@Annie Merriam-Webster definition of treason #2 - the betrayal of a trust : TREACHERY. Elected leaders like this do far more damage than even a powerful hurricane can do. The people of Puerto Rico need to make sure change happens immediately.
@Ron Yes, absolutely. They've succeeded in getting Rossello out -- a good first step -- but there is much more work to do.
@Annie Yes, I was following the news about that closely. It's been some really rough times for PR lately. Do you think PR could make it as an independent country, an idea which AOC is now promoting. Would that be a popular idea on the island? Is it realistic? How much direct aide does PR get from the US?
@Ron I believe that the average income on PR is something like $17k a year. Would being an independent country help or hurt the people? From a financial stand point (individually) I would guess that independence would hurt both the people and the PR economy.
@wilsongis I would guess the same, but I know very little. Does the island grow enough food to feed the people? I suppose it's economy must rely on tourism, which is severely disrupted by extreme weather. Are there any other sources of revenue?
@Ron this is another area they’ve been screwed: financial incentives from mainland got aligned such that a lot of pharmaceutical and rum production happened there, but then things were changed without support to “reconfigure” the economy
@Ron Only my observations, but it seems that there's much more support for independence than there was even a few years ago. Statehood is less and less appealing as people consider that they may not be treated much better as a state than they are as a territory. Economically, it's a long road ahead, of course. The economy's been damaged by the Jones Act and undermined by the tax incentives (some benefits from tax incentives, but the net result of tax incentivized corp's here seems to be establishment of businesses that aren't interested in local economy/sustainability, and less room for growth and development of local industry... then tax incentives expire and corporations leave, lots of unemployment in their wake). Tough to get numbers on recent direct aide (I'm sure it's somewhere but I can't find it.) An interesting set of numbers here: raulcolon.net/money-flo... but it's from 2012.
@Annie The 2012 data is pretty old, but according to that, 2.7 Billion was going from the federal government for the island to run its own government. It would probably be difficult to determine how much of that was used for the benefit of the islanders and how much was pocketed by corrupt politicians. The discussion on that site is actually quite interesting. Thanks!