Carl/Miriam:
Your comments are appreciated. I was referring to the causative factors
that produced the conditions that are now being suffered by the people.
Richard
On 4/29/2016 1:49 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I know you directed your comment to Carl. However, had you heard what he and
I both heard yesterday about what the Greek situation truly is, and had you
been reading books and articles about Puerto Rico, you might conjecture
differently. In neither case, Puerto Rico or Greece, have the people
benefited from any of the financial manipulations that the media are writing
about. Puerto Rico has always been a colony of the US where its corporations
made money and its people never benefited. Its current difficulties are due
to Paul Singer, a Hedge Fund owner who is notorious for destroying whatever
he gets involved in. And as far as Greece is concerned, it is currently a
disagreement between the German Banks and the World Monetary Fund that is
squeezing it. The banks loaned the Greek government money which they knew,
it couldn't repay, and then loaned it money to repay the loands at higher
interest which put it more in debt and then, did it again. You might want to
listen to the program on the Democrdacy Now website to hear it explained
properly.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard Driscoll
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2016 3:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: US, Puerto Rican gov'ts squeeze workers for
debt
Carl:
I conjecture that the Greek Citizens are tasting the after effects of many
years of extremely progressive politicians and laws while Puerto Rico is
largely the result of over active corruption of the political system.
Richard
On 4/29/2016 11:43 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Miriam,island.
I did hear Democracy Now yesterday. The Greek citizens are being
treated just like the Puerto Ricans. Victims being victimized. As
for Empires, I honestly believe that the huge international
corporations are the Empires of the future, overwhelming the existing
nations.
Now it's off to our chapter meeting.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/29/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And if you listened to Democracy Now yesterday, you heard the former
Greek minister of Finance describe how the German and French banks
are doing something similar to Greece. He explained the situation in
detail and it was horrifying. I'm not even sure what empire we're
talking about. This seems to be the Finance Industry, banks, shadow
banking, hedge funds, huge corporations who are in business solely to
benefit stock holders and not to produce products, and politicians
throughout the western world who work on behalf of financial elites,
not on behalf of their countries.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2016 10:37 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: my blog carl jarvis
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] US, Puerto Rican
gov’ts squeeze workers for debt
Have you ever wondered what an Empire looks like in its death throes?
Well, if you skipped classes on the days your teacher discussed the
Fall of the Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, or
any of a dozen others, then just take a good look at Puerto Rico. As
the wealthy Lords and Ladies thrash about desperately attempting to
squeeze a few last drops of blood from the Puerto Rican people, even
the Working Class is listed as an endangered species.
Working Class Americans need to take notice of the decline of their
brothers and sisters being forced to bear the Cross of Corporate Debt
laid upon their backs. Study it well. This is the inevitable fate
for working class people whose Ruling Class has turned to plundering
its own people. And when those Puerto Rican workers have been robbed
of all they own, the Masters will bring out the military and the
Bully Boys to force them to bend their backs just a little harder.
At least, as an avowed Agnostic, I don't have the embarrassing task
of trying to explain how my Loving God can allow this corrupt Empire
to crush the Spirit of a beautiful People.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/28/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8017/801751.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 17 May 2, 2016
US, Puerto Rican gov’ts squeeze workers for debt
BY SETH GALINSKY
The colonial government of Puerto Rico declared a “fiscal state of
emergency” April 5 and authorized Gov. Alejandro García Padilla to
impose a moratorium on payments on its $72 billion debt. Fortune
magazine ran an article with a headline proclaiming, “Puerto Rico
Has Decided It Doesn’t Need to Pay Its Debts.”
But the temporary measure is simply a maneuver to win a better deal
than a so-called rescue plan being debated in the U.S. Congress.
Proposed by Republicans and backed by some Democrats, that plan
would set up a U.S.-appointed fiscal control board, which would
decide which debts get paid first and would have the power to impose
“haircuts” on bondholders, the equivalent of bankruptcy.
García’s main demand is that more Puerto Rican capitalists be
represented on such a board.
“A lot of the bondholders bought the bonds at half price,” retired
hospital worker Luis Epardo said by phone from Aguadilla, Puerto
Rico, April 9. “But they want to get paid 100 percent. Then there
would be no money to pay the police, teachers, pensions. They don’t
care about the people of Puerto Rico.”
Some bondholders who oppose bankruptcy because they are worried
their competitors will get paid first are threatening to sue. But
Investor’s Business Daily argued that Puerto Rico needs “debt
relief,” saying the choice is “between order and chaos.”
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal April 7 called on the
Congress to “impose tough love in exchange for relief” — a rather
arrogant statement in light of Washington’s imperialist record on the
States.Ever since the U.S. military took control of Puerto Rico in 1898, U.S.
imperialism has plundered billions from the island’s resources and
labor of its workers and farmers.
Washington encouraged the expansion of U.S.-based sugar companies
that drove many small farmers off the land. Today some 85 percent of
the fruits and vegetables consumed there are imported from the United
U.S.In 1920 Congress passed the Jones Act, requiring all maritime cargo
to Puerto Rico be carried on U.S.-owned ships, which doubles the
cost of imports. During the late 1940s Washington began giving U.S.
companies in Puerto Rico big federal and local tax breaks.
After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Puerto Rico’s
fame as “the Poorhouse of the Caribbean” was an embarrassment to the
U.S.capitalist rulers. Washington extended federal minimum wage laws to
the island and additional tax breaks to U.S. companies there, part
of an attempt to transform Puerto Rico into its “Showcase of Democracy”
to combat the attraction of workers and farmers in the region to the
Cuban Revolution. In 1976 the federal government completely exempted
its own affairs.companies there from corporate taxes.
From 1996 to 2005 Washington phased out many tax breaks,
accelerating the impact of the worldwide economic crisis, and
highlighting once again that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony with no say in
While Puerto Rico is still a world center for pharmaceutical
manufacturing, the drug companies slashed their workforce from about
20,000 in 2000 to less than 11,000 in 2014. Employment in
manufacturing overall dropped more than 24 percent from 2007 to 2012.
Puerto Rico never recovered from a 2006 recession, its economy
shrinking for nine of the past 10 years. The government laid off
thousands of public workers, raised the retirement age, raised sales
taxes, cut pensions and took out more loans to pay the debt.
Gutting pension funds
To keep paying the bondholders, the government also shorted its
payments to pension funds. According to Reuters, the main pension
funds for 330,000 workers and retirees “are virtually penniless …
with about $1.8 billion in assets to pay $45 billion in liabilities.”
More than 1,200 people are leaving the island for the United States
every week, especially youth and middle class professionals.
“Industry is disappearing and young people can’t find work,” cattle
rancher Armando Arcelay told the Militant by phone from Aguadilla,
Puerto Rico, April 11. “In my neighborhood, out of 70 homes, 10 are
abandoned. The young people are emigrating to Florida.” The official
unemployment rate in Puerto Rico is 11.8 percent, more than double
the U.S. average.
There are thousands of small cattle ranchers on the island, many
with just 20 to 25 cows, Arcelay said, but slaughterhouses have
begun delaying payment for their cows and credit is harder to get.
“As much as 20 percent of beef used to be produced here,” he said.
“But now we’re down to 5 percent.”
Despite the mosquito-borne Zika virus epidemic, Arcelay said, the
municipal government has stopped spraying pesticides. “They say
there is no money to fumigate.”
“The government didn’t use the loans they got correctly,” Arcelay said.
“But that’s not the fault of future generations.”
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