Humans tend to not learn. When something is destroyed, the "we will rebuild" mentality kicks in. PR will eventually look like it did, and you and I will likely pay for a large part of it.

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My training

What debt? Seems quite small compared to our accumulated debt.

The Puerto Rican government-debt crisis is a financial crisis affecting the government of Puerto Rico. After decades of mismanagement, the government accrued more than US$70 billions of outstanding debt and an additional US$50 billions in pension obligations.

VS

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

What they need is a printing press.

My company is based in PR but we have an office in the US now. The last 5 years they are barely breaking even while we are doing quite well. We routinely have job opportunities for people wanting to relocate but it rarely happens. They want to leave initially but always back out.
We are seeing a few of the younger people (early 20s) move here as they realize how bad the island has become, but it's rare.

With a lot of the big pharma pulling out (or moving new projects to other places), a lot of the jobs went with them.

You realize they use the dollar?

OTOH, my company is expanding IT operations in Puerto Rico as it has a cheaper workforce than the US and since they are US citizens they can work on ITAR restricted accounts where the work cannot be sent to India. I don't work closely with anyone there so I am not sure how they are doing post hurricane, but pre hurricane the push was to move more work to Puerto Rico.

Well they can't use ours. We have all of ours running on turbo mode right now.

No.

I know many citizens of PR - either coworkers or riding mates who left the island for work. Most have family still in PR, and it will be interesting to see if they come here for the short term. The folks I know are mostly engineers, so staying in PR was not a good long term position due to the lack of jobs.

After hurricane Georges in 1998, I went to PR to install temporary generators at 5 sewing plants and a manufacturing plant. We spent a ton of money to get them there and installed within a week of the hurricane. And then no one came to work for several weeks since the workers houses and cars were damaged and they had higher priorities.

After everything was back to normal, we only installed one permanent generator (and a huge diesel tank) at the main manufacturing plant - good for several weeks at full output. I have no idea if any of it is still usable.

But from what I remember building does not happen quickly. Many houses were self built over several years. There are no neighboring states with trades ready to travel and be part of the reconstruction.

Bummer.

If half the people left I'd consider moving there.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

To print what?

Agreed

Bummer.

If half the people left I'd consider moving there.


I was thinking the same thing, how many great surf spots could you get a house right next too there, probably for a 100K? And it is a US territory, so probably not many issues relocating there. Only problem is I'm guessing there are no schools now, at least not very good ones and I would want to build my own house, out of concrete on stilts, off the grid. But then wouldn't you just be a target in future disasters? You would be the little piggy whose house stood the huffing and puffing, and be overrun with all the others pigs that built their houses out of straw.


Maybe St Croix?

They use ours. Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S.

Actually the ability to devalue their currency (by printing money or otherwise) might be very useful economically. But they can't because they're using the dollar.

Same kind of issue Greece had with the Euro.

 My co-workers mother lives in Puerto Rico. He said she lives in the capital and power will probably be restored within weeks, not months. Elsewhere much longer. He said she has a generator, her house is fine, but she lost all her fruit trees.

Unfortunately not every country/territory can afford to do what the Japanese did after the Kobe earthquake in 1994; they changed the building code! Most Latin Americans can't afford to build a hurricane proof structure, so it will happen again, and again, and again.

I went to PR for a friends wedding several years ago and stayed the week. I absolutely love that island. Hopefully it will rebuild better than ever. Doubtful, but hopeful.