{"id":21419,"date":"2016-04-25T14:02:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T21:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=21419"},"modified":"2016-04-25T14:02:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T21:02:36","slug":"oliver-on-puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/25\/oliver-on-puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"Oliver on Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019ve been seeing a political; add lately opposing a so-called plot by Obama to rob senior\u2019s pensions by allowing Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy.&#160; So i decided to read up on the issue while watching a John Oliver video, so as to learn and have a couple chuckles at that same time.&#160; Now I\u2019ll<\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\"> share it with you.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0425PR\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0425PR\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/0425PR.jpg\" width=\"360\" align=\"left\" height=\"240\" \/>\u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d host John Oliver last night devoted his main segment to Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>The territory now has approximately $7 billion in debt and a 45% poverty rate. In an attempt to chip away at that deficit, the Puerto Rican government has increased sales taxes and closed schools, convincing thousands to leave for the contiguous U.S.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, Puerto Rico is like the last Tower Records,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cEverything\u2019s overpriced, everyone\u2019s being laid off, and there\u2019s still a weirdly large number of Ricky Martin CDs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The seemingly obvious solution for the Puerto Rican government would be to declare Chapter 9, but a 1984 provision slipped without debate into a larger bill <strong>specifically exempts the territory from declaring bankruptcy<\/strong>\u2026[<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/04\/25\/john_oliver_just_made_the_puerto_rico_crisis_make_sense\/\" target=\"_blank\">Salon.com<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p>&lt;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/Tt-mpuR_QHQ?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>\/p&gt; <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Actually, figuring out this issue didn&#8217;t tale rocket science.&#160; When every state and every territory in the US has right to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy, why would a Republican Senator slip a provision into a must pass spending bill that made an exception of Puerto Rico, and ONLY Puerto Rico?&#160; The only possible purpose would be to enable Banksters and Vulture Capitalist hedge funds create a bubble in speculative Puerto Rican bonds and safeguard the speculators by forcing the territory they have victimized into liquidating their assets to pay off the speculators.&#160; This is very similar to what they have done to Greece.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The solution is simple enough.&#160; First, overturn the Republican provision that prevents Puerto Rico from declaring bankruptcy.&#160; Second, charge Banksters and hedge funds a penalty co cover any losses pensioners may incur.&#160; Third, reinstitute Glass-Steagall.&#160; Fourth, tax speculation.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Otherwise, we\u2019ll need to rename the island Puerto Pobre.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been seeing a political; add lately opposing a so-called plot by Obama to rob senior\u2019s pensions by allowing Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy.&#160; So i decided to read up on the issue while watching a John Oliver video, so as to learn and have a couple chuckles at that same time.&#160; Now I\u2019ll share <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/25\/oliver-on-puerto-rico\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}