After Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis, Worries Shift to Virgin Islands
“I don’t think you can say it’s a crisis, but they have challenges — high debt, weak economies
and unfunded pensions,” said Jim Millstein, whose firm, Millstein & Company, advised Puerto Rico on its economic affairs and debt restructuring until this year and has reviewed the situation in Guam and the Virgin Islands.
“Spending borrowed money is too easy.”
But the debt dilemma is now most acute in the Virgin Islands — the three main islands are St. Thomas, St. Croix
and St. John — where the government has been struggling ever since a giant refinery closed in 2012, wiping out the territory’s biggest nongovernment employer and a mainstay of its tax base.
