Puerto Rico: The US's Greece...

[Rockhopper]

Puerto Rico is having a similar problem with finance as Greece is.

Puerto Rico faces a more complicated obstacle to managing its crippling debt: its murky status as a US territory.

"If Puerto Rico were a state, there wouldn't be any question about it," Jeffrey Farrow, a former adviser on Puerto Rico policy to President Bill Clinton, said of the island's mounting debt crisis. "If it were a nation, it wouldn't have to worry about [US] federal rules, and then it could try to develop its own economy."

But Puerto Rico is neither a state nor a country. It's technically a commonwealth, a status given to it in 1950 by the US government, which allowed it to draft a constitution and elect its own officials. But even its commonwealth status is unique. Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky are all commonwealths, but they have the full power of states. That's not the case for this island of 3.6 million, which is, essentially, a colony, subject to the full control of the US Congress. The nature of its relationship with the federal government has left it with few options as it grapples with $72 billion in outstanding obligations that its governor, Alejandro García Padilla, says is "not payable."

Source.

Tim.