Puertopia

Puerto Rican Series

The Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein

“Puertopia” is a sweeping vision that sees Puerto Rico transforming itself into a ‘visitor economy,’ one with a radically downsized state and many fewer Puerto Ricans living on the island. In their place would be tens of thousands of high-net-worth individuals from Europe, Asia, and the U.S. mainland, lured to permanently relocate by a cornucopia of tax breaks and the promise of living a five-star resort lifestyle inside fully privatized enclaves, year-round.

Aggressively advanced by Gov. Ricardo Rossello in meetings with bankers, real estate developers, cryptocurrency traders, and the Financial Oversight and Management Board, an unelected seven-member body that exerts ultimate control over Puerto Rico’s economy, Puertopia is being conjured up in the ballrooms of luxury hotels in San Juan and New York City. In February 2018, Gov. Rossello told a business audience in New York that Maria had created a “blank canvas” on which investors could paint their very own dream world.

It even seems to have its own religion: an unruly hodgepodge of Ayn Randian wealth supremacy, philanthrocapitalist noblesse oblige, Burning Man pseudo-spirituality, and half-remembered scenes from watching Avatar while high.

 

Puerto Rico governor resigns after mass protests
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49102274
25 Jul 2019

Puerto Rico's Governor Ricardo Rosselló has announced his resignation after days of mass street protests in the US territory. He has been at the center of a group text message scandal that has already led two top officials to resign. The leaked messages revealed sexist, profane and homophobic comments. The chat, which contained 880 pages of exchanges between the governor and 11 male allies, was leaked on 13 July and led to days of protests outside the governor's mansion in San Juan. Several of the texts mock victims of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017 and may have led to more than 4,000 deaths. In one instance, Mr Rosselló criticized the former Speaker of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, saying people should "beat up that whore"