Gran Depresión de Puerto Rico

I ran into an old co-worker over the weekend. Nice guy, kids, and a beautiful wife. Back when I knew him, he was a talented and charismatic salesmen. He climbed the corporate ladder with me, and I saw him demonstrate professional and responsible management of various parts of our company's sales function and eventually became manager of all of our retail stores.

When we both "downsized," I lost track of him. About a couple of years ago I was surprised and pleased to see that he had been selected to run a new retail store that was opening on the island. As bad luck would have it, he wouldn't last very long in that position because the company went into bankruptcy and recently shuttered its' doors.

So as we talked I was thinking to myself, "Damn what a bad time to be on the street looking for a job," especially a senior level sales or store management position. As are most of us, anyone who still has a "decent" job is holding onto it for dear life. Surprisingly, none of this seemed to phase my friend. He was actually pretty upbeat.

He explained that he had been doing some research and was going to open a "carrito" to sell tripletas. He said based on his research, some successful owners of roadside stands were pulling down around $2,000 a day. (That jives with a napkin calculation my wife and I did on a highly successful nightime hambaurger stand near our house. We calcuated that before expenses he was probably making $8,000 a week. His week was Wednesday night through Saturday night, four days).

He said he already had all the permissions and was now conducting a secret shopper exercise to determine the right price for his menu. His opinion, and who could blame him, was basically "pa' carajo," it's not worth risking your livelihood on a "real" job anymore. After so many let downs, he was going to be the Mr. Mom during the week and run the carrito on the weekends. If he can gross $1,200, no let's be conservative, $1,000 a day for Thursday through Saturday, he would be pulling down, tax free, $3,000 a week. That's $156,000 a year, tax free. His family gets their health care from his wife's job, so really, almost all of that is net profit.

Conclusion

I say more power to him, right? I mean he's been dicked around by the corporate world so much that, if I were him, I'd be pretty disillusioned about working for anyone else, ever again. Then again, depending upon your point of view, his move into the underground economy could be considered a great tragedy.

When highly talented, charismatic, and successful professionals decide to become street-side hotdog vendors, the end is nigh. I'm still not sure when, but if your keeping score at home, then you'll have to give this round to Puerto Rico's very own "Gran Depresión." For not only are we losing talent to the U.S in droves, we are now losing it to the underground economy. Either way it means one less planilla, one less contributor to Hacienda's income stream. Looking at my scorecard, I'd say that Puerto Rico's economy and government (and therefore any chance of economic recovery) is losing and the "Gran Depresión de Puerto Rico" has us on the ropes. The knockout blow should be coming any time now.