Even the harshest Republican governors on the US mainland aren't pushing for the mass firing of govt workers, but the one in Puerto Rico is. Gov Luis Fortuño has already fired 20,000 govt workers, including 7300 school teachers, and plans to fire another 10,000. This is on top of an island economy that leads the nation in unemployment and that shed 41,000 private sector jobs in the past year alone.PR's unemployment rate now stands 17.5% -- again, by far the highest in the US and 2nd only to the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Oh, and the PR rate doesn't account for the under-employed nor for those who have given up hope of employment.
It's likely that 50- 60-70% of the island's workers are NOT gainfully employed—and prospects for such are exceedingly slim given the government’s boneheaded policies.
It's under this scenario that Fortuño's reckless firings, combined w/a military-style crackdown on protestors that's pushing PR over the edge. Though his response is not new...making life so miserable for workers that they migrate to the mainland is a well honed govt. strategy. Seriously, it's the classic San Juan approach to solving labor and economic challenges.
Watch tomorrow's island-wide strike. PR's future may very well depend on what the workers and the govt choose to do.
I didn't know that Geraldo Rivera was Puerto Rican. Congratulations for such a macho that speaks out tough truths. Read on because I mention your "countryman" Geraldo :
ReplyDeleteI watched this story unfold in the National Geographic Channel : a Happy Birthday, Multinational Birthday Party trough the Border Fence. Two worlds apart, and a cake is divided for the guests.
A robust and healthy Super Baby like three years old is in the United States.
Mommy is in Mexico, and they pass the birthday cake pieces, through a small hole in the border fence, with a wire net like what I have used for my hens, chicken and even for my pigs.
The Super Baby is happy healthy sturdy fatty, there are many reports that Latinos in the USA are healthier than the TRUE UNADULTERED PURE Americans. This has been researched by the most serious scientists in Public Health and is not BS ( see my MILENIALS.COM for the Latino Paradox of Public Health and many links of Scientists, this is not blather ! )
Is it that the lower human subspecies are very strong apes ??? ... Like Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimps, Bonobos ??
The Birthday Party is very happy with lots of singing and eating cake and ice cream, but Mommy weeps when she leaves the happy event.
She says that she doesn't want to live in the USA, too many risks in crossing and some tough, rough guys that give the UNWELCOME. She doesn't want to end her life with a bullet inside her head in the loneliness of the desert.
MEXICO LINDO Y QUERIDO is more peaceful ( she is not in the drug wars ), and life walks at a lower pace that in the running race of the USA, the lady says.
Better to sleep a beutiful siesta in Mexico, than meet the Coward Scoundrels, also called Minutemen in the USA.
But things are changing very fast, as fast as cells multiply inside bodies. And as Geraldo Rivera recently said : Latinos are going to transform American Society at the end of the 21 century.
Geraldo was not talking of the Spanish Language replacing the English Language, he is not an idiot like many foolish racists that live a life of Paranoia and Fear. Geraldo is a man of kindness and humanity for all. No need for scapegoats and underdogs, that is for LOSERS and FAILED LIVES.
I hope to get the birthday party in video, so that you can enjoy it, and shed a tear at the end.
More tender and beautiful stories and plenty of material to laugh and weep :
Raciality.com
Vicente Duque