Puerto Rico was already in trouble after suffering a “lost decade” without economic growth after 2005, leading to a default on its public debt and mass migration from the island. That was before Hurricane Maria.
The tax legislation passed last year gives the financial industry plenty of reasons to celebrate.
Billions knows how to have fun with its depraved, cartoon-y universe of scheming hedge-fund managers and corrupt federal attorneys; it also knows how to dial it back just enough to feel like an authentic parallel to these depraved, cartoon-y times in America.
Puerto Rico has been hit by a triple disaster - Hurricane Maria; outrageous debt owed to vulture hedge funds; racist, colonial indifference by the Trump Administration. Puerto Ricans - on the island, and in the U.S. have called for the lifting of the Jones Act, as it applies to Puerto Rico; canceling the debt; and abolishing PROMESA. Yesterday a solidarity flight of medical and emergency organized by AFL-CIO unions brought needed supplies and aid workers to the island.
It’s somehow fitting that a hedge fund investor who does no investing has now become the spokesman for a president who appears to do very little actual governing. What Scaramucci does very well, however, is promote Scaramucci. The Mooch’s antics make him Trump’s ideal Mini-Me. He’s another empty-hatted showboater, loudly distracting the audience from the pickpockets moving among them.
Why is Trump breaking his promise on carried interest? The White House is full of bankers and hedge fund managers who, over the last decade, have collectively dodged nearly $180 billion in taxes!
After running against Goldman as a candidate, Donald Trump licks the boots of the world's largest investment bank
There's evidence some of it is illegal - and activists agree that Washington's colonial control over the island's economy helped create the crisis. We are urging members of Congress to put the people of Puerto Rico first and oppose H.R. 5278 as currently written, said SEIU 32BJ President Hector Figueroa. We need a real solution and Congress must get back to work immediately to provide a path forward that allows Puerto Rico to negotiate a feasible debt restructuring plan.
It’s not just universities with eating clubs and legacies that are getting into the game. Many public universities are also doing so, in part because state support for education has been cut, but also to compete with richer schools by rapidly increasing their more limited wealth.
Insider jokes, hedge fund titans, financial jargon – creators have all the ingredients of a compelling financial suspense storyline.
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