How to make a small fortune on Back Country property
Going down?
Start with a big one. 170 Old Mill Road, purchased new in 2006 for $8.850 million, closed today at $4.9
It's a dry run for their blue state friends' impending defaults
White House calls for more federal aid to help Puerto Rico "restructure" its debts.
The commonwealth, whose residents are U.S. citizens but don't pay federal tax on their local income, has borrowed heavily and has run budget deficits for the past decade. Helping to fuel the borrowing spree: Congress's move to grant Puerto Rico the unusual power to issue bonds that aren't subject to federal, state or local tax.
As a commonwealth, Puerto Rico lacks the legal tools available to U.S. municipalities to restructure their debt through Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. The Obama administration's latest bankruptcy overhaul would give Puerto Rico new powers to restructure debts assumed by the central government that aren't available to U.S. states.
The island has been in recession since 2006 and faces a downward spiral in which migration to the U.S. has accelerated as growth prospects dim. Its population has fallen nearly 5% since 2010 to 3.5 million, a period in which the U.S. overall grew 3%.
Puerto Rico's effort to restructure its debt in the face of dwindling cash has grown in complexity, even as talks with some individual creditor groups have stalled. The commonwealth had offered GDB bondholders a new security backed by petroleum taxes.
Efforts to reassure bondholders have included proposing a local control board to implement a planned fiscal Puerto Rico has said it may run out of cash in November, ahead of the Dec. 1 bond payment, which is guaranteed by the commonwealth government. Organizing a complete exchange of the Puerto Rico's debt as time runs out would be a daunting and unprecedented task, said John Miller, co-head of fixed income at Nuveen Asset Management LLC.
"I'm a little stunned because the critical question is how are they going to have enough cash to get themselves through the year?" he said.
Whatever they come up with, you can be confident that you'll be paying for it.