The economy of the United States Virgin Islands is primarily dependent upon tourism, trade, and other services, accounting for nearly 60% of the Virgin Island's GDP and about half of total civilian employment. Close to two million tourists per year visit the islands. The government is the single largest employer. The agriculture sector is small, with most food being imported. The manufacturing sector consists of rum distilling, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and watch assembly. Rum production is significant. Shipments during a six-month period of fiscal year 2016 totaled 8,136.6 million proof gallons.
The government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a republican form of government with separation of powers, subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States. Article I of the Constitution of Puerto Rico defines the government and its political power and authority. The powers of the government of Puerto Rico are all delegated by the United States Congress and lack full protection under the U.S. Constitution. Because of this, the head of state of Puerto Rico is the President of the United States.
The Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance is a high-ranking position within United States Department of the Treasury that reports to, advises, and assists the Secretary of the Treasury and the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. The under secretary leads the department's policy on the issues of domestic finance, fiscal policy, fiscal operations, government assets, government liabilities, and other related economic and fiscal matters.
Peter Richard Orszag is the Chief Executive Officer of Lazard.
José Ramón González is a Puerto Rican financial executive. He is the President and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York since 2014. He formerly served as Senior Executive Vice President of Oriental Financial Group and former president and CEO of Santander Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico's second largest financial institution. González also served from 1986 to 1989 as president of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank during the administration of Governor Rafael Hernández Colón. In 2016 he was named to the PROMESA oversight board in charge of resolving the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis Where he served until August 2020
In September 2008 the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that it would take over the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Both government-sponsored enterprises, which finance home mortgages in the United States by issuing bonds, had become illiquid as the market for those bonds collapsed in the subprime mortgage crisis. The FHFA established conservatorships in which each enterprise's management works under the FHFA's direction to reduce losses and to develop a new operating structure that will allow a return to self-management.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, often called the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became law as part of Public Law 110-343 on October 3, 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. It created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to purchase toxic assets from banks. The funds were mostly redirected to inject capital into banks and other financial institutions while the Treasury continued to examine the usefulness of targeted asset purchases.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. It was a component of the government's measures in 2009 to address the subprime mortgage crisis.
Brad W. Setser is an American economist. He is a former staff economist at the United States Department of the Treasury, worked at Roubini Global Economics Monitor as Director of Global Research where he co-authored the book "Bailouts or Bail-ins?" with Nouriel Roubini, as a fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, for the United States National Economic Council as Director of International Economics, for the United States Department of the Treasury, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Economic Analysis as senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Timothy Franz Geithner is an American former central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2003 to 2009, following service in the Clinton administration. Since March 2014, he has served as president and managing director of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City.
Ron Bloom is an American economic advisor who served as a senior official in the Obama Administration from February 2009 to August 2011. This included working as the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy between February 2011 and August 2011, in the Department of the Treasury as a senior advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, as a member of the President's Task Force on the Automotive Industry, and as senior counselor to the president for manufacturing policy. From 1996 to 2008, Bloom served as special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers. Bloom also worked for the investment banking firm Lazard on two occasions, the second as Vice Chairman, U.S Investment Banking. Bloom is the vice chair and a managing partner of Brookfield Asset Management and served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service.
The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration, or in its colloquial portmanteau form "Obamanomics", was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans designed to fund health care reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. President Obama's first term (2009–2013) included measures designed to address the Great Recession and subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term (2013–2017), the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester (cap) was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. The number of persons without health insurance was reduced by 20 million, reaching a record low level as a percent of the population. By the end of his second term, the number of persons with jobs, real median household income, stock market, and real household net worth were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below historical average.
Ricardo Antonio Rosselló Nevares is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 until his resignation in 2019 after protests related to the Telegramgate scandal. He is the son of former governor of Puerto Rico and pediatric surgeon Pedro Rosselló.
In 2011, ongoing political debate in the United States Congress about the appropriate level of government spending and its effect on the national debt and deficit reached a crisis centered on raising the debt ceiling, leading to the passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011.
The public debt of Puerto Rico is the money borrowed by the government of Puerto Rico through the issue of securities by the Government Development Bank and other government agencies.
The Puerto Rican government-debt crisis was a financial crisis affecting the government of Puerto Rico. The crisis began in 2014 when three major credit agencies downgraded several bond issues by Puerto Rico to "junk status" after the government was unable to demonstrate that it could pay its debt. The downgrading, in turn, prevented the government from selling more bonds in the open market. Unable to obtain the funding to cover its budget imbalance, the government began using its savings to pay its debt while warning that those savings would eventually be exhausted. To prevent such a scenario, the United States Congress enacted a law known as PROMESA, which appointed an oversight board with ultimate control over the Commonwealth's budget. As the PROMESA board began to exert that control, the Puerto Rican government sought to increase revenues and reduce its expenses by increasing taxes while curtailing public services and reducing government pensions. These measures provoked social distrust and unrest, further compounding the crisis. In August 2018, a debt investigation report of the Financial Oversight and management board for Puerto Rico reported the Commonwealth had $74 billion in bond debt and $49 billion in unfunded pension liabilities as of May 2017. Puerto Rico officially exited bankruptcy on March 15, 2022.
The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is a U.S. federal law enacted in 2016 that established a financial oversight board, a process for restructuring debt, and expedited procedures for approving critical infrastructure projects in order to combat the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis. Through PROMESA, the US Congress established an appointed Fiscal Control Board (FCB), known colloquially in Puerto Rico as "la junta," to oversee the debt restructuring. With this protection the then-governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro García Padilla, suspended payments due on July 1, 2016. The FCB's approved fiscal austerity plan for 2017-2026 cut deeply into Puerto Rico's public service budget, including cuts to health care, pensions, and education, in order to repay creditors. By May 2017, with $123 billion in debt owed by the Puerto Rican government and its corporations, the FCB requested the "immediate" appointment of a federal judge to resolve the "largest bankruptcy case in the history of the American public bond market."
Julio A. Cabral Corrada is an entrepreneur, social advocate and policy advisor from Puerto Rico. He focuses on Latin America and Puerto Rico's fiscal, economic, and political affairs.
Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that appointments to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico are not subject to the restrictions in the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that all officers of the United States are subject to the Appointments Clause even if their duties relate to Puerto Rico. However, the power they exercise must be primarily federal in nature for the Clause to apply. If the officer exercises powers primarily of a local nature, even if created by federal law, then the officer is not "of the United States" and is exempt from compliance with the Clause. As members of the Board are primarily concerned with the governance of Puerto Rico, even though their decisions have potentially nationwide consequences, their powers are primarily local in nature and need not be appointed in compliance with the Clause.
Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMBPR), colloquially known as La Junta de Control/Supervisión Fiscal is a government entity whose role to revise and approve the budget and obligations of the government of Puerto Rico was created by federal law PROMESA.
