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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Puerto Rico: The Crisis Is About
Colonialism, Not Debt</h1>
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<div class="field-item even">Puerto Rico is in crisis. But the
crisis is not about how to pay Wall Street. It is about the
impact of centuries-long economic devastation on the men,
women, and children—especially children—that live in Puerto
Rico. While failure to pay the banks and the vultures makes
headlines in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times,
the human misery caused by five centuries of colonialism does
not.<br>
<br>
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<div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text
field-label-hidden">
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<div class="field-item even">Linda Backiel</div>
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field-type-datetime field-label-hidden">
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<div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single"
property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2015-10-01T00:00:00-04:00">October 1, 2015</span></div>
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<br>
<p>Tourists are fascinated by the heavy blue cobblestones that pave
the streets of Old San Juan. Why they are there is as good an
explanation as any for Puerto Rico’s current crisis. In the days
of Spanish colonialism, they were ballast to keep the ships
crossing the Atlantic from tossing about and blowing over. The
ships came empty, and left for Spain full of gold, silver, and
other riches stolen from the indigenous Taínos. The ballast left
behind was used to pave the streets.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico has been sacked by colonial powers for half a
millennium. Is it any wonder it is in dire straits? Today, it is
$73 billion in debt. As a point of comparison: Greece recently
asked for about $82 billion from the European Union. The German
finance minister thought it was funny when he proposed to U.S.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that the Eurozone exchange Greece for
Puerto Rico. This is not funny; it is not even a good analogy.
Neither the Germans nor the Eurozone have the power to “trade
Greece” to anyone; its citizens can tell their prime minister what
they think about EU debt proposals. Of course, they have to weigh
their choice against the threat of being kicked out of the
Eurozone.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en1"
id="fn1" rel="footnote">1</a></p>
<p>Puerto Rico has no such choice. Under the “Territorial Clause”
(Article IV, section 3) of the U.S. Constitution, Congress could
sell or trade Puerto Rico to whomever it wanted, without ever
looking south to see what Puerto Ricans thought about it. And,
although it paid Anne O. Krueger (first deputy managing director
of the IMF, from 2001 to 2006) and two other former IMF officials
$400,000 to make recommendations about Puerto Rico’s economic
crisis, Puerto Rico itself—as a “territory” of the United
States—has no access to the World Bank, the IMF, or regional
financing.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en2"
id="fn2" rel="footnote">2</a></p>
<p>Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla gave early warning that, as the
Kreuger report concludes, the debt can neither be paid when due
nor serviced. Puerto Rico cannot continue to finance the debt with
additional loans at higher interest rates. The report also found
that the debt has been growing faster than the economy, which has
been shrinking for almost a decade. And much of the debt itself is
currently due on bonds used to finance—the debt.<a
class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en3"
id="fn3" rel="footnote">3</a></p>
<p>On August 1, Puerto Rico failed to make a $58 million payment on
“moral obligation” bonds issued by the Corporation for Public
Financing. The indenture of these bonds has no enforceability
clause, so bondholders have no straightforward means of enforcing
payment. They are “guaranteed” by the moral obligation to pay from
funds which must be—but were not—appropriated by Puerto Rico’s
cookie-cutter imitation of the U.S. Congress.</p>
<p>The reason? The well went dry. “Nonsense,” say the bond holders.
“You are still providing free university education to every
qualifying student, and paying operating expenses. That money is
owed to us.” Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Justice insists this is
not a default, but a postponement of payment until some rational
solution can be negotiated with creditors. It is, of course, a
question of priority. The government is still paying salaries to
keep the schools and hospitals open, the buses and ferries
operating. But there is a wrinkle: Article VI, §8 of Puerto Rico’s
Constitution (which was subject to modification and approval by
Congress) makes payment of interest and amortization of the debt
the first priority.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico is essentially running on bonds held by U.S.-based
banks and corporations, although pension funds and mutual fund
investors attracted by triple-exempt, high-yield bonds are also
affected.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en4"
id="fn4" rel="footnote">4</a> Oppenheimer Funds and Franklin
Templeton Advisers lead the way. And then there are the hedge and
vulture funds (Blue Mountain Capital, Stone Lion Capital, Aurelius
Capital, as well as several holding junk bonds from Puerto Rico,
Greece, and Argentina). Together, they hold close to half of the
debt.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en5"
id="fn5" rel="footnote">5</a></p>
<p>Underwriters include Barclay’s PLC, RBC Capital Markets, Morgan
Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.
Collectively they were paid $28.1 million in fees to issue bonds
in March 2014 alone. Wall Street is literally paved with Puerto
Rican debt, most of it classified as “junk.”<a
class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en6"
id="fn6" rel="footnote">6</a></p>
<p>The vultures are circling. They insist that whatever liquidity
remains in the country is theirs, and they intend to get it. Some
have been bleeding the anemic economy for years. Between 2006 and
2013, Puerto Rico paid $1.4 billion for financial “services” such
as swap termination fees.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en7"
id="fn7" rel="footnote">7</a></p>
<p>Puerto Rico is in crisis. But the crisis is not about how to pay
Wall Street. It is about the impact of centuries-long economic
devastation on the men, women, and children—especially
children—that live in Puerto Rico. While failure to pay the banks
and the vultures makes headlines in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>
and the <em>New York Times</em>, the human misery caused by five
centuries of colonialism does not.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico’s Labor Secretary Vance Thomas announced that
official unemployment was 12.6 percent in June.<a
class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en8"
id="fn8" rel="footnote">8</a> That is the good news. The bad
news is that unemployment figures decline as massive out-migration
increases, following factory closings, the firing of one-third of
government employees in 2009, and early retirement incentives
grabbed by those relying on an underfunded pension fund. Workforce
participation hovers at 40 percent, the majority without full-time
jobs. The tax base shrinks and the population is increasingly
dominated by those who do not work: children, the officially
unemployed, those who have stopped looking for work or have never
worked, and the aging.</p>
<p>In Puerto Rico, 45.4 percent of people live in poverty (an income
of under $24,000 for a family of four)—but 57 percent of children
do. This is well over twice the rate for the United States.
According to the September 2014 American Community Survey, Puerto
Rico has a median household income of $19,630—half that of the
poorest state, Mississippi. And it had a higher rate of income
disparity than any state. In Puerto Rico, 84 percent of our
children grow up in impoverished communities, compared to 14
percent in the United States.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en9"
id="fn9" rel="footnote">9</a></p>
<p>In these communities, role models who have completed high school
before going on to higher education, or even technical training
and jobs, are hard to find. Those who succeed, leave. One hundred
twenty-five residents of a single <em>barrio</em> or housing
project may be charged in a single federal drug conspiracy
indictment, so that three generations end up in jail, essentially
for participating in the only economic activity visible in their
community.</p>
<p>Puerto Rico’s social crisis is so dire that its Catholic Bishops’
Conference commissioned its own study, from the perspective of the
social doctrine of the Catholic church.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en10"
id="fn10" rel="footnote">10</a> The report’s recommendations,
based upon a comprehensive metaanalysis, are the opposite of those
of Kreuger, et al. Cut spending to pay the debt, says Wall Street.
Increase spending to grow the economy, suggests the Catholic
Bishops’ report. Is anyone listening?</p>
<p>Hernán Vera Rodriguez, a dean of the Pontifical University of
Ponce and author of the Bishops’ study, concludes that neoliberal
policies have resulted in further neglect of native industry and
agriculture—all significant factors in the current economic
collapse.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en11"
id="fn11" rel="footnote">11</a></p>
<p>The case of agriculture is particularly dramatic. The 3.2 million
inhabitants of an extraordinarily fertile island must import close
to 90 percent of their food—almost all of which could be locally
grown.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en12"
id="fn12" rel="footnote">12</a> The problem is both
underutilization of arable land and, most glaringly, the absence
of local food processors and distributors able to compete with
U.S. agribusinesses.</p>
<p>These problems are aggravated by a U.S. law that requires all
imported (and exported) goods to use the costliest shipping
services in the world: that of the United States. There is now
broad consensus on an issue that independentistas have championed
for decades: under section 27 of the 1920 Merchant Marine (or
Jones) Act, all coastal shipping between U.S. ports must be done
by U.S. flag ships, of U.S. construction, and owned and operated
by U.S. crew. Good for the U.S. shipping industry. Not so good for
hungry Puerto Ricans. In addition to increasing the cost of food,
it contributes to Puerto Rico’s exorbitant energy prices, which
burden both residents and business. The Kreuger report, the IMF,
and the New York Times all agree: the law helps strangle Puerto
Rico’s economy.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en13"
id="fn13" rel="footnote">13</a> Congress seems disinclined to do
anything.</p>
<p>How did things get so bad? Look no further than the majestic
“Territorial Clause,” which proclaims that “Congress shall have
the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property of the United States.”</p>
<p>History casts a long shadow. As visionary Puerto Rican patriot
Pedro Albizu Campos (1893—1965) succinctly put it, “the yankees
wanted the birdcage without the birds.” In 1898, the United States
seized Puerto Rico from Spain as part of the spoils from the
Spanish-American War—a war of U.S. imperial expansion. After a few
years of military rule, Washington set up a puppet government. No
Puerto Rican was named governor until 1948 (in order to counteract
strong pro-independence sentiment), and none was elected until
1952.</p>
<p>During the last century, Puerto Rico had great strategic value
for the United States. After 1961, this was reinforced by its
propaganda value as a showcase for the benefits of capitalism to a
Latin America charmed by the Cuban revolution. So the United
States promoted investment, although at terms favorable to those
with capital and outside of Puerto Rico.</p>
<p>Despite the cosmetic changes, with the creation of the current
“Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico” (literally “Free Associated
State,” which the United States insists be translated as
“Commonwealth”) in 1952, Puerto Rico has no real autonomy. Section
27 of the Jones Act is just one example. Another is section 936 of
the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, which created tax incentives for
U.S. corporations to operate in Puerto Rico. The key word here is
“operate,” because what it promotes is not exactly investment;
like the Spanish of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
U.S. corporations could take home all the profits. But while in
effect, the law created a sort of false private sector economy,
with a marginal Puerto Rican working and middle class, and dollars
that were deposited, however transiently, in its banks.</p>
<p>The demolition of this colonial prop of Puerto Rico’s economy is
one of the causes of today’s crisis. Congress knocked it out with
the support of the then-incumbent, pro-statehood Partido Nuevo
Progresista (PNP, the New Progressive Party). Between 1996 and
2006, the benefits of the IRS code were phased out, promoting
plant closings and removing capital from Puerto Rico’s banks and
contributing to massive unemployment and depressed wages.</p>
<p>The statehooders were betting that the United States would rescue
its impoverished colony by making it a state, rather than see it
sink into the sea. They were wrong. The Berlin Wall had long since
fallen. Today, Washington no longer views Cuba as a threat to the
hemisphere, but a hot new market. Now that what was a CIA
listening post in Cabo Rojo is an education center for a wild bird
sanctuary, Washington has no need to rescue—or even prop up—Puerto
Rico.</p>
<p>By 2007, when the Great Financial Crisis commenced, Puerto Rico
was poised for a tailspin. The pro-statehood party had
enthusiastically adopted the neoliberal model, promising to shrink
government by firing one-third of the public workforce and selling
off, totally or partially, state assets (including the telephone
company, highways, and principal airport). PNP faithful gobbled up
sumptuous contracts. The extreme neoliberal agenda cost the party
the next election, but the current Popular Democratic Party
administration, who favor greater autonomy under a permanent
relation to the United States, inherited an economy in shambles.
Both capital and workers fled north.</p>
<p>Why not bankruptcy for Puerto Rico, like Detroit, or debt
reduction negotiations, like Greece? If you cannot guess the
answer, I have not made my point clear. What the law protects is
not Puerto Rico’s treasury, but Wall Street’s profits. This was
vividly illustrated by the recent decision of the United States
Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in Boston), when it
invalidated Puerto Rico’s desperate homemade debt relief bill. Of
course, in the language of the courts, it is a bit more
complicated.</p>
<p>Federal bankruptcy law is notoriously arcane, but, in essence,
while states cannot declare bankruptcy, they do have the power to
authorize municipalities and state-owned enterprises to do so. But
under the Bankruptcy Code, as amended in 1984, not Puerto Rico.
This is no mere anomaly of bankruptcy law, but—like Section 27 of
the Jones Act—a consequence of the Territorial Clause.</p>
<p>No problem, thought those elected to exercise some degree of home
rule over Puerto Rico’s internal affairs; we will create our own
Recovery Act that would allow public utility corporations—which
have created one-third of the debt—to renegotiate it. “Not so
fast!” said the bondholders, who ran into federal court. And, as
soon as the judges of the Court of Appeals finished watching the
Fourth of July fireworks on the banks of the Charles, they ruled
that Puerto Rico lacks the power to enact even a local debt relief
law.</p>
<p>Under the Territorial Clause, Puerto Rico is a “state” for many
purposes—including some (like the death penalty and wiretapping)
prohibited by Puerto Rico’s make-believe Constitution. But it was
not a state when it came to paying U.S. income tax on corporate
profits realized in Puerto Rico, or when it comes to what passes
for democracy in the United States: electing representatives to
Congress or the president. Nor does it receive equal treatment
under federal safety-net laws (Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, and
others). In the lexicon of colonialism, Puerto Rico is a “state”
when Congress says it is, or a federal court believes that it
meant to, and not a “state” when Congress says it is not. Just
like Humpty Dumpty.</p>
<p>Under a 1984 revision of the Bankruptcy Code (which may or may
not have been deliberate), Puerto Rico is not a state. Mind you,
Puerto Rico’s Recovery Act was carefully crafted to get around
this problem. But the federal courts have decided that the
imitation comes too close to the real thing for comfort. In the
words of the Court of Appeals, “Our construction is consistent
with a congressional choice to exercise such other options
‘pursuant to the plenary powers conferred by the Territorial
Clause.’ If Puerto Rico could determine the availability of
[bankruptcy for municipal and state-owned corporations], <em>that
might undermine</em> Congress’s ability to do so.”<a
class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en14"
id="fn14" rel="footnote">14</a></p>
<p>In order to protect Congress’s “plenary powers,” Puerto Rico must
continue to pay the piper and dance to his tune. Governor
Alejandro García Padilla says he will ask for a Supreme Court
review, but Puerto Rico has only one ear there, and it takes five
to make a decision. Absent the unlikely decision to grant this
review, the current state of affairs can only be changed by
getting Puerto Ricans to walk on their knees to Washington and
find more Congresspersons who care about the fate of Puerto Ricans
than the fate of Oppenheimer, Franklin, Blue Mountain Group,
Citigroup and the vultures. Congress expressed its concern about
Puerto Rico’s crisis by leaving on August recess without
considering virtually identical bills in the House (HR 480) and
Senate (S 1164) designed to remedy this problem.</p>
<p>The only Puerto Rican judge sitting on the panel to hear the case
(indeed, the only one serving on the Court that hears appeals from
federal decisions in Puerto Rico, The Hon. Juan R. Torruella)
penned a tragic concurrence. He had no choice but to agree, he
wrote. The Supreme Court has reiterated that “Congress…is
empowered under the Territory Clause of the Constitution…’to make
all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the
Territory…belonging to the United States,'” and thus may treat
Puerto Rico differently from all the states “so long as there is a
rational bases for its actions.”<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en15"
id="fn15" rel="footnote">15</a></p>
<p>Judge Torruella would find no rational basis for treating Puerto
Rico differently, but he was outvoted. As for the majority’s
advice that Puerto Rico should undertake the pilgrimage to
Congress, he concludes that, “this is asking it to play with a
deck of cards stacked against it, something…this court has
previously recommended, but to no avail.” The footnote hanging
from this comment explains that the Court of Appeals gave the same
advice to the people of Vieques claiming reparations for damage to
their health and their land. “This is clearly a colonial
relationship,” he remarks.<a class="endnote-link"
href="http://monthlyreview.org/2015/10/01/puerto-rico-the-crisis-is-about-colonialism-not-debt/#en16"
id="fn16" rel="footnote">16</a> What he did not admit is that
change comes about only when the colonial subjects unite to defy
the imperial power, as they did when they forced the U.S. Navy out
of Vieques.</p>
<p>A July meeting with creditors at Citibank headquarters in New
York was a huge frustration to all. Outside, demonstrators
proclaimed that “Puerto Rico is not for sale.” The problem is that
those attempting to govern Puerto Rico have sold all but its soul
to the buzzards and bond holders. The question is, in the battle
between soul and capital, who will win? Until the people of Puerto
Rico organize to defend their soul, it is not even a stalemate:
Black is playing with nothing but pawns.</p>
<h2 class="mr-notes"> Notes</h2>
<div class="nonumbers"> Please note that although English-language
sources are cited where possible, they are not always the best
sources of information.</div>
<ol>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en1"> “I offered my friend Jack
Lew<span class="ellipsis">…</span>that we could take Puerto Rico
into the euro zone if the U.S. were willing to take Greece into
the dollar union,” said Wolfgang Schaeuble at a Deutsche
Bundesbank conference on July 9, 2015. Lew, the U.S. Treasury
Secretary, “thought that was a joke,” according to Schaeuble.
Rainer Buergin, “Schaeuble Tells Lew He’d Gladly Swap Greece for
Puerto Rico,” <cite class="journal-book">BloombergBusiness</cite>,
July 9, 2015, <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a href="http://bloomberg.com">http://bloomberg.com</a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en2"> Anne O. Krueger, Ranjit
Teja, and Andrew Wolfe, “Puerto Rico—A Way Forward,” June 29,
2015, <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a href="http://gdbpr.com">http://gdbpr.com</a></span>.
All three are former IMF officials; the figure quoted is the
total fee for the report.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en3"> Of the $667,030 due to
service the debt in August, over half was owed by a corporation
created to pay the debt out of sales tax revenues; a quarter, by
the Government Development Bank; and over an eighth by the
agency for municipal financing, etc. Limarys Suárez Torres, “<a
href="http://www.pressreader.com/puerto-rico/el-nuevo-dia/20150806/2815565845445"
target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink">Puerto Rico Hoy</span></a>,”
<cite class="journal-book">El Nuevo Día</cite>, August 6, 2015,
<span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://pressreader.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://pressreader.com">http://pressreader.com</a></a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en4"> Hedge funds and other
creditors are using the argument that Puerto Ricans are also
hurt as bondholders. This is true, and doubly painful. With over
500,000 individual bondholders, Franklin and Oppenheimer Funds
alone hold 40 percent of the debt. See Mary Anastasia O’Grady, “<a
href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/puerto-ricos-debt-relief-gambit-1430688202"
target="_blank"><span class="hyperlink">Puerto Rico’s
Debt-Relief Gambit</span></a>,” <cite class="journal-book">Wall
Street Journal, </cite>May 3, 2005, <span class="url"
xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://wsj.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wsj.com">http://wsj.com</a></a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en5"> See Joel Cintrón
Arbasetti, “The Trajectory of Hedge Funds Found in Puerto Rico,”
<cite class="journal-book">Centro de Periodismo Investigativo,</cite>
July 15, 2015, <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://periodismoinvestigativo.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://periodismoinvestigativo.com">http://periodismoinvestigativo.com</a></a></span>.
Because the available information remains murky, Puerto Rico’s
Center for Investigative Journalism is suing to learn exactly
who holds what debt.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en6"> “Puerto Rico Bond Sale
Results in 28.1 million in Banks Fees,” <cite
class="journal-book">Bond Buyer</cite> 123, no. 34676, March
17, 2014, 8.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en7"> University of Puerto Rico
professor and Working People’s Party 2013 gubernatorial
candidate Rafael Bernabé Riefkohl, quoted in Ed Morales, “The
Roots of Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis—and Why Austerity Will Not
Solve It,” <cite class="journal-book">Nation</cite>, July 8,
2015, <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a href="http://thenation.com">http://thenation.com</a></span>.
See also Ed Morales, “How Hedge and Vulture Funds Have Exploited
Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis,” <cite class="journal-book">Nation</cite>,
July 21, 2015, <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a href="http://thenation.com">http://thenation.com</a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en8"> “Labor Department June
Report Reflects Lower Unemployment Rate,” <cite
class="journal-book">Caribbean Busines</cite>s, July 21, 2015,
<span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://caribbeanbusinesspr.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://caribbeanbusinesspr.com">http://caribbeanbusinesspr.com</a></a></span>.
See also “Confiado el Secretario del Trabajo en que Continúe
Tendencia de Reducción en Tasa de Desempleo,” August 19, 2015, <span
class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://foronoticioso.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://foronoticioso.com">http://foronoticioso.com</a></a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en9"> For the general Puerto
Rican poverty figure see Alemayehu Bishaw and Kayla Fontenot, “<a
href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acsbr13-01.pdf"><span
class="hyperlink">Poverty, 2012 and 2013</span></a>,” U.S.
Census Bureau, American Community Survey Briefs, September 2014,
<a href="https://census.gov">https://census.gov</a>, 3, 4. For
the percentage of children who live in poverty and grow up in
impoverished communities, see Annie E. Casey Foundation, <a
href="http://www.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2015kidscountdatabook-2015-em.pdf"
target="_blank"><cite class="journal-book">Kids Count 2015
Data Book</cite></a>, 2015, 44, 45, <span class="url"
xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://aecf.org"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://aecf.org">http://aecf.org</a></a></span>. For the
Puero Rican median income, see U.S. Census Bureau, American
Community Survey Briefs, “<a
href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acsbr13-02.pdf"><span
class="hyperlink">Household Income 2013,</span></a>”
September 2014, 2, <a href="https://census.gov">https://census.gov</a>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en10"> Hernán A. Vera Rodríguez,
<a
href="http://www.mipucpr.org/publicaciones/wp-content/uploads/publicaciones/La_pobreza_pr/index_pobrezapr.html"
target="_blank"><cite class="journal-book">La pobreza en
Puerto Rico: estadísticas, políticas públicas e impacto en
la vida de los ciudadanos: una mirada desde la perspectiva
de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia</cite></a> (Ponce,
Puerto Rico, 2015), <span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX"
lang="en-US-POSIX"><a href="http://mipucpr.org">http://mipucpr.org</a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en11"> Amanda Noss, “<a
href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acsbr13-02.pdf"><span
class="hyperlink">Household Income, 2013</span></a>,” U.S.
Census Bureau, American Community Survey Briefs, September 2014,
<a href="https://census.gov">https://census.gov</a>. In addition
to raw figures, this reports calculates the rate of income
disparity (the Gini Index), in which perfect equality is
represented by 0 and total inequality by 1. The national average
is estimated at .481; Puerto Rico’s was .547. The only other
jurisdiction breaking .500 was the District of Colombia.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en12"> See “Expertos alertan
sobre seguridad alimentaria en Puerto Rico,”<cite
class="journal-book"> El Nuevo Día</cite>, September 24, 2014,
<span class="url" xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://elnuevodia.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://elnuevodia.com">http://elnuevodia.com</a></a></span>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en13"> See the editorial,
“Puerto Rico Needs Debt Relief,” <cite class="journal-book">New
York Times</cite>, July 1, 2015, <span class="url"
xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX"><a
href="http://nytimes.com"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://nytimes.com">http://nytimes.com</a></a></span>. 46
U.S.C. §§289 and 12108 are highly protective of U.S. shipping,
merchant marines, and steel industries, giving them a monopoly
on coastal/sea trading between ports under U.S. jurisdiction.
Between 2008 and 2013, six executives of the principal shipping
lines to Puerto Rico pled guilty to anti-trust/price fixing
violations. A bill to repeal or exempt Puerto Rico from the Act,
sponsored by John McCain was soundly defeated in 2013. While a
new bill is pending, it faces opposition form powerful lobbies.
(At the end of July 2013, Res. Commissioner Pierliusi introduced
the Puerto Rico Interstate Commerce Improvement Act of 2013
[HSC-518]. It was immediately referred to subcommittee, where it
has seen no action.)</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en14"> <cite
class="journal-book">Franklin California Tax-Free Trust et al
v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, et al.</cite>, Nos. 15-1218,
etc., decision of July 6, 2015, Slip Opinion at page 31.
Emphasis added.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en15"> <cite
class="journal-book">Harris v. Rosario</cite>, 446 U.S. 651,
651-2 (1986), quoted at page 51 of <cite class="journal-book">California
Tax Free Trust</cite>.</li>
<li class="endnote hovernote" id="en16"> Ibid, 73, 72.</li>
</ol>
<p class="endnote hovernote"><span class="bylineBio"
xml:lang="en-US-POSIX" lang="en-US-POSIX">Linda Backiel</span>
is a criminal defense attorney practicing in San Juan, Puerto
Rico.</p>
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