In February of 2017, major credit agencies declared Puerto Rico’s debt to be of junk status, that is to say they felt that it was all but inevitable that Puerto Rico would be forced to default on at least part of it’s debts. From the late 1990s onwards, Puerto Rico has been accumulating more and more debt, and the consequences for the people of Puerto Rico have been dire. Tens of thousands of jobs have fled the island, and people forced to face extreme austerity to make budget ends. It is, unfortunately, a crisis with no clear villains. Puerto Rican politicians and bureaucrats, off-island financial giants, and ordinary investors all had incentives to allow Puerto Rico to borrow more than it could sustain. The answer, as we explore in today’s podcast episode, is that everyone helped create Puerto Rico’s current debt crisis.