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.
Robert Edward Rubin is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992.
Lazard Inc. is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's largest independent investment bank, with principal executive offices in New York City, Paris and London.
The Ambac Financial Group, Inc., generally known as Ambac, is an American holding company. Its subsidiaries provide financial guarantee products such as bond insurance to clients in both the public and private sectors globally. Ambac Assurance is a guarantor of public finance and structured finance obligations. Its common stock and common stock purchase warrants are listed on the NYSE under the symbols AMBC and AMBCW respectively. Ambac is regulated by the insurance commission of Wisconsin. It has its headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
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 an American business executive and former government official. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Lazard. Announced as Lazard’s incoming CEO on May 26, 2023, he assumed the role on October 1, 2023, also joining the board.
John Alfred Paulson is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. He leads Paulson & Co., a New York–based investment management firm he founded in 1994. He has been called "one of the most prominent names in high finance", and "a man who made one of the biggest fortunes in Wall Street history."
The economy of Puerto Rico is classified as a high income economy by the World Bank and as the most competitive economy in Latin America by the World Economic Forum. The main drivers of Puerto Rico's economy are manufacturing, primarily pharmaceuticals, textiles, petrochemicals, and electronics; followed by the service industry, notably finance, insurance, real estate, and tourism. The geography of Puerto Rico and its political status are both determining factors on its economic prosperity, primarily due to its relatively small size as an island; its lack of natural resources used to produce raw materials, and, consequently, its dependence on imports; as well as its relationship with the United States federal government, which controls its foreign policies while exerting trading restrictions, particularly in its shipping industry.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the "bank bailout of 2008" or the "Wall Street bailout", was a United States federal law enacted during the Great Recession, which created federal programs to "bail out" failing financial institutions and banks. The bill was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, passed by the 110th United States Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It became law as part of Public Law 110-343 on October 3, 2008. It created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to purchase toxic assets from failing 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 chairman of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City.
Ricardo Antonio Rosselló Nevares is a Puerto Rican politician who served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 2017 until his resignation in 2019, after overwhelming protests related to the Telegramgate scandal. He is the son of former governor of Puerto Rico and pediatric surgeon Pedro Rosselló.
The public debt of Puerto Rico is the money borrowed by the government of Puerto Rico through the issue of government bonds 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 downgrades, 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 serves as a custom-made Bankruptcy law for Puerto Rico. It establishes 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 a Financial Oversight and Management Board, 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.
