Socialism. Again!!-----Failed Talks Raise Specter of Biggest Default in Puerto Rico Crisis

Failed Talks Raise Specter of Biggest Default in Puerto Rico Crisis - The New York Times
SAN JUAN, P.R. — Negotiations to restructure roughly $9 billion of the debt of Puerto Rico’s power company collapsed late Friday, raising the prospect of the biggest default yet in Puerto Rico’s deepening debt crisis.
The creditors blamed the utility, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or Prepa, for scuttling the talks, saying Prepa officials had decided to let a critical expiration date pass without taking action. But Prepa said it was the creditors’ fault for trying to impose a requirement that Prepa had already rejected.
Prepa is one of the largest single issuers of Puerto Rico’s $72 billion in debt, most of it in the form of municipal bonds, which are widely held through mutual funds and other investment firms. It is a monopoly, owned by the residents of the island, and until 2014, it was self-regulated.
“They had no incentives whatsoever to be efficient,” the president of Puerto Rico’s Senate, Eduardo Bhatia, said of Prepa in a recent interview. This is incredible. Our power plants look like the cars in Cuba...”