Puerto Rico

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Sunday, October 1. 2017

Puerto Rico is basically a poor third-world country with a fragile infrastructure, dysfunctional and corrupt governments, and a long experience with bad weather. We had to send in the Marines to clear their roads. Why? Are there no chain saws in Puerto Rico?

The CEO linked above says:

I have a message for the U.S. Congress: Watch out what relief funds you approve and let our local government handle. Don’t let the Puerto Rican government play the victim and fool you. They have no clue what they are doing, and I worry that they will mishandle anything that comes their way.

FEMA Chief Defends Trump Tweets, Dings San Juan Mayor

Fellow Puerto Rico Mayor Rips San Juan Mayor — ‘She’s Not Participating In Any Meetings’

Puerto Rico Teamsters Union, “Frente Amplio”, Refuse to Deliver Supplies – Use Hurricane Maria as Contract Leverage…

Col. Valle:

“It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers. Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to unload into. However, only 20% of the truck drivers show up to work. These are private citizens in Puerto Rico, paid by companies that are contracted by the government,” says Col. Valle.

Trump seems to be right about this:

“The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.”

Mr. Trump said the people of Puerto Rico should not depend entirely on the federal government. “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,” he wrote. “10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed.

Trump is probably correct to imagine that some are attempting to stage another Katrina scenario:

San Juan Mayor to Liberal Media: We Are Getting No Help From Trump – As She Stands In Front of Pallets of Aid

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 11:27 | Comments (21) | Trackbacks (0)

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#1 Meh on 2017-10-01 11:33 (Reply)

OK, Sounds good. Can you point us to the TV coverage featuring the complaining Florida Keys politicians? Or were they too busy out contributing some leadership to the cleanup efforts?

Said the fellow who spent 18 years working in the Caribbean.

#1.1 Aggie on 2017-10-01 12:48 (Reply)

Is this where we argue based on the world through your lens? I ask because when spending the time to engage I like to understand the ground rules.

Said the fellow who spent 50 years understanding fallacy.

Here's the thing: When a guy randomly posts, as has our host, that there's some linkage between an entire universe of variables that objectively distill down to "they suck/I don't", I happen to think that narrowness should be questioned. If your aim isn't much different, is there a point in yours I haven't already tossed out?

#1.1.1 Meh on 2017-10-01 13:11 (Reply)

You haven't tossed anything of mine, but thanks for asking.

I took your suggestion and re-considered the Florida Keys, but through 'your lens' - as you put it - the analogy very quickly became nonsensical, especially when I considered the 50+ year old Floridian nun wielding the chainsaw and other obvious examples of people stepping outside their normal roles to behave altruistically. I feel quite sure that many in P.R. are equally busy working and clearing, and I also am equally certain that the mayor is also busy - with something else besides contributing her utmost to the organized efforts. Posturing, for example.

I have no use for an argument, enjoy your Sunday.

#1.1.1.1 Aggie on 2017-10-01 13:50 (Reply)

It wasn't an analogy, of course, but an appeal to a fuller perspective before jumping to a grossly hasty partisan conclusion. The notion that, as you tacitly debunked it with a false non/equivalency, a people are done in by their own inherent but wholly assumed inferiority is simply rubbish. It's even more questionable on a Sunday in the context of an ostensibly Christian sensibility.

#1.1.1.1.1 Meh on 2017-10-01 14:04 (Reply)

The problem with Puerto Rico is that it's full of Puerto Ricans.

#1.2 Fred on 2017-10-01 20:59 (Reply)

It seems to me that's not really ignorance and is really more sarcasm which you've taken far too literally.
You've implied fallacy where I don't see any.

What is true, however, is that the government down there is a mess, and it's mostly the fault of the US. We've basically subsidized Puerto Rico into this situation. Corrupt? Of course. When you have a nation sending anywhere from $5-13bb a year (I've seen varying amounts, it all depends on how you want to define what is 'aid'), you're going to have a mad scramble to win positions which control that money so you can stuff it in the 'right' pockets.

PR was due to be destroyed by a storm, if not storms, simply because its infrastructure was/is such a mess prior to these storms.

I don't see this as an issue of 'trusting' the politicians - I don't ANY politician. But sitting back and assuming the ones complaining the most are the most righteous, I simply will not believe.

Do they need our help now? Absolutely. And we should give it willingly - and we have. But once we're done, we should step back and make it final - either you vote for a state, or independence, but this colonial stuff is at an end. You have to take on the burden of management yourself.

#1.3 Bulldog on 2017-10-02 09:09 (Reply)

While none of those disconnected assertions and notions are necessarily false on their face, stringing them all together like that gives your remark a lot of trouble with itself. It's contradictory where it isn't incomplete and vice versa.

The only thing I'll flatly disagree with is that the original comment was sarcasm.

And, since they're still somehow not self-evident, here are the salient points:

1. PR is an analogy of the US with regard to all the ills you lodge against it.
2. Therefore none of those condemnations are fundamentally unique to the place or its people.
3. Pursuant that, the anti brown people crap elsewhere on this blog is ill-considered. Conversely, the pro-noble self bullshit elsewhere on this blog is just that. This doesn't mean that there are no differences between peoples, just that you guys haven't 1) shown much wisdom itemizing them honestly, proportionately, or objectively, and 2) that should you correct that error that you move to acquit yourselves of anything worth all the noise you make about it.

Now, add in just how corrupt and bankrupt the US is and, as with the case of my asking you people to try on the Florida Keys to see how robust that original comment was, try on the notion that any of you created your own little American paradises on earth by the strength and power of your considerable and presumably considerably finer character.

The thing is, you're living on the fruits of something in the neighborhood of $250,000,000,000,000 of red ink and somehow, in places, see fit to slam an island territory for not having the integrity to balance its books or weather enormous open-water hurricanes as well as you suppose you would have, your benevolent, well-managed, responsible, and trustworthy national government in tow.

#1.3.1 Meh on 2017-10-02 11:25 (Reply)

So you disagree with the earlier commenters or something.

#1.3.1.1 drowningpuppies on 2017-10-02 14:55 (Reply)

The proof is in the pudding. Money will be given to Puerto Rico and their politicians and civil service workers will abscond with it. It will take awhile to become public knowledge but it will happen and eventually the MSM will be unable to hide it from us.

This is so obviously a hit job on Trump. The Democrat Puerto Rico mayor is much more concerned with making Trump look bad than she is with saving Puerto Rican lives. I suspect the DNC is working hand and hand with her to accomplish this and she will be rewarded for her deeds.

#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2017-10-01 11:47 (Reply)

Incidentally, and while this won't matter to the let-the-brown-people-piss-off theme among lesser rightists communities, PR happens to bear somewhat more resemblance to a US territory with naturalized citizens than a 3rd world country.

PR also happens to have a constitution, a republican govt with separation of powers, a bicameral legislature, and is subject to the federal US including its courts. For starters. Looks like those dodgy feds once took a somewhat more charitable view of our brethren out in the Caribbean than erudite political commenters are today.

PR also has a roughly $100B economy - is considered a high income economy - and has a per capita income of well over $20,000. To classify it 3rd world is to classify Mississippi 3rd world.

Debt? Its debt/gdp ratio is akin to the US's. That said, I'd like to see the rest of the US's balance sheet compared as a ratio of productivity. Let's see us staunch rightists defend roughly a quarter-quadrillion in our red ink against any other nation on earth. Maybe that little factoid should factor front and center before, as we see a couple posts down on this same page, we all assume inherent individual and cultural superiority when we're really just living large on an expiring sovereign currency.

You might want to cut PR some slack. They just underwent a Cat 5 in open water and fared roughly like the Keys did experiencing a Cat 4 with a somewhat occluded NE quadrant. I'd remind you of today's lectionary-writer's earnest beseechment before passing judgement.

People died.

#3 Meh on 2017-10-01 12:05 (Reply)

I don't consider Puerto Ricans to be "brown people". But the facts are the facts. Their government is corrupt and has been for 200 years perhaps more. Their $100B economy is a GIFT from American taxpayers. Companies were encouraged to move their and pay zero taxes as a gift for the move. One would think with a beautiful location to attract tourists and a gift of $100B economy from the U.S. taxpayers that with 3 1/2 million people they would all be rolling in money. Where did all the money go???

Puerto Rico deserves all the help we can give them and from all reports they are getting that help. Their truck drivers are on strike using this emergency as an opportunity to extort high pay so THAT is the reason some/most of the aid isn't getting out into the countryside. When all is said and done I suspect that Puerto Rico will get their emergency aid as quick as could have been done by anyone and that once the dust has settled some significant portion of the money assistance will have mysteriously disappeared.

There are 150-200 million people living East of the Mississippi who would be potential travelers to Puerto Rico if it was managed and marketed like Hawaii. It isn't! Why? Why have most native Puerto Ricans moved to the U.S. for economic opportunities when the island has so much tourism potential? Part of the problem is that the government is corrupt and extorts money from the hotel chains and tourism industries. Part of the problem is it is hard to get good employees there. Many visitors to the island report that there is a palpable unfriendliness there as compared with Hawaii.

#3.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2017-10-01 17:49 (Reply)

In other words, lousy govt, what amounts to teamsters, the end. Not unlike here.

One tends to expect a somewhat broader perspective from a guy who reads 7-8 books a day. But life goes on.

#3.1.1 Meh on 2017-10-01 19:50 (Reply)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yEafcIsT-8

Skip to the 29 minute mark to see the Mayor of San Juan in a custom shirt with the words "help us we are dying." How did she manage to get a custom shirt in the midst of all the problems. There is another picture out there of her standing in front of a load of supplies that haven't been delivered to the people. I guess the privileged white people are supposed to do everything. Definitely a set up to try to get Trump.

#4 mary on 2017-10-01 12:07 (Reply)

Your logic is as unimpeachable as Windy's. Apparently you two have discovered a wormhole between this inherent defect you've identified in island people you've never met and The Plot to Ding Trump and the whole world of facts stands outside it as you go whooshing back and forth at lightspeed.

#4.1 Meh on 2017-10-01 12:11 (Reply)

I'm writing from a county that was devastated by Hurricane Harvey's landfall a month ago. The feds aren't doing much to help here, but we're cleaning up anyway. I will say that it was enormously important to us that help and supplies could come in from the north and west, even though everything from the eye landfall here all the way to the Texas/Louisiana border was in terrible shape from the flooding. If we were on an island, we'd have had a harder time. Electrical utility trucks, for instance, showed up by the thousands from all over the country, with amazing speed, and got our power back on in two weeks even though virtually every power pole in the county was down. Also, our roads were not washed away for the most part. We had at least rudimentary phone, text, and internet service within a week. These things matter enormously when it comes to making emergency repairs, distributing food and water, and coordinating cleanup and rescue efforts.

Even so, you'd have to be crazy to turn disaster-relief funds over to our county government. Much better administered privately. The churches are doing particularly well.

#5 Texan99 on 2017-10-01 13:38 (Reply)

PR is just a little more remote, as you allude, and amounts to a large aircraft carrier with a deck full of holes.

Folks may not realize that having suffered relatively minor Cat 3 and 2 storms, much of SW FL was also without power, "much" meaning nearly 85% of some counties. Two-thirds of Florida lost power.

Some people as far north as the Tampa Bay went three weeks without theirs, and it took 16,000 crews from around the US to restore service.

There are communities in the Keys where half the homes are gone. From a Cat 4.

Like TX, none of them had to wait days for supplies to be flown in. As it turns out, both TX and the FL peninsula are attached to the continent.

#5.1 Meh on 2017-10-01 15:25 (Reply)

Yes, and if you live on a relatively remote island, you can expect the aftermath of a hurricane to be absolutely horrific, not because Trump is a bad man but because a remote island is a terrible place to try to weather a very bad storm. You'd better be seriously into prepping.

Or you can just be gobsmacked every single time it happens, and play it for some kind of political angle.

#5.1.1 Texan99 on 2017-10-03 08:45 (Reply)

The way one of the US's most competent and technically-proficient power companies "prepared" and then lost service to 2/3 of a very populous state for days and weeks? The way in places that half the homes disappeared in a Cat 4?

The way NO and Houston, among others, are built in flood plains and go underwater?

The way California was overtaken in the night by the San Andreas Fault? Or Wyoming by the stealthy Yellowstone Supervolcano?

Keep leading with your face. Great tactic, dimwit.

#5.1.1.1 Meh on 2017-10-03 12:45 (Reply)

Yeah, pretty much that same way. What was your point?

#5.1.1.1.1 Texan99 on 2017-10-04 19:48 (Reply)

Paullie "The Beard" Krugman: So wrong, so often.

#6 Sam L. on 2017-10-01 18:27 (Reply)

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Sunday, October 1. 2017

Puerto Rico