Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico PDF Author: A. W. Maldonado
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268200978
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Who is to blame for the economic and political crisis in Puerto Rico--the United States or Puerto Rico? This book provides a fascinating historical perspective on the problem and an unequivocal answer on who is to blame. In this engaging and approachable book, journalist A. W. Maldonado charts the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican economy and explains how a litany of bad political and fiscal policy decisions in Washington and Puerto Rico destroyed an "economic miracle." Under Operation Bootstrap in the 1950s and 60s, the rapid transformation and industrialization of the Puerto Rican economy was considered a "wonder of human history," a far cry from the economic "death spiral" the island's governor described in 2016. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is the story of how the demise of an obscure tax policy that encouraged investment and economic growth led to escalating budget deficits and the government's shocking default of its $70 billion debt. Maldonado also discusses the extent of the devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017, the massive street protests during 2019, and the catastrophic earthquakes in January 2020. After illuminating the "century of misunderstanding" between Puerto Rico and the United States--the root cause of the economic crisis and the island's gridlocked debates about its political status--Maldonado concludes with projections about the future of the relationship. He argues that, in the end, the economic, fiscal, and political crises are the result of the breakdown and failure of Puerto Rican self-government. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is written for a wide audience, including students, economists, politicians, and general readers, all of whom will find it interesting and thought provoking.

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico PDF Author: A. W. Maldonado
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268200978
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
Who is to blame for the economic and political crisis in Puerto Rico--the United States or Puerto Rico? This book provides a fascinating historical perspective on the problem and an unequivocal answer on who is to blame. In this engaging and approachable book, journalist A. W. Maldonado charts the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican economy and explains how a litany of bad political and fiscal policy decisions in Washington and Puerto Rico destroyed an "economic miracle." Under Operation Bootstrap in the 1950s and 60s, the rapid transformation and industrialization of the Puerto Rican economy was considered a "wonder of human history," a far cry from the economic "death spiral" the island's governor described in 2016. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is the story of how the demise of an obscure tax policy that encouraged investment and economic growth led to escalating budget deficits and the government's shocking default of its $70 billion debt. Maldonado also discusses the extent of the devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017, the massive street protests during 2019, and the catastrophic earthquakes in January 2020. After illuminating the "century of misunderstanding" between Puerto Rico and the United States--the root cause of the economic crisis and the island's gridlocked debates about its political status--Maldonado concludes with projections about the future of the relationship. He argues that, in the end, the economic, fiscal, and political crises are the result of the breakdown and failure of Puerto Rican self-government. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is written for a wide audience, including students, economists, politicians, and general readers, all of whom will find it interesting and thought provoking.

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico PDF Author: A. W. Maldonado
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268200961
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description


Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico

Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico PDF Author: A. W. Maldonado
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268200998
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Who is to blame for the economic and political crisis in Puerto Rico—the United States or Puerto Rico? This book provides a fascinating historical perspective on the problem and an unequivocal answer on who is to blame. In this engaging and approachable book, journalist A. W. Maldonado charts the rise and fall of the Puerto Rican economy and explains how a litany of bad political and fiscal policy decisions in Washington and Puerto Rico destroyed an economic miracle. Under Operation Bootstrap in the 1950s and '60s, the rapid transformation and industrialization of the Puerto Rican economy was considered a “wonder of human history,” a far cry from the economic “death spiral” the island’s governor described in 2015. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is the story of how the demise of an obscure tax policy that encouraged investment and economic growth led to escalating budget deficits and the government’s shocking default of its $70 billion debt. Maldonado also discusses the extent of the devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017, the massive street protests during 2019, and the catastrophic earthquakes in January 2020. After illuminating the century of misunderstanding between Puerto Rico and the United States—the root cause of the economic crisis and the island’s gridlocked debates about its political status—Maldonado concludes with projections about the future of the relationship. He argues that, in the end, the economic, fiscal, and political crises are the result of the breakdown and failure of Puerto Rican self-government. Boom and Bust in Puerto Rico is written for a wide audience, including students, economists, politicians, and general readers, all of whom will find it interesting and thought provoking.

Boom and Bust

Boom and Bust PDF Author: William Quinn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108369359
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, William Quinn and John D. Turner take us on a riveting ride through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720, Latin America in the 1820s, Melbourne in the 1880s, New York in the 1920s, Tokyo in the 1980s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. They reveal that bubbles start when investors and speculators react to new technology or political initiatives, showing that our ability to predict future bubbles will ultimately come down to being able to predict these sparks.

Luis Muñoz Marín

Luis Muñoz Marín PDF Author: A. W. Maldonado
Publisher: La Editorial, UPR
ISBN: 9780847701582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
The book describes the most important events in Muñoz's life, played out within his own internal "civil wars": the transformation from a young bohemian, succeding at nothing, to a political leader, spearheading the campaign to convince the jibaros not to sell their vote; the journey from an ardent independentista to a principal architect of today's Commonwealth; finally, the clash between Operation Bootstrap, that lifted the island from extreme poverty through industrialization, and Operation Serenity, an expression of his yearning for socialist values and humanitarian civilization."--Jacket.

Teodoro Moscoso and Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap

Teodoro Moscoso and Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap PDF Author: Alex W. Maldonado
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813065984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
"Fascinating. . . . [Maldonado's] extensive interviews of Moscoso are unique and help make this a highly original work. . . . He deserves this amount of attention as the man who, next to Luis Muñoz, was the dominant figure in the Puerto Rico renaissance of the 1950s."--Thomas L. Hughes, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "Maldonado does a superb job in presenting Teodoro Moscoso's role generally and the decisive actions he took at critical junctures in particular."--Rafael de Jesús Toro, dean of business administration, Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, and professor of economics, University of Puerto Rico A. W. Maldonado tells the story of Puerto Rico's extraordinary climb from poverty to economic success. Operation Bootstrap, a program conceived, promoted, and implemented by Teodoro Moscoso (1910-1992), succeeded in attracting worldwide capital investment that by the mid-1950s had transformed the island from an economic backwater into a bustling industrial society. Though much of the credit went to Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Muñoz Marín, Maldonado focuses on Moscoso to describe how and why the economic miracle took place. Moscoso was deeply involved in all aspects of the Puerto Rican economy and culture, and Maldonado follows his relationships and battles on a number of fronts, from his initial differences with Rexford Tugwell, the last American governor of the island, to conflicts with Governor Muñoz, who was constantly concerned that Moscoso was pushing change too quickly. In the worlds of business and culture, Maldonado shows how Moscoso employed advertising guru David Ogilvy to propagate the image of a people engaged in a cultural renaissance. He also highlights Moscoso's decisive actions at critical junctures (such as his success in pushing tax exemptions and tourism in the late 1940s) and his personal persuasiveness, as with Pablo Casals, who at the age of eighty was persuaded to establish his Casals Festival at San Juan. Maldonado shows that Moscoso was the architect of the "economic miracle" that economists and presidents believed could not happen in Puerto Rico. His account sheds new light on the man who provided U.S. administrations with a democratic success story to counter the allure of the Cuban revolution and who was called on by President John F. Kennedy to organize and head the Alliance for Progress. A. W. Maldonado, a journalist in Puerto Rico for 37 years, is a former editor of El Mundo and El Reportero and currently writes a column for the San Juan Star. His articles have appeared in numerous U.S. publications, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, and The Nation.

Island Paradox

Island Paradox PDF Author: Francisco Rivera-Batiz
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610444736
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
"One of the year's best books on Puerto Rico."—El Nuevo Dia, San Juan "[The authors] are highly regarded labor economists who have written extensively and intelligently in the past, and again in this volume, on Puerto Rican migration and labor markets... There isabundant statistical data and careful analysis, some of which challenges the conventional wisdom. Highly recommended." —Choice Island Paradox is the first comprehensive, census-based portrait of social and economic life in Puerto Rico. During its nearly fiftyyears as a U.S. commonwealth, the relationship between Puerto Rico's small, developing economy and the vastly larger, more industrialized United States has triggered profound changes in the island's industry and labor force. Puerto Rico has been deeply affected by the constant flow of its people to and from the mainland, and by the influx of immigrant workers from other nations. Distinguished economists Francisco Rivera-Batiz and Carlos Santiago provide the latest data on the socioeconomic status of Puerto Rico today, and examine current conditions within the context of the major trends of the past two decades. Island Paradox describes many improvements in Puerto Rico's standard of living, including rising per-capita income, longer life expectancies, greater educational attainment, and increased job prospects for women. But it also discusses the devastating surge in unemployment. Rapid urbanization and a vanishing agricultural sector have led to severe inequality, as family income has become increasingly dependent on education and geographic location. Although Puerto Rico's close ties to the United States were the major source of the island's economic growth prior to 1970, they have also been at the root of recent hardships. Puerto Rico's trade andbusiness transactions remain predominantly with the United States, but changes in federal tax, social, and budgetary policies, along with international agreements such as NAFTA, now threaten to alter the economic ties between the island and the mainland. Island Paradox reveals the social and family changes that have occurred among Puerto Ricans on the island and the mainland. The significant decline in the island's population growth is traced in part to women's increased pursuit of educational and employment opportunities before marrying. More children are being raised by singleparents, but this stems from a higher divorce rate and not a rise in teenage pregnancy. The widespread circular migration to and from the United States has had strong repercussions for the island's labor markets and social balance, leading to concerns about an island brain drain. The Puerto Rican population in the United States hasbecome increasingly diverse, less regionally concentrated and not, as some have claimed, in danger of becoming an underclass. Within a single generation Puerto Rico has experienced social and economic shifts of an unprecedented magnitude. Island Paradox charts Puerto Rico's economic fortunes, summarizes the major demographic trends, and identifies the issues that will have the strongest bearings on Puerto Rico's prospects for a successful future. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

Crude Volatility

Crude Volatility PDF Author: Robert McNally
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231543689
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.

Locked In, Locked Out

Locked In, Locked Out PDF Author: Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081224513X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In Locked In, Locked Out, Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores examines four communities in Ponce, Puerto Rico, showing how gates—in both physical and symbolic ways—distribute power, reroute movement, sustain social inequalities, and cement boundary lines of class and race.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, Authorized Edition

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, Authorized Edition PDF Author: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1610390415
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
Examines the causes of the financial crisis that began in 2008 and reveals the weaknesses found in financial regulation, excessive borrowing, and breaches in accountability.