Puerto Rico - Bankrupt - One Place - I would NOT want to be - Dangerous Before - Now What?

Puerto Rico is bankrupt and the government is the Largest employer on the island. They will be laying off people. Being that I lived in the Virgin Islands, but was in Puerto Rico constantly on business, including after I moved up to the states. Puerto Rico was VERY dangerous - 15 years ago, constant Car Jackings at lights, in fact - I did not stop at Red Lights, due to the jackings. A person I know, and did business with - had been killed in front of her kids - after being car jacked..... they cut off her head. So when I say.... Puerto Rico is DANGEROUS - IT IS!! Other friends have moved off island the last few years and everyone there, has for 20 years lived BEHIND BARS - which are on every window and door. Constant killings and break ins. NOW - add a Break down and people losing their jobs, besides the cost of everything and hotels and tourist business down. I would not want to step foot in Puerto Rico, that island will turn into a MASS Riot!

link to article: www.truthout.org...

An American territory with close to four million inhabitants has suspended all payments. Parts of public services have been shelved; schools have been closed, and close to 100,000 people have stopped working in the last week. Yet the situation barely provokes any response in the United States: no official reaction, very limited media coverage. The territory in question is not an American state, but an island with a weird status. Puerto Rico is part of the United States, but has its own flag, its constitution, and its own team at the Olympic Games.

Moody's Investors Service cut the rating of Puerto Rico's general obligation bonds to "Baa3," the agency's lowest investment grade above junk status, affecting about $25 billion of government debt, the New York-based agency said.

Puerto Rico is operating off its 2004 budget because the governor and the legislature failed to agree on spending plans for 2005 and 2006.

"This action reflects the commonwealth's strained financial condition, and ongoing political conflict and lack of agreement . . . to end the government's multiyear trend of financial deterioration," Moody's said.

The statement said Moody's was keeping Puerto Rico on a watch list for possible further downgrades.

Link to another article: how-to-be-rich-and-happy.blogspot.com...

MORE than 30,000 government employees - about 14 per cent of the public work force - could lose their jobs and new taxes will be introduced as Puerto Rico attempts to shore up its ailing economy, the governor of the US island territory announced on Wednesday.

The government is Puerto Rico's main employer, with 218,000 people, or 21 percent of the work force on the island of 3.9 million inhabitants. Economic analysts have been advising Puerto Rico, which currently has a $3.2 billion budget deficit, to slash its sprawling public payroll for years.

'The government is too big and spends too much,' Fortuno said. 'Simply, the government has to be minimized.'

I am Puerto Rican, My family lives in Puerto Rico and so my husband's family too.

I was in the Island two years ago, yes the Island has grown beyond capacity but the Tourism is flourishing and always have.

The crime is bad due to PR becoming a dumping ground for all those other Islands of illegal immigrants trying to find a door to the US.

And for decades the government has not been able to support itself as PR doesn't produce anything and is Dependant of Federal aid.

Still the government has been doing what has been doing for years just like the US bad policies, lost of production base and too many illegals on government assistance has taken its toll.

The whole of the Caribbean are in a bit of a tizzy.

Mass riots and goverment crackdowns.

Scary as @#$%.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by whiteraven]

reply to post by questioningall


Oh please, that article you are quoting is from 2006. Please check your dates before you post. That "catastrophe" you talk about was averted back then with some maneuvering. I lived there for decades.

There is a new administration which is now working closely with the congress, as opposed to the deadlock of the last four years.

Crime is still rampant (it always have) and tourism is down (people are traveling less to the Caribbean). But your story of government laying off and not paying is 3 years old.

reply to post by Exopolitico


The second link is from today, the other one is from a search I did on Puerto Rico and bankrupcy. So, I like to give more sources regarding what is going on.

Yes it is from 2006, so it shows they were having problems then, now it will be compounded.

Please look at the 2nd link.... in regards to how many people work for the govt. etc.



Marg6403....... I hope your family stays safe, you know Puerto Rico has been dangerous.... and as you said a "dumping" ground... the tourist business is dropping off. I have talked to friends in the Virgin Islands etc, they said it has begun to drop big time. Though Puerto Rico has casinos, etc. there is no way - the tourist business can sustain with the current financial crisis - people don't have the spare income to vacation.



[edit on 5-3-2009 by questioningall]

Yes I remember 2006 as my younger brother works for the government he and many others were on force vacation still because he was a long time employee he at least got pay for the time he had to stay at home.

I remember very well how worry everybody was, now is starting again.

link to article:

www.bloomberg.com...

Neither workers nor the government are thrilled with the public pension system in Puerto Rico. As of 2005, the Caribbean island’s government pension, with 278,000 participants, had assets that totaled just 19 percent of its long-term liabilities. That made it less funded than any state retirement fund in the U.S., public records show.

Puerto Rico’s pension system is a model for common mistakes made by public funds across the U.S.

Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth with a population of 4 million, has underfunded its main public pension fund since 1951 to save cash.

The island, whose capital building in Old San Juan is as close to the turquoise ocean waves as are the tourists taking photos on the edge of the beach, is far from being a financial paradise.

The legislature has repeatedly ignored annual suggested contributions calculated by its own actuaries, according to the Employees Retirement System’s records.

Boosting Benefits

Puerto Rico’s legislature raised pension benefits without funding the increased expense 30 years ago. Edmund Garza, the retirement system’s administrator from 1992 to 1996, says pensions were boosted from 45 percent of average salary to 75 percent after 30 years of employee service.

“They didn’t prepare a detailed actuarial analysis to see the financial impact of this decision, but definitely it was huge,” Garza, 47, says.

The government skipped nearly $2 billion in contributions urged by its actuaries from 2000 to ‘05, according to fund records. The pension system continued a course toward insolvency as it paid out more in benefits than it took in.

By 2005, the Employees Retirement System had $12.3 billion of pension obligations with just $2.3 billion of assets. Puerto Rico itself has a BBB- credit rating, one notch above junk, from Standard & Poor’s.

“We are very near bankruptcy,” says economist Jose Villamil, speaking of the commonwealth. He is founder of Estudios Tecnicos Inc., a San Juan-based economics consulting firm. “The budget is out of control; the treasury is in sad shape.”

‘Continue to Deteriorate’

In 2007, the actuary for the Puerto Rico fund, Hector Gaitan of Buck Consultants LLC, recommended that the legislature make an annual contribution of $564 million.

“The financial status of the System will continue to deteriorate,” Gaitan said in a Feb. 12, 2007, letter to the pension board that urged a boost in commonwealth contributions.

The legislature ignored Gaitan’s warning. It chose to put $398 million into the pension fund. Just months after Gaitan suggested bigger government contributions to the retirement system, the pension board dismissed Gaitan and his firm.

I live here... It sucks right now... and yes VERY dangerous... the other day one of my highschool friends got killed... I'm moving soon.

Its getting bad in just about every part of the world.


Why would PR be any different?


The only good thing I see comming from this is that people might just actually get their heads out of their arses and propigate a system that actually WORKS!!!

Well, more news from Puertorico, my brother is once again on force vacation until the summer 6 months it will be.

The government is trying to get rid of about 30 thousand employees.

Originally posted by Cisko
I live here... It sucks right now... and yes VERY dangerous... the other day one of my highschool friends got killed... I'm moving soon.

Moving to where? California? New york? Florida? All of these issues listed could easily be written about any number of states and countries in the world right now......but California will be the state to watch....

Puerto Rico is a welfare state. It is in the same train as California, People are just more ignorant and gullible, maybe it's because of the poor public educational system.

This island should be an example of how socializing everything doesn't work and how welfare just makes people lazy.

reply to post by hay291


While I agree with you on what our small littler island has become I am puertorrican myself, my Island used to be on top of education back in the 70s when I was in school.

Been a teacher myself now here in the US I can tell you that the quality of education I received back in the 60s,70s would rival with the crap they teach children now a days in the US.

But you are right my Island is nothing but a pot for the industrial Tourism and and hide out for drug trafficking and illegal immigrants.

I would not even go back to my Island unless is for visiting and not more than two weeks that I can take.

reply to post by marg6043


I live in PR ,unemployment is skyrocketing, housing fallout is just beginning now, no end in sight here, just higher taxes.

There is an oversupply in high price housing here, prices are just starting to fall. Commercial real estate losses and bankruptcies are starting to accelerate also. Puerto Rico economy usually lags the US trend by 6 to 8 months.

reply to post by hay291


Is just like here in the US, the local government getting fat on tax payer money while they give the finger to the people.

Now they are in trouble, because their gravy train (the US) is going bankrupt and if is not money to the sate if not going to be any money for Puerto Rico either.

Like I said my brother worked for the government in the Island for over 15 years as a computer engineer, since 2006 he is been forced to stay at home with half pay on and off, this time is been almost 5 months.

I'm sorry, but i dont agree with this thread.

I have family in Puerto Rico and they are no more in danger than being in Boston or New York or Florida. The island is crowded, but i wouldnt say its any more dangerous.
My relatives who live there are flourishing in the field of microbiology and regular jobs as well.

Its no worse off than where i am. Yes, i've been there a few times and have never feared for my life.

Hispanics always get a bum wrap when it comes to big concentrations of them, but i want you guys to know that they are probably the most helpful and unselfish people, and they help one another.

Politics S*ck everywhere, including here, big time.

As far as a beheading or carjacking, heck, that can happen and does happen here on the mainland, and lots worse.

[edit on 20-5-2009 by dgtempe]

reply to post by dgtempe


One of the problems with crime in Puerto Rico is that for a small island is very high.

My mother doesn't even dare to go for walks like she used because too many drive by shootings.

The drug lords have taken over the Island, my husband lost one of his nephews to them already back in the 80s he was targeted and executed in front of a lot of people and nobody did anything.

I was in the island in 2006 and didn't like what the Island has become at all, too much police corruption also.

But Marg,
Where is it not that way???

I go to Phoenix to see my mother and we cannot walk around anymore because of the shootings and kidnapings.

I go to Florida to see my son and its terrible two blocks away from where he lives. The schools are terrible- drugs everywhere, just sickning.

My point is, this world is upside down now and it may be less noticeable here because its a big nation compared to a small congested island.

reply to post by dgtempe


I tell you my friend is hard to see my once beautiful Island become so bad, it was so beautiful when I was growing up.

My neck of the woods here in GA is ok so far, but that is because we live away from big cities, but as more unemployment hits the back woods and people falls into desperation things are going to turn ugly, guns sales are at a high right now as people are trying to protect themselves.

My parents wants to come and retire in Florida they are looking for a retirement community as they already pay off their home and can used the revenue for that.

And my mother have a lot of family in Florida actually my grandmother and her two sisters still alive an well live in Miami all in their 80s and still busy ladies.

reply to post by dgtempe


There have been over 300 murders since the start of the year, police are being more corrupt than ever with drug traffickers, things will just get worse.

Main problem here is that unemployment is just going to keep rising, there is no private sector to absorb the government layoffs, this means more crime.

Police doesn't want to work here at night, when most crimes happen. You do see a lot of cops working during the day though.