Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico without electricity, wifi, ATMs shows importance of cash, gold and silver

Disaster victims in Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida can breath a sigh of relief. A piece of legislation authorizing $36.5 billion in aid for communities affected by recent hurricanes and wildfires easily passed the House on Thursday, despite some conservatives' concerns about the growing cost of disaster relief as wildfires raging in California - expected to be the costliest in modern California history - place yet another strain on FEMA's budget. All of those who voted against the legislation were from Republicans, but the bill managed to passeasily in the 353-69 vote.

Authored by Tom Sanzillo via ValueWalk.com,

President Trump, who knows a thing or two about bankruptcy, says Puerto Rico’s public debt should be wiped out. We agree.

The commonwealth owes bondholders somewhere on the order of $70 billion, with most of that debt tied to general-obligation bonds, revenue bonds and bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA).

While Elon Musk is pretending that he can rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid with solar-powered batteries, Google wants to deliver cell phone service using balloons.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s corporate parent, received permission on Friday from the FCC to begin providing emergency cellular service to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico using balloons. The effort appears to be a dry run for Google X’s “Project Loon” moonshot program, which ultimately aims to beam internet across the world using high-altitude balloons.

Update: Tesla's Musk confirms he is sending an "experience powerwall team" to Puerto Rico to investigate reports of price gouging and oversee installations of Tesla's "Powerwall" home battery - a product that was initially develoepd by Solar City.

Tesla always charges the same price for a Powerwall (only taxes & shipping costs vary), so something is messed up here. I've asked my team to stop shipment to any installers charging excessive premiums.