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I think we can guess how the rest of this will go

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S “UNPAYABLE DEBT” WORKING GROUP RELEASES DIGITAL RESOURCE TO THINK AND TEACH ABOUT PUERTO RICO’S DEBT CRISIS

NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 – The “Unpayable Debt” working group at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference announces the launch of PRSyllabus, a resource to study Puerto Rico’s $70 million debt crisis in the context of over one hundred years of colonial governance by the United States.

“The syllabus comes at a critical time,” says working group co-director Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Columbia University). “Today unions throughout the island have declared a national strike. Students at the University of Puerto Rico are also on strike to protest extreme budget cuts and to support demands for an independent audit while an unelected board with ties to the lending industry in the United States, supports extreme austerity measures that have been unsuccessful elsewhere in the world. To guide more effective policy, we need to reorient our thinking and become better informed about the roots and consequences of the crisis. Our work suggests that participatory and transparent governance, economic revitalization, and full investment in fundamental human needs, like education and health, are better ways forward.”

I tend not to take much notice of press releases upon matters economic that don’t know the different between million and billion.

But you know Chicano Studies departments have to have something to do with their time.

18 thoughts on “I think we can guess how the rest of this will go”

  1. ‘Students at the University of Puerto Rico are also on strike’

    How is that supposed to work?

  2. Puerto Rico is no more a colony than Kentucky was before it became a state. It is legally a close as dammit identical to the District of Columbia, an incorporated (ie, *part* *of* the USA) territory (ie not yet a state). Near enough its sole missing rights are voting representation in Congress and a vote for POTUS. It has non-voting Congresscritters and votes in POTUS primaries.

  3. Bloke in Costa Rica

    Puerto Rico is basically a nation-sized example of what happens when Democrats get hold of the purse strings. It should be allowed to turn into Haiti to teach them a fucking lesson.

  4. I believe I read somewhere that there’s to be an independence referendum next month in Puerto Rico.

  5. The Meissen Bison

    Negrón-Muntaner

    Ah – a name of two halves and neither of them very promising!

  6. It’s odd that the bastards don’t just standardise on ‘gazillion’. It would be so much easier.

  7. “Near enough its sole missing rights are voting representation in Congress”: what, much like the North American colonies in 1776?

  8. Obviously I haven’t had time to read every source on the list. There is a definite political tilt but at least there are some facts included. There are worse things that academics could be doing.

  9. The North American colonies didn’t have an embedded legal right to decide whether to become a full-fledged part of the supranational entity or to go it alone. Puerto Rico has had, off the top of my head, half a dozen referendums on future status, all of which have gone for the status quo.

    In contrast, the NAC had no legal right to decide their own destiny, they had to wrest it through war. They could send people to observe the UK Parliament, but only as “strangers”, members of the public gallery. Puerto Rico’s congress members are full members of congress with all powers and rights as any other member, other than the sole ability to vote in the House sitting as the House.

  10. re: jgh

    The District of Columbia got their Electoral College votes with the 23th Constitutional Amendment giving it 3 votes. Still have no Senator or House of Rep, and it’s financial fate is mostly in the hands of Senators that actually care about it, which for the most part means southern states.

  11. “COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S “UNPAYABLE DEBT” WORKING GROUP”

    Is this Columbia University’s unpayable debt or is it a “working group” (lol) on matters political and fantastical elsewhere?

  12. So Much For Subtlety

    Bloke in Costa Rica – “Puerto Rico is basically a nation-sized example of what happens when Democrats get hold of the purse strings. It should be allowed to turn into Haiti to teach them a fucking lesson.”

    I agree about the Haiti thing. But if it is true that this is what happens when the Democrats get the purse strings, how about Seattle? I can’t recall the last time they elected a Republican. Over 80% of the population votes Democrat.

    How about Pittsburgh? Last elected Republican Mayor left office in 1934. Voted one of the top two best cities to live in in the US.

    It is not merely voting Democrat that makes a place a sh!thole. It must be something else. What do Seattle and Pittsburgh have that Puerto Rico and Detroit do not?

    Here is a suggestion:

    Racial composition 2010[74] 1990[75] 1970[75] 1950[75]
    White 66.0% 72.1% 79.3% 87.7%

  13. The solution is independence, ASAP.

    The solution to Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico is always independence or expulsion, ASAP. It has not been a useful coal port for a long time.

  14. Any island that has a town called Ponce must be celebrated, although whether it means the same to a septic that it does to a Brit is a moot point.

    Just like Germany has Wank and Fucking, France has Pussy, Canada has Dildo, the USA has Intercourse and bizarre city and street names abound to delight the casual tourist.

  15. There’s a USS Ponce, too – as you say, I don’t think the meaning carries through into septic. The town (and hence the vessel) was named for Juan Ponce de León, first governor of Puerto Rico.

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