One quarter of all the sales tax income that Puerto Rico raises is going to be sent directly to the bond-holders and hedge funds in the United States - for the next 40 years. That's $400 million a year for now, and by 2060 it will be $900 million a year. 2060 is when my daughter will be my age, which is old. That is bigger than Hamilton, or whether Lin Manuel Miranda supported it or not. It is 40 years of enforced austerity in which schools, pensions, roads and hospitals are going to have to fight it out.

Our Man in San Juan, Dave Buchen reports on normal life in post-Mario, mid-austerity Puerto Rico - under the weight of a generational debt to Wall Street while playing host to an ironically nonconflicted musical about overthrowing colonialism, and explains why Puerto Ricans don't need statehood from the US, they need independence from it.

Listen to Dave's other reports from Puerto Rico here. Oh and his 2019 calendar is here and very good.

Guest

Dave Buchen

Dave Buchen has been living in Puerto Rico since the previous century. There he home-schools his two kids and makes theater with Theater Oobleck and El Teatro Barbaro, and plays music with La Banda Municipal de Makula Barun.