Madagascar Development

Puerto Rican Economy Starting to Stabilize: Fernandez: Video

Eleven opinions and 11 points of view follow in the next pages, and all bear one thing in common: the need for change to get Puerto Rico out of the ninth year of depression and back on the road to the economic health and growth it enjoyed for so many decades. Headed by Manuel A. Casiano, the group of big thinkers who gave us their opinions comprises former Govs. Rafael Hernández Colón, Carlos Romero Barceló and Pedro Rosselló; economists HeidiCalero, Elías Gutíerrez, José Villamil, Vicente Feliciano, Sergio Marxuach; as well as financial expert Miguel Ferrer and business leader Manuel Cidre. Readers will see key words such as fiscal order, status, political armistice, restructuring, job creation, innovation, need to cut operating costs and a handful of other terms and phrases keep repeating themselves in opinion after opinion. It's not a matter of reinventing the wheel to end this disastrous decade Puerto Rico has and is suffering. It is a matter of taking the following tri...

Puerto Rico lawmakers are working on a plan to allow the island’s Infrastructure Financing Authority to sell as much as $2.9 billion of bonds backed by petroleum taxes to repay loans from the Government Development Bank . The strategy involves boosting the junk-rated commonwealth’s petroleum-tax rate to $15.50 per barrel after lawmakers increased it to $9.25 last year from $3, General Assembly Representative Rafael “Tatito” Hernandez said in a telephone interview from the island. The bill, which hasn’t been filed, would transfer the new revenue to the Infrastructure agency , called Prifa, from the Highways & Transportation Authority. Prifa, which has sold bonds backed by rum-tax revenue, would issue debt secured by the petroleum-tax receipts, Hernandez said. Prifa, unlike the roads agency, isn’t eligible to restructure its debt through a law the commonwealth passed in June. Prifa would take on loans the highway agency owes the GDB, and repay them with the bond proceeds. The Dev...

ENLARGE By   JON HILSENRATH Updated Oct. 29, 2014 3:12 p.m. ET WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would stop its long-running bond-purchase program at the end of October, ending a historic experiment that has stirred debate about its effects in markets even though the central bank said the policy accomplished its main goal of reducing unemployment. At the same time, the Fed upgraded its assessment of the job market’s performance while pointing to some short-term downside risks on inflation. The central bank stuck to an assurance that short-term interest rates will remain near zero for a “considerable time.” Taken together, the moves mark a vote of confidence by the Fed in the U.S. economy, which appears to have grown at a pace near 3% or more in the third quarter. That’s a much better performance than in Japan and Europe and a hopeful sign for the world economy as growth in China appears to be flagging. CENTRAL BANK WATCH Here is how the...

A renewed slide in investor confidence, on the heels of worsening economic and budgetary trends in Puerto Rico, raises the specter that in the absence of enlightened political leadership in San Juan, the U.S. Congress may soon have to establish a federal oversight board to manage the Commonwealth’s grave fiscal situation. In the past six weeks, Puerto Rico’s junk-rated bonds have slumped while investment-grade municipals have rallied. The S&P Municipal Bond Puerto Rico Index dropped 31Ž4 percent, while returns on the S&P National Index were up 1.1 percent. Earlier this month, trading in credit-default swaps suggested that Puerto Rico was viewed as the world’s most likely government to default within one year. Given the recent collapse in world oil prices, now it is Venezuela that has bondholders feeling most jittery, with Puerto Rico’s debt priced as the next most risky. Investors have become pessimistic even though the Commonwealth has recently managed to borrow $900 million...

By   SCOTT MCCARTNEY Oct. 22, 2014 1:36 p.m. ET 22 COMMENTS Looking for an airfare deal? Your odds improve if you buy on the weekend. A new deep dive into airline fares suggests Sunday is the best day to find low fares. This is a departure from the conventional wisdom of recent years, when   Tuesday was considered the best bet . Airlines Reporting Corp., which processes tickets for travel agencies and handles about half of all tickets sold, tallied up ticket sales. Over a 19-month period ending in July, 130 million domestic and international round-trip tickets worth $94 billion showed the lowest average price, of $432, was on Sunday. At $439, Saturday’s average is also lower than Tuesday, which averages $497. ENLARGE Prices to cities that attract business travel, including Chicago, fluctuate more than prices to leisure markets, according to the firm Hopper.   GETTY IMAGES One factor behind the change: Airline executives come into work Monday...