Puerto Rico: The Have Nots and the Have Yachts

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2015

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico could be slipping into an economic “death spiral”, according to its Governor. Ten years of recession have led to deep cuts in services and more are on the way, as the government accepts it can’t pay its massive debts. Unemployment and poverty are spiralling, and younger citizens on this Caribbean island of 3.5 million are leaving in their droves, seeking jobs in New York or Miami. We meet some of them literally as they head to the airport, and meet some of the super-rich Americans coming the other way. Randy and Laura are two new arrivals, taking advantages of newly introduced tax breaks for those earning more than $200,000. Ed Butler looks at the contrasting life-styles of these two worlds, hears from property developers cashing in, and one man who may have lost all his savings investing in the island’s debt. And he examines the curious polarisation that’s developing as thousands of ordinary, working age employees head for the exit.

Produced and presented by Ed Butler

(Photo: Yachts in Palmas Del Mar Marina in Puerto Rico)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast. You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use at BBCWorldservice.com
0:06.8	slash podcasts. Hello and welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service. I'm Ed Butler and this is San Juan Airport on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, where a weekly ritual is underway.
0:27.0	It's one you can see more and more these days, local people packing up and saying a tearful goodbye to their loved ones before
0:34.8	leaving their homeland for good. A lot of feelings, hard feelings and you're going to come back? I don't think so. This is it for good? Yeah. It's
0:49.8	very hard. The exodus is being driven by a steep economic downturn here, but curiously just a short walk
0:57.6	away in the airport's arrival lounge, there's a steady trickle of people heading back the other way.
1:04.0	Wealthy outsiders moving in to this small American colony
1:08.0	and now calling it home.
1:10.0	The weather is good, the cost of living is fabulous, and I get to live on the ocean.
1:15.0	It's pretty compelling work environment, weather environment, it's very laid back.
1:21.0	You know, some people like living on the Caribbean.
1:27.0	This two-way traffic is the subject of my program today.
1:31.0	Why it's happening and the effect it's having on islanders already
1:35.8	suffering after 10 long years of recession. The government on this island has
1:41.2	racked up a staggering 7070 billion worth of debt which it admits it can't
1:47.0	repay and the governor himself has warned of an economic death spiral.
1:53.0	So this is everything you might imagine a Caribbean paradise to look like.
2:02.0	I'm standing on San Juan's public beach, two miles
2:06.6	of gorgeous pristine golden sand. It's a Saturday afternoon and there are dozens of very contented looking tourists and locals
2:16.3	enjoying the sun and the surf.
2:18.8	Storefront development selling you everything you might want from cocktails to local fritters to jet ski tours for the more intrepid.
2:27.0	But just a mile or two inland, it doesn't feel like paradise right now.
	...

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