An excellent segment from PBS Newshour –
Related –
An illuminating piece by Nelson A. Denis:
Denis rightly notes –
“The most unfair law of all is the Merchant Marine Act of
1920, also known as the Jones Act, which requires that every product that
enters or leaves Puerto Rico — cars from Japan, engines from Germany, food from
South America, medicine from Canada — must be carried on a United States ship.
A foreign-flagged vessel may directly enter Puerto Rico —
but only after paying taxes, customs and import fees that often double the
price of the goods it carries.
This is not a business model. It is a shakedown, a form
of legalized price-fixing, the maritime version of a protection racket. From
1970 through 2010, the Jones Act cost Puerto Rico $29 billion.”
The Economist on
the crisis
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21660564-government-agencys-missed-bond-payment-heralds-messy-bankruptcy-hurricane
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21660564-government-agencys-missed-bond-payment-heralds-messy-bankruptcy-hurricane