That’s kinda harsh.Originally Posted by phill4paul
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That’s kinda harsh.
Tough love.
Dude- read my post above-
Puerto Rico is in the financial state it is in because of the take-over & mercantilism of the US.
There is no spoon.
I'm aware of the history. That doesn't excuse the graft and corruption that the people allowed their government to perpetrate. To the tune of $70 billion dollars. It might shock everyone here that P.R. has gotten $15 billion in relief. Did you know that they get $21 billion annually in welfare aid? More than Nevada, more than New Hampshire, more than Maine, Nebraska and Montana. More than Wyoming, Alaska and Delaware. And these folks don't even pay Fed. Income tax. What a great gig.
https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/cffr-10.pdf
They also don't get any taxes from the Big Corps that run the sugar and other industries in their country- they have been put in poverty with purpose.
There is no spoon.
To ThePaleoLibertarian, they're both from the same place: Hispanlandia.
Which would be worst; the current tariffs or the fed income tax for PR?
I know where she's from, I'm saying she will appeal to Puerto Rican voters, should they be given the franchise. It might not even be her, she might crash and burn pretty soon from the looks of it. The more "brown" America gets, the more leftist it will be, whether through immigration or Puerto Rican statehood or both.
I don't disagree that illegal immigration is worse, but you might as well hand the Dems several electoral votes if PR becomes a state. Republicans will never win again, no matter who the candidate is. And it's not like illegal immigrants are going anywhere yet, so it would be doubly $#@!ty.
Last edited by ThePaleoLibertarian; 07-26-2018 at 05:28 PM.
NeoReactionary. American High Tory.
The counter-revolution will not be televised.
The current PR non voting rep is a Republican. Crazy eyes Cortez might appeal to nuyoricans, but island Puerto Ricans probably not. The majority of Americans in PR don’t identify as brown and If they did I don’t think would matter.
I'm aware that the Resident Commissioner of PR is (at least on paper relatively conservative. But if they were given the franchise, the Democrats would immediately come in with their promises of goodies and pushing grievance politics. Do you really think they'd let millions of Hispanic voters go to waste? They're very good and gaining control over non-white demographics and never letting go.
NeoReactionary. American High Tory.
The counter-revolution will not be televised.
I think we should consider making PR a state if we can expel several solid blue states at the same time, we would be trading multiple known bads for an unknown.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Puerto Ricans don't identify as American and they generally dislike "mainland gringos". I don't think we need to absorb them. I've never had so many scams attempted against me as when I've visited PR. No thanks, got enough scammers in the existing 50 states already and don't need to add another batch.
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul
"We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book
I said we should consider it, if they don't want it or we decide we don't for some good reason then we should grant them independence instead.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Independence, sure. I guess that's a good option now that the IRS isn't based there any more.
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul
"We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book
True, they haven't been a given fair shake for self-rule, but their society is extremely corrupt.
I identify as American and so do the ones that keep voting for statehood as well the ones that don’t(populares). I do agree that some don’t, but lots of democrats don’t consider themselves Americans, lots of anchor babies don’t consider themselves Americans. There are scammers everywhere, yeah, ok.
If every Citizen living in PR right now were to move to the mainland every single one would gain the full Bill of rights, Representation in Congress and the privilege to Vote in Federal elections. All they would lose is the status of PR.
Because of the US of A.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/...d-puerto-rico/How Socialism Destroyed Puerto Rico, and How Capitalism Can Save It
By Peter Schiff
Euro Pacific Capital
July 16, 2015
While Greece is now dominating the debt default stage, the real tragedy is playing out much closer to home, with the downward spiral of Puerto Rico. As in Greece, the Puerto Rican economy has been destroyed by its participation in an unrealistic monetary system that it does not control and the failure of domestic politicians to confront their own insolvency. But the damage done to the Puerto Rican economy by the United States has been far more debilitating than whatever damage the European Union has inflicted on Greece. In fact, the lessons we should be learning in Puerto Rico, most notably how socialistic labor and tax policies can devastate an economy, should serve as a wake up call to those advocating prescribing the same for the mainland.
The U.S. has bombed the territory of Puerto Rico with five supposedly well-meaning, but economically devastating policies. It has:
1. Exempted the Island’s government debt from all U.S. taxes in the Jones-Shaforth Act.
2. Eliminated U.S. tax breaks for private sector investment with the expiration of section 936 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.
3. Required the nation to abide by a restrictive trade arrangement.
4. Made the Island subject to the U.S. minimum wage.
5. Enabled Puerto Rico to offer generous welfare benefits relative to income.
While passage of such politically popular laws seems benign on the surface (and have allowed politicians to claim that their efforts have helped the poorest Puerto Ricans), in reality they have deepened the poverty of the very people the laws were supposedly designed to help. The lessons here are so obvious that only the most ardent supporters of government economic control can fail to comprehend them.
Tax-Free Debt
By exempting U.S. citizens from taxes on interest paid on Puerto Rican sovereign debt, Washington sought to help the Puerto Rican economy by making it easier and cheaper for the Island’s government to borrow from the mainland. As a result, Puerto Rican government bonds became a staple holding of many U.S. municipal bond funds. As with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds a decade ago, many investors believed that these Puerto Rican bonds had an implied U.S. government guarantee. This meant that the Puerto Rican government could borrow for far less than it could have without such a belief. However, this subsidy did not grow the Puerto Rican economy, but simply the size of the government, which had the perverse effect of stifling private sector growth.
In contrast to the tax-free income earned by Americans who buy Puerto Rican government bonds, those with the bad sense to lend to Puerto Rican businesses were taxed on the interest payments that they received. Businesses could have used the funds for actual capital investment (that could have increased the Island’s productivity), but instead the money flowed to the Government which used it to buy votes with generous public sector benefits that did nothing to grow the Island’s economy or put it in a better position to repay. That problem was left for future taxpayers who no politician seeking votes in the present cared about.
This dynamic is almost identical to what happened in Greece, where low borrowing costs, made possible by the strong euro currency and the implied backstop of the European Central Bank and the more solvent northern European nations, permitted the Greek government to borrow at far lower rates than its strained finances would have otherwise allowed.
Taxing Private Investment
Perversely, as the U.S. government made it easier for the Puerto Rican government to borrow, it made it harder for the private sector to do so. In 2006 the government ended a tax break that exempted corporate profits earned on private sector investment in Puerto Rico from U.S. taxes. As a result, U.S. businesses that had been making investments and hiring workers on the Island pulled up stakes and moved to more tax-friendly jurisdictions. The result was an erosion of the Island’s local tax base, just as more borrowing (made possible by triple tax-free government debt) obligated the remaining Puerto Rican taxpayers to greater future liabilities.
The Jones Act
The Jones Act, a 1920 law designed to protect the U.S. merchant marine from foreign competition, has had a devastating effect on Puerto Rico, and should be used as a cautionary tale to illustrate the dangers of trade barriers. Under the terms of this horrible law, foreign-flagged ships are prevented from carrying cargo between two U.S. ports. According to the law, Puerto Rico counts as a U.S. port. So a container ship bringing goods from China to the U.S. mainland is prevented from stopping in Puerto Rico on the way. Instead, the cargo must be dropped off at a mainland port, then reloaded onto an expensive U.S.-flagged ship, and transported back to Puerto Rico. As a result, shipping costs to and from Puerto Rico are the highest in the Caribbean. This reduces trade between Puerto Rico and the rest of the world. Since a large percentage of the finished goods used by Puerto Ricans are imported, the result is much higher consumer prices and fewer private sector jobs. Even though median incomes in Puerto Rico are just over half that of the poorest U.S. state, thanks to the Jones Act, the cost of living is actually higher than the average state.
The Federal Minimum Wage
In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act subjected Puerto Rico to a federal minimum wage, but it was not until 1983 that a 1974 act, which required that the Island match the mainland’s minimum wage, was fully phased in. The current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is 77% of Puerto Rico’s current median wage of $9.42. In contrast, the Federal minimum is only 43% of the U.S. median wage of almost $17 per hour (Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), May 2014). The U.S. minimum wage would have to be more than $13 per hour to match that Puerto Rico proportion. The disparity is greater when comparing minimum wage income to per capita income.
The imposition of an insupportably high minimum wage has meant that entry level jobs simply don’t exist in Puerto Rico. Unemployment is over 12% (BLS), and the labor force participation rate is about 43% (as opposed to 63% on the mainland) (The World Bank). A “success” by the Obama administration in raising the Federal minimum to $10 per hour would mean that the minimum wage in Puerto Rico would be higher than the current medium wage. Such a move would result in layoffs on the Island and another step down into the economic pit. I predict that it could bring on a crisis similar to the one created in the last decade in American Samoa when that Island’s economy was devastated by an unsustainable increase in the minimum wage.
It will be interesting to see if our progressive politicians will have enough forethought and mercy to exempt Puerto Rico from minimum wage increases. But to do so would force them to acknowledge the destructive nature of the law, an admission that they would take great pains to avoid.
Welfare
In 2013 median income in Puerto Rico was just over half that of the poorest state in the union (Mississippi) but welfare benefits are very similar. This means that the incentive to forgo public assistance in favor of a job is greatly reduced in Puerto Rico, as a larger percentage of those on public assistance would do better financially by turning down a low paying job. Because of these perverse incentives not to work, fewer than half of working age males are employed and 45% of the Island’s population lived below the federal poverty line (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Briefs issued Sep. 2014). According to a 2012 report by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, 40% of Island income consists of transfer payments, and 35% of the Island’s residents receive food stamps (Fox News Latino, 3/11/14).
In other words, Puerto Rico’s problems are strikingly similar to those of Greece. Its government spends chronically more than it raises in taxes, its economy is trapped in a regulatory morass, and its economic destiny is largely in the hands of others.
The solutions to Puerto Rico’s problems are simple, but politically toxic for mainland politicians to acknowledge. Puerto Rico must be allowed to declare bankruptcy, the Federal incentive for the Puerto Rican government to borrow money must be eliminated, Puerto Rico must be exempted from both the Jones Act and the Federal Minimum wage, and Federal welfare requirements must be reduced. Puerto Rico already has the huge advantages of being exempt from both the Federal Income Tax and Obamacare, so with a fresh start, free from oppressive debt and federal regulations, capitalism could quickly restore the prosperity socialism destroyed. With the current incentives provided by Acts 20 and 22 (which basically exempt Puerto Rico-sourced income for new arrivals from local as well as federal income tax – see my report on America’s Tax Free Zone) and with some additional local free market labor reforms, in a generation it’s possible that Puerto Ricans could enjoy higher per capita incomes than citizens of any U.S. state.
If Washington really wanted to accelerate the process, it should exempt mainland residents from all income taxes, including the AMT, on Puerto Rico-sourced investment income, including dividends, capital gains, and interest related to capital investment.
There is no spoon.
[Thumbs up] + rep.
The Creature from Jekyll Island:
We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!
Meh. I figure the same thing can be said about cities with a population of six or more figures ... (including the lily-white ones ...)
Cut 'em all loose. We can trade stuff, but beyond that, everyone should just buzz off and mind their own beeswax.
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