What has been happening in Puerto Rico

[robkelk]

Was it under Rossello's watch that Puerto Rico essentially went bankrupt, or did that happen before he became Governor?

The problems might be more than a simple change of leadership can fix.

The bankruptcy issue is deeper than that, with several administrations (since the 90’s) piling on debt to keep the illusion that everything was running hunky dory. So we know it will take time to solve, but by forcing a corrupt administration to resign we are, hopefully, sending a message that it won’t be business as usual anymore.

We just crossed the sea of reeds, now the wandering into the desert begins and hopefully it will forge us into better people.

If there is interest, I can try to give a summary of the economic issues facing the island, how they tie with our status as a territory, and how the U.S., sometimes by neglect, sometimes on purpose drove the situation to this point.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that US shipping laws require all goods to go through the mainland first...?

Not quite. If a non-US ship stops at a US port, then it isn't allowed to stop at another US port without going to a non-US port first. Since there's substantially more business on the mainland than there is in any island, that's effectively a "stop at the mainland only" law.

This was quite thoroughly explained (and complained about) after the last hurricane season.