Padilla said in a speech late Tuesday. "I'm extremely disappointed that Moody's has ignored the facts in their decision to downgrade Puerto Rico's credit," he said. "Puerto Rico has taken significant and important steps to cover our expenses without recourse to new loans, while safeguarding vital public services."
Moody's on Tuesday downgraded Puerto Rico's general obligation rating to B2 from Ba2. It dropped the commonwealth's COFINA sales tax senior bond rating to Ba3 from Baa1, Government Development Bank notes to B3 from Ba2, and many public corporation bonds to Caa1 or Caa2.
Moody's cited the recently adopted public corporation debt restructuring law for the GO rating cut, even though the law explicitly excludes the debt of the commonwealth government proper.
The "new law marks the end of the commonwealth's long history of taking actions needed to support its debt. It signals a depleted capacity for revenue increases and austerity measures, and a new preference for shifting fiscal pressures to creditors, which, in our view, has implications for all of Puerto Rico's debt, including that of the central government," the Moody's analysts wrote.
The governor, threatening to sue the rating agency, shot back: "Moody's has taken this action immediately after Puerto Rico passed its first balanced budget in 22 years. They do it when the economy is better and unemployment is lower than a year and a half ago. They do it when crime on the island is lower than a year and a half ago.
"They do this when energy costs are lower than a year and a half ago. They do this when the general obligations bonds of Puerto Rico have begun selling at their best price in a while. They do this when we have taken care of the crisis of the retirement systems.
"They do it after we passed the law that puts fiscal sustainability safeguards on the vast majority of public corporations. And they have done so after we created a legal structure that did not exist, which helps deal with any possible insolvency of a public corporation that is no longer safe," Garcia Padilla said. "For these reasons, and others, I have instructed the Justice Secretary to assert the truth and clear the good name of Puerto Rico. That credit agency, and any other entity acting alike, will have to answer for this offense."
Moody's declined to respond to the governor's statement.
The public corporation debt restructuring bill "protects the General Fund, the GDB and the commonwealth's credit, and in no way indicates any shift in the commonwealth's historical and constitutionally supported commitment to honoring its financial obligations," GDB chairman David Chafey said Tuesday evening.
After the downgrade, Puerto Rico Treasury Secretary Melba Acosta Febo pointed to the balanced budget the governor signed Tuesday as "another significant achievement by this administration to protect the credit of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
"By giving public corporations the opportunity to overcome their financial challenges, the Recovery Act [for restructuring public corporation debt] can give those public corporations in true need the tools to show once and for all that they will not be a drain on the General Fund now, or down the road," Acosta Febo wrote in an op-ed in El Nuevo Día newspaper.
For the public authorities in financial stress, "the Recovery Act is an essential tool to ensure [customer] rate hikes don't become the answer," she wrote.
With the public corporation restructuring law and the Moody's downgrades, things may be more difficult for the commonwealth, analysts said.
"The act is a pivot away from the island's longstanding pledge to honor all debt obligations," said Municipal Market Advisors managing director Robert Donahue. "Moody's super-downgrades [Tuesday] will undoubtedly hurt Puerto Rico's ability to raise capital for the near term."
Puerto Rico has talked about selling additional bonds in the new fiscal year, Donahue noted. "Given these low ratings and the … deteriorating views of Puerto Rico's willingness to pay all debt obligations, the island is probably going to have to seek alternative avenues to meet its financing needs."
AllianceBernstein director of municipal credit research Joseph Rosenblum said Puerto Rico's situation was weak quite apart from Moody's downgrades.
"Pricing in the market has for some time ignored the ratings and most analysts have relied on their own analysis," he said. "In my opinion, Puerto Rico's regaining of market access will not be easy and will not be driven by their bond ratings.
Rosenblum continued: "A weak economy with the problem of continued population losses and no clear sign of what will drive economic growth in the near term combined with questions about their liquidity on top of lack of transparency argues for a very weak credit assessment. The price of the bonds in the market confirms that. Not sure if the restructuring law addresses these issues longer term."
Joan Vidra, managing director of Opportunities Emerging & Frontier Markets Advisory LLC, said she was "not totally convinced [Puerto Rico] needed to pass a law to restructure the debt given the constitutional questions.
"I think there is a high likelihood the law will be shut down on several counts," she said. "Bankruptcy is a matter for federal government, namely, and also clearly this was not a last resort. Nothing was done to make it easier for PREPA to pay its debts. This situation was avoidable. "
Vidra added that the "riskiness for GOs has increased, but not to the extent warranting this steep rating action in my opinion."
A Moody's spokesman, asked whether it was fair to downgrade Puerto Rico for taking steps the rating agency has advocated in the past, such as ending the provision of liquidity, capital financing and operating subsidies, often through the GDB, to various public corporations, responded in an email:
"The new information now is that the GDB and the commonwealth have ended that support, not because the public corporations no longer need it, but because the financial position of the commonwealth and the liquidity position of the GDB mean they can no longer provide it. The law is a reflection not just of the weakness at the public corporations, but across the issuing entities."
The Bond Buyer also asked whether Puerto Rico should be downgraded over market-access concerns, given that the commonwealth sold $3.5 billion of general obligation bonds in March and may not need capital soon.
"We believe a debt restructuring at public corporations could further limit the market access of all Puerto Rico issuers," Moody's said. "Our analysis incorporates the view that the $3.5 billion bond sale in March temporarily stabilized the commonwealth's liquidity, and that other debt issuances could similarly help preserve Puerto Rico's liquidity position. Inability to sell additional debt in the bond market because of a default would likely lead to faster erosion of cash."
Robert Slavin is a reporter for Bond Buyer.
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Puerto Rico Hits Back | Financial Planning

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Haiti Extremely Susceptible To Quick Spreading, Deadly U.S. Virus : News : Headlines & Global News

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By Rebeka Silva r.silva@hngn.com | Jul 03, 2014 03:10 AM EDT
Chikungunya virus
Marqui Ducarme is aided by his wife after contracting the Chikungunya virus at his home in Port-au-Prince, May 23, 2014. (Photo : Reuters)
Haiti is dealing a deadly virus called chikungunya, a rarely fatal but intensely painful mosquito-borne virus that has spread rapidly through the Caribbean and parts of Latin America after local transmission first started in tiny French St. Martin late last year, according to The Associated Press.
Haiti is proving to be particularly vulnerable because so many people live packed together in rickety housing with dismal sanitation and surrounded by ideal breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the illness, the AP reported.
"Chikungunya has been merciless in Haiti. Lack of basic infrastructure, poor mosquito control measures, and deep social and economic disparities hampered prevention and treatment efforts," says a new report on Haiti's epidemic by the Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank, according to the AP.
Since the virus was first documented in Haiti in May, there have been nearly 40,000 suspected cases seen by health workers, according to the Pan American Health Organization, the AP reported. The only places with higher numbers are the neighboring Dominican Republic and Guadaloupe.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now assisting Haiti's health ministry to confirm new cases, but statistics are notoriously unreliable in Haiti, and public health experts say the number of people with the illness is unknown, according to the AP.
In Haiti, it's gotten so bad so quickly that many people are resigned to catching the virus known in Creole as "kaze le zo," or "breaking your bones," for joint pain so intense some patients can barely walk or use their fingers for days, the AP reported. There is no vaccine and the only treatment is basic medication for the pain and fluid replacement for dehydration.
Painful symptoms of chikungunya generally dissipate within a week and people develop immunity after getting infected, but some patients can develop severe and even life-threatening complications including respiratory failure, according to the AP.
It can also contribute to the deaths of people with underlying health issues, Just last week, former Haitian President Leslie Manigat died after a long period of illness and a deputy secretary of his political party said his condition might have been complicated by a recent bout with the virus, the AP reported.
Health officials in North Carolina, Nebraska and Indiana reported confirmed chikungunya cases in June, along with Tennessee, which has suspected cases, according to Reuters.
Florida has 25 cases which account for the majority reported in the United States, according to state health officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters reported. The cases in the continental United States have not been transmitted by local mosquitoes, which would raise the threat.
Along with new reports, the CDC is monitoring chikungunya in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Virginia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Reuters.
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Puerto Rico's Debt Downgraded By Moody's, Outlook Negative

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Shift from "revenue enhancement and budget tightening" to moving burden to creditors to accept debt haircuts cited as reason
Moody’s Investors Service handed the Commonwealth Puerto Rico a wallop, downgrading it three notches to B2 from Ba2 and impacting $14.4 billion of outstanding general obligation (GO) bonds.
Puerto Rico Muni

Puerto Rico’s downgrade also affects non-GO bonds

The ratings agency also labeled a negative downgrade on commonwealth agencies and public corporations, affecting about $46 billion of non-GO bonds, including $15.6 billion of senior- and subordinate-lien bonds issued by the Sales-Tax Financing Corporation (COFINA), which was lowered to Ba3 and B1 respectively.
The downgrades are based primarily on what the ratings agency said was a shift from difficult budget tightening and revenue enhancement measures to placing a higher risk of default burden on creditors.
The downgrades follow the Puerto Rico’s enactment of a law that allows public corporations to defer or reduce payments on outstanding bonds. The Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act allows for defaults by certain issuers that the central government has long supported and “marks the end of the commonwealth’s long history of taking actions needed to support its debt. It signals a depleted capacity for revenue increases and austerity measures, and a new preference for shifting fiscal pressures to creditors, which, in our view, has implications for all of Puerto Rico’s debt, including that of the central government,” the report said.
The defaults included the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which was lowered mightily to Caa2 from Ba3.  The Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA) was downgraded to Caa1 (senior 1998 resolution and 1968 resolution) from Ba3, and to Caa2 from B1 (subordinate 1998 resolution). The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) was lowered to Caa1 from Ba3.  The debt of the Government Development Bank (GDB) was downgraded to B3 from Ba2, and the debt of the University of Puerto Rico was downgraded to Caa1 and Caa2.

Puerto Rico’s may be downgraded further

But the bad news for Puerto Rico didn’t stop there.
For PREPA, PRHTA and PRASA, the newly lowered ratings are still under review and may be downgraded further. Ratings now assigned to PREPA, PRASA and PRHTA and the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority are under review for further downgrade, and the ratings “reflect the escalating risk that these entities could default voluntarily under the new restructuring law.”
ValueWalk had previously noted S&P downgraded Puerto Rico’s debt over concerns political and government leaders will be placed in the difficult position of reducing spending and increasing revenues — potentially a precursor for many nations, including the US, that find themselves in fiscal difficulty.
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Catalogs Pierluisi the very negative outlook

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Pierluisi
By Stephanie Gomez Alvarez, THE SPOKESMAN - 6:40 a.m.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi warned That if the government does not have access to the bond market and does not Have the liquidity to operate, the economic scenario would be worse in the next six months, after Moody's Investor Service downgraded on Tuesday at a deeper level speculative grade or "junk" bonds to the General obligations of the Commonwealth and other corporations.
"It could disrupt government services and more Extreme Measures Could reduce days or resorting to layoffs if you have no cash, you have no alternatives," said Pierluisi, Noting That the latest funding hampers degradation for the Government as the Channeled Revenues are.
I said the picture is "very negative" and That there is a positive comment about it porque was "lost all credibility in the financial market."
Similarly, Moody's said, I did what I had to do to downgrade the bonds, As This Responds to the investment community. "This is no time to be with tantrums and Threats. It is time to assess it what you are doing and take corrective action , "urged us the president of the New Progressive Party.
"That degradation expected from the form and Manner That the administration is facing tax and economic challenges. They threw the ball with the approval of the hit 'Creole Bankruptcy Law. " It is obvious That this administration made ​​no effort to pave way before and Considering Such sensitive approving legislation As This, "I said Pierluisi.
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Two union leaders see positive bankruptcy law Creole

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Two union leaders categorized as positive the "Creole bankruptcy law" because it would be the first time in the history of Puerto Rico faces a government bondholders and defend the public interest.
"This, after all, is something positive that should be examined before passing judgment condemning and rejecting outright the Act without making a good and objective examination of its scope with regard to debt restructuring," he said in a statement signed by the president of the General Union of Workers (UGT), Manuel Torres May, and the secretary general of the United Confederation of Workers (CUTE) and member of the Central Executive Committee of the Puerto Rican Workers (CPT) Federico Torres Montalvo.
They stressed that the measure faces the "profit motive" of the bondholders. However, they noted that gaps still remain to be clarified, especially with regard to the sale of assets and trastoque collective agreements.
Law Enforcement and the Debt Recovery Public Corporations entered into force on June 28, the day he received the governor's signature Alejandro García Padilla. The measure and beat the government with a demand from the two bondholders Power Authority and major reviews of the minority of the New Progressive Party (PNP). But above all, caused degradation country credit.
According to union leaders, the law "may be the most compelling way to renegotiate a substantial portion of the public debt of the country against a possible and potential default (default)".
They said that while the law may in due course they have plenty of room for creditors to negotiate a scheme by which a public corporation as debtor presents a plan to the court how you are going to pay and ao not who will benefit from imposing a payment plan.
"Restructuring debt is precisely what the labor movement in the recommended policy of the agreements reached in Fortaleza to lighten the burden of fiscal emergency under Act 66 of 2014 (Act of Fiscal Sustainability and Operational Government) that is imposed on the shoulders of the workers of central government agencies represented Government under Act 45 of the Public Employees Syndication ", detailing the joint statements by May Torres and Torres Montalvo.
They added that it can not be seen with bad eyes that the judiciary finished ordering the creditors how much they will receive under the plan submitted by the public corporation in a restructuring of the debt.

Two union leaders endorse Creole bankruptcy law

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By <a href="http://Primerahora.com" rel="nofollow">Primerahora.com</a> 07.03.2014 | 10:44 a.m.
Two union leaders categorized as positive the "Creole bankruptcy law" because it would be the first time in the history of Puerto Rico faces a government bondholders and defend the public interest.
 "This, after all, is something positive that should be examined before passing judgment condemning and rejecting outright the Act without making a good and objective examination of its scope with regard to debt restructuring," he said in a statement signed by the president of the General Union of Workers (UGT), Manuel Torres May, and the secretary general of the United Confederation of Workers (CUTE) and member of the Central Executive Committee of the Puerto Rican Workers (CPT) Federico Torres Montalvo.
They stressed that the measure faces the "profit motive" of the bondholders. However, they noted that gaps still remain to be clarified, especially with regard to the sale of assets and trastoque collective agreements.
 Law Enforcement and the Debt Recovery Public Corporations entered into force on June 28, the day he received the governor's signature Alejandro García Padilla. The measure and beat the government with a demand from the two bondholders Power Authority and major reviews of the minority of the New Progressive Party (PNP). But above all, caused degradation country credit.
 According to union leaders, the law "may be the most compelling way to renegotiate a substantial portion of the public debt of the country against a possible and potential default (default)".
They said that while the law may in due course they have plenty of room for creditors to negotiate a scheme by which a public corporation as debtor presents a plan to the court how you are going to pay and ao not who will benefit from imposing a payment plan.
"Restructuring debt is precisely what the labor movement in the recommended policy of the agreements reached in Fortaleza to lighten the burden of fiscal emergency under Act 66 of 2014 (Act of Fiscal Sustainability and Operational Government) that is imposed on the shoulders of the workers of central government agencies represented Government under Act 45 of the Public Employees Syndication ", detailing the joint statements by May Torres and Torres Montalvo.
They added that it can not be seen with bad eyes that the judiciary finished ordering the creditors how much they will receive under the plan submitted by the public corporation in a restructuring of the debt.
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CNE – Centro Para Una Nueva Economía – Center for a New Economy

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No state or city with a credit rating as low as Puerto Rico’s has been able to access bond markets since at least 1990, a situation that may cut off the lifeblood of the commonwealth’s finances.
On July 1, Moody’s Investors Service cut the island’s rating to B2, five steps below investment grade. No local government has borrowed at that level, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Prices on its general-obligation debt yesterday plummeted to record lows.
“They’re done,” said Matt Dalton, chief executive officer of White Plains, New York-based Belle Haven Investments, which oversees $2.1 billion in munis. “They’re not going to be issuing any more debt on the island. I don’t see how they can bring people back to the trough at this point.”
Puerto Rico and its agencies have operated for years on borrowed money — racking up $73 billion, Bloomberg data show — and Wall Street made $910 million since 2000 by structuring its debt sales. If the government can’t sell bonds at affordable rates, it will have to curtail services for its 3.6 million residents, 45 percent of whom live in poverty.

Closed Classrooms

Like U.S. states, Puerto Rico can’t file for bankruptcy protection. Without the ability to issue debt, it will have to limit all spending to preserve money for health, public safety and education, said Sergio Marxuach, policy director at the Center for a New Economy, a research group in San Juan that focuses on economic development.
The commonwealth had already begun closing about 100 schools to help balance the fiscal 2015 budget.
“We need to have guards in prisons,” Marxuach said. “We need to have public-school teachers teaching.”
Anything else, he said, “could be fair game.”
Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla this week signed the $9.6 billion budget. Education consumes the largest portion, with about $2.1 billion of spending, followed by $885 million for health insurance for the poor, according to the commonwealth’s Office of Management and Budget documents. About $752 million will go toward police.

‘Onerous Terms’

Puerto Rico’s economy has contracted about 11 percent since 2006, according to its Planning Board. The unemployment rate of 13.8 percent is more than double the U.S. average.
Still, returns generated by the island’s risky debt made investors eager to lend and allowed the commonwealth to paper over budget gaps. The securities, which are tax free in all states, are held in two-thirds of muni mutual funds.
Puerto Rico securities lost 3.4 percent yesterday, the biggest one-day drop since Dec. 26, 2008, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Included in the decline were general-obligation bonds maturing July 2035. They originally sold at 93 cents on the dollar in March and traded yesterday at an average 84.8 cents, a record low, data compiled by Bloomberg show
Without the ability to borrow easily, Puerto Rico’s headwinds can only increase, said Dan Toboja, senior vice president of municipal trading at Chicago-based Ziegler Capital Markets.
“If you can’t access the capital markets except for the most onerous terms, it’s going to be a challenge that’s going to accelerate problems,” Toboja said.

Going Dark

The commonwealth is trying to put the brakes on. Garcia Padilla last week signed a bill that allows some public corporations to restructure debt outside bankruptcy. While the governor promoted the move as a way to protect general-obligation debt, creditors took it as an affront. Franklin Templeton Investments and Oppenheimer Funds Inc. are challenging the law. The Moody’s downgrade followed.
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, which provides almost all the island’s electricity and is a prime candidate for restructuring, may have to choose between paying bondholders and keeping the lights on, Marxuach said.
The utility, which carries $8.6 billion in debt, paid investors for maturing bonds July 1. It now faces $617 million of bank lines of credit that expire this month and next.
Prepa, as the agency is known, may have to implement rolling blackouts on residential customers so hospitals, schools and businesses can function, Marxuach said.

Live Wires

“That will be a shock to many people,” Marxuach said. “It will bring home to a lot of people the magnitude of the crisis we’re going through.”
Juan Alicea Flores, Prepa’s executive director, said in a prepared statement that officials would evaluate all options.
“Prepa will continue to produce and deliver power, just as it always has,” he said.
The Moody’s downgrade affected $14.4 billion of general-obligation debt. The New York company also dropped sales-tax bonds to junk, cutting senior-lien securities to Ba3, three levels below investment grade, from Baa1. It downgraded subordinate bonds to B1, four steps below investment grade, from Baa2. The change affects $15.6 billion of obligations and strips Puerto Rico of any way to borrow at investment-grade prices.
“Remember that this is the same credit-rating agency that said Enron was AAA,” Garcia Padilla said at a news conference yesterday in San Juan.
Solutions for the crisis on the island, which was ceded to the U.S. in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, aren’t easily forthcoming. In Washington, there is little zeal to help.

Unpromising Situation

Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors LLC and a former U.S. Treasury Department official, said there is little the agency or the Federal Reserve can do.
“They are looking at the existing programs to figure out what funds are available, but the problem is such funds are far outsized by the actual financing gap,” he said. “The only federal government assistance available and capable of staving off a restructuring in theory would be some special Fed program. But there is no indication that the Fed has any appetite to do that.”
Treasury spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine and National Economic Council spokeswoman Jen Friedman didn’t have immediate comments on the island’s situation.

Futile Pursuit

Any congressional bailout would be difficult because of anger over federal rescues of Wall Street and the U.S. auto industry.
Pedro Pierluisi, the commonwealth’s single non-voting representative in Congress, said he hasn’t asked for one, nor does he plan to.
“I don’t see fertile grounds,” the Democrat said.
Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate have introduced legislation that would block the Treasury or Fed from bailing out municipalities. They are intended to cover commonwealths, too, said Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who sponsored the measure.
“By no means should the federal government be in the business of bailing out state and local governments that are in the red,” Vitter said on the Senate floor in April. “These governments must make hard choices.”
One choice would be to default on bond payments. Arkansas was the last state to do so, failing to pay in 1933 after taking responsibility for debt from hundreds of road districts before the Great Depression struck.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michelle Kaske in New York at mkaske@bloomberg.net; Brian Chappatta in New York at bchappatta1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net Mark Schoifet
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Caribbean Business - More Local News - Page2RSS

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03 Jul ' 08:19

Job drop drags on manufacturing index
Issued: July 1, 2014
Rico’s vital manufacturing industry contracted in May, posting a second straight month of declines after two months of expansion, according to the...
Meet Puerto Rico cuts staff on budget crunch
Issued: July 1, 2014
Meet Puerto Rico, formerly known as the Puerto Rico Convention Bureau, has laid off six employees due to a drop in revenue. ...

Puerto Rico’s debt crisis: Neither a state nor independent

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Visit Puerto Rico and lose your shirt
PUERTO RICO has put on a brave face during its year-long debt crisis. But on June 28th Alejandro García Padilla, the governor, made a belated concession to reality by signing a law establishing a de facto bankruptcy regime for state-owned enterprises. With the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), a cash-strapped utility, teetering on the brink of default, the new system may face its first test soon.
Puerto Rico’s woes stem from a mix of structural weaknesses, external shocks and self-inflicted wounds. As an overseas American territory, it uses the dollar and the national minimum wage. That makes labour costly and exports uncompetitive. From 1976-2006 firms on the island were exempt from federal tax on their local profits. But once that carve-out expired, the economy fell into an eight-year recession. And after Detroit went bankrupt, investors fled risky municipal bonds, which raised Puerto Rico’s financing costs.
However, the government also bears its own share of the blame. It has spent too little on infrastructure and too much on pensions. And it has grossly mismanaged PREPA, which still generates 65% of its power using expensive fuel oil. Not only did the company cost the state $276m in 2013 but its high prices serve as a tax on most economic activity. Mr García Padilla has tried to compensate with austerity: on July 1st he signed a balanced budget that cut discretionary spending by 8%. But Puerto Rico’s public finances have regularly underperformed official forecasts.
The government insists that it “cannot default”, because its constitution gives debt payments first priority. However, this only applies to its general-obligation and guaranteed bonds. The remaining public debt is backed by specific revenues like highway tolls or, in PREPA’s case, electric bills. And the $800m of bank credit lines PREPA uses to buy fuel come due in August. Unless it can renegotiate quickly, it will either default or turn out the lights.
No one knows what would happen then. Puerto Rican state agencies fall in a gap in America’s bankruptcy code: they are excluded from the regimes both for local governments and private firms. As a result, missed payments would probably set off a whirlwind of litigation. To forestall this risk, the government instituted a new insolvency system for its companies. It gives them nine months to negotiate a settlement acceptable to holders of 75% of their debt. If the parties cannot agree, local courts would impose a solution. Investors saw the law as evidence that PREPA was set to restructure its $8.6 billion of liabilities, and have dumped its bonds.
But PREPA’s two biggest creditors, the mutual-fund firms Franklin Templeton and OppenheimerFunds, have challenged the law, arguing that the constitution gives Congress exclusive control over bankruptcy. If they win, it might boost calls to change Puerto Rico’s status. As the 51st state, its state-owned firms would be covered by the federal bankruptcy code. As an independent country, it could set its own rules. Under the status quo it may be stuck with neither.