Puerto Rico is Experiencing an Island-Wide Blackout (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Seven months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico, the power grid is still unstable. But progress was being made; according to CBS, less than 10 percent of the island was without power as of a month ago. But now, the Associated Press reports that the island is undergoing yet another full blackout. The power company is still investigating the cause and estimates it will take 24 to 36 hours for power to be restored. The saga of Puerto Rico's power grid has been an unhappy one. The US territory was already facing a financial crisis before the hurricane hit. The island only has one electric company, and prior to Maria, it was $9 billion in debt and utilizing outdated infrastructure and equipment.

Comments

How is that possible??

[Higaran]

How can any company be so far in debt and still operating, in any shape or form. I would have figured they would have closed long ago and their assets sold to other companies.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's so unprofitable to operate there, other companies won't want to buy in just to lose money?

Re:How is that possible??

[Archangel Michael]

Government. It is both the cause, because it is seen as the only solution.

Re:How is that possible??

[tomhath]

PREPA - Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is a public corporation, not private. One of the benefits of socialized utilities is that they can spend other people's money forever.

Re:How is that possible??

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The government must keep it running regardless of its financial woes. It's not Sears losing to Walmart.

Re: How is that possible??

[HornWumpus]

PREPA is in the process of being sold off.

The modern standard would be to setup an independent system operator (ISO), a transmission operations company, sell each of the generation units separately and dispatch via power bids into a pool.

We'll see what the corrupt government of Puerto Rico does. I bet the whole thing ends up in the hands of contributors, particularly any profitable, low cost, generation stations.

The key problem the power company has is not getting paid for the power they generate, which private enterprise can help fix, not being beholding to voters.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen much analysis for PR. Is this a consequence to too many price controls? There were counties in my state that regulated prices, and while it did help poor families, the cumulative toll after 15+ years meant that they needed tons of cash to fix an aging, neglected infrastructure.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

A communications disruption can mean only one thing.

Invasion.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a consequence of being owned by the government

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor people assuming no one will ever try to reclaim their debts. Local Government has always assumed the US would bail them out, thus the corruption. What you're seeing now is quite calculated, PR to make the US Government look bad. Media will eat it up too.

Never let a tragedy go to waste where profit an be exploited. It's unlikely _any_ of these fuckers will spend a day in jail let alone pay.

Fun fact, it happens everywhere a service is deemed a necessity. Ontario for example is STILL paying off debts from Ontario Hydro / Hydro One / Liberal Slush Fund. Difference is we have added risks because people invested their pensions'n shit in the scheme. Remember the power outage that knocked out everything from NY to Ontario? Yeah, it's still held over our head to justify RETARDED spending on hydro.

Re:How is that possible??

[bobbied]

The government of PR has over spent on other things so are incapable of bailing out the electric company. The electric company hasn't been maintaining it's infrastructure for decades. Hurricane comes though and blows away what little infrastructure was there. This is the result.

It's a catch 22... Folks are leaving the island in droves because living conditions suck, reducing economic activity and reducing tax receipts the government has to service it's debt and sucking any cash available to improve living conditions, public infrastructure and law enforcement which leads to a lower standard of living... Rinse lather and repeat... But this downward spiral has been going on long before last year's storm, it just hastened the process.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydro Quebec disagrees with your assessment.

Re: How is that possible??

[Bryansix]

Why is investing in Hydro bad? Its a very stable baseload generator for the power grid. The main problem is getting the power over the transmission lines to where it is needed. This was a problem with the 50-60 year old tech probably in place but it's not as much of an issue with current tech and equipment. This means the transmission and distribution circuits need to be upgraded and that costs money. They also have to upgrade the substation equipment to bring in redundancy, allow for better power protection, and better regulate the voltage coming from the substation as well as the voltages on the individual branch lines of each circuit. Spending on infrastructure upgrades is not only a good idea, its necessary.

Re: How is that possible??

[dj245]

PREPA's has deferred maintenance on their power plants for so long that it would be very expensive to rehabilitate many of them into anything resembling a reliable condition. They have turbine rotors that have been sitting outside rusting for years. Even if they gave me a power plant for free, I wouldn't want to attempt to turn it into a profitable enterprise. Plus, since they have burned many power plant repair companies so badly, most will not work for PREPA until past bills are paid AND new work is paid in advance.

Source- PREPA owes my company a large sum of money for power plant work done before the hurricanes.

Re: How is that possible??

[thinkwaitfast]

With a population of 3.74 million people, it works out to $2406/person, 8.7%GDP. on a per capita income of ~$20k.

Re: How is that possible??

[Walter White]

We'll see what the corrupt government of Puerto Rico does.

Before you lay the entire blame on the Puerto Rican government I suggest you broaden your sources a bit. Quoting from Wikipedia

The Government of Puerto Rico is a republican form of government with separation of powers, subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States.

(emphasis mine.)

For more on that, please see https://congressionaldish.com/....

I doubt that PR is entirely blameless for their present situation, but they've had a lot of help from our congress.

Re: How is that possible??

[AutodidactLabrat]

The key problem the power company has is not getting paid for the power they generate, which private enterprise can help fix, not being beholding to voters.

So the answer is....collection enforcers without legal restrictions?
well THAT will help Puerto Rico to recover from the economic catastrophe of Trumpery.
Wait, no...

Re: How is that possible??

[HornWumpus]

The answer is cutting off deadbeats. Same as in your hometown.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress hasn't made Puerto Rico embezzle their maintenance funds, sell their equipment on the black market, refuse to pay creditors, and in general act like any other corrupt third-world country.

If Congress wanted to, they could have forced PR to obey US laws, but there's been a longstanding fear of seeming "imperialist", so they've allowed the local courts (run by local judges) screw over every Continental company they was stupid enough to try to help.

Now they're forced to live with the consequences of their mistakes, and all they want is to blame someone else.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, people like Donald Trump who don't pay their bills should be run out of town on a rail.

Re: How is that possible??

[HornWumpus]

Keep it up. That's how your going to get a second term.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody's finding it hard to admit
Those six bankruptcies and dozens of lawsuits over unpaid debts are a fact huh? By your own standards, you ought to judge him as the deadbeat he is.

Perhaps you are just too dishonest to admit your roaring Trumpster fire is nothing but a pile of burning tires.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is a consequence of government owned by big business, and the voters not giving a shit about it because they get free trinkets. Puerto Rico is more like Haiti than an American commonwealth. Like everywhere else on the planet, poverty is directly related to political and personal corruption. Countries with people that care for each other do very well.

Re:How is that possible??

[rickb928]

People leaving the island is a free market working.

it's just that the free market they are migrating to isn't on the island...

Re: How is that possible??

[HornWumpus]

Corporations go bankrupt all the time. Businesses spin up, they stand or fall on their own. That's how it's done.

Enjoy the next 7 years.

Re:How is that possible??

[DigiShaman]

Don't worry, I'm sure they will be the 51st state in short order. A great Puerto Rico purchase, all funded by the US tax payer. Why bring them to the states when they can buy votes where they live now?

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we had a president who paid his debts. Now we have one who you excuse for his welching dishonesty.

Great job you're doing there, Skippy.

Apparently you feel obligated to praise the vintage.

Re: How is that possible??

[edtice1559]

I doubt nothing in your statement. But PR has no money due a number of factors of which years of mismanagement is one. The inability to make necessary capital investments is a big problem.

Re: How is that possible??

[bill_mcgonigle]

Congress is responsible for a lot of the poverty in PR. Christ, a ship from China isn't even allowed to dock in PR because of US laws - everything has to go to mainland US and brought over on US ships. The costs are staggering - one Walmart with access to direct shipping could do more to help PR than dozens of hair-brained political schemes. And good luck attracting private capital when the markets are regulated beyond the breaking point.

Re:How is that possible??

[dgatwood]

PREPA - Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority [aeepr.com] is a public corporation, not private. One of the benefits of socialized utilities is that they can spend other people's money forever.

Socialized utilities work pretty well in other parts of the United States (e.g. TVA). So what's different about Puerto Rico? Oh, yeah. That's right. It's dirt poor in large part because of bad U.S. trade policies that actual states don't have to deal with (the Jones Act in particular). They wouldn't be in this mess if the Puerto Rico statehood referendum had passed back in 1998. This has jack to do with socialized utilities and everything to do with Congress treating Puerto Rico like America's bastard child.

Re:How is that possible??

[Tablizer]

Well, it's a golden opportunity for solar panel salespeople.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to Greece or the old Soviet Union.

Re: How is that possible??

[HornWumpus]

Keep up the shrill screeching.

4 more years!

Re: How is that possible??

[cascadingstylesheet]

We'll see what the corrupt government of Puerto Rico does.

Before you lay the entire blame on the Puerto Rican government I suggest you broaden your sources a bit. Quoting from Wikipedia

The Government of Puerto Rico is a republican form of government with separation of powers, subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States.

And? So is Chicago.

Both are leftist fiefdoms. They reap what they sow.

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, you surely don't want to be answering for Trump, either his rampant dishonesty, his ongoing buffoonery, or his hysterically laughable tirades.

That's why you cover your ears, close your eyes, and try to forget the consequences of your embracing a perpetual blowhard and fraud.

Re:How is that possible??

[HiThere]

Only if the customers have the money to pay for the product.

Re: How is that possible??

[rtb61]

Yet the bastards still won't leave and sell their property cheap, what do we have to start shooting them. Don't they know they are holding up billions in highly profitable developments done for maximum profit on cheap land provided by US legislative action and US government inaction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... just so you don't think they are picking on you https://www.youtube.com/watch?... whoops wrong one, how about https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (get past the US tiny bit).

Re: How is that possible??

[stealth_finger]

Keep it up. That's how your going to get a second term.

My going to get a second term?

Re: How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

you are fucking retarded

Re: How is that possible??

[will_die]

Where did you read that lie?
The law you are attempting to understand is the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. What that actually does is prevent a non-USA boat from transporting goods between US and Puerto Rico docks.
So a China ship could deliver directly to PR without going to the mainland.
The problem with that is the corruption of PR is such that their docks suck and with the economics of ship transportation such a transportation would not be economically feasible.

Re: How is that possible??

[kenh]

Congress is responsible for a lot of the poverty in PR.

Up until a decade or so ago Puerto Rico was rolling in cash with it's special tax breaks, allowing hihly-profitable manufacturing to be done on the island with minimal taxes. When the tax deal ended, the manufacturing jobs left, and Puerto Rico couldn't stop spending money it didn't have, hence the massive debt.

Christ, a ship from China isn't even allowed to dock in PR because of US laws - everything has to go to mainland US and brought over on US ships.

Because Puerto Rico is so big it often has full-size trans-oceanic container ships with their entire load dedicated to PR market arrive every week from China, passing though the Panama Canal? Seriously, you think the problem is related to shipping regulations?

The costs are staggering - one Walmart with access to direct shipping could do more to help PR than dozens of hair-brained political schemes. And good luck attracting private capital when the markets are regulated beyond the breaking point.

Wow, which regulation forced PR to defer maint. work on their infrastructure? What would PR do different with independence and home rule? Right now the best thing going on the Puerto Rico front is their ability to migrate to the US at-will, unimpeded. Unfortunately, every Puerto Rican that leaves the island increases the per capita debt obligation for the remaining citizens. The only hope PR has to recover is for the US to step in and make the vast majority of their outstanding debt disappear, but the pension plans and private investors that own PR debt aren't interested in losing 50-75% of the money PR promised to repay them.

Re:How is that possible??

[kenh]

The power company was $9BN in debt before Maria, and it will cost $17BN to build the infrastructure it needs - how does the Jones Act explain that? Years of failing to pay contractors is not because of the Jones Act?

The Jones Act goes back nearly 100 years (passed in 1920), it was in effect when Puerto Rico was rich, and now that it isn't. There are many reasons for the situation in Puerto Rico, arcane shipping regulations aren't one of them.

Re:How is that possible??

[Anonymous Coward]

PREPA - Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority [aeepr.com] is a public corporation, not private. One of the benefits of socialized utilities is that they can spend other people's money forever.

Socialized utilities work pretty well in other parts of the United States (e.g. TVA)

From an economics perspective, the consensus is that the TVA was a net liability: the counties that didn't have access to the TVA actually ended up growing a lot faster and improving the qualify of life of their residents a lot more than the ones involved in the TVA.

Like a lot of things started by FDR, the intentions were good and perhaps noble, but the real world performance was sub-par. See FDR's Folly (Powell) or New Deal or Raw Deal? (Folsom) for some references.

However, your point in general is correct: sometimes privatization is the right approach, in other situations it isn't. There are numerous books on this topic, such as Reforming Infrastructure: Privatization, Regulation, and Competition (Kessides). Any search on Privatization at a book-seller will get you started.

PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be honest. If you have the means to leave, you should. It's only going to get worse.

Re: PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

ban phone poster
racist

Re:PR is a third world country.

[Linsaran]

It's an extreme example of what happens when you allow the rich to dictate financial policy against all bounds of sanity.

Re:PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new I.T. closet cleaner overlord.

Re: PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are US citizens you idiot.

Re:PR is a third world country.

[thinkwaitfast]

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is the government.

PREPA is the only entity authorized to conduct such business in Puerto Rico, making it a government monopoly.

Re:PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be honest. If you have the means to leave, you should. It's only going to get worse.

Its a shithole. But we are not allowed to be honest.

Re: PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

the same could be said for Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma

Re:PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a government owned by the rich, with voter consent.

Re:PR is a third world country.

[Anonymous Coward]

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Stiff the creditors

[Seven Spirals]

Stiff the power company's creditors. Allow them to declare bankruptcy. Then re-capitalize the whole thing without debt and move on with what you can actually pay for. If that's impossible or they are too corrupt/incompetent to get that done, then as an individual you should factor in whole-house power generation before getting a house or moving to PR. I'm not saying this with a shaking finger or judgment, I'm just saying it seems like common sense, now.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

And then the next time they try to issue bonds or borrow in some other way for some large dollar project, all the potential lenders will treat them as junk and want 15% interest to cover the fact that they'll likely default again.

Brilliant plan.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

The Left doesn't understand that the interest rate is mainly determined by the risk factors of the loan. If the loan recipient has a history of defaulting or considers defaulting, then naturally the lenders must take that into account. Personally, I wouldn't buy bonds from Puerto Rico or Greece unless they are really worth it (ie. very high interest rate).

Re:Stiff the creditors

[bws111]

The power company is owned by the government. While governments can declare bankruptcy it is not really a good idea if you are going to expect credit in the future.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop with idiotic comments about "the left" or "the right," and what they may or may not know. There are smart people across the spectrum, and it doesn't help discussion to denigrate broad, unspecific groups of people. Interest rates being tied to risk is pretty darn basic.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Bryansix]

The whole notion that you can just upgrade the infrastructure you can afford is what got them into this mess. The core issue here is the rate they charge for the power doesn't cover the cost of generating and distributing the power.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[HornWumpus]

The only smart people on the left are those angling to be in charge. The rest are just chumps.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

... and let them reposess the physical plant? Brilliant.

Oh, and how are you going to "recapitalize" after you've demonstrated that you intend to steal from the lenders. The problem isn't the lenders. The problem is the most corrupt government in the US.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant plan.

Having a plan, however painful it is, is better than having no plan or letting the status quo continue. What the US investment industry is doing to Puerto Rico seems similar to how the World Bank and IMF impoverish third-world countries (reference). The fact that the US doesn't allow Puerto Rico to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy exacerbates their situation (reference).

Yes, future interest rates will be costly, but at least there's a starting point for future development instead of a looming failure.

Does anyone have a better plan for the whole territory other than bankruptcy? Speak up.

In the meantime, I see a business opportunity for anyone that can economically figure out how to supply power to the people or businesses who can afford to pay for it while the utility struggles for solvency.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Puerto Rico's woes are directly caused by past federal government policies and as a consequence their 'debt' . A few governments neighbouring this island call Puerto Rico a colony of the US. This is 2018 not 1820. The solution lies in Washington and the representatives you vote for, not San Juan. Remember when Donald Trump was throwing paper towels to a crowd as a 'humanitarian effort' ?. The government in Puerto Rico is no different to the government that runs your state cause whichever way you like to look at it Puerto Rico is US territory and unlike the state you live in, which has way more freedoms on how to trade by law, Puerto Rico's finances and economic viability are controlled by Congress and Senate. So when you call 'stiff the creditors' you are stiffing yourself.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

The rate they charge isn't considered affordable by their customers. If the electric company cuts off their supply, the customers just jerry rig some power cables to the nearest transformer on the road. Now the power company can't tell what the peak demand on any sub-grid is going to be, so those blow out in high demand (hot weather, cold weather), not even factoring in thunderstorms.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Mr D from 63]

Please stop with idiotic comments about "the left" or "the right," and what they may or may not know. There are smart people across the spectrum, and it doesn't help discussion to denigrate broad, unspecific groups of people. Interest rates being tied to risk is pretty darn basic.

The right just wants Puerto Rico to pay a higher interest rate because they're brown.

Signed - the Left

http://wizbangblog.com/wp-cont...

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

the same could be said for the Right.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Ferretman]

Actually, 75.8% of their citizens according to the last census self identify as white:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

But don't let your uninformed racism change what you *believe* to be true....

Ferret

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Uberbah]

And then the next time they try to issue bonds or borrow in some other way for some large dollar project, all the potential lenders will treat them as junk and want 15% interest to cover the fact that they'll likely default again.

Common talking point but completely false. Countries that have defaulted on debts have been able to get credit at much lower rates than that, and quickly. Why? Because their economy is now free to grow without their GDP being siphoned off into making debt payments to colonizers. That's part of the reason why people who declare bankruptcy in the U.S. immediately see their mailboxes full of credit card offers.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[thegarbz]

Then re-capitalize the whole thing without debt and move on with what you can actually pay for. If that's impossible or they are too corrupt/incompetent to get that done

You idea works well in practice for a company with working valuable assets. That's not the case here. You can't stiff all your creditors, declare bankruptcy, recapitalize, and then expect any 3rd party to work with you when it comes to repairing your broken crap. Not after you just failed to pay the previous people you owned money to.

It's good old anti-mates-rates. Normally I charge $1000 for this work, but hey, because it's you .... I'm gonna need it up front.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[HornWumpus]

Counter: the 20th century. You lose.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Bryansix]

That's called theft. The power authority should be going around and reporting these people to the police.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

The Left doesn't understand that the interest rate is mainly determined by the risk factors of the loan. If the loan recipient has a history of defaulting or considers defaulting, then naturally the lenders must take that into account. Personally, I wouldn't buy bonds from Puerto Rico or Greece unless they are really worth it (ie. very high interest rate).

I wouldn't want to buy bonds from Puerto Rico or Greece either. I think that's a non-partisan fact that everyone can agree to.

What some might not understand is that there are unnatural market conditions for Puerto Rico. Normal people and businesses and even municipalities can declare bankruptcy. The interest rate reflects the risk of an entity not being able to repay the loan. Puerto Rico is not allowed to declare bankruptcy. How can one truly calculate the risk? Instead of determining the risk of default and bankruptcy to calculate the interest rate, one needs to factor in risk factors that center more around politics of who is going to pay for the mess (Puerto Rican govenment? US taxpayers? future suckers buying PR debt?) than the entity's ability to repay. Anyone (re)selling Puerto Rico debt today in the financial sector are as fraudulent as the bankers who re-sold CDOs during the height of the real estate bubble after the industry-wide risk was exposed.

Since someone is using "The Left" in their reply, I right remind "The Right" this: Many of the powerless refugees who have been fleeing the island are US citizens now residing in US States within US Congressional districts. One might argue, "This started as Obama's big mess," but honestly, is a chucker of rolls of paper towels into crowds leading them out of the current mess?

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely Puerto Rico will become a privately run stoners retirement village. It makes the most sense. The location is perfect, for growing and exporting. Damn! I would buy land and set up an 'eco' house in a heartbeat. But maybe somebody is artificially keeping real estates values up, probably part of the regular corruption there, to drive people off their land and buy it all up for nothing.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan.is to ruin the place, drive people out, buy the devalued land and then rebuild it properly after neutering the locals say in the matter. Same as always, everywhere.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

How does the local government of PR bear no culpability? Yes, Congress has some share, but the reality is they are (mostly) letting PR run itself... into the ground.

What if PR residents elected honest leaders and presucuted all graft and nepotism? What if they ran the island for the best interests of the residents instead of for themselves?

PR is an example of what happens when people elect leaders who promise the best benefits, and have no way to deliver. Aka, they have run out of other people's money to spend.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[crunchygranola]

Do you realize that there is no racial classification "brown"? Of course the vast majority of Latinos from Puerto Rico going to say "white" as virtually none of them are "asian" leaving "black" and "amerindian" as the only other options. Most who are not "white" will self-identify as "black" due to significant African ancestry, a small number may self-identify as "amerindian".

This is one of weirder bits on nonsense I have seen from the right lately - declaring that ethnic discrimination against Latinos cannot exist because they are "white".

Northern European Americans have had no problem being prejudiced against Latinos for centuries. Consider Trump attacking U.S. citizen Judge Gonzalo Curiel as a "Mexican". Clearly Curiel being a native-born U.S. citizen who was - as you say - "white" was not good enough he was still a "Mexican" (i.e. despised brown person).

To Northern European American racists Latinos are not "white enough", or perhaps not the "right kind of white".

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Counter to your counter. There is no "left" in this country as much as you and others want to parrot it. If you take at least one basic course in civics, the United States itself as been a typically right-wing style, with a dash of authoritarianism for quite a long time (including today). Just because a party has differing stance on a handful of items does not make them "the Left" as you and others would put it.

7 billion people in the world. You know how the other 6.7 billion view US politics? Right-wing (Democrats) and more Right-wing (Republicans). They laugh when you say "the Left" and use those buzzwords. You want to see "Left-Wing" .... try Norway. You know, the country that deal leader wants immigrants from.

The 20th century. The 20th century was the rise of liberalism and the correction of many of the issues in this country, especially socially. Sorry, your gang can't claim those.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[dgatwood]

No, no, you spin off the assets into a new company and the debts into another new company. Then, the second one files for bankruptcy. It's the American way.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[dgatwood]

How does the local government of PR bear no culpability? Yes, Congress has some share, but the reality is they are (mostly) letting PR run itself... into the ground.

Except they aren't. The Jones Act means that PR can't usefully import from other countries without going through U.S. importers, which usually means significantly higher costs than they would otherwise pay if they could do direct importing from random countries using whatever shipper happened to be going the right direction.

IMO, the only real alternatives are either statehood (which the people keep voting against) or secession (which worked out SO well the last time anybody tried it).

Re: Stiff the creditors

[HornWumpus]

You attack the US for not being left enough. ..That's why it did so much better in the 20th century.

Your gang _owns_ Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and (slightly arguably) Hitler. At least 250 megadeaths in the 20th century.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you don't understand interest rates either. They are based on prime rates and a lot of risk factors aren't risk factors.

I'll provide an example, my debt-to-income is less than 6% but since I have 5 hard inquiries in two years from shopping for new more beneficial credit cards to a new mortgage to a new car. I am the example of responsible with debt, never missed a payment, always carry a small balance. The new credit combined with inquiries leaves me with roughly 715 credit score. Prior to the new car it was over 800 with the same amount of debt. As we know, the lower your credit score the higher your interest rate. Just because they calculate scores weirdly I would likely have to pay high interest despite being low risk.

Earlier in my life when I still had college loans each semester was on my report as a separate loan. So I landed a good job out of college and had to pay out the ass for high interest on a car because I had 20 accounts open. I was making great money but couldn't leverage any of it until I finally got the college loans paid off.

Of course now I have 0% interest loan on my car but the system is thoroughly rigged. People defaulting on medical services is a big hit these days. Having difficulty paying a surprise 30,000 bill is hardly a sign of an irresponsible borrower. They likely had no choice at the time.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you have forgotten a democratic republic is by its very definition just left of center. This means most mainstream Democrats and Republicans are actually (slightly) Left, if you want to continue to use what has become a less than useful paradigm. Too many people are using Left or Right is terms of popularity. Sure, US politics may be rather Right of many European nations but that doesn't change the government is structured slightly Left.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't been that long ago Scots, Irish, and Poles weren't considered the "right kind of white".

Re:Stiff the creditors

[kenh]

Stiff the power company's creditors.

Like your dad's pension?

Re: Stiff the creditors

[kenh]

The Jones Act is not the problem in any significant way. Explain to me how slightly larger transportation costs for imported goods equals a power utility that is $9BN in debt and needs $17BN to recover? PR got rich based on advantageous tax laws that expired a decade or two ago, and PR never adjusted it's spending to reflect the new reality.

Does Puerto Rico even have a deep water port big enough to take transoceanic container ships directly? I think Puerto Rico needs to have it's imports arrive on smaller US-flagged ships because of port restrictions.

Do you really imagine that a poor island nation of 3-4 million people consumes enough to support a sustained flow of goods from Asia?

Puerto Rico has for years made countless dumb decisions, long before Maria hit - it was wildly bankrupt before Maria with $172BN debt before Maria struck, or about $50Kof debt PER CAPITA.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[kenh]

Per Capita debt levels for US States are much lower than Puerto Rico's $172BN or $50K per capita::

The five states at the center of the snowball with the highest debt per capita are Massachusetts ($11,000), Connecticut ($9,200), Rhode Island ($8,900), Alaska ($8,200), and New Jersey ($7,400).

Source: Here's how much state debt rests on your shoulders

The difference isn't "shipping charges" as a result of the century-old Jones Act.

Re: Stiff the creditors

[Anonymous Coward]

You attack the US for not being left enough. ..That's why it did so much better in the 20th century.

Yeah, except for the eugenics, the segregation, and the war-mongering. There's a reason the Philippines and Caribbean were occupied by the US Army.

Your gang _owns_ Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and (slightly arguably) Hitler.

Oh my, still trying to blame the left for Hitler? Mark of desperation there.

Besides, the authoritarianism of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are the opposite of what people want, except you know, the right-wingers who love a strong, forceful leader, such as yourself, who
desperately kowtows to the latest Dictator of the Day, because he says the right things.

At least 250 megadeaths in the 20th century.

Don't forget smoking, lead in gasoline, and even more pollution. Oh wait, those are your Capitalist cronies!

  Da-hurr!

Re: Stiff the creditors

[david_thornley]

and (slightly arguably) Hitler

Even if you're stupid enough to think Hitler or the Nazis were somehow left-wing, a casual reading of the history would show that Hitler achieved power by wooing the right wing, and he became Chancellor because he had support from right-wing authoritarians (who thought they could control him, that didn't work).

Re:Stiff the creditors

[msi]

You idea works well in practice for a company with working valuable assets. That's not the case here.

How does any company have more working valuable assets than a territory of the USA? It has all the land a guaranteed tax base. Where as a company will probably has lest physical assets and they have to sell things in order to make money.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[thegarbz]

How does any company have more working valuable assets than a territory of the USA?

You're joking right? Aside from the fact that the USA can't give 2 shits about it's territories, have you seen the state balance sheets of many of the USA's actual states for that matter?

How many assets you have to back you needs to be wagered against the amount of debt you are in, and your willingness to part with those assets. You can't just sell an entire government.

Re:Stiff the creditors

[Seven Spirals]

Like the fucking cops pensions. My dad wasn't stupid enough to fall for that one. Neither am I.

How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[FeelGood314]

Democracy is the best way for people to remove a government peacefully. I do realize that in the USA that's generally not possible, American's can only vote for "the other lizard", you can't actually remove both. However, in almost every other place in the world such gross mismanagement of the economy would lead to at least a viable opposition being created. What is so special about the USA when their government (i.e. congress) regularly has support in the low teens. The government of Syria has more support and they have to use violent suppression to stay in power.

I've lived in the USA both in the Bay area and in a wealthy part of black Decatur Georgia. I like Americans. I really don't understand their support for their government.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is so special about the USA when their government (i.e. congress) regularly has support in the low teens.

We don't get to vote for "Congress" we get to vote for one Senator and one Representative (2 out of the 535 Congressthingies). "Congress" has low approval ratings, but when you filter that to "my Senator" and "my Representative" the approval ratings are usually pretty high.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Solandri]

"The government" is the one responsible for the horrid state of the power grid in Puerto Rico, both structurally and financially. The power company is publicly owned (i.e. government controlled) and they prohibit anyone else from selling power.

Any time you create a situation like that, there's a risk the people managing the utility will become complacent about doing their jobs or in some cases simply not doing their jobs, because there's no way for them to lose their jobs. There's nothing wrong with government-owned utilities and programs so long as you're careful to monitor for and stomp out such complacency. But if you fail to do so, you wind up with a sub-par infrastructure which costs far more to operate than it should.

That's the thing most people don't seem to get about the public/private debate. It isn't that public ownership is always better than private ownership, or private is always better than public. It's that sometimes public is better than private, and sometimes private is better than public. Depending on the problems you're experiencing, it can be beneficial to make a publicly-owned company private. Or make a privately-owned company public. The key is to take the right action depending on the exact circumstances which are causing problems. Both have their advantages, and both have their failure modes.

Unfortunately, we've developed philosophies where people think public ownership is always superior, or private is always superior. Meaning the people will keep voting for the very people who caused the situation they're suffering with, and the problem never gets fixed. That's the Achilles heel of democracy - it relies on the public being informed to function properly. A deceived public can steer a democracy straight into the ground (or in this case, into bankruptcy).

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you were deported.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Every nation in the EU, except possibly the UK (while it's still a part of the EU), Germany, and France are in similar shambles as PR.

This is human nature and it's exactly why the United States federal government is a Republic and not a Democracy. It's also why the original founders strongly pushed against the idea of establishing political parties -- it creates the problem of voting for the lesser of two lizards.

The problem with Democracy is that it generally warps into a form of socialism over time as politicians figure out that's the easiest way to achieve or maintain power. Promise the lesser beings the fruit's of someone else's labor (directly or indirectly), and also promise to fix all of the problems (as I suspect local politicians to PR have suggested with this power station). Then do the bare minimum without actually fixing problems because, generally, the politicians are simply not smart enough to do it or, worse, they do not care to do it because there is no accountability for politicians (particularly if they're media darlings).

For the US, the problem is that even at the federal level the two parties have become entrenched to the point that we, the electorate, only have the opportunity to [seriously] elect one of two lizards. This is something that I do believe that the US could learn from the EU: if we're not willing to disband parties or take party affiliation off of the ballot (making it harder for uninformed people to vote automatically without knowing anything other than find the "D" or "R"), then we should go the opposite direction and add parties.

I'm actually excited to see the "Green Party" and "Tea Party" grow across the US (frankly, ignoring their politics altogether). They tend to butt heads with the parties that they were logically spun off from, but they also siphon votes from the larger parties. The current problem is that it's so unlikely for a third party candidate to win a high level position in most states (e.g., even though Bernie is Independent up in Vermont, he caucuses with the Democrats and everyone knows that he does that because the Democrats are not socialist enough), that most people continue to vote automatically for candidates that are more likely to win, but whom they agree with less.

If I were in a position to make anything happen, like a state such as California where it's relatively easy to get voter initiatives onto the ballot, I would push toward ripping party affiliation from the ballot. I think that that would unlock the multi-party system much sooner than it could naturally form on its own.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[be951]

Two senators. Every state has two senators. You don't get to vote for them both at the same time, because they are elected (overall) 1/3 at a time due to their 6 year terms. But every district in the states is represented by one House member and two Senators.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Bryansix]

The part of Syria that the government has to suppress wants to get rid of the government, install a theocracy, and run Syria like Iran 2.0 so it's not really compatible with reality.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

What is so special about the USA when their government (i.e. congress) regularly has support in the low teens

While Congress as a whole has support in the low teens, the support that each congressperson has from their constituentsis actually quite high. How much of that is because of delusion is a valid question, but there's no consent each individual congressperson has the consent of the governed.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Nidi62]

Have you ever met any Puerto Ricans? As I speak the apartment next door is filled with a bunch of college age Puerto Ricans who should be in school or the military, but are instead smoking weed and playing video games. Not a particularly resourceful or high achieving culture. It's not a surprise their island is a shithole.

And as I speak, there are plenty of college/military age white males sitting around smoking weed and cooking meth in the rural Appalachian town my grandparents live in. Not sure what your point is besides being racist.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Uberbah]

This is human nature and it's exactly why the United States federal government is a Republic and not a Democracy.

No. It's a republic because the hallowed "Founders" were a bunch of elitist pricks who didn't want the proles to have a say in their own governance. They were afraid of "the mob" not because working for a living makes you stupid, but because landed gentry would see their votes count just as much as an indentured servant, sharecropper or (gasp!) slave.

The problem with Democracy is that it generally warps into a form of socialism over time as politicians figure out that's the easiest way to achieve or maintain power.

This talking point is stupid on it's face. All states in the U.S. have democratic elections for their representatives and governors - no state has an Electoral College to toss out the results of an election because the elites didn't like the result. Yet your talking point doesn't happen in even the most liberal of states, New York and California.

Then do the bare minimum without actually fixing problems because, generally, the politicians are simply not smart enough to do it or, worse, they do not care to do it because there is no accountability for politicians (particularly if they're media darlings).

You and the other Randians are ignoring the elephant in the room here: Puerto Rico has no control over their currency at all, and little control over their economy and trade. For that, you'd have to look to the President of the United States and members of Congress.

All of whom which were selected with your precious republicanism, and none of whom Puerto Rican's get to vote for.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

no state has an Electoral College to toss out the results of an election because the elites didn't like the result.

You have no idea what the electoral college is, do you?

Re: How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The government" is the one responsible for the horrid state of the power grid in Puerto Rico, both structurally and financially.

Really? How? Because I note your philosophical meanderings have no particular set of facts or details to them, you are just randomly offering a treatise with no relevant applicability to it.

Do you remember there was a hurricane, and since then, well, the president tossed a roll of paper towels around before going back to his golf game.

And they didn't even vote for him.

But I guess something like that would never intrude on your pontificating ramblings.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[rbrander]

Yeah, every state. Not every 3.5 million people. Every 3.5 million people get one Senator on the average, because there are 100 of them for 350 million.
But the 3.2 million people of Puerto Rico don't get one senator; whereas the 3.2 million people of Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska and the two Dakotas get ten of them!
And that would be the heart of Puerto Rico's real problem.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[FeelGood314]

Ah, thank you. That does make sense. That would also explain what other wise would be really bizarre budget spending requirements. If most Americans approve of that arrangement then I'm not going to criticize.

Re: How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[crunchygranola]

Do you remember there was a hurricane, and since then, well, the president tossed a roll of paper towels around before going back to his golf game.

Ah, you forgot how he graded himself on his effort to aid Puerto Rico 10 out of 10.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This talking point is stupid on it's face. All states in the U.S. have democratic elections for their representatives and governors - no state has an Electoral College to toss out the results of an election because the elites didn't like the result.

First, you clearly have no grasp of the Electoral College beyond what you've read since Hillary lost. It only impacts the Executive branch, which leaves the counter-balances of the Judicial and Legislative branches to counter it. Congress does an admittedly poor job here, but this mostly boils down to party politics.

Let's think back to the run-up to the election where one of the largest surprise wins from Trump was Wisconsin. Wisconsin, a state carried by Democrats since after Nixon (with the exception of Reagan), should have their vote completely ignored in your view simply because the population of California voted overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary -- literally the vote difference (8,753,788 - 4,483,810 = 4,269,978) in California of pro-Trump (4,483,810) versus pro-Hillary (8,753,788) was 49% greater than the difference of the entire popular vote across the nation (65,853,514 - 62,984,828 = 2,868,686). Oh, and since you are so inclined to be anti-Electoral College because it is pro-elites, imagine for a moment that while you dream of a world without the Electoral College, you silence the Wisconsin voters where Hillary did not even bother to visit during the general election.

By your view, one state and thus one completely isolated mindset should outweigh that of the entire union. And that's why you are literally what the founders were worried about. A voter that believes that they are informed enough to understand, but instead fumes about some reasons that their candidate lost, thus declaring it unfair. It is wholly ironic that you complain of it being there to help elitists when it was literally used to block one.

The Electoral College did exactly what it was designed to do even without all of your crutch-reasons for its existence removed. There are no more indentured servants, sharecroppers, or slaves (which, as a reminder (right?), were used by the slave owner to get extra votes because slaves could not vote...). It protected the executive branch from effectively being selected by a single state and -- surprise, surprise -- that is mathematically exactly what happened.

Yet your talking point doesn't happen in even the most liberal of states, New York and California.

You mean the epicenters of socialist politicians? I honestly thought they'd be obvious thoughts ... but I guess not. NYC's mayor a socialist, as-is the governor of California. Those two states represent the largest state-wide democracies in the US, outside of Texas, with absolutely massive economies that are consistently failing to support the socialist agenda of their political leaders.

All of whom which were selected with your precious republicanism

Uh, except the people in Congress are 100% elected by popular vote.

and none of whom Puerto Rican's get to vote for.

Puerto Rico has, in the past, rejected becoming a state themselves. It's only now that their providence is completely broke and broken that they are motivated to seek statehood. Let's not pretend that that's the US' fault outside of the housing meltdown that the US helped to create.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

People keep conflating this all the time and do not understand this at all, our civics knowledge in the US is atrocious (not you Uberbah)

A Republic, or Republican form of government means that the affairs of the country are OF A PUBLIC matter. That is the very definition of a a republic. The opposite is that the affaiirs of governance is handled by private parties (kings, rulers, as the country is THEIR property).

For a republic (of public matter) to work it requires participation of the public. Given that, we use what is called representative democracy (versus direct democracy) to elect leaders. A republic can not function if we don't function as a democracy. For the uninformed, a democracy is basically a structure where citizens participate directly or indirectly.

So for the US to work as a republic, we vote ... democratically by the way (as in a representative democracy) for our leadership to handle the affairs in a public matter.

The fact that people continue to say "we are not a democracy" .... then why the hell do we vote then? For us to be NOT a democracy, our rights to vote in this country at local, county, state and federal levels should disappear completely. Then we are not a democracy. Until then, we are a DEMOCRACY, because a republic can not function at all if the citizens can't participate democratically.

Captcha: founders

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Uberbah]

You have no idea what the electoral college is, do you?

Do you? Which states do you think have EC's to select who their governors are during election years?

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you get too focused on ranting about the usage of Republic in the GP post, here's the Oxford dictionary definition:

A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

versus the definition of democracy:

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

A Republic is partially a Democracy due to its elected nature, where as a Democracy is not necessarily a Republic because everyone is elected by the entire popular vote. Calling the US a Republic, at the federal level, is therefore accurate. It would be more accurate to call it a "Democratic Republic" because that covers both the Legislative branch and Executive branch. Pretending that you don't vote in a pure Republic is illogical, as well as the word-twisting to pretend that people only vote in a pure Democracy.

More to the point, there is some sway in the Electoral College -- depending on the state -- that allows some Electoral College voters to vote separately from how they were effectively told to vote. That's far from being Democratic. Nonetheless, ignoring those extremely rare exceptions, it is a Democracy, but the results are not based solely on the national popular vote, which is clearly the essence of the meaning of "we are not a democracy". Arguing otherwise is arguing semantics at best.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[bws111]

Your knowledge of civics, in a word, sucks. The electoral college exists because we are The United STATES of America. States, and their will, matter. Because the states matter, we give them some power, in this case it is the power to choose the executive. The people choose the Congress, the States choose the president. The method by which the states choose the executive is by the Electoral College. Each state gets a number of votes equivalent to its representation in Congress.

The manner used by each state to determine how it will vote is up to the state. Most states use a simple popular vote - whoever gets the most votes in the state gets the states votes. Some states use a proportional votes - it's votes are divided by the ratio of votes in the state.

None of it has to do with 'elitists undoing the vote'. And none of it applies to how a state chooses it's governor.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty sure being racist was his entire point

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Again, it's not the most Americans approve of the arrangement or the system. It's just most Americans approve of the part that they consider within their control*, and don't see a way of changing it. I'm not sure if there is a way to change it that won't result in a shooting war.

(*Not including presidential results, where at least half the country is constantly pissed. More than that now.)

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your knowledge of civics, in a word, sucks.

Nope, it's spot-on.

The electoral college exists because we are The United STATES of America. States, and their will, matter. Because the states matter, we give them some power, in this case it is the power to choose the executive. The people choose the Congress, the States choose the president. The method by which the states choose the executive is by the Electoral College. Each state gets a number of votes equivalent to its representation in Congress.

So in all your babble, did you bother to pay attention to how you're just emphasizing what point Uberbah was making regarding the the "founders" and their implementation of an Electoral College.

The manner used by each state to determine how it will vote is up to the state.

Actually, it's up to the state legislature. Slight difference, but the root of the problem. Especially consider the documented examples of state legislatures being non-representative and heavily gerrymandered.

Most states use a simple popular vote - whoever gets the most votes in the state gets the states votes.

As in all of them, with two minor exceptions that almost never apply, in the states of Maine and Nebraska, which technically allot house member districts separately, which has happened almost never anyway and never decisively at that.

Of course, all that would do is emphasize the gerrymandering in House districts, so it's not actually more legitimate, but less so.

Some states use a proportional votes - it's votes are divided by the ratio of votes in the state.

Zero states do that. You are wrong. Don't believe me? Name one state that does.

None of it has to do with 'elitists undoing the vote'.

Which just tells us you don't know how the Electoral College was framed then.

And none of it applies to how a state chooses it's governor.

So Uberbah is right again. Gee, how much effort did you put into proving him right?

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This talking point is stupid on it's face. All states in the U.S. have democratic elections for their representatives and governors - no state has an Electoral College to toss out the results of an election because the elites didn't like the result.

First, you clearly have no grasp of the Electoral College beyond what you've read since Hillary lost. It only impacts the Executive branch, which leaves the counter-balances of the Judicial and Legislative branches to counter it.

Clearly Uberbah does grasp that the Electoral College does apply solely to the Executive Branch, and contrary to your assertions, he's on record as opposing it before this election, let alone the losses. Many of us are, actually, we're quite informed as to how flawed it is.

Congress does an admittedly poor job here, but this mostly boils down to party politics.

Sadly, no, it's not even just party politics.

Let's think back to the run-up to the election where one of the largest surprise wins from Trump was Wisconsin.

That wasn't a surprise at all. What was worrisome was that despite 12 years passing, Trump under-performed compared t to 2004. Or even 2012. That's right, in 2012, even Mitt Romney got more votes than Trump. Where did 200,000 voters go?

Wisconsin, a state carried by Democrats since after Nixon (with the exception of Reagan), should have their vote completely ignored in your view simply because the population of California voted overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary -- literally the vote difference (8,753,788 - 4,483,810 = 4,269,978) in California of pro-Trump (4,483,810) versus pro-Hillary (8,753,788) was 49% greater than the difference of the entire popular vote across the nation (65,853,514 - 62,984,828 = 2,868,686). Oh, and since you are so inclined to be anti-Electoral College because it is pro-elites, imagine for a moment that while you dream of a world without the Electoral College, you silence the Wisconsin voters where Hillary did not even bother to visit during the general election.

So instead, you silence the California voters, you know, the ones that Trump has resoundingly condemned at numerous instances, and makes flawed representations that they are somehow illegal voters, criminals as it were, without even a scintilla of evidence. All so 2.5 million people in Wisconsin, with a margin of less than 30,000, can be treated as if they were giving their all towards the Great Trump, and his phony and phantom landslide.

By your view, one state and thus one completely isolated mindset should outweigh that of the entire union.

It's actually your view that supports an isolated mindset that should outweigh that of others. See how you're completely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters who did not choose Trump?

And that's why you are literally what the founders were worried about.

Yes, they were also worried about giving women the vote, treating blacks as equals, having the right to shoot Native Americans, and more. They're a bunch of posers.

A voter that believes that they are informed enough to understand, but instead fumes about some reasons that their candidate lost, thus declaring it unfair.

The Electoral College is an unfair mechanism. Even Donald Trump admitted it, when he called for revolution in 2012. Dozens of others have pointed out its flaws, biases, and errors. Just the fact that the size of the House has been fixed has distorted it, but there's also the problem of gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and even low turn-out to consider.

It is wholly ironic that you complain of it being there to help elitists when it was literally used to block one.

Nope, Donald Trump is very much an elitist, notice how

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[kenh]

Exactly what would 2 senators do for Puerto Rico? What would a handful of congressmen add to Puerto Rico's situation?

Local government got Puerto Rico into this mess, more government probably isn't the answer.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mistake is believing that Americans select their government. Sure, we get to vote on candidates. However, strong national party committees control which candidates are put forward in an election. They select the candidates that will help them with not only their agendas, but also in raising funds. And, once elected. they do their jobs well in whoring themselves to lobbyists.

It just occurred to me that our political system is a scam in much the same way Facebook is. Just as Facebook's users are not it's real customers, the people of the U.S. are not the real electorate.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[david_thornley]

More leverage at the Federal Government level could only be good for them. There are some serious anti-PR laws, such as the Jones Act.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[david_thornley]

As far as my utilities go, my water and sewer are provided directly by the city, my electrical and gas and phone connections are regulated monopolies, and my garbage is picked up by private companies hired by the city. All of them work pretty well.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[david_thornley]

The Electoral College exists as a result of a compromise with slave states. Slaves and other unfree persons were counted as 3/5 of a free person in allotting House seats, and if the Presidency was a popular vote the slave state people wouldn't get additional power from their slaves.

The reason given in the Federalist Papers, on the other hand, is so they wouldn't allow anyone like Trump to become President.

Clearly, the EC serves none of its original purposes any more.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason given in the Federalist Papers, on the other hand, is so they wouldn't allow anyone like Trump to become President.

Other way around. The EC is created precisely because it could allow someone like Trump to become president.

The guy didn't have direct popular vote (as the Hillary camp would like to remind you), but he had support from more STATES, which is what Hamilton argued for - the POTUS is supposed to work for the United STATES, so he should be a person who has support from a large number of states, not just a few states with large populations.

Of course, it's still possible to game the system (CPG Grey had some good videos on that, can't link because no youtube here), but that's not what happened with Trump.

There are legitimate criticisms of EC, but that it gave you Trump isn't one of them.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Uberbah]

Hey, thanks AC, that's....pretty much everything I would have said. I owe you a beer.

Actually, the Electoral College has no design mechanism whatsoever, it merely acted by happenstance, as it has before, in four instances on record.

The only thing I'll add is how sad it is that voters are willing to be propagandized to. Democrats wont shut up about Russia, when they could be using all that energy to try and repeal the Electoral College, as they may have had a full quarter of a century control over the White House without it. Instead of Bush and Trump, we could have had Gore and Hillary.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[Uberbah]

Other way around. The EC is created precisely because it could allow someone like Trump to become president.

Hardly. You really think elites want a hotheaded failed businessman at the top of government? Hillary was their plan, which is why the entire media and political establishment has kept up the farce that is Russiagate to remind him who's boss. The EC isn't about getting people like Trump in the White House, it's about keeping people like Eugene Debs if he had managed to get a majority vote in any of his presidential campaigns.

The guy didn't have direct popular vote (as the Hillary camp would like to remind you), but he had support from more STATES, which is what Hamilton argued for - the POTUS is supposed to work for the United STATES, so he should be a person who has support from a large number of states, not just a few states with large populations.

You keep harping on this imaginary distinction. Let me guess - you're one of those people who complains that senators no longer represent the states that they are from after the 17th Amendment made them elected by popular vote instead of state legislatures. Except that's a pointless tautology that doesn't actually mean anything, as senators are selected by, you know, a state's voters. Repeal the EC and presidential elections would be conducted by each state, just as they are now.

And all a state is, is a boundary and the people who live there. The EC, aside from being another tool to give power to slave owning states that denied slaves the right to vote, disenfranchises millions of people in states across the country by making their vote pointless.

And the EC makes most of your precious states irrelevant in presidential campaigns. Large states don't matter. Small states don't matter. Only "battleground" states matter when candidates are campaigning for office. So instead of making this about 50 states, you're making this about the same dozen states that decide every presidential election every four years. Without the electoral college, Hillary would have campaigned in Texas and Trump would have campaigned in California, unless you replaced the EC with another asinine winner-takes-all-system. So if you want states to be important in presidential elections, you want to end the electoral college, not perpetuate it.

There's also the fact that electors are free to ignore the vote in their state and select whoever they want as president. So, yeah, the entire institution is an elitist construction to provide the illusion of representative government, and keep the proles from having a say in their own governance. Like I said the first time. Same reason women, slaves, and non-property owners couldn't vote, and why senators were selected by state legislatures instead of voters.

Re:How did the people of Puerto Rico allow this?

[david_thornley]

As I said, the reason given in the Federalist papers was that it wouldn't allow Trump to be President. (Okay, they didn't use his name, but the description was pretty much on.) I think it's Federalist 68. You go read that and find out I'm right and you were wrong in your response to what I said. You're clearly referring to other arguments that I haven't seen documentation on.

Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same place that sent away the crews that had started rebuilding the infrastructure after the hurricane because they suspected cronyism with the Trump Administration?

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Nidi62]

Is this the same place that sent away the crews that had started rebuilding the infrastructure after the hurricane because they suspected cronyism with the Trump Administration?

Because a company with an employee count that can totaled on the hand of a drunk carpenter is the best possible choice to rebuild the power infrastructure of a whole island. Not to mention the contract prevented the PR government from auditing the contract and that the company was charging over $300 per hour for each worker.... Their contract was bigger than the one for the Army Corp of Engineers! That whole situation smelled worse than, well, a San Juan fish market after a few weeks of no refrigeration.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Attila Dimedici]

Of course, sending them away worked out SO well for Puerto Rico.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but lots of stuff smells bad but tastes good.

They were actually getting things done.

PR has turned into a shitshow so people in the contiguous states can point fingers and pat themselves on the back.

Great job, everyone.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see ... the power company is $9B in debt, hasn't been paying bills, and just lost most of their income. To say that doing business with them is risky is to put it mildly. Let's be generous and figure the odds are 50/50 that you get paid. That, in itself, just doubled the cost. Also, assume they're going to pay late, like more than a year late. So, you have to float salary for a year, on borrowed money. High risk borrowed money. That's expensive. Assume 15%, because the lender is also aware that the odds of not getting paid are pretty damn high. So 30% in interest moves that 150/hr down to 115/hr. Now, you can't just hire linemen, and you don't keep them on salary. There is some passthrough cost. Let's call it ow at 5%. So we're at $110/hr.

Linemen make something on the order of $40/hr on straight time, but this is going to be overtime, a lot of overtime. Let's assume $50/hr. Medicare and SS are matched byt he employer, so add 6% for unemployment, 6% for social security, 2% for medicare, workman's comp is high at 4% because it's dangerous work, and get $60/hr. These guys are traveling, so they get per diem and lodging. $200/day, assuming 10 hours of work a day, pushed that hourly from $60 to $80/hr. 6% 401K matching is another $3, and health insurance is another $400/month, which is $200/day or $20/hr. Adding those in, we've got $103/hr

That contract was let for a $7/hr profit, with a huge risk of losing the company. Seems a bit sketchy to me that it was only $300/hr.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than wasting the money on corruption.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Uberbah]

Of course, because that was the ONLY power company in the entire world that could come and work on the island.

/inserteyerollemoji

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Nidi62]

PR has turned into a shitshow so people in the contiguous states can point fingers and pat themselves on the back.

It's hard to figure out what's going on down there. For example, the significant under reporting of hurricane-relate deaths (that requires government complicity) makes no sense. I assume it's to keep the local officials from looking bad and losing their jobs, but the locals are still going to know the government is lying when grandma died but the government reports zero deaths and, if anything, you would want to over report deaths as that would make the situation look worse and therefore more worthy of aid and rebuilding dollars.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they were the only company that met the bid requirements.
They offered to house and supply their own contractors, to supply their own equipment, and to supply their own transportation.

Every other company wanted housing, equipment, and/or transportation to and from the island.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange that Hawaii isn't a shitshow...maybe it's because Hawaii isn't filled with Puerto Ricans!

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[HornWumpus]

And payment upfront. When they were kicked out, they were in the process of stopping work as they hadn't been paid anyhow.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[haruchai]

Of course, sending them away worked out SO well for Puerto Rico.

Letting them try to fix anything probably would have been worse.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitching about potential cronyisim while you're sitting in the dark just proves you are an idiot.

Fix the power first. THEN bitch about the pedantic shit.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[HiThere]

How about "Hawaii isn't in the normal path of Hurricanes" or "Hawaii doesn't have it's trade with the rest of the world restricted"?

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[HiThere]

So your recommendation is to let a bunch of con-men take your last resources on promises they can't deliver on?

It wasn't just cronyism, though that was pretty blatant, but it was also incompetence. They *couldn't* have delivered on their promises, but they could have charged a fortune to try.

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[will_die]

Thanks for proving you are a mindless tool parroting what your read from hate sites.
have you looked at the new contract they were are pushing through now? Also look at the size of the other electrical companies and the number of employees they have that are full time or hired for a specific job; how do those numbers compare?

Re:Didn't they send away help????

[Nidi62]

First time I've heard of wikipedia being referred to as a "hate site". Are you one of those "alternative facts" people where anything that goes against what you believe is "fake news"?

grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

So 20th century. Grids beget waste in the most favorable of conditions, let alone those that naturally lend themselves to other formats, such as an island. For that $9 billion in debt, they could all have unlimited renewable energy. Let's do the math.

In my household of 7, I have enough power from my solar+wind combo to suit all of my needs. It isn't even a thermally efficient structure. It has no insulation. But we do not waste. Our system cost $1500, including batteries, charge controller, solar, wind turbine, and dummy load. I did get some very good deals on ebay, but let's assume that the negotiating power of a state government, and the optics of good will towards the island, are enough to get them equally as good of a deal, if not better.

There are about 3.5 million people. I couldn't find any data on number of households but let's just say 2 million. 9 billion divided by 2 million is $4,500 per household. It only cost me $1500, and I have unlimited free power forever (or until some components break and I have to repair them)...

So why the fuck grid? Stop being stupid people. It costs tons of money and materials to dig up poles and transformers and all that junk when it's totally unnecessary.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[bws111]

How well do you suppose your solar+wind combo would have held up in a hurricane? How about 2 hurricanes? Do you really think you are going to get those el-cheapo deals when every house on the island has to simultaneously replace their system due to hurricane damage? I am sure you would have no problem finding enough solar/wind installers to install 2 million systems. Should be no problem. What a great idea!

Re:grid, always with the grid

[bobbied]

Renewables are nice, but not a real solution for the individual household consumer and don't remove the need for a power grid.

If you have solar, you need batteries to get you though the night and cloudy days, plus additional generation capacity to charge all these batteries. Windmills are a bit better, but individuals would have a hard time building and maintaining enough capacity to keep the lights on when it's calm so you'd likely need to share capacity with your neighbors, meaning you need transmission lines.

The issue PR has is power distribution infrastructure, not generation capacity. Adding a raft of solar panels everywhere doesn't fix the infrastructure problem. You are still going to need a power grid.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Bryansix]

You might not need a grid in the traditional sense in the future but you would want a microgrid. https://www.energy.gov/article...
The reason is that if a component in your household breaks, the system could switch automatically to the microgrid that your neighborhood shares and draw power off of that until you can get your distributed generation fixed. In addition, if you produce more than your battery bank can store, you can sell the power into the microgrid.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

How well do you suppose your solar+wind combo would have held up in a hurricane?

They are designed to break a specific way in high winds, the blades break off. The blades are injection-molded plastic that cost pennies each to produce (though they sell packs for tens of $ retail)...

Installers? It requires a pole mounted to the side of the house and some ubolts. Swedish furniture comes with more complicated instructions...

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you see, you're lying. Unless you can provide me with the link where I can buy solar + wind + batteries + rectifiers for $1500, I don't believe you. You'd be hard pressed to find that for $15000, even after all the rebates/credits/whatever other incentive you can think of. Maybe if it "fell off a truck", but even then, doubtful.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[HornWumpus]

What? Seriously WTF?

Modern _economic_ wind turbines are huge, they feather the blades and stop when the wind gets too high.

Putting a model airplane propeller and a tiny generator on your roof is useless, unless you're pursuing a hippy chick.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[bws111]

Hurricanes are not 'high winds'. Have you ever actually seen hurricane damage? Do you really think your 'pole with some u-bolts' is still going to be there when the structure it is attached to is gone?

Re:grid, always with the grid

[tomhath]

But the microgrids will still be interconnected, so you still have a grid.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

In my household of 7, I have enough power from my solar+wind combo to suit all of my needs.

Had you been located in Puerto Rico, your wind and solar sources would be destroyed. Math isn't gonna help.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

The blades still need to be replaced, and the blades represent a large portion of the cost of the unit. If you don't have any in store, you are out of luck. Here is a clip of the damage in PR just after the storm. This farm is still not functioning. Solar is a complete loss. At least parts of those wind turbines and the towers stayed pretty well intact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AAHJs-j3uw

Nuclear plants hold up well in these types of storms, typically suffering only negligible damage to out-buildings.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

If you have solar, you need batteries to get you though the night and cloudy days, plus additional generation capacity to charge all these batteries. Windmills are a bit better, but individuals would have a hard time building and maintaining enough capacity to keep the lights on when it's calm so you'd likely need to share capacity with your neighbors, meaning you need transmission lines.

Just retrofit the local water tower with a lower tank and a turbine to act as the neighborhood's battery for wind and solar power, or build a new one if necessary. If pumped storage is good enough for nuclear, it's good enough for renewables. With very low maintenance it would be usable for centuries at least.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[bws111]

The purpose of the local water tower is to generate enough pressure to distribute the water properly. If you stick a turbine in there you are taking away the main benefit of having the tower in the first place.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[HornWumpus]

Just how much power do you think is stored in 20,000 gallons, 100 feet up?

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Bryansix]

In the near-term, yes. In the longer term like 100 years from now, I suspect most microgrids will operate with no interconnection the main grid or only a tenuous one with a very small ability to draw current usually just to make up in dips in renewable generation or losing a large portion of a battery array.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Mr D from 63]

Just retrofit the local water tower with a lower tank and a turbine to act as the neighborhood's battery for wind and solar power,

Methinks you WAY overestimate the amount of power that can be generated from a windmill mounted on a water tower. And the assumption that any given water tower is in a place that gets usable winds is one you might want to do a little research on.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Mr D from 63]

^My error, I read your post wrong. I thought you were recommending adding a wind turbine to the water tower. Ignore my other post.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Potential energy is mgh, so (20,000 gallons) * (8 lbs/gal) / (2.2 kg/lb) * (100 ft) * (12 in/ft) / (39.03 in./m) * 9.8 m/s^2 =~ 22 MJ or ~6.1 kWh.

Re: grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a couple u bolts, easy enough to unmount before the hurricane hits. Duh

Re:grid, always with the grid

[bws111]

In other words, useless.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[crunchygranola]

Solar is a complete loss.

The 27 MW San Fermin solar plant in Puerto Rico came through Maria just fine. Ditto the recently built 1100 MW Santa Isabel Wind Farm. Gusts up to 118 MPH were recorded on some parts of the island, but San Fermin was built to withstand 155 MPH, and Santa Isabel Wind Farm was similarly properly engineered for the site.

Solar and wind are how Puerto Rico should be largely powered in the future, with some peaking plants to cover when the output of low.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

No worries

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

See the aforementioned "or build a new one if necessary".

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Mr D from 63]

One of my favorite films.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

Just how much power do you think is stored in 20,000 gallons, 100 feet up?

You mean the average backyard swimming pool? Only small rooftop water towers hold that much - in which case they can act as a battery for the building it's sitting on. Standalone water towers typically have many times that capacity, with the largest holding millions of gallons.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so you live in a household with 7 people. But since your 6 kids are mongoloids they obvioiusly don't consume as much electricity as normal people.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[HiThere]

I don't think the cost figures are correct, but with proper design a solar system should survive a hurricane without problems. OTOH, this wouldn't be a normal roof-top system. I don't know enough about wind power to comment on that, but I believe I've seen designs that were *claimed* to be durable enough to survive hurricanes. I have no idea how efficient they were under low wind conditions.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[kenh]

Go here, scroll down to the picture of the modern wind turbine mast standing without any blades attached and explain to me again how a wind turbine can survive a Category 4 hurricane. While you're there, look for the picture of the devastated solar panel field and tell me again how modern solar panels can survive a Category 4 hurricane.

Wanting something to be true isn't the same as it actually being true.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[david_thornley]

You know, I actually looked up your first Wikipedia cite. It's a potential danger you need to consider when posting.

[The pumped hydro storage in your first cite] consists of a reservoir 110 feet (34 m) deep, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long, and one mile (1.6 km) wide which holds 27 billion US gallons (100 Gl) or 82859 acre-feet of water.

That would be one heck of an impressive water tower.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[HornWumpus]

Read the damn GP post, the twit is talking about injection molded blades.

Just because something feathers and brakes doesn't mean it can stand any wind. You appear to be arguing a point I didn't make.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

That's some impressive flexibility, turning a simple point made on how pumped storage is good enough to backup nuclear generated power to thinking the proposal is to put a few square miles of artificial reservoirs in every neighborhood, in a post talking about water towers.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[david_thornley]

It's a matter of scale. Pumped hydro is useless for a power grid unless it can store a whole lot of energy. Moving 500 tons of water up and down 20m isn't going to be significant compared to the demands of a neighborhood. If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

Moving 500 tons of water up and down 20m isn't going to be significant compared to the demands of a neighborhood.

Or 7500 tons for the largest water towers. But 500 would be significant, unless we're using Manhattan as the definition of a "neighborhood". Pumped storage is a proven idea, used around the world, even to back up nuclear power plants - only new thing would be using a water tower to do it. A storage tower would of course take up more space than a Tesla Powerpack. It would also have its operational use measured in centuries rather than decades.

If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it.

We're still on energy grids built around central power generation from nuclear or coal plants, not decentralized grids using renewables. So we don't have neighborhood sized batteries to speak of yet, using any tech. But they would plug the "baseload power" FUD that is thrown at wind and solar power.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[david_thornley]

Back of the envelope calculation suggests that a ton moving down 20m will release about 400 Kj. That means the 500-ton tower would store about 200 Mj. That's under 60 kilowatt-hours. The average US home runs about 30 Kwh a day, so that's about a day's worth of electricity for two houses. Building a water tower 15 times that size would store a day's worth of electricity for thirty houses. That's assuming 100% efficiency; in actuality, it's about 70-80% efficient, so say 22 houses. That's for a really big water tower. You can tell people to conserve on power, and you can be overconfident and figure it's 8 hours of storage, but that's a really big water tower that won't serve 100 houses with overnight electricity. There may be other problems. It would be fairly expensive to build and maintain, and might be noisy.

As I said, it's a matter of scale. Pumped hydro is not practical for neighborhood storage.

Re:grid, always with the grid

[Uberbah]

I'm talking a backup to maintain "baseload power" level for dark windless days, not acting as a complete replacement in the event of a power outage (a feature also not provided by coal or nuclear power grids). The real limiting factor would be geography, as it would obviously be cheaper (and more provide more power) to build your upper tank on top of a 200m high hill as opposed to a 100m tower. So a better idea for mountainous West Virginia, not so great for flatty-flat-flat Florida.

Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American citizen I could move to Spain as a resident, and still vote in the US presidential election. If I moved to Puerto Rico and became a resident, I could not. How fucked up is thqt?!

Make them a state or let them go already. ENOUGH!!

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[HornWumpus]

If you moved to Spain, you would also still pay US federal taxes.

Citizens of Puerto Rico don't, I'm looking for a mail drop there and to change my legal residence. Being in CA, my vote is guaranteed wasted anyhow.

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Puerto Rico had a referendum on this literally last year. They voted to keep the current political situation. They could have become a full state, but they prefer this because they don't have to pay taxes, but still can count on the US taxpayer to bail them out of their corrupt mess, or so they thought.

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Citizens of Puerto Rico don't [pay US federal taxes]

While they don't pay US taxes, they do pay PR taxes. And, by federal law, PR taxes cannot be lower than US taxes (to avoid exactly what you're planning.)

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

No they didn't.

The voted for statehood. It was 97.18% in favor. Effectively unanimous. Most things can't get anywhere close to that level of approval.

Congress needs to approve it though.

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Effectively unanimous.

They fucking boycotted the election; that is why congress is not approving it. To say 97% of the people voted for it when only 20% showed up at the polls is disingenuous in the extreme.

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFLMAO!!!

I love how you're making excuses for your literal outright lie earlier.

They DID vote to be a state. Despite what you claimed. Period. That was the result of the vote. You can lie and twist it however you want, that was the result. And the result was nearly 100% in favor. You will almost NEVER see anything else get as close to unanimous. And let's get something clear while you're playing Dumbfuck. Many votes don't get that many to show up. Yet I'm sure you wouldn't call those results into question. You're just making shit up so you can dump on Puerto Rico. You are literally playing mental retard so you have an excuse to say something.

But let's get to it... What's the next steaming dump you're going to take on the discussion? Not that I'll respond to such an obvious liar again.

Re: Not a state. Not independent.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Horn Wumpus just admitted to being a Republican taker seeking to commit to fraud, but will now rationalize his desire to keep living in California while railing against it.
Randian sanctimony in...

Re:Not a state. Not independent.

[Tablizer]

The island served strategic cold-war purposes, but now that the cold-war is over, they are being thrown under the bus.

America is a third world nation

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the canary in the coal mine. America is a third world nation now. It's only a matter of time before the mainland starts having these problems. I remember a particularly rocky time between 2008 and 2015 when my area had a very difficult time keeping the lights on. A cloudy day in spring could knock out power for days. We can't get over our own problems and power struggles while corrupt politicians fleece the treasury and stack the deck hopelessly against the little guy.

Third world country

[Anonymous Coward]

P.R. is a third world country, with a third world culture. In such places, corruption is the norm, and no matter what fancy new trinkets are bequeathed to the corrupt leaders of government and industry, the lack of maintenance will eventually turn them to garbage. Unfortunately, this third world country is part of the US.

Also Flint, MI still doesn't have clean water

[rsilvergun]

and there are political reasons for both of those things.

Re:Also Flint, MI still doesn't have clean water

[tomhath]

political reasons for both

More financial than political. In both cases the utility is short of money because they must provide service even if the customer doesn't pay the bill.

Re:Also Flint, MI still doesn't have clean water

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's political. you tit.

So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[angel'o'sphere]

Well,

instead of answering to the dumb posts I just make a new post, so you can flame me :D

9 billion debts are not peanuts, but for a power company that is nothing!

Puerto Rico has a power production capacity of about 5GW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Building a new power plant costs between 1billion and 2billioin per GW, depending on technology used and other construction hassles: https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...

So much to: "corruption", "sozialism", "state owned", "burning tax money" ...

The numbers above btw. do not include grid costs. Puerto Rico us burning a lot of oil, hence they have a relatively high power cost.

Re:So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[HornWumpus]

9 billion in general company bonds. I guarantee you they also have debts secured by 110% of their system's current value, which could be much lower than the replacement cost, being based on projected future revenue.

Why would they have paid an unsecured interest rate if they still had equity? That would make no sense.

Re:So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[angel'o'sphere]

I don't know what kind of debts they have.
I only see the $9B and the outrage ...

As they are government owned or more precisely "state owned" their debts are completely irrelevant.

Re:So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[HornWumpus]

Do you know of any company, private of public, that sells unsecured bonds before secured ones?

They don't own a money printing press, their debts are absolutely relevant. Especially as they are currently in the process of being sold to the private market. You can bet they would be worth much more without the debt.

Re:So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[kenh]

Your numbers are "interesting".

The power company has about a million customers, maybe a million and a half (based on a total population of around 3 million residents), the $9BN in debt is to pay for the crappy, inadequate, and completely devastated power grid, they are looking at $17BN to rebuild properly (for example, build a largely hurricane-proof infrastructure), but having burned every electrical contractor firm in the industry who will do the work? who will pay for the $26BN in total debt (old plus new)?

Puerto Rico has no industry, no raw materials, it's greatest wealth came from a tax program that incentivized manufacturing on the island, and when that expired, the economy tanked.

$9 BN in debt could be managed, but customers don't pay their bills and the utility under charges for the electricity it generates.

Re:So many dumb posts about corruption and debts

[angel'o'sphere]

I have no idea about the situation in PR particular.
However I doubt privatizing the power company will change much. (That was the reason for my post)

One part of the problem basically is, that much of the infrastructure that is over ground should be under ground. They should have switched away from oil long ago. To volatile, to expensive, to dirty.

In a sim city world you would switch to renewables as quickly as you can ... does not really matter if you have no power during a hurricane because there is to much wind and no sun, or because your power cables are ripped away and transformers are under water.

Anyway, to be on the safe side you have to burry the cables and make the transformers water proof.

PR is a developing country ... that is the main problem. They don't know or have no plan how to put their resources to an effective use. Same like rest of the US ... well, technically they are not really a part of the US:

No surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in a country where the power company was (and still is) state owned.
Constant blackouts, sometimes a week long, are not unusual.
With no competition there is no real incentive to quickly improve service.
Why do today what you can do tomorrow?
Add to that that these companies are not run by elected official, but instead by friends appointed by elected officials.
So the voter has no impact on how these things are run.

Re:No surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in a country where the power company was (and still is) state owned.

So you grew up in PR?

A test bed opportunity?

[jenningsthecat]

I'm wondering if Puerto Rico might be a good place for some companies to test and showcase new power technologies. If the country's electrical grid is utter crap, then perhaps the fastest way out of the hole is to abandon large parts of it in favour of localized wind and solar capacity, with battery storage and some fossil-fuel generation capability as backup. Maybe even a couple of those dumpster-sized nuclear generators, if they're buried deep enough...

Yes, it will cost money. That could be partially offset by the good publicity and the possible tax write-offs. It's also an opportunity to try out experimental ideas and processes in a place where the people will be a lot more accepting of failures and interruptions, because right now they have nothing to lose. That's worth money in its own right. And much of the work could be done with cheap local labour. The Puerto Rican economy could benefit in three ways - reliable power, local jobs, and technical training that would raise the level of local expertise. I could see Elon Musk taking the lead on this, and perhaps other companies would jump on board as well.

Depending on the electrical grid to power households and small businesses is kind of quaint anyway. Local power generation provides redundancy, avoids single points of failure, reduces transmission losses, and is friendlier to renewable energy. The Grid should power industry, and serve only as a backup for less power-intensive users. Puerto Rico might be a good place to start moving in that direction.

Re:A test bed opportunity?

[thegarbz]

Yes, it will cost money. That could be partially offset by the good publicity and the possible tax write-offs.

The good old "paid for by hopes and dreams approach" I do recall Elon Musk providing solar and battery storage only to get grilled in this very forum for doing so. You're better off trying to crowdfund it all.

Re:A test bed opportunity?

[haruchai]

Yes, it will cost money. That could be partially offset by the good publicity and the possible tax write-offs.

The good old "paid for by hopes and dreams approach" I do recall Elon Musk providing solar and battery storage only to get grilled in this very forum for doing so. You're better off trying to crowdfund it all.

He tweeted a few hours ago that there are over 600 locations in Puerto Rico being powered by Tesla battery packs and hopes to have several hundred more online as soon as possible
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s...

Re:A test bed opportunity?

[thegarbz]

Cool bananas. One company well known for marketing blitzes like this is on board. But unless you can find more companies like Tesla this isn't going to solve the problem.

We're no longer talking about storm damage mitigation, we're talking about complete overhaul of infrastructure. And I do seem to recall that Tesla originally saw these as temporary loans, especially considering that they were setup in all sorts of inconvenient places like car parks, football fields, etc.

You can't really do that

[rsilvergun]

when you're dirt poor in PR. We've been dumping on PR for ages because they lean left.

Re:You can't really do that

[Anonymous Coward]

They lean left how? First off, close to 90% of the island's population identify as some for of Christian. You would think that (since you want to play the left-right paradigm that is completely false as it is in this country) the Right would be all over that as that is your gang's thing.

So how do they lean left? Because they reject some of your ideas and stances? That doesn't mean they lean left at all (despite what you think); that means that your stances can't be validated. It doesn't jive or add up and you (and others) do a very poor job of convincing people (with facts, empirical data, validated data) that your ideas are good, sound and proven.

Re:You can't really do that

[david_thornley]

Hispanics are basically religious conservatives, and they tend to vote Democrat. They simply don't feel like the Republicans are willing to accept them.

They didn't

[rsilvergun]

like most poor States they don't have the resources to build a power grid without help. The same is true for KY, AL, SC and just about the entire South. That's one of the reasons they're a net importer of Federal dollars.

PR's problem is that they're like a state but they're not. They have the disadvantages (paying taxes, military service requirements, etc) but none of the benefits. They've been trying to become a full state for ages but they lean Democrat and the Republicans have been in charge since Reagan (I'm not counting Clinton, he was so right wing he might as well have been a Republican).

Re:They didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Total lies. First of all there is no military service requirement in the United States. Second, they pay no federal taxes. Third, there was just a referendum giving Puerto Ricans the option to become a state. They chose "no".

Re:They didn't

[laie_techie]

like most poor States they don't have the resources to build a power grid without help. The same is true for KY, AL, SC and just about the entire South. That's one of the reasons they're a net importer of Federal dollars.

PR's problem is that they're like a state but they're not. They have the disadvantages (paying taxes, military service requirements, etc) but none of the benefits. They've been trying to become a full state for ages but they lean Democrat and the Republicans have been in charge since Reagan (I'm not counting Clinton, he was so right wing he might as well have been a Republican).

Every few years they vote on a non-binding resolution to determine their political status. Options are status quo (territory), independence, or statehood. In June 2017, 23% of those eligible voted due to a boycott by the PPD party, but 97% of those who voted indicated a desire for statehood. In the previous referendum (2012), 46% indicated they wanted to keep the status quo; if that wasn't an option 61% favored statehood.

Re:They didn't

[dgatwood]

First of all there is no military service requirement in the United States.

I believe the GP meant selective service (registering for the draft). And yes, it is required by law for all males under 35.

Second, they pay no federal taxes.

Now that's just not true at all. Puerto Rico actually pays all federal taxes except for personal income tax and SSI (disability). So they pay:

• Social Security
• Medicare
• Federal income tax on investment income from outside PR
• FICA
• Unemployment tax
• Import and export taxes
• Commodity taxes

And probably others.

Re:They didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that this GP was wrong, but having just paid my taxes and met the maximum for Social Security, I can confidently state that federal income tax is the one that matters; the other ones are just a nuisance in comparison. PR also "benefits" from what those taxes cover in addition to other US resources. Finally, federal income tax on income made outside of PR is inherently income made within the US (or else it would not be taxable), and thus makes sense why it gets covered.

But ignoring the inaccuracy, he was right that PR has consistently voted against becoming a state until the 2012 referendum where they basically voted "why not" after it was widely publicized that their island was massively in debt, which is what they want fixed by becoming the 51st state. I suspect once they realize that they'll be adding federal income tax to their paychecks, they'll decidedly vote against it.

Re:They didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

But, as the Wikipedia page notes for the 2017 results, the 2012 results were thrown out because no one understood the meaning behind the ~500K blank results.

Also noted in the 2017 portion, it makes it pretty clear why they want to become a state after decades of being against it:

... a right for its government agencies and municipalities to file for bankruptcy[, which] is currently prohibited.

It makes a lot of sense for their government to want it as a get out of jail free card where they can continue bad practice and policy (see this Slashdot story as a continued reference). It makes just as much sense to say "fix your shit" before allowing statehood, so it will be interesting to see what happens. I doubt that El Trumpo wants to allow them in, particularly because it would be an extra set of electoral college votes most likely against him in the next election.

Re: They didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, we actually chose yes.....
Statehood won the referéndum...

https://www.google.com.pr/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-the-question-of-statehood.amp.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2017

http://resultados2017.ceepur.org/Noche_del_Evento_78/index.html#es/default/CONSULTA_DESCOLONIZACION_Resumen.xml

Sadly no one seems to respect our decision.....

oq7ster here just can't login right now. Writing from the iPhone.

Re: They didn't

[oquendo.alfredo]

We voted yes! Read the oficial results here... http://resultados2017.ceepur.o... Statehood won with 97.1 8%

Re:They didn't

[dgatwood]

I agree that this GP was wrong, but having just paid my taxes and met the maximum for Social Security, I can confidently state that federal income tax is the one that matters; the other ones are just a nuisance in comparison.

That's because you're making enough money to meet the maximum for Social Security. Bear in mind that Puerto Rico is extremely poor. Most people make at or near minimum wage. At minimum wage (about $15k per year), after you subtract the $6,350 standard deduction, you're at about $8,650, which puts you in the 10% tax bracket. So you pay $865 in income tax, and that's before the earned income tax credit, child tax credits, etc. Most people in Puerto Rico probably won't pay much, if any income tax even if PR becomes a state.

Medicare and Social Security, however, are a total of 7.65% are on the whole amount, with no deductions, so someone working at minimum wage pays $1,147 in Social Security and Medicare.

In other words, except for the top few percent of people in Puerto Rico, statehood won't make much, if any difference to them financially in the immediate term, but it will eliminate barriers to trade, which over time will greatly benefit everybody there.

Re:They didn't

[kenh]

Statehood loses every time it's on the ballot in Puerto Rico - how exactly are the Republicans influencing the democrat residents to vote against statehood?

Re:They didn't

[kenh]

Registering for the draft isn't the same as serving.

Re:They didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-the-question-of-statehood.html

We did vote yes,,,,, It was not binding...

official results here:

This are the numbers reported the same night of the event
http://resultados2017.ceepur.org/Noche_del_Evento_78/index.html

This are the ones after the recount/scrutiny
http://resultados2017.ceepur.org/Escrutinio_General_79/index.html

I have tried posting this at least 4 times... I hope it works now

What do you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have a power utility that often doesn't pursue customers for non-payment, what do you expect? This is the kind of infrastructure we can all have if we just accept the principles of not having to pay for what you use because "people of color" or some other figment of your imagination.

Could have had it worse....

[Uberbah]

I grew up in a country where the power company was (and still is) state owned.
Constant blackouts, sometimes a week long, are not unusual.

....you could have had a privately owned power plant, and paid 3x the rates for worse service. Assuming they even put a line out to your neighborhood if you were in a sparsely populated area.

I'm Gonna Guess....

[Ferretman]

...then that this didn't happen?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/0...

I certainly haven't heard anything about it since the initial reports.

Ferret

Re: I'm Gonna Guess....

[Anonymous Coward]

He ate to many weed edibles and forgot...

Re:I'm Gonna Guess....

[HornWumpus]

He's prohibited by law from doing anything there until the government monopoly utility is broken up and sold.

Which is just starting, don't hold your breath. There are many politician daughters, nephews etc that will need new no show jobs. That takes time.

Every other power company has already been stiffed

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that they've stolen from damn near every manufacturer and services company in the industry. They're running out of people to steal from.

Puerto Rico is a third world shithole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what's happening in Puerto Rico? They brought this upon themselves with their shiftless lazy, slovenly Latin lifestyle. The ultimate blame here lies with their genes. They should be made an independent country, free to sit at the table of world nations like Pakistan and Zimbabwe.

Rebuilt above ground I bet

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they rebuilt the entire system above ground again didn't they? They, along with the entire US, should follow Germany's footsteps and put all lines underground in the cities/towns. It looks better and I never remember power ever going on while I lived there.

Re:Rebuilt above ground I bet

[ledow]

Most of the UK's power infrastructure is above ground.

They get just the same, if not worse, weather as Germany.

We don't have these problems.

It's not nothing to do with under/overground, it's to do with designing and maintaining the system properly.

Re:Rebuilt above ground I bet

[Anonymous Coward]

well when a hurricane comes through and breaks every pole that holds the lines it's very easy to see that that wouldn't happen if they weren't above ground.

Oh...

[Locke2005]

That explains why Donald Trump was smiling today!

Re:Oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

His "PR assistance program" just sent him a check for $8 billion, and it may be enough to cover his legal fees.

Political Corruption

[hduff]

The people of Puerto Rico have been led by corrupt and useless leaders.
http://politicalvanguard.com/i...

Territory. Not a state.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mom would always say 1 thing.

Shit or get off the pot.

That was her way of saying we should do what we needed to do and not hold anyone else accountable for our failures.

There must be something about being a US Territory that PR likes compared to being a full state.

Irks me every time I see some international contest where PR has their own teams/contestants. If PR wants to be independent, that's fine.

Re:Territory. Not a state.

[HiThere]

It's not their choice. It wasn't ever their choice.

I was in Hawaii back when it was a territory, and it wasn't their option whether they would be a territory or a state. Being a state would have advantages. Being independent would have advantages. Being a territory... the only advantage is passport-free movement between there and the US.

Puerto Rico was a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just give these fellows their Independence and hope for the best.

Go 100% Solar and dump PREPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Has Puerto Rico suffered through one too many power failures? You BET it has!
So, go off-grid with solar.

Solar power can meet 90-100% of your needs [Solar Electric, Air Conditioning,
Heat and Hot Water]. Use the Grid only as a backup for your Solar panels when
it has been cloudy for multiple days. Store Heat or Cold in a large water tank(s)
[water can store much, much more energy/dollar [as heat/cold] than batteries].
Have full electric power during the day and enough electric power at night for
lights and appliances.

Puerto Rico should rebuild by building small neighborhood Solar Power mini-grids.

What I plan for my high power consumption house would be enough to provide
heating, cooling, hot & cold water and electricity for 5-10 small houses or 10
apartments in Puerto Rico.

The cost is $3K per appartment/house in groups of 10 appartments or houses.
[$30,000 total equipment cost, this presumes that people rebuild themselves
like Habitat for Humanity] .

Here is how to do it:

1) A 12kW Solar array sufficient to power:
a. A 36,000 BTU heat pump + heat Exchanger + fans [5kW]
b. 4kW for 40 5W LED Lights, 5 LCD TVs, 5 Laptops, 1 Large or 10 small
Refrigerator/freezers
c. 2kW for High Power appliances [toaster, vacuum, etc.]
d. 1kW for charging batteries for lights at night

2) A 36,000 BTU Heat Pump [water to water or split air to freon]
If you have a nearby lake, use a water to water heat pump instead of an
Air Source heat pump since a water to water heat pump has about twice
the efficiency.

3) A 8'x8'x6' rubber membrane lined box Water Tank with R15[foam-board]
and R50[fibreglass Insulation for storing either Cold Water for cooling or
Hot Water for heating.

NOTE: an 8'x8'x6' Water Tank at [25 degrees F] stores 900,000 BTUs
[18 hours * 5000 BTUs * 10 Apartments for summer cooling.

The same n 8'x8'x6' Water Tank at [165 degrees F] stores 1,650,000
BTUs [33 hours * 5000 BTUs * 10 Apartments for winter heating.

4) Two 120 Gallon stainless steel lined water storage tanks with Freon heat
transfer coils for storing potable domestic hot water for drinking, cooking
and sinks, and non-potable hot water for washing machines, showers and
baths.

5) A 100 Gallon [above ground] Rain Catcher water storage tank with coarse
and fine screens. A 800 Gallon [below ground] water storage tank with
medium fine filter for non-potable water for baths, toilets, washers and
garden. A 800 Gallon [below ground] water storage tank with fine and
ultra fine filters and UV/Ozone sterilizer for potable water for drinking,
cooking and dish washing.

6) Either a Tesla Powerwall 2 [AC or DC] or a 48Volt - 400AmpHour

Just to pay for what was lost

[kenh]

The island only has one electric company, and prior to Maria, it was $9 billion in debt and utilizing outdated infrastructure and equipment.

and

With a population of 3.74 million people, it works out to $2406/person, 8.7%GDP. on a per capita income of ~$20k.

That $2,406/person is only to bail out the power company financially, it doesn't provide one penny for rebuilding the infrastructure to current standards, it simply settles the debt for the craptacular power grid the hurricane wiped out. To "Build Back Better" is estimated to cost an additional $17.6 Billion, which adds another $5K or so per capita...

Re: Territory. Not a state.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still a lot of people in Hawaii today that think they'd be just fine if they separated from the US. What the morons don't realize is that if Hawaii suceded from the union and the military up and left, Russia and/or China would provide free ships and labor to help them pack. Hawaii is a strategically important location and there's no way in hell they could defend themselves.

Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

Puerto Rico should become a state... or an independent nation. It's a redheaded stepchild at the moment.

(apologies to gingers).