UPDATE: Puerto Rico's unelected oversight board just sent out a settlement proposal so far below what the courts have said bondholders are owed that it effectively guarantees the longest municipal bankruptcy in American history will roll on. For those who haven't been following my reporting on this, PREPA is Puerto Rico's government-owned power company and the Federal Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) is the unelected board that Congress put in charge of running their finances and debt. We're now heading into the TENTH YEAR of this bankruptcy, and the FOMB just dropped a new lowball offer to bondholders (less than 25 cents on the dollar). They knew it was dead on arrival and ignored court rulings, but they put it out anyway so they could run to the Court and President Trump pretending like they're trying to fix this. It's pure political theater while Puerto Ricans keep suffering through blackouts and barely have any stable electricity. SOURCE: finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy… This has turned into a total gold rush for lawyers and consultants. As I previously reported, the board has already blown through over $2 BILLION on high-priced attorneys and consultants — more than five times what Congress originally estimated. But it’s important to understand who is actually writing those checks. It isn't Congress. It isn't Wall Street. It's the retiree in Puerto Rico who keeps her AC off in August because she's scared of the bill. It's the family in Puerto Rico replacing a fridge full of groceries for the third time this year after another outage. It's the barber in Puerto Rico burning diesel in a generator just to keep the lights on. Spread $2 billion across PREPA's roughly 1.4 million customers, and that's about $1,400 a household, in a place where the median household income per year is around $25,000 and nearly 40% of the people live in poverty. These families are financing partner-level billable rates that run north of $1,500 an HOUR! That's more than some of these households bring in after 2 weeks of work... That money is coming straight out of the pockets of the poorest Puerto Ricans, while $12+ billion in federal funding sits unused because the FOMB refuses to let PREPA exit bankruptcy. This is straight-up USAID 2.0! Another total scam where connected insiders get rich while the people of Puerto Rico pay the price. This is why the bankruptcy never ends! As long as the meter is running on these massive legal and consulting fees, there's zero incentive to actually fix anything. Puerto Ricans are left sitting in the dark while the lawyers keep padding their pockets. This issue is also a political winner for Republicans to take on. A recent poll of Puerto Ricans in Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania found that half of them would be MORE likely to support Republicans if President Trump @POTUS and congressional Republicans actually fix the power grid. 93% of the people polled said the head of the FOMB should absolutely be fired. Republicans have a real shot to win these voters over by cleaning up this disaster. SOURCE: miamiherald.com/opinion/articl… President Trump has the power to end this for good, and in the process win over more voters for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms. This has gone on for way too long… I'm going to keep following the money and exposing these bad actors. If you have more details on who's still profiting off of Puerto Rico's suffering, send it to me on the Loomered Tip Line! loomered.com/tip-line/
