Greece is constantly on the news, yet nobody seems to give a toss about the financial disaster of Puerto Rico. It’s funny how all of the North American believers in endless bailouts for Greece (which somebody else should be paying, obviously) are not lining up to offer a bailout to the much closer Puerto Rico.
10 responses to “Puerto Rico”
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Partly this is due to PR’s weirdo status that no one understands. It’s partly part of the US and partly like a separate country. This also muddies the question of who precisely is really on the hook for the debt.
There are also probably feelings of … ethnicity involved. Who expects a bunch of Puerto Ricans to run anything very well? Whereas Greece has the unofficial status as the homeland of western civilization (though modern Greece has fuck all to do with ancient Greece).
Finally, the NEastern media elite in the US is just uninterested in anything to do with Latin American people (with the partial exception of people being killed by right wing governments).
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Speaking of Greece, One of my Facebook friends posted a suggestion that Greece should be the permanent home of the Summer Olympics, as it was the Ancient Olympics. This would go a long way towards solving Greece’s economic woes, since they have already built the necessary infrastructure.
The Original Olympics lasted for 1200 years; the modern Olympics have now lasted one tenth that long. It is time for them to settle down to a permanent home.
I wish there were something so obvious to help with Puerto Rico’s debt problem.
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What usually happens is that all the olympic infrastructure falls into decay or is dismantled within a few years. Winning the olympics is like losing a hand in poker after you’ve gone all in.
One of the reasons that the Greek crisis was so deep was the massive cooking of the books (by a rightwing government IIRC) that went into olympic preparations. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big contributing factor.
It will take a few years but the Sochi olympics will certainly carry a big financial kick in the teeth for Russia (the oligarchs that promised to pay for it already backed out (very soon after the games ended IIRC) so the Russian taxpayers are on the hook for it.
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The cost of the Sochi Olympics (with the attendant corruption ) was extremely high, you’re right. But since then, the Russian government has inflicted on the taxpayers the much higher cost of integrating the Crimea into Russia. The Russian social security fund and a huge part of the gold reserve have already been sunk into the project with no end in sight.
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Brilliant idea about the Olympics. It would also solve the problem of intense corruption around choosing the site of the next Olympics. Great, great idea.
Puerto Rico deserves huge reparations from the US, in my opinion.
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I hate the olympics for many reasons but I always thought if they had to exist then Greece and Switzerland as permanent homes for the summer and winter games made sense.
But it plays hell with NAmerican and Asian tv viewing so it’s probably a non-starter.
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I agree, Greeks could be seen as white people who need help but Puerto Ricans are just dumb spics who can’t run anything and did you expect better? Sarc. There is this idea that Puerto Ricans are not real Americans and that they mooch off welfare and contribute nothing so it doesn’t matter if they go under, that we ought to just cut ties with them. So while Greeks are worthy white people, Puerto Ricans are just dumb lazy mongrels who don’t deserve any of our tax dollars.
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“So while Greeks are worthy white people, Puerto Ricans are just dumb lazy mongrels who don’t deserve any of our tax dollars.”
- Exactly. Besides, it’s so easy to say “let them give the Greeks 300 billion euro more”, and it’s so much harder to say “let us give Puerto Ricans a few hundred billion of our money.” I hate this hypocrisy.
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Nobody seems to speaking about Spain either.
“However, what Bou seemingly fails to realize is that it’s already too late in the game to appeal for reason in Catalonia’s simmering war of words and gestures with Madrid. The issue of Catalan independence is no longer one based on pragmatic realities; as tensions have festered, it has become an almost purely emotionally driven issue, not just in Catalonia but throughout Spain. Instead of a reasoned national debate, all that now exists is one almighty shouting match between diametrically opposed nationalists who refuse to listen to one another.”
and
“Rajoy is more than happy to perpetuate this dynamic: by adopting a belligerent line against Spain’s internal enemy (Catalonia), Rajoy keeps his party’s core constituency of fervent Spanish nationalists on board while making other parties that favor dialogue appear weak. The twin blow backs of rising regional tensions and economic instability are a price worth paying to bolster his embattled political party’s electoral prospects.”
Businesses Flee Catalonia, Foreign Investment Plunges, as Confrontation with Spain Comes to a Boil
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Good article, important points. I’m still hoping that Catalans see reason and end this madness. This whole independence project is nothing but a refusal to face the real problems facing the country. Catalans seem to believe that if they shut their eyes really tight, the problems will go away. And that’s not smart.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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