The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Puerto Rico

The Growing Puerto Rico Disaster

The number of people without power on the Island is increasing, not decreasing, up 6% from yesterday, to 90%. A third of the island doesn’t have running water. Half the people don’t have cell phone coverage.

Aid has been slow and largely ineffective. There is reason to be worried about disease outbreaks, and medical care is severely handicapped.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico has a massive debt overhang, and is crippled by it.Trump has suggested a 4.9 billion dollar bridging loan to help them over. The people who actually hold Puerto Rico’s debts, of course, have not been forgiving. They weren’t forgiving to Argentina, or to the Congo, and they aren’t going to be forgiving to Puerto Rico.


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The disaster relief has been bungled. It shouldn’t primarily be a matter of money in any case; the island should be flooded by work crews from all over the US with the materials they need to do the repairs, and the necessary heavy equipment to clear blockages, while large airlift is used to get to areas that are more remote.

This is a logistical exercise, the US has the capacity, and the US has chosen not to use the capacity. It is that simple.

As for the debt, most of it should simply be forgiven. The US government has the ability to do that.

We have a weird idea that debt is sacrosanct in our society, an idea which is totally out of whack with what makes good societies or good economies.

Good economies are based on easy debt forgiveness. People who lend money have a responsibility to not over-lend, and if they do, they deserve to lose their money. If you lend money to deadbeat Uncle Bob, you don’t expect to get it back. If you lend money to someone already in hock to three other loan sharks, well, you’re probably not getting that money back.

Excessive debt cripples people and economies, making them unproductive. Easy bankruptcy removes the debt so they can move on, and it also removes lending ability from people who have proven they have bad judgment about to whom they should lend.

Easy bankruptcy doesn’t mean “keep everything,” but it does mean keep everything necessary for economic and personal viability. In personal terms, tools a primary residence, a car, and so on. In government terms, all the lands, buildings, equipment, and so on required for the government to do its job.

Puerto Rico is an economic cripple. It doesn’t have the resources to fix itself, DC refuses to send sufficient help, and more debt isn’t going to fix its problems–any more than more debt has helped Greece.

Pathetic.


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Puerto Rico: Late Imperial Possession

Puerto Rico got hit hard by Hurricane Maria. An understatement.


An aide at the White House has said that the disaster bill will be sent to Congress in the first or second week of October. (FEMA is already there, but they are insufficient.)

And the news is that most of Puerto Rico may be without power for up to six months. Only one major port is operational, roads are washed out, communication grids are (obviously) down, and water is unavailable in many places.

Our modern distribution system is a wonder of efficiency, in terms of cost. But it is “just in time,” it does not leave large stocks piled up the way the older system did. This is a problem for a lot of non-obvious items–for example, medicine. This concerns not just things like insulin, but medicines you don’t want to be suddenly thrown off and into withdrawal: A lot of psychiatric medications have terrible withdrawals, often as bad as many illegal drugs.


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What is interesting about all this is not so much the scale of the disaster as the indifference of the response.It is more extreme than that which greeted other catastrophes, such as when New York was hit, and even then the areas where the lower classes lived were ignored, until they could be bought up.

But while Puerto Rico is more extreme, it is along the same continuum. The US has become very bad at disaster relief, because US elites don’t really care unless it affects them.

It is impossible to imagine this level of indifference in the 1950s through the 1970s, whatever else those decades’ flaws. Americans were proud of their ability to mobilize, proud of their protectorates, and could and would get material and people on the ground, fast.

This indifference, this lack of both fellow feeling and real pride (not in the sense of saluting the flag, but in the sense of actually making the country work), is, next to excessive corruption, the surest sign of the US’s decline.

Puerto Rico is an imperial possession, and America does not care about its possessions any more: It does not take pride in them.

And one wonders how much real mobilization ability the US has left (as opposed to theoretical). Can the US effectively mobilize any more? Or has everything become so corrupt, overpriced, and sclerotic that, really, there just isn’t that much surge ability?

I suppose Puerto Ricans can be left to rot, though they shouldn’t be–and doing so will have consequences beyond Puerto Rico. But when something the elites consider important gets hit, does the US have the ability to respond effectively?


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