How US-imposed austerity and privatization schemes are crushing Puerto Rico
Moderate Rebels
Moderate Rebels
4.7 • 673 Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2021
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Norton speaks with Ángel Rodríguez Rivera, president of the Puerto Rican Association of University Professors, about the devastating neoliberal economic policies forced on Puerto Rico.
Washington imposed an unelected fiscal control board, called the junta, to control Puerto Rico's finances. Now it is pushing through so-called "debt restructuring," in law PC1003, that will slash social benefits, defund public universities, and crush working-class people in order to pay off foreign corporate debt vultures.
Meanwhile, the US-imposed privatization of Puerto Rico's electrical grid in a neoliberal public-private partnership has caused chronic blackouts, while executives at LUMA Energy make huge salaries.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, hello, everyone. This is Ben Norton. You are watching or maybe listening to the |
| 0:09.9 | Moderer Rebels podcast. Today, it's just me, my colleague, Max Wendtall couldn't join us. |
| 0:15.4 | But today we are joined by the president of the Puerto Rican Association of University |
| 0:20.5 | Professors, Angel Rodriguez Rivera. |
| 0:23.8 | He is also a professor at the University of Puerto Rico. |
| 0:27.6 | And today we're talking about important protests that have been going on in Puerto Rico. |
| 0:33.3 | They have been not getting much coverage in the English language media, and frankly, very little |
| 0:38.8 | coverage in the Spanish language media as well. |
| 0:41.0 | It's kind of criminal how little coverage these protests have been getting. |
| 0:45.5 | Why are people protesting? |
| 0:47.1 | They're protesting against the imposition of neoliberal policies that will force more austerity |
| 0:53.6 | measures on the Puerto Rican people, |
| 0:55.9 | cut pensions, potentially privatized state institutions, including the public university, |
| 1:01.7 | and will cut wages and overall just make life more and more difficult for average working class |
| 1:09.6 | Puerto Rican. So thanks for joining us, |
| 1:12.3 | Angel. Let's just begin talking about the protests. And specifically, can you talk about, |
| 1:18.3 | I'm going to get up here. There was a really good article that I've been sharing around in the website |
| 1:23.5 | Latino Rebels about this new bill that was just passed by the government in Puerto Rico. |
| 1:29.5 | This is PC 2003, and this is so-called debt restructuring is the way they call it. |
| 1:36.6 | But ironically, many Puerto Rican activists have said that it will increase the debt, |
| 1:40.8 | and it will increase the control that these foreign corporate vultures have, that these |
| 1:47.6 | debt vultures have over Puerto Rico in the name of restructuring. |
... |
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