All posts by Philipe Schoene Roura

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  Jagged Fiscal Peaks

  For all its beauty, pristine beaches, forests and centuries-old architecture, Puerto Rico today is known widely as the land of fiscal cliffs and empty basins. Those rocky debt promontories and infrastructure valleys have come to the forefront...

  • Posted July 1, 2022
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  The Fire this Time

  At the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, as lives were being consumed at wildfire speed, both the health care and the pharmaceutical industries the world over struggled mightily to control the blaze. On the health care front,...

  • Posted June 24, 2022
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  Businesses in Extinction

  There is a rule in journalism that most of us old-timers— Brontosaurus, really—follow: We do not report about things that affect us directly. No se hace. I am going to break that rule today because I believe...

  • Posted June 10, 2022
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  Under Their Eye, Again

  “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great worldhistoric facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” So commences the “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis...

  • Posted June 4, 2022
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  Hold Your Pharma Horses

  Although much has been written about the throttling of the Internal Revenue Code’s section 936—the 10-year phaseout of the erstwhile tax break, which concluded in 2006, marks the epicenter of the Puerto Rico economy’s precipitous decline into...

  • Posted May 27, 2022
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  Cowboys and Indians Revisit the Federal Realm

  The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that the U.S. Constitution does not require Congress to extend Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits to residents of Puerto Rico, more than an act of territorial discrimination, reaffirmed the...

  • Posted May 14, 2022
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  Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?

  “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out,” the 1968 comedy featuring Doris Day that showcased the epic blackout in New York, was entertaining and a bit of campy fun. When 1.5 million people lose their electricity...

  • Posted May 7, 2022
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  The Mothers of Invention

  It seems like only yesterday that this newspaper moderated a panel discussion on the state of Puerto Rico’s economy featuring two respected economists—Rollins College department director Tonya Warnecke and renowned Puerto Rico expert Heidi Calero—discussing the island’s...

  • Posted April 2, 2022
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  Elixir for a Tax Base

  If there were any truth to the English language, the word “tax” would be a four-letter word. That is particularly true in Puerto Rico, where paying taxes—impuestos—is often seen as an undeserved imposition because government administrations have...

  • Posted March 26, 2022
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  Curtains for the Prepa Play?

  When the U.S. Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (Promesa) into law in 2016, then-House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rob Bishop (R-Utah) believed he had codified the restructuring support agreement (RSA) between...

  • Posted March 19, 2022