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From my new column in Taki’s Magazine on Puerto Rico as a test of the current elite consensus that borders and nationalism are the worst things ever:
Puerto Rico: All Banana, No Republic
by Steve Sailer
August 31, 2016Puerto Rico is being allowed to fall apart in order to rig American presidential elections by tipping Florida’s electoral votes to the Democrats. The looting of Puerto Rico’s institutions by the rich and the poor alike is depopulating the island. …
From the perspective of the Hillary Clinton campaign, however, the emptying out of Puerto Rico into Orlando, which is now a “de facto San Juan suburb,” is a feature, not a bug, since it helps tip Florida, the Electoral College’s most important purple state, permanently blue. …
As Hillary recently reminded Puerto Ricans in a speech in the Orlando area:
If you live in Puerto Rico, you can’t vote for your president and Commander-in-Chief, right?… But as an American citizen, if you move to Florida or New York, you can vote for the president and Commander-in-Chief.
Read the whole thing there.
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Krugman and Stiglitz – numerous times – referred to – – – Puerto Rico, as a best practice-example, saying: The EU should act in the case of Greece just like the US does in the case of Puerto Rico.
Krugman, Stiglitz, Soros, Giannis Varoufakis, Thomas Piketty – they all asked the EU to bail out Greece – no matter, what the EU-contracts say.
Thanks Steve Sailer for analyzing logic behind Stiglitz’ and Krugman’s Puerto-Rio-example.
Nobody in Europe understood this, as far as I know. At least nobody argued they way you do.
PS: The former chief of the Greek statistical agency is now accused of having worked against the state of Greece. His crime: Trying to get the numbers right…
From the (british) Observer.
Greek deputy minister for justice Dimitris Papangelopoulos on Thursday criticised a letter sent this week by three EU commissioners, defending a former chief of the Greek statistical agency, who is accused of falsifying data. “The three European officials essentially ask the Greek government to intervene in the independent Greek justice in favour of Mr. Georgiou,” he said in a statement, adding the letter conflicted with EU law.
You have a choice. You can either read this as "KRUGMAN SAYS PUERTO RICO IS BEST!" and snicker at his cluelessness. Or you can ask, best practice example of what?
In discussing Puerto Rico, Krugman has actually mentioned that high labor mobility has a downside. He's brought up the same topic in other contexts since, apparently there's an ongoing debate whether labor mobility would really solve the EUs problems or make them worse.
Basically, Krugman uses Puerto Rico as an example of what happens when currency union is paired with a fiscal union and labor mobility -- economic shocks are buffered by huge automatic transfers and emigration. His point isn't that Puerto Rico is awesome but that Greece's misfortunes are hugely amplified by the Euro straitjacket.Replies: @Dieter Kief
Puerto Ricans are an island people, but on average they prefer inland Orlando over coastal Miami. I wonder why that is? Maybe they’re huge fans of amusement parks.
Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot, which could explain why Crooked Hildabeast is polling ahead of Donald Trump by over 10 percentage points in that state.
I was going to question this, since I now live in Pennsylvania and haven't noticed any Puerto Ricans at all. But then I am originally from New York City and I am just used to a lot bigger Puerto Rican presence.
However, after five minutes of research, it turns out that Pennsylvania has the fourth largest Puerto Rican populatin of any state, numbering 366,092, and I also found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puerto_Ricans_in_Philadelphia. I usually don't get north of Spring Garden, which is where they are concentrated. This is a long established community, according to the Wikipedia article, and I don't think you can fairly give Hillary Clinton the blame or the credit.Replies: @Anonymous, @Brutusale
Ultimately we can all thank busy-body globalist Woodrow Wilson for the Puerto Rican plague; He needed more warm bodies to fight The War to End All Wars, WWI, and Puerto Rico could provide him with those needed bodies. Hence Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917. (I guess it's a personal fantasy of mine for a Pres. Trump to give Puerto Rico its unilateral independence and rid us forever of its high-maintenance populace).Replies: @ATX Hipster, @anon
An old Atlantic article on the PR underclass: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/poverty/othrund.htm
Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot, which could explain why Crooked Hildabeast is polling ahead of Donald Trump by over 10 percentage points in that state.Replies: @Chiron, @Hapalong Cassidy, @eD, @Lucas McCrudy
Miami is Cuban territory.
Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot, which could explain why Crooked Hildabeast is polling ahead of Donald Trump by over 10 percentage points in that state.Replies: @Chiron, @Hapalong Cassidy, @eD, @Lucas McCrudy
Boriquas probably avoid Miami since in is controlled by the Cubans. Cubans unapologetically look down on Puerto Ricans.
So don't laugh at them hard working PR guys.
I know another guy similar. He was bragging to me.... his NYC pension is based on his last three years work. Average was $117,000. He showed me is last yearly pay statements.Replies: @Jefferson
I will say 1 positive thing about these people, Puerto Ricans on average produce better looking women than the Mexicans. I see way more attractive Latina women in Orlando than I do in Los Angeles. Mexicans are one of the ugliest Latinos on average.
True, but I say the most beautiful women in the US are spotted at the Miami International Airport and the University of Florida!
In the late '70s - early '80s, a couple of suburbs north of Boston had growing populations of Puerto Ricans. In fact, every member of my high school's Spanish club was from Puerto Rico. They mostly kept to themselves, except for the time I got jumped and beat by two older PR teens when I was about 13 y/o.
‘…….don’t it make my purple states, don’t it make my purple states….. blue’.
As far as Puerto Rico goes we are shackled to ungrateful corpse. Steve Sailor used this expression at Vdare on May 5, 2000 but referring to Mexico.
_______
Puerto Ricans go to Orlando instead of Miami because:
-The Cuban roosters call the shots in Miami…so why be a minority within the Miami Hispanic world?
-cheaper housing in Orlando
-jobs at Disney and other similar tourist attractions
-but they are low paying jobs so they can work our social welfare system simultaneously…. more easily than illegals because they are US citizens
It should be noted that Puerto Rico’s GDP per capita is relatively very high, double that of Mexico and comparable to Spain and South Korea (from Wikipedia, the exact ranking depends on whether you look at nominal or PPP GDP). It’s HDI is also ‘very high’, 40th in the world. So in general it should be quite a nice place to live.
For some time Vdare has been tracking the Puerto Rico train wreck, quite accurately I might add. So much so even this reader letter from 2002 gets much that is right –http://www.vdare.com/letters/a-reader-rebukes-jacoby
Leading up to the financial crisis I worked at a firm that was evaluating distressed investments in Puerto Rican banks. It was a classic “value trap” and our firm never came close to catching the falling knife. For such a small market though it had considerable bank failures (First Bancorp and Eurobank).
Wall St herd mentality being what it is, at the time the desire by investors was to replicate the “success” of the financial rescue of Doral Bank led by Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and a bunch of hedge funds. That “success” was illusory, Doral eventually collapsed in a scandalous haze of murder, Santeria and fraud, which Bloomberg describes in this article :
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-doral-bank-murder/
I’ve lost track of the Island. A Puerto Rican limo driver I knew would lament the crime and drugs Dominican immigrants brought to the island. (Yeah, Americans know exactly how you feel…)
Americans have to know about This Puerto Rico data point on the % of people in a sht hole country that wishes to come to our country. Pew suggested 40% of Mexicans wish to come here.
Wake up America…..
Trump 2016!!!!!
From ghetto-Ricans to Micky-Ricans in one generation.
Florida stands a big chance of sending the first Puerto Rican from the state to Congress after Darren Soto won his Democratic primary.
“I’m also so proud, con mucho orgullo, (with a lot of pride) that we are continuing on a historic run, one that represents the culmination of over a million Puerto Riqueños and millions of Hispanics here in Central Florida and beyond to be the first Puerto Rican elected from Florida and first Hispanic elected from central Florida,” Soto said at his victory party
The increased Puerto Rican voter turn-out in District Nine should be enough to tip Florida.
Cubans are or fantasize that they are pure Spanish. Pure bloodlines. They consider Puerto Ricans half-breeds (Cher used this ugly word in a song) who are a mix of Spanish, Taino Indian and whatever else. I knew a Puerto Rican guy who was mixed while his wife was pure European. He worked steadily in the NYC Parks Department for 25+ years then retired to Florida with a great package.
So don’t laugh at them hard working PR guys.
I know another guy similar. He was bragging to me…. his NYC pension is based on his last three years work. Average was $117,000. He showed me is last yearly pay statements.
The whatever else is African. Where do you think Puerto Rican actress Rosie Perez for example got her flat nose from.
The average Cuban is not genetically pure Spanish. The genetic ancestry of Cubans has been studied to death. On average they are genetically 20 percent Sub Saharan African and 72 percent European.
“However, among the smaller group of Hispanic voters (43%) who are English-dominant—those who are more proficient in English than Spanish—just 48% back Clinton (41% would vote for Trump).”
Magic language! MAGIC DIRT!
Kinda buried the lede there a bit, Steve. You’ve been mocking the magic dirt theory for so long, yet, here you have a pretty stark example of magic dirt, won’t you say? These aren’t just folks willing to vote for a Republican like Rubio, they’d vote Trump!!
Success is a rare thing and a successful organization, corporation, society etc. really is magic. Not limitless magic but magic nonetheless. Given an opening, people *want* to be a part of success.
Yeah, people can do better under some systems than others. The problem is that culture and genetics are like gravity, and a successful economic system is like an airplane. The airplane requires lots of maintenance and input of energy to keep it flying. You can hand over the controls to a less than brilliant people and they can keep it flying for a while, but eventually it comes crashing back to earth. South Africa is still better off than most other black African countries, but eventually it will turn into Zimbabwe, and then it will be just like the rest of Africa.
Krugman, Stiglitz, Soros, Giannis Varoufakis, Thomas Piketty - they all asked the EU to bail out Greece - no matter, what the EU-contracts say.
Thanks Steve Sailer for analyzing logic behind Stiglitz' and Krugman's Puerto-Rio-example.
Nobody in Europe understood this, as far as I know. At least nobody argued they way you do.
PS: The former chief of the Greek statistical agency is now accused of having worked against the state of Greece. His crime: Trying to get the numbers right...
From the (british) Observer.
Greek deputy minister for justice Dimitris Papangelopoulos on Thursday criticised a letter sent this week by three EU commissioners, defending a former chief of the Greek statistical agency, who is accused of falsifying data. "The three European officials essentially ask the Greek government to intervene in the independent Greek justice in favour of Mr. Georgiou," he said in a statement, adding the letter conflicted with EU law.Replies: @Vinay
“Krugman and Stiglitz – numerous times – referred to – – – Puerto Rico, as a best practice-example, saying: ”
You have a choice. You can either read this as “KRUGMAN SAYS PUERTO RICO IS BEST!” and snicker at his cluelessness. Or you can ask, best practice example of what?
In discussing Puerto Rico, Krugman has actually mentioned that high labor mobility has a downside. He’s brought up the same topic in other contexts since, apparently there’s an ongoing debate whether labor mobility would really solve the EUs problems or make them worse.
Basically, Krugman uses Puerto Rico as an example of what happens when currency union is paired with a fiscal union and labor mobility — economic shocks are buffered by huge automatic transfers and emigration. His point isn’t that Puerto Rico is awesome but that Greece’s misfortunes are hugely amplified by the Euro straitjacket.
There never was a EU straight-jacket applied to Greece.If the paleo-Keynesian "strategy" of Krugman - just throw more money at the greek economy - would have been right - how come countries like Estonia, Latvia, Zypress, Slowakia, Slowenia, Hungary are all doing fairly well - even though there was much (much!) less foreign money flowing into them?One big point is greek corruption, the other is greek anarchism.
Greeks are pretty corrupt by european standards - they're much more corrupt as any of the prospering little nations (position on conspiracy-watch is something like 55). Plus: They just don't like the state so much. There is an appendix of the greek constitution, guaranteeing that the superrich shipowners don't have to pay taxes.
They argue, that - considering the history of Greece, - it's too big of a risk, to pay taxes there, because there is always the danger of an authoritative regime to come into existence.
For them, it's not only their well earned priviledge to pay no taxes - it's their personal reponsibility as Greeks, to do so. And above all: If the EU-regulations would seem be too hard and Greece wanted to leave - it could. But they stay in the EU - and they stay for one simple reason: They're still heavily subsidized by the oh so straight 'n' tough EU. And this will go on for years and years to come.Replies: @Anonymous
Empire – the gift that keeps on giving.
Thank you William McKinley, William Randolph Hearst, and Theodore Roosevelt. You helped turn your yankee republic into the kind of decrepit spanish muddle you railed against in 1898.
Dreary stuff.
I’ll ask again: does economics really work? Supposedly incentives and innovation will have the human race continually improvising and improving their lot into the future until we conquer the cosmos and have total mastery of the universe. You’d think P.R. could easily keep pace with the U.S.
Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot, which could explain why Crooked Hildabeast is polling ahead of Donald Trump by over 10 percentage points in that state.Replies: @Chiron, @Hapalong Cassidy, @eD, @Lucas McCrudy
“Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot”
I was going to question this, since I now live in Pennsylvania and haven’t noticed any Puerto Ricans at all. But then I am originally from New York City and I am just used to a lot bigger Puerto Rican presence.
However, after five minutes of research, it turns out that Pennsylvania has the fourth largest Puerto Rican populatin of any state, numbering 366,092, and I also found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puerto_Ricans_in_Philadelphia. I usually don’t get north of Spring Garden, which is where they are concentrated. This is a long established community, according to the Wikipedia article, and I don’t think you can fairly give Hillary Clinton the blame or the credit.
Elites apparently think an America with the ethnic composition of Mexico or Brazil will still produce the level of economic and social security/safety of the formerly 90% Euro United states, rather than just replicate a Latin country’s…or at least that they will be able to benefit as much or more than they have under our former demographics.
Either way, it’s depressing to consider what the US will be like a generation from now.
They really think a country like China will sit by and let a 3rd world U.S. exist? They won't.
I don't think we'll ever get to a Brazil situation though, it's predicated on everything working perfectly for the next 30 years. No EBT card hacks, no attacks on the infrastructure, Muslim terrorism defeated, no inflation, the stock market expanding forever, etc.
Granted the elites have been able to rig our Greekified economy into looking stronger than it is with a ton load of financial slight of hand tricks but they're running out of them. And when the day comes they can't keep the fiction of a healthy economy along with bread and circuses going. We're finished as a country.
Great piece, excellent comments over there.
Off Topic. Rereading Updike’s Couples for the third time, I think to myself, “God, what a writer! Has to be the most talented wordsmith since Shakespeare. Puts Joyce in the shade.”
Anglo elegies. Isn’t that Updike’s unifying theme (or feeling) in almost all of his books? Steve should write about it.
Steve, have you seen Miranda’s “Hamilton”? It sucks–it’s nothing more than a dumb rap-video version of early America–LOL He ain’t talented.
Puerto Rico produces a lot of top notch catchers as well.
Other than the Molina brothers, I'm drawing a blank.Replies: @EriK
There are lots of Puerto Ricans working at Disney … Haitians, too. The Haitian women work as maids in the resorts; the men work as cooks in the parks’ quick serve restaurants.
Time to give Puerto Rico its independence. 90% of them are black (light to dark skin). Thus their low IQs as evidenced by their test scores.
Jefferson (don’t know his background) and Ben Tzot-Abrit (most likely Jewish) think Puerto Rican women are attractive.
I live in an area that has lots of PRs and they are not an attractive people. The women are black and big.
Jews in New York have high intermarriage rates with PRs (Jewricans) so that explains Abrit’s comments.
Jefferson: I think he just likes blacks.
Geraldo Rivera?Replies: @Alec Leamas, @attilathehen
I was going to question this, since I now live in Pennsylvania and haven't noticed any Puerto Ricans at all. But then I am originally from New York City and I am just used to a lot bigger Puerto Rican presence.
However, after five minutes of research, it turns out that Pennsylvania has the fourth largest Puerto Rican populatin of any state, numbering 366,092, and I also found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puerto_Ricans_in_Philadelphia. I usually don't get north of Spring Garden, which is where they are concentrated. This is a long established community, according to the Wikipedia article, and I don't think you can fairly give Hillary Clinton the blame or the credit.Replies: @Anonymous, @Brutusale
There are more Puerto Ricans in Lancaster County than Amish.
Yes, Updike is great. Also Faulkner.
‘The call of the wild’.
Boricuas also seem to like Pennsylvania a lot, which could explain why Crooked Hildabeast is polling ahead of Donald Trump by over 10 percentage points in that state.Replies: @Chiron, @Hapalong Cassidy, @eD, @Lucas McCrudy
There are loads of Puerto Ricans in southern New England cities like Hartford/Willimantic CT, Lawrence/Springfield/Holyoke MA, Providence RI, etc. and they ain’t here for the scenery or the snowy winters. My theory is they flock to places like PA, NY, CT, MA, RI, etc. because the white altruistic cucks in those states have set up very generous welfare and disability systems versus in their oh-so-beloved island homeland, and secondly for those PRs who want work, the opportunities are somewhat better on the “mainland.”
Ultimately we can all thank busy-body globalist Woodrow Wilson for the Puerto Rican plague; He needed more warm bodies to fight The War to End All Wars, WWI, and Puerto Rico could provide him with those needed bodies. Hence Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917. (I guess it’s a personal fantasy of mine for a Pres. Trump to give Puerto Rico its unilateral independence and rid us forever of its high-maintenance populace).
My condolences for living in New England.Replies: @Chrisnonymous
Almost certainly, the reason why “Puerto Rico’s public schools are amazingly horrible” is that the Puerto Ricans who emigrate to the US are smarter than those who don’t. Paging JayMan!
Miranda’s “Hamilton” is especially hilarious given Hamilton’s opposition to virtually all immigration….
Please see comment 24.
That’s because of the white American taxpayers.
The white elites are delusional and stupid as well.
They really think a country like China will sit by and let a 3rd world U.S. exist? They won’t.
I don’t think we’ll ever get to a Brazil situation though, it’s predicated on everything working perfectly for the next 30 years. No EBT card hacks, no attacks on the infrastructure, Muslim terrorism defeated, no inflation, the stock market expanding forever, etc.
Granted the elites have been able to rig our Greekified economy into looking stronger than it is with a ton load of financial slight of hand tricks but they’re running out of them. And when the day comes they can’t keep the fiction of a healthy economy along with bread and circuses going. We’re finished as a country.
You have a choice. You can either read this as "KRUGMAN SAYS PUERTO RICO IS BEST!" and snicker at his cluelessness. Or you can ask, best practice example of what?
In discussing Puerto Rico, Krugman has actually mentioned that high labor mobility has a downside. He's brought up the same topic in other contexts since, apparently there's an ongoing debate whether labor mobility would really solve the EUs problems or make them worse.
Basically, Krugman uses Puerto Rico as an example of what happens when currency union is paired with a fiscal union and labor mobility -- economic shocks are buffered by huge automatic transfers and emigration. His point isn't that Puerto Rico is awesome but that Greece's misfortunes are hugely amplified by the Euro straitjacket.Replies: @Dieter Kief
Greece is the most subsidised economy in the history of the EU. It’s been c o n s t a n t l y raining Euros on Greece. For years and years – an import-dealer of cars and trucks was (most likely still is) the biggest tax-payer of Greece. – The greek Railroad-Company could not pay the pensions, even if it would spent all the money they took in o n l y for pensions. – – – And so on – ad infinitum.
There never was a EU straight-jacket applied to Greece.
If the paleo-Keynesian “strategy” of Krugman – just throw more money at the greek economy – would have been right – how come countries like Estonia, Latvia, Zypress, Slowakia, Slowenia, Hungary are all doing fairly well – even though there was much (much!) less foreign money flowing into them?
One big point is greek corruption, the other is greek anarchism.
Greeks are pretty corrupt by european standards – they’re much more corrupt as any of the prospering little nations (position on conspiracy-watch is something like 55).
Plus: They just don’t like the state so much. There is an appendix of the greek constitution, guaranteeing that the superrich shipowners don’t have to pay taxes.
They argue, that – considering the history of Greece, – it’s too big of a risk, to pay taxes there, because there is always the danger of an authoritative regime to come into existence.
For them, it’s not only their well earned priviledge to pay no taxes – it’s their personal reponsibility as Greeks, to do so.
And above all: If the EU-regulations would seem be too hard and Greece wanted to leave – it could. But they stay in the EU – and they stay for one simple reason: They’re still heavily subsidized by the oh so straight ‘n’ tough EU. And this will go on for years and years to come.
Puerto Rico has been of no use or value to the USA since the day America seized it from Spain in the foolish Spanish-American war of choice. Indeed it is a big drag on America. Should have been given its independence a long, long time ago.
Thank you William McKinley, William Randolph Hearst, and Theodore Roosevelt. You helped turn your yankee republic into the kind of decrepit spanish muddle you railed against in 1898.Replies: @anon
I can not think of one single advantage or gain ever accrued too America by acquiring Puerto Rico. America didn’t even mange to get it to become an English-speaking place. At least that much was accomplished in Hawaii. The Spanish-American war was a senseless and disastrous war for America on so many levels. Cuba, Spain’s oldest colony in the Americas and one with a largely Spanish population was severed from the mother country and became a basket case. America obtained a whole bunch of useless territories in the Pacific which eventually put her on a collision course with Japan in the 1940’s. The USA took over the Philippines which brought ne benefits whatsoever but America committed terrible atrocities there in the Filipino rebellion in the earliest years of the 20th century.
Indeed. In the long run, empire is a bad bet.
“Puerto Rico produces a lot of top notch catchers as well.”
Other than the Molina brothers, I’m drawing a blank.
I’ve been to Puerto Rico. I remember it as a lovely place, if you like Caribbean islands. (A bit hot for my taste, but the rainforest is interesting.) I used to have some good friends in San Juan before they moved to the US for better schools.
Seems to me we’re letting a rather nice island go to waste.
Great article, Steve — quite well-written. The mention of corruption in the Puerto Rican government and police force prompts me to bring up the fact that Puerto Rico also has some of the harshest gun control laws in the U.S.
It’s noteworthy to point out that the jurisdictions with the most corruption — New York, New Jersey, Illinois, D.C., California, and P.R. — also have the harshest gun laws.
Seems that governments comprised of criminals are afraid of an armed population…
1) The disparate educational outcomes between mainland and island Puerto Ricans is yet more proof of Leamus’ theorem: wherever the weather is nice and sunny and tropical beaches abound and are populated by fit young women in bikinis, one will rarely find a culture of academic rigor.
2) At my University there was a contingent of Puerto Rican students who seemed to come from wealthy families and were universally Conquistador-descended types with no visible Taino admixture and I can vouch for the young women being very attractive if you like telenovela actress types (I do). They all seemed to intend upon returning to the Island for their adult lives.
3) Perhaps when the Island territory clears out and is near empty retiring Americans can buy up property and make it a nice place. Since I imagine that the ones we are getting stateside are the lower class, lower IQ economic migrant types the Puerto Ricans left there might be very nice.
Funny thing is, once they’re here they become quite nationalist. Army bases have no shortage of Puerto Ricans driving around with Puerto Rican flags hanging from their mirrors.
Sounds about right. Maybe a little high.
Ultimately we can all thank busy-body globalist Woodrow Wilson for the Puerto Rican plague; He needed more warm bodies to fight The War to End All Wars, WWI, and Puerto Rico could provide him with those needed bodies. Hence Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917. (I guess it's a personal fantasy of mine for a Pres. Trump to give Puerto Rico its unilateral independence and rid us forever of its high-maintenance populace).Replies: @ATX Hipster, @anon
I’ve had the same fantasy.
My condolences for living in New England.
New England is wonderful. Seriously. Not taking anything away from the southwest, southeast, or west coast states, but its weather and landscape are special. There's a reason all those flatlander liberals moved to Vermont.Replies: @ATX Hipster
My condolences for living in New England.Replies: @Chrisnonymous
???
New England is wonderful. Seriously. Not taking anything away from the southwest, southeast, or west coast states, but its weather and landscape are special. There’s a reason all those flatlander liberals moved to Vermont.
Steve,
A very nice article.
I’m asuming you saw the recent article in [WaPo vs NYT] comparing the difference in support for Trump/Clinton among primary-language-English Mexicans and primary-language-Spanish Mexicans…? As expected, the gap is much smaller for English…
"I'm also so proud, con mucho orgullo, (with a lot of pride) that we are continuing on a historic run, one that represents the culmination of over a million Puerto Riqueños and millions of Hispanics here in Central Florida and beyond to be the first Puerto Rican elected from Florida and first Hispanic elected from central Florida," Soto said at his victory party
The increased Puerto Rican voter turn-out in District Nine should be enough to tip Florida.Replies: @bomag
Explained here.
Slightly OT:
I noticed this headline in GoogleNews this morning:
US commercial flights take off for Cuba after more than half-century
It reminded me that Pan Am got its start as a commercial airline flying to Cuba. See this at 2:10…
Pan Am’s founder, Juan Trippe, was not Hispanic but a Euro-stock Yalie with a taste for the exotic. As the Leonardo DiCaprio film attests, Pan Am is full of positive nostalgia for white Americans. It might have been a great ride if the SWPL taste for hot climes and dusky women could have been kept confined to overseas tourism.
In the last gasp for the US’s last (ie, final) decent president, I imagine George HW Bush passing silently in Kennebunkport, a single tear running down his cheek as he takes in the gray sky and the cold waves of the North Atlantic crashing on the rocks.
GHWB began as a patriot, but then he 'grew' and ended up with his 'citizen-of-the-world' stature. He transmitted that pernicious, invidious and odious vice to his offspring. Hence, Iraq war, Yeb! and mass Mexican and Moose-Limb Im-ih-gration for the ungrateful masses of ingrates.
Indeed. But Najeeb Halaby, who became PanAm's chief, a year after founder Trippe stepped down, was the son of a Syrian immigrant. Back in those days, however, successful immigrants of any stripe assimilated quickly, and Najeeb Halaby's life story is rather haute WASP.
Quoting Wikipedia
“Pan Am’s founder, Juan Trippe…”
The founder of PanAm was named Juan Trippe? Really?
Magic language! MAGIC DIRT!
Kinda buried the lede there a bit, Steve. You've been mocking the magic dirt theory for so long, yet, here you have a pretty stark example of magic dirt, won't you say? These aren't just folks willing to vote for a Republican like Rubio, they'd vote Trump!!
Success is a rare thing and a successful organization, corporation, society etc. really is magic. Not limitless magic but magic nonetheless. Given an opening, people *want* to be a part of success.Replies: @Wilkey
Kinda buried the lede there a bit, Steve. You’ve been mocking the magic dirt theory for so long, yet, here you have a pretty stark example of magic dirt, won’t you say?…Success is a rare thing and a successful organization, corporation, society etc. really is magic. Not limitless magic but magic nonetheless. Given an opening, people *want* to be a part of success.
Yeah, people can do better under some systems than others. The problem is that culture and genetics are like gravity, and a successful economic system is like an airplane. The airplane requires lots of maintenance and input of energy to keep it flying. You can hand over the controls to a less than brilliant people and they can keep it flying for a while, but eventually it comes crashing back to earth. South Africa is still better off than most other black African countries, but eventually it will turn into Zimbabwe, and then it will be just like the rest of Africa.
“You can hand over the controls to a less than brilliant people and they can keep it flying for a while, but eventually it comes crashing back to earth”
That’s a very reasonable hypothesis. The problem is, Anglo Americans have already tested that hypothesis by letting in lots and lots and lots of immigrants from the less successful nations of Europe. Not to mentions millions of African slaves. And, instead of barely keeping up with Northwestern Europe, the US surpassed it handily.
Now, you can speculate that this won’t work with lots of non-European immigrants. But it’s not backed up by America’s historical experience and people implicitly go with experience, no matter what theories they claim to believe.
They do grunt work - if they work at all. And most likely they add no value to the USA - but take away a good deal of value.
Except for some Asian groups, who are disproportionately selected for intelligence by our post-1965 immigration laws, it hasn't worked all that well. Cities that have become overrun by NAM populations do horribly, despite their being part of "the system."
As for the various European ethnicities, their level of success here seems to roughly mirror their relative degree of success in Europe, with Germanic peoples leading the way. Aside from Jews (who generally did quite well even in the poorer parts of Europe) the others seem to come after. Poles, Greeks, and Celts aren't standouts in Europe, and they do ok but aren't standouts here.
So why does America do better than Europe, despite having fewer Northwest Europeans overall? Well why does Australia do better? Or Canada? All three countries have lower population densities and thus our resource extraction industries contribute a larger share, per capita, to our GDP than they can contribute to tightly packed European countries.
Wanna test that hypothesis? Then ask yourself which country in Europe is the richest. Answer: Norway, which has lots of oil and a relatively small number of people (only 5 million or so). I don't have time to look it up, but Norway may be one of the few countries in Europe with a lower population density than the USA.
When natural resources contribute so much to the bottom line, is it really a wise idea to flood our country with tens of millions of immigrants?
Ultimately we can all thank busy-body globalist Woodrow Wilson for the Puerto Rican plague; He needed more warm bodies to fight The War to End All Wars, WWI, and Puerto Rico could provide him with those needed bodies. Hence Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917. (I guess it's a personal fantasy of mine for a Pres. Trump to give Puerto Rico its unilateral independence and rid us forever of its high-maintenance populace).Replies: @ATX Hipster, @anon
For both America and the world, Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in history.
Please observe the precept non disputandum de gustibus est.
It used to be a great place to practice bomb-dropping.
I noticed this headline in GoogleNews this morning:
US commercial flights take off for Cuba after more than half-century
It reminded me that Pan Am got its start as a commercial airline flying to Cuba. See this at 2:10...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcgoUSs5WCY?t=2m10s
Pan Am's founder, Juan Trippe, was not Hispanic but a Euro-stock Yalie with a taste for the exotic. As the Leonardo DiCaprio film attests, Pan Am is full of positive nostalgia for white Americans. It might have been a great ride if the SWPL taste for hot climes and dusky women could have been kept confined to overseas tourism.
In the last gasp for the US's last (ie, final) decent president, I imagine George HW Bush passing silently in Kennebunkport, a single tear running down his cheek as he takes in the gray sky and the cold waves of the North Atlantic crashing on the rocks.Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson, @PiltdownMan
Your nostalgia has clouded your judgement. George HW Bush did not think that the United State Government should be primarily oriented to serving the interests of the American people. His notion of a new world order was the same Leftist nonsense imbibed and propagated by Clinton, 43 Bush and Obama.
GHWB began as a patriot, but then he ‘grew’ and ended up with his ‘citizen-of-the-world’ stature. He transmitted that pernicious, invidious and odious vice to his offspring. Hence, Iraq war, Yeb! and mass Mexican and Moose-Limb Im-ih-gration for the ungrateful masses of ingrates.
Other than the Molina brothers, I'm drawing a blank.Replies: @EriK
Well if you go back a bit it seems like a lot to me. Sandy Alomar Jr., Pudge Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Benito Santiago, do I really need to go on?
“I can not think of one single advantage or gain ever accrued too America by acquiring Puerto Rico.”
Indeed. In the long run, empire is a bad bet.
I still blame the PRs for banning that Seinfeld episode.
New England is wonderful. Seriously. Not taking anything away from the southwest, southeast, or west coast states, but its weather and landscape are special. There's a reason all those flatlander liberals moved to Vermont.Replies: @ATX Hipster
I was joking. I actually have my eye on rural Vermont or New Hampshire after I have enough F-you money. The scenery is beautiful and it’s the most historic region of the country. That said, the smug, pious liberalism and superiority of a number of New Englanders I’ve dealt with was an especially obnoxious strain that has always made me think I wouldn’t much enjoy living in the more populated areas.
I noticed this headline in GoogleNews this morning:
US commercial flights take off for Cuba after more than half-century
It reminded me that Pan Am got its start as a commercial airline flying to Cuba. See this at 2:10...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcgoUSs5WCY?t=2m10s
Pan Am's founder, Juan Trippe, was not Hispanic but a Euro-stock Yalie with a taste for the exotic. As the Leonardo DiCaprio film attests, Pan Am is full of positive nostalgia for white Americans. It might have been a great ride if the SWPL taste for hot climes and dusky women could have been kept confined to overseas tourism.
In the last gasp for the US's last (ie, final) decent president, I imagine George HW Bush passing silently in Kennebunkport, a single tear running down his cheek as he takes in the gray sky and the cold waves of the North Atlantic crashing on the rocks.Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson, @PiltdownMan
Indeed. But Najeeb Halaby, who became PanAm’s chief, a year after founder Trippe stepped down, was the son of a Syrian immigrant. Back in those days, however, successful immigrants of any stripe assimilated quickly, and Najeeb Halaby’s life story is rather haute WASP.
Quoting Wikipedia
There never was a EU straight-jacket applied to Greece.If the paleo-Keynesian "strategy" of Krugman - just throw more money at the greek economy - would have been right - how come countries like Estonia, Latvia, Zypress, Slowakia, Slowenia, Hungary are all doing fairly well - even though there was much (much!) less foreign money flowing into them?One big point is greek corruption, the other is greek anarchism.
Greeks are pretty corrupt by european standards - they're much more corrupt as any of the prospering little nations (position on conspiracy-watch is something like 55). Plus: They just don't like the state so much. There is an appendix of the greek constitution, guaranteeing that the superrich shipowners don't have to pay taxes.
They argue, that - considering the history of Greece, - it's too big of a risk, to pay taxes there, because there is always the danger of an authoritative regime to come into existence.
For them, it's not only their well earned priviledge to pay no taxes - it's their personal reponsibility as Greeks, to do so. And above all: If the EU-regulations would seem be too hard and Greece wanted to leave - it could. But they stay in the EU - and they stay for one simple reason: They're still heavily subsidized by the oh so straight 'n' tough EU. And this will go on for years and years to come.Replies: @Anonymous
Brexit was right.
This plus something completely diffrent: The young voters - amongst them being the highest number of immigrants, voted less than other age-groups.
This fact is not yet fully analysed, even though it seems very important. From what I see in Switzerland, immigrants tend to not only engage much less in politics then regular Swiss poeple, they also vote less than those.To come back to Greece for 1 Thought -
- I know why I know this kind of things: From two German (sorry - it's a simple matter of fact...) historians (Ulf-Dieter Klemm // Heinz A. Richter) and two German (sorry again, but I can't help it...) economists, with pretty decent analyses of the Greek situation - plus the Greek-EU-Relations: Hans-Werner Sinn / Thilo Sarrazin. They have hardly any other European competitors, unfortunately. And very few supporters in Eu or Greek politics, which is a pity - not least for the Greeks.
You could try the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The scenery is spectacular, and there’s plenty of history, too. But you get away from that latter-day educated New Englander attitude.
That's a very reasonable hypothesis. The problem is, Anglo Americans have already tested that hypothesis by letting in lots and lots and lots of immigrants from the less successful nations of Europe. Not to mentions millions of African slaves. And, instead of barely keeping up with Northwestern Europe, the US surpassed it handily.
Now, you can speculate that this won't work with lots of non-European immigrants. But it's not backed up by America's historical experience and people implicitly go with experience, no matter what theories they claim to believe.Replies: @Anonymous, @bomag, @Wilkey
The point is that the American meritocracy/class system, call it what you will, is very efficient at allocating low performing people far away from the ‘cockpit’ or even ‘maintenance hangar’.
They do grunt work – if they work at all. And most likely they add no value to the USA – but take away a good deal of value.
Puerto Ricans on average produce better looking women than the Mexicans. I see way more attractive Latina women in Orlando than I do in Los Angeles.
True, but I say the most beautiful women in the US are spotted at the Miami International Airport and the University of Florida!
In the late ’70s – early ’80s, a couple of suburbs north of Boston had growing populations of Puerto Ricans. In fact, every member of my high school’s Spanish club was from Puerto Rico. They mostly kept to themselves, except for the time I got jumped and beat by two older PR teens when I was about 13 y/o.
My employer recently hired a pleasant female Puerto Rican looking to escape from the other Orlando Puerto Ricans. She brought along her seemingly able-bodied Puerto Rican husband (on full SS disablity), her three kinds, his three kids, and their new born. A family of nine being supported by her $30K salary, the husband’s SS disability, and probably another $50K in government assistance.
I was talking with someone a while back he said this was very common with the Puerto Ricans. They move to the "mainland" so they can (in many cases fraudulently) collect SS disability checks.
I'm wondering, can't they just collect their disability checks on the island? Why do they have to move? Perhaps the money they can get from Disability in liberal states like NY, CT, MA etc. is greater than what they get back in Puerto Rico, that's why they move. Anyone care to elaborate...Replies: @Triumph104
Jews in New York have high intermarriage rates with PRs (Jewricans)
Geraldo Rivera?
That's a very reasonable hypothesis. The problem is, Anglo Americans have already tested that hypothesis by letting in lots and lots and lots of immigrants from the less successful nations of Europe. Not to mentions millions of African slaves. And, instead of barely keeping up with Northwestern Europe, the US surpassed it handily.
Now, you can speculate that this won't work with lots of non-European immigrants. But it's not backed up by America's historical experience and people implicitly go with experience, no matter what theories they claim to believe.Replies: @Anonymous, @bomag, @Wilkey
“Nations of Europe” is a key phrase here. And I don’t see how we win the “surpassed” battle; Europe leads in many tech and quality of life areas. We have a more robust space program, but they built a large particle collider while we abandoned our effort.
China is coming on despite doing it “in house”.
Geraldo Rivera?Replies: @Alec Leamas, @attilathehen
Juan Epstein.
That's a very reasonable hypothesis. The problem is, Anglo Americans have already tested that hypothesis by letting in lots and lots and lots of immigrants from the less successful nations of Europe. Not to mentions millions of African slaves. And, instead of barely keeping up with Northwestern Europe, the US surpassed it handily.
Now, you can speculate that this won't work with lots of non-European immigrants. But it's not backed up by America's historical experience and people implicitly go with experience, no matter what theories they claim to believe.Replies: @Anonymous, @bomag, @Wilkey
“That’s a very reasonable hypothesis. The problem is, Anglo Americans have already tested that hypothesis by letting in lots and lots and lots of immigrants from the less successful nations of Europe. Not to mentions millions of African slaves. And, instead of barely keeping up with Northwestern Europe, the US surpassed it handily.”
Except for some Asian groups, who are disproportionately selected for intelligence by our post-1965 immigration laws, it hasn’t worked all that well. Cities that have become overrun by NAM populations do horribly, despite their being part of “the system.”
As for the various European ethnicities, their level of success here seems to roughly mirror their relative degree of success in Europe, with Germanic peoples leading the way. Aside from Jews (who generally did quite well even in the poorer parts of Europe) the others seem to come after. Poles, Greeks, and Celts aren’t standouts in Europe, and they do ok but aren’t standouts here.
So why does America do better than Europe, despite having fewer Northwest Europeans overall? Well why does Australia do better? Or Canada? All three countries have lower population densities and thus our resource extraction industries contribute a larger share, per capita, to our GDP than they can contribute to tightly packed European countries.
Wanna test that hypothesis? Then ask yourself which country in Europe is the richest. Answer: Norway, which has lots of oil and a relatively small number of people (only 5 million or so). I don’t have time to look it up, but Norway may be one of the few countries in Europe with a lower population density than the USA.
When natural resources contribute so much to the bottom line, is it really a wise idea to flood our country with tens of millions of immigrants?
Not that District Nine for now anyway.
“She brought along her seemingly able-bodied Puerto Rican husband (on full SS disablity)”
I was talking with someone a while back he said this was very common with the Puerto Ricans. They move to the “mainland” so they can (in many cases fraudulently) collect SS disability checks.
I’m wondering, can’t they just collect their disability checks on the island? Why do they have to move? Perhaps the money they can get from Disability in liberal states like NY, CT, MA etc. is greater than what they get back in Puerto Rico, that’s why they move. Anyone care to elaborate…
Very interesting point: Thatcher was absolutely sure, that it was not reasonable, to have the Greek control important parts of the European borders – therefor she refused the Schengen-Contract.
– This is very interesting, because poeple used to laugh about Thatchers straightforward assumptions about the Greek’s willingness/ and or capability, to protect the European borders, aeons from now, so to speak.
Nowadys, there’s not so much laughter, but the baffled question: How come she knew? – And you can see traces of those late Thatcher-adorsements leading right into the left-liberal Guardian. In the end, – and this is not very difficult to guess: The very fact, that even the Guardian-Readership was reluctant to oppose those robust Thatcher-ideas about the European borders – made Brexit possible.
This plus something completely diffrent: The young voters – amongst them being the highest number of immigrants, voted less than other age-groups.
This fact is not yet fully analysed, even though it seems very important. From what I see in Switzerland, immigrants tend to not only engage much less in politics then regular Swiss poeple, they also vote less than those.
To come back to Greece for 1 Thought –
– I know why I know this kind of things: From two German (sorry – it’s a simple matter of fact…) historians (Ulf-Dieter Klemm // Heinz A. Richter) and two German (sorry again, but I can’t help it…) economists, with pretty decent analyses of the Greek situation – plus the Greek-EU-Relations: Hans-Werner Sinn / Thilo Sarrazin. They have hardly any other European competitors, unfortunately. And very few supporters in Eu or Greek politics, which is a pity – not least for the Greeks.
Geraldo Rivera?Replies: @Alec Leamas, @attilathehen
Yes. His father was a light-skinned black PR, his mother Jewish.
David Blaine the magician is the product of a black PR father, Jewish mother.
Rita Moreno the light-skinned black PR married a Jewish man.
There are many more examples. NY Jews consider Puerto Rico as their country too.
I was talking with someone a while back he said this was very common with the Puerto Ricans. They move to the "mainland" so they can (in many cases fraudulently) collect SS disability checks.
I'm wondering, can't they just collect their disability checks on the island? Why do they have to move? Perhaps the money they can get from Disability in liberal states like NY, CT, MA etc. is greater than what they get back in Puerto Rico, that's why they move. Anyone care to elaborate...Replies: @Triumph104
There is a difference between Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income. SSD is for people who have earned a certain number of work credits. SSI is for people who have never worked or have insufficient work credits for SSD.
I was going to question this, since I now live in Pennsylvania and haven't noticed any Puerto Ricans at all. But then I am originally from New York City and I am just used to a lot bigger Puerto Rican presence.
However, after five minutes of research, it turns out that Pennsylvania has the fourth largest Puerto Rican populatin of any state, numbering 366,092, and I also found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Puerto_Ricans_in_Philadelphia. I usually don't get north of Spring Garden, which is where they are concentrated. This is a long established community, according to the Wikipedia article, and I don't think you can fairly give Hillary Clinton the blame or the credit.Replies: @Anonymous, @Brutusale
It sometimes seems so random, like how Lowell, MA has the country’s 2nd largest population of Cambodians.
Vermont. There are two dyed-in-the-wool secessionist types in Vermont for every transplanted NYC Semite, who’ve not really changed the character of Vermont too much. New Hampshire, on the other hand, is full of MASSholes now, and they’ve changed the politics there entirely.
I grew up 20 miles north of Boston. Nearly every single person I grew up with moved to southern NH after getting married and before turning 30, and all continued to commute to MA, mostly the Rt 128 area for work. I can probably think of close to 100 people between childhood and high school friends and acquaintances. Though, nearly all of these folks were moderate to conservative, but I can see how many MA liberals moving to NH as well.Replies: @Brutusale
You should take a look at the Adirondack region of New York… Keene, Lake Placid, Plattsburgh, Lake George… Vermont is more farm-scenic, upstate NY more wilderness-scenic.
New Hampshire, on the other hand, is full of MASSholes now
I grew up 20 miles north of Boston. Nearly every single person I grew up with moved to southern NH after getting married and before turning 30, and all continued to commute to MA, mostly the Rt 128 area for work. I can probably think of close to 100 people between childhood and high school friends and acquaintances. Though, nearly all of these folks were moderate to conservative, but I can see how many MA liberals moving to NH as well.
I grew up 20 miles north of Boston. Nearly every single person I grew up with moved to southern NH after getting married and before turning 30, and all continued to commute to MA, mostly the Rt 128 area for work. I can probably think of close to 100 people between childhood and high school friends and acquaintances. Though, nearly all of these folks were moderate to conservative, but I can see how many MA liberals moving to NH as well.Replies: @Brutusale
NH hit peak MASShole when it elected Jean Shaheen governor in 1996. There’s been no turning back.
My brother and his family are in NH, as are three of my best friends from school. They’re all living in NH and working in MA. I know that my brother’s $500,000 house would cost about $800,000 in the town I live in. I hope it’s worth the commute!
So don't laugh at them hard working PR guys.
I know another guy similar. He was bragging to me.... his NYC pension is based on his last three years work. Average was $117,000. He showed me is last yearly pay statements.Replies: @Jefferson
“Cubans are or fantasize that they are pure Spanish. Pure bloodlines. They consider Puerto Ricans half-breeds (Cher used this ugly word in a song) who are a mix of Spanish, Taino Indian and whatever else.”
The whatever else is African. Where do you think Puerto Rican actress Rosie Perez for example got her flat nose from.
The average Cuban is not genetically pure Spanish. The genetic ancestry of Cubans has been studied to death. On average they are genetically 20 percent Sub Saharan African and 72 percent European.