Soon we'll all be lighting our cigars with hundred dollar bills.

Now what can poor old Fitty Cent do about his name? Not even a lousy dollar has he for an apodo.

Hehehe...RC! Another reason for independence, we need our own currency less we become awash in useless paper!

I've got a 2 euro coin going spare, if anyone needs it, to buy a house or something...

*takes RickB's cash for the island*

...What?

Hey Rafa, I read Iguarta in the San Juan Star yesterday {I also read El Dia every day} and he did make some very good points about continuing to be Associated and he did say that Independence was honorable. Iguarta is the guy that got the Presidential vote for PR approved 7 years ago, but that was struck down by the Circuit court. http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2000/10/10/2000-10-10_puerto_rico_demands_prez_bal.html

I don't like the Colony, I despise Rossello, Acevedo Vila, Fortuno {he is now heading the effing VIVA RUDY stateside!}, Sila, all of these cretins and the Independistas also, but I usually vote Independista as they are less full of crap than the others. One day while I was working on a Luxury Villa installation, DeCastro Font visited with the developer {a friend} and I told him a few things. Font was shocked, as, not only were my hands actually dirty, was I speaking Spanish, but I burst his little bubble on his day off. For the readers, in PR, the ideal is to never work with your hands and to have a government job in an office with air conditioning. The salary is not the important thing, but for the status value, you must be part of the economic problem {bloated government} and never a productive member of society. Productivity is a social embarrassment here. Never indicate any ability in that direction if you want respect. Productivity indicates that you are too inept to steal.

Since my third month in PR I have desired independence just to be nasty. The government under independence WILL totally collapse, but I do not care. I do not need the stinking government. 17 years ago I decided to prove once and for all that I could be OK just wandering around if it came to that. I moved to the very top of Yunque {the Cloud Forest above the Rain Forest}and lived on what I found there and spent $20 a week on rice, coffee and gas, and after 18 months of that, having proved it was no challenge at all, I moved to Vieques in 1991, where I currently reside and where I completely despise the Vieques government too!

Rafa, I moved to PR from Manhattan on October 3, 1979, before Reagan even ran for president. I can tell many a tale, and since I work for the very rich and they treat me like furniture {assume I do not understand Spanish and that I am an idiot -- dirty hands of course} I have been witness to many outrageous conversations.

My experiences are NOT academic.

Oh I believe you. As far as the goverment collapsing, well since its a colonial construct, it probably won't survive independence. Of course we don't have any real leaders, except perhaps for Tito Kayak (a surfer dude, with big cojones that cares for the island like nobody else I know). As for productivity, well a lot of people work hard, very hard, but the they are defeated by a system that its design to control them and not harness them. Why work like a slave (literally) for little money and loads of stress when the jackhole over at the next cubicle does nothing but suck up to his boss and donate his life savings to the a political party and/or megachurch.

To see the work of my parents generation go to waste.

Pan y Tierra....pero que paso con la Libertad?

Rafa, are you aware of Tito's latest adventure? Here it is! http://latinoinsurgent.blogspot.com/2007/11/tito-kayak-strikes-again.html
And Nez, when I tell you that magical realism is just cotidiana here, this is what I mean.
As you may know, Tito is an electrician. Electricians tend to be much smarter, more daring and just plain crazier than the general population. I am also an electrician and can understand the mental construct. Electricians could die at work on any particular day, so we don't want to waste any!

And BTW, the new "question" in the press here is "Who is financing Tito Kayak?".
Stay tuned, this could rival V for Vendetta. Meanwhile, the heat is going way up under Acevedo Vila in the Federal corruption investigation, see today's endi.com. {El Nuevo Dia--on line}.

You know, I remember that world as well. When we swapped to Euros and abandoned the Escudos prizes went madly up, shop owners and the likes used the opportunity to sort of round up prizes. Because really, not much difference between, say, paying half an Euro for a bottle of water or two, the numbers are almost the same, let's actualise prices! People have had this notion for years that Portugal is such a cheap country - it used to be, for foreigners, who'd arrive with their dollars or pounds or even marks and have the time of their lives. It hasn't been cheap for us in decades, post-Euro my friend from Zurich came to visit and after a few days she asked "How do you people survive??" We are an expensive country, that's what we are, high cost of living, low quality of life - and every time Americans complain abt the price of petrol I want to maim them bcs a) STOP helping to inflate it and b) that's high, you say? Come round and take a look at ours. It's a rotten thing, to live in Europe's armpit, it truly is.

Well, probably most people around the world feel the same way as you lioness. After all, the dollar gimmick was designed (as was the pound standard before it) to tilt the power to buy on the nations holding said currency. If they ever tried to pay you under the old currency to its mark, pound or dollar equivalents, inflation would have destroy what little power that currency had left. Catch 22!

I sympathize greatly with Lioness and only wish to add that if anyone in the US thinks the current economic existence under the US flag is getting difficult it may be time to buy a one way ticket to some other place as the US has nowhere to go but down. I leave the details to others {the web is full of the sad sad tales and predictions} but I suggest that anyone who feels that Happy Times may be upon US Citizens again very soon, at least in the economic sphere, is almost certainly very deluded.
Fundamental and extreme economic crises are unfolding right now for anyone who cares to pay attention. Lioness is lucky in that she lives under the Euro, a stable currency. US Citizens no longer have that luxury.

Yes, but Lioness is unlucky that she lives under the Euro IN PORTUGAL of all places, the country that is still European simply due to a geographic accident because, in truth, we joined the Magreb long ago and have been North of Africa's most developped nation for years. I understand what you're saying, RC, and i even agree with it but being poor under the Euro is the pits.

(And oh, the irony of having written "prizes" instead of "prices"!)