This year marks a decade of economic contraction in Puerto Rico. The causes of the downturn in an economy once seen as a successful model are varied and complex.

Factors such as the popping of a construction bubble, the dismantlement of the industrial model of development, the expiration of a federal tax break for corporate income, the approval of CAFTA-DR, changes in the global economy, incompetent and servile government administrations, and the island’s colonial relationship with the United States have all contributed to an economic depression that predated the worldwide crisis.

Not surprisingly, the situation was then aggravated by the financial collapse of 2008, which led, among other things, to reduced credit for small and medium firms, many of which ended up having to close down. Since then GNP has fallen dramatically (2 percent annually on average for the past eight years), unemployment has climbed into double-digits (270,000 jobs have been eliminated), and crime has reached record levels.