CNE – Centro Para Una Nueva Economía – Center for a New Economy
Non-profit, economic research and policy development organization
Como es de conocimiento general, la ley 7 del 9 de marzo de 2009 requiere que el gobierno de Puerto Rico recorte los gastos operacionales, incluyendo nómina, con cargo al fondo general por la cantidad $2,000 millones durante el año fiscal en curso (2010). Para lograr estos ahorros la ley 7 establece un proceso de tres fases.
Recently released economic data for Puerto Rico present a significantly deteriorating economic picture. The Puerto Rico Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate for the month of July was 16.5%, the highest level in 16 years. If we take into account the unemployed who are not looking for jobs, the so-called discouraged workers, and those who are underemployed, who desire to work full time but can only find part-time work, the island’s unemployment rate would probably approximate 25%.
La Junta de Planificación anunció el viernes pasado que la reducción en el Produto Nacional Bruto para el Año Fiscal 2009 fue de 5.5%. Esa contracción evidentemente fue más profunda de lo que se esperaba. En nuestra opinión esto pone en duda la posibilidad de una recuperación rápida en Puerto Rico.
Recently there has been a lot of talk among U.S. economists about “green shoots” and “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” popular ways of saying that the worst of the current recession is over and growth will probably resume late this year or early 2010. In Puerto Rico, however, economic indicators continue to hover in negative territory.
Here’s an excerpt from our latest report, written by Sergio Marxuach, on the worrying trends regarding Puerto Rico’s public debt. The full report is available here. We have also posted a brief interview, in Spanish, that explains the nuts and bolts of the report.
In 1923 John Maynard Keynes published his Tract on Monetary Reform, which was his first attempt to analyze the monetary instability that plagued the post-World War I world. In classic contrarian fashion, one of Keynes’ conclusions was that central bankers – by shackling tehemselves to the “barbarous relic” of the gold standard – were actually exacerbating monetary problems.
On June 29, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the American Clean Energy and Security Act by the narrow margin of 219 to 212. This comprehensive bill, which now moves on to the Senate, seeks to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, and reduce global warming pollution.
In one of his best-known poems, William Butler Yeats wrote that there are times when things fall apart and the center cannot hold; when the best seem to lack all conviction and the worst run about full of passionate intensity. A pithy summary, perhaps, of the times we are living in Puerto Rico.
