Dis Incentives

Local business leaders tell Me that what We're cooking in terms of a new Incentives Law is going to make Puerto Rico the most-attractive business spot in the world. They talk about tax-free this and subsidy-based that and not once have I heard any of them tackle the single most important point in the whole discussion:

Why would Uncle Sam allow it?

I'm talking about the Uncle Sam who's facing a recession and a lame president with the leadership skills and moral compass of roadkill. I'm talking about the Uncle Sam who sees his business leadership base eroding faster than a sand castle in a Katrina-ravaged levee. I'm talking about the same Uncle Sam who didn't give a rat's ass about corporate profits under Treasury Section 936 when it came time to choose between "votes" and "Puerto Rico."

What makes these business and industry leaders think that Puerto Rico is going to be able to craft a set of incentives that leave Singapore, Ireland and the other current investment hotspots in Our dust without having the U.S. of part of A. either (a) Rejecting it under federal statutes; (b) Rejecting it under established commercial statutes or (c) Simply slapping it down at the congressional level and doing it themselves?

I'd call these leaders naive if it weren't for the fact that they aren't: They are ignoring the point because if they stop to think about it, We'd have no apparent solution to Our crisis. And delusion is better than despair.

So the words fly, the banalities are uttered and the 800-pound moose in the breakfast nook snuffles all over the doughnuts and We pretend it's the morning breeze. Should We continue to develop new ideas and potential solutions? Of course. Should We do it in a vacuum, in a bubble of Our limited self-interest that refuses to acknowledge the real world?

No. That's what got Us here in the first place.


The Jenius Has Spoken.