Download or read book Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico written by A. W. Maldonado and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is to blame for the economic and political crisis in Puerto Rico—the United States or Puerto Rico? This book provides a fascinating historical perspective on the problem and an unequivocal answer on who is to blame. In this engaging and approachable book, journalist A. W. Maldonado charts the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican economy and explains how a litany of bad political and fiscal policy decisions in Washington and Puerto Rico destroyed an economic miracle. Under Operation Bootstrap in the 1950s and '60s, the rapid transformation and industrialization of the Puerto Rican economy was considered a “wonder of human history,” a far cry from the economic “death spiral” the island’s governor described in 2015. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is the story of how the demise of an obscure tax policy that encouraged investment and economic growth led to escalating budget deficits and the government’s shocking default of its $70 billion debt. Maldonado also discusses the extent of the devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017, the massive street protests during 2019, and the catastrophic earthquakes in January 2020. After illuminating the century of misunderstanding between Puerto Rico and the United States—the root cause of the economic crisis and the island’s gridlocked debates about its political status—Maldonado concludes with projections about the future of the relationship. He argues that, in the end, the economic, fiscal, and political crises are the result of the breakdown and failure of Puerto Rican self-government. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is written for a wide audience, including students, economists, politicians, and general readers, all of whom will find it interesting and thought provoking.

Download or read book The Battle for Paradise written by Naomi Klein and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fearless necessary reporting . . . Klein exposes the ‘battle of utopias’ that is currently unfolding in storm-ravaged Puerto Rico” (Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) “We are in a fight for our lives. Hurricanes Irma and María unmasked the colonialism we face in Puerto Rico, and the inequality it fosters, creating a fierce humanitarian crisis. Now we must find a path forward to equality and sustainability, a path driven by communities, not investors. And this book explains, with careful and unbiased reporting, only the efforts of our community activists can answer the paramount question: What type of society do we want to become and who is Puerto Rico for?” —Carmen Yulín Cruz, Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich “Puertopians” are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island. In this vital and startling investigation, bestselling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation’s radical, resilient vision for a “just recovery.” All royalties from the sale of this book in English and Spanish go directly to JunteGente, a gathering of Puerto Rican organizations resisting disaster capitalism and advancing a fair and healthy recovery for their island. “Klein chronicles the extraordinary grassroots resistance by the Puerto Rican people against neoliberal privatization and Wall Street greed in the aftermath of the island’s financial meltdown, of hurricane devastation, and of Washington’s imposition of an outside control board over the most important U.S. colony.” —Juan González, cohost of Democracy Now! and author of Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America

Download or read book Colonial Debts written by Rocío Zambrana and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the largest municipal debt in US history and a major hurricane that destroyed much of the archipelago's infrastructure, Puerto Rico has emerged as a key site for the exploration of neoliberalism and disaster capitalism. In Colonial Debts Rocío Zambrana develops the concept of neoliberal coloniality in light of Puerto Rico's debt crisis. Drawing on decolonial thought and praxis, Zambrana shows how debt functions as an apparatus of predation that transforms how neoliberalism operates. Debt functions as a form of coloniality, intensifying race, gender, and class hierarchies in ways that strengthen the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. Zambrana also examines the transformation of protest in Puerto Rico. From La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción's actions, long-standing land rescue/occupation in the territory, to the July 2019 protests that ousted former governor Ricardo “Ricky” Rosselló, protests pursue variations of decolonial praxis that subvert the positions of power that debt installs. As Zambrana demonstrates, debt reinstalls the colonial condition and adapts the racial/gender order essential to it, thereby emerging as a key site for political-economic subversion and social rearticulation.

Download or read book Puerto Rico una crisis hist rica written by Suzy Castor and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Puerto Rican Women s History New Perspectives written by Felix Matos-Rodriguez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of the topics in gender and history of Puerto Rican women. Organized chronologically and covering the 19th and 20th centuries, it deal with issues of slavery, emancipation, wage work, women and politics, women's suffrage, industrialization, migration and Puerto Rican women in New York.

Download or read book The Puerto Ricans written by Kal Wagenheim and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book covers five hundred years of history, providing a kaleidoscopic view of the island's past. This new edition covers the debt crisis, Hurricane Maria and its aftermath, and the Revolt of 2019."--

Download or read book What Went Wrong written by Robert S. Chirinko and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong? Why did seemingly rational bond investors continue to purchase Puerto Rican debt with only a modest risk premium, even though the macroeconomic fundamentals were dismal? Why did financial markets fail to exercise market discipline and restrict capital flows to Puerto Rico? Given gloomy macroeconomic fundamentals and relatively low risk premia, investors were either stunningly myopic/misinformed, or Puerto Rican debt was implicitly insured by the U.S. government. This paper examines the latter hypothesis, which we label the "Treasury Put." The expectation of a federal bailout was perfectly reasonable given past behavior by the federal government, starting with the prior bailout of the city of New York. Evaluating the Treasury Put hypothesis with a minimal set of assumptions is possible given three unique features - the dire fiscal and economic conditions in Puerto Rico, a fortunate characteristic of Puerto Rican bond issuance, and a "seismic shock." Regarding the second feature, Puerto Rico issued both uninsured and insured general obligation bonds on the same day and, in many cases, with the exact same maturity. The associated bond price data allow for an accurate computation of the risk premia on Puerto Rican bonds. The third feature is the non-bailout of the city of Detroit in 2013 that effectively extinguished the Treasury Put. Puerto Rican risk premia were stable before the Detroit bankruptcy and bracketed by the risk premia on Corporate Aaa and Baa bonds. However, after the Detroit bankruptcy, risk premia rose dramatically, thus identifying a sizeable Treasury Put of at least 300 basis points and a significant misallocation of capital to Puerto Rico. In effect, the Treasury Put was a form of regulatory forbearance. Institutional reforms that would eliminate the Treasury Put are considered, but none are found satisfactory.

Download or read book Aftershocks of Disaster written by Yarimar Bonilla and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two years after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Ricans are still reeling from its effects and aftereffects. Aftershocks collects poems, essays and photos from survivors of Hurricane Maria detailing their determination to persevere. The concept of "aftershocks" is used in the context of earthquakes to describe the jolts felt after the initial quake, but no disaster is a singular event. Aftershocks of Disaster examines the lasting effects of hurricane Maria, not just the effects of the wind or the rain, but delving into what followed: state failure, social abandonment, capitalization on human misery, and the collective trauma produced by the botched response.

Download or read book War Against All Puerto Ricans written by Nelson A Denis and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The powerful, untold story of the 1950 revolution in Puerto Rico and the long history of U.S. intervention on the island, that the New York Times says "could not be more timely." In 1950, after over fifty years of military occupation and colonial rule, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico staged an unsuccessful armed insurrection against the United States. Violence swept through the island: assassins were sent to kill President Harry Truman, gunfights roared in eight towns, police stations and post offices were burned down. In order to suppress this uprising, the US Army deployed thousands of troops and bombarded two towns, marking the first time in history that the US government bombed its own citizens. Nelson A. Denis tells this powerful story through the controversial life of Pedro Albizu Campos, who served as the president of the Nationalist Party. A lawyer, chemical engineer, and the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School, Albizu Campos was imprisoned for twenty-five years and died under mysterious circumstances. By tracing his life and death, Denis shows how the journey of Albizu Campos is part of a larger story of Puerto Rico and US colonialism. Through oral histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional testimony, and recently declassified FBI files, War Against All Puerto Ricans tells the story of a forgotten revolution and its context in Puerto Rico's history, from the US invasion in 1898 to the modern-day struggle for self-determination. Denis provides an unflinching account of the gunfights, prison riots, political intrigue, FBI and CIA covert activity, and mass hysteria that accompanied this tumultuous period in Puerto Rican history.

Download or read book Puerto Rico in the American Century written by César J. Ayala and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a comprehensive overview of Puerto Rico's history and evolution since the installation of U.S. rule, Cesar Ayala and Rafael Bernabe connect the island's economic, political, cultural, and social past. Puerto Rico in the American Century explores Puerto Ricans in the diaspora as well as the island residents, who experience an unusual and daily conundrum: they consider themselves a distinct people but are part of the American political system; they have U.S. citizenship but are not represented in the U.S. Congress; and they live on land that is neither independent nor part of the United States. Highlighting both well-known and forgotten figures from Puerto Rican history, Ayala and Bernabe discuss a wide range of topics, including literary and cultural debates and social and labor struggles that previous histories have neglected. Although the island's political economy remains dependent on the United States, the authors also discuss Puerto Rico's situation in light of world economies. Ayala and Bernabe argue that the inability of Puerto Rico to shake its colonial legacy reveals the limits of free-market capitalism, a break from which would require a renewal of the long tradition of labor and social activism in Puerto Rico in connection with similar currents in the United States.

Download or read book The Crisis of the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico written by Phillip Geordee Steck and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Puerto Rico Hopes Statehood Will Come from War Crisis written by Puerto Rican Trade Council (Washington, D.C.) and published by . This book was released on 1940* with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Puerto Rican Labor History 1898 1934 written by Carlos Sanabria and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Puerto Rican Labor History 1898–1934 presents a history of the organized labor movement in Puerto Rico from the United States’ colonial domination of the island in 1898 to the Great Depression in the early 1930s. Although the most prominent Puerto Rican labor leaders in the early twentieth century were strongly influenced by revolutionary European socialist and anarchist ideology, the organized labor movement as represented by the Federación Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico and the Partido Socialista became a fundamentally reformist trade unionist campaign that relied heavily on the democratic rights guaranteed by the United States government and the support of the American Federation of Labor. Rather than advocating for the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of private property and the wage labor system, and its replacement by a socialist egalitarian cooperative society free of centralized government authority, the organized workers’ movement focused on the immediate struggle for higher wages and better working conditions by means of the organization of labor and participation in electoral politics.

Download or read book Economic History of Puerto Rico written by James L. Dietz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive and detailed account of the economic history of Puerto Rico from the period of Spanish colonial domination to the present. Interweaving findings of the "new" Puerto Rican historiography with those of earlier historical studies, and using the most recent theoretical concepts to interpret them, James Dietz examines the complex manner in which productive and class relations within Puerto Rico have interacted with changes in its place in the world economy. Besides including aggregate data on Puerto Rico's economy, the author offers valuable information on workers' living conditions and women workers, plus new interpretations of development since Operation Bootstrap. His evaluation of the island's export-oriented economy has implications for many other developing countries.

Download or read book Puerto Rico written by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How did Puerto Rico end up in its current situation? A Spanish-speaking territory controlled by the United States and populated by the descendants of conquistadors, enslaved Africans, and indigenous inhabitants, this island (or rather archipelago) has a unique history. Jorell Meléndez-Badillo begins the book with an overview of the pre-Columbian societies and cultures that first inhabited Borikén, the indigenous name of the Puerto Rican archipelago. Though the arrival of the Spanish had a profound impact on Puerto Rico's history, he takes care to tell the story "from the shore" and not "from the boat." The Taínos were not merely passive victims; though they were enslaved and murdered during the Conquest, they also had powerful leaders like Agueybaná II who organized the Americas' first indigenous insurrection against colonial rule in 1511. When the colonial enterprise was consolidated a few decades after the Conquest, Puerto Rico became a military outpost for the Spanish Empire. By the nineteenth century, Puerto Rico was a slave colony, and it was ruled through a combination of reform and authoritarianism. This resulted in the proliferation of unsuccessful slave revolts and, in 1868, an insurrection that declared the Republic of Puerto Rico, which only lasted 48 hours. Puerto Rico's major regime change came in 1898 with the US occupation. Though being controlled by the United States has shaped Puerto Rico's history in innumerable ways, it inadvertently fostered a sense of puertorriqueñidad (Puerto Ricanness) among the Island's inhabitants. US colonization may have involved forced Americanization, but it also provoked a multi-layered resistance to those projects, from passive disobedience to armed insurrections. The creation of the Puerto Rican Commonwealth in 1952 involved using a number of institutions to create the notion of cultural nationalism that was detached from the island's colonial status, included Puerto Ricans in the diaspora and was not contingent on obtaining national sovereignty. The last part of the book focuses on more recent developments from the neoliberal turn in the 1990s to current (and likely future) socio-economic and environmental crises"--

Download or read book Fantasy Island written by Ed Morales and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A crucial, clear-eyed accounting of Puerto Rico's 122 years as a colony of the US. Since its acquisition by the US in 1898, Puerto Rico has served as a testing ground for the most aggressive and exploitative US economic, political, and social policies. The devastation that ensued finally grew impossible to ignore in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane María, as the physical destruction compounded the infrastructure collapse and trauma inflicted by the debt crisis. In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government's prioritization of outside financial interests. Taking readers from San Juan to New York City and back to his family's home in the Luquillo Mountains, Morales shows us the machinations of financial and political interests in both the US and Puerto Rico, and the resistance efforts of Puerto Rican artists and activists. Through it all, he emphasizes that the only way to stop Puerto Rico from being bled is to let Puerto Ricans take control of their own destiny, going beyond the statehood-commonwealth-independence debate to complete decolonization.

Download or read book Puerto Rican Jam written by Frances Negrón-Muntaner and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges the framing of Puerto Rican cultural politics as a dichotomy between nationalism and colonialism. Discussions of Puerto Rican cultural politics usually fall into one of two categories, nationalist or colonialist. Puerto Rican Jam moves beyond this narrow dichotomy, elaborating alternatives to dominant postcolonial theories, and includes essays written from the perspectives of groups that are not usually represented, such as gays and lesbians, youth, blacks, and women. Among the topics discussed are the limitations of nationalism as a transformative and democratizing political discourse, the contradictory impact of American colonialism, language politics, and the 1928 U.S. congressional hearings on women's suffrage in Puerto Rico.