Puerto Ricos Struggle for its Existence

Today, Puerto Rico struggle for its existence, becomes more apparent than ever. Every day that goes by a new crisis pops up for our survival shows up. There are many important variable for this observation. 1. Population growth to use Thomas Malthus doctrine that population has grows geometrical, Meaning 2, 4, 8, 16.  2. Food reproduction grows in an arithmetic process. 1, 2, 3, 4 and lastly our exportation of Human capital or brain drain. Based on the Census data, although birthrate have been reduced since 1990. Population growth rate is still 2.5% faster, at this rate Puerto Rico will not have enough food to sustain themselves for more than a few week. Why, because total production of agricultural has been stagnated for the last 20 years. People will also hey but crime has increased and people are dying more every year, but it only has a arithmetic effect not a geometric effect, therefore they will not cancel out population growth. To use the words of the naturalist Charles Darwin “The struggle for existence inevitably follows organic being tend to increase. Every being, which during natural lifetime produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some period of its life, and during some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the principal of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so inordinately that no country can support the product”, and here is where Puerto Rico is at today. Population growth has exploded during the last 50 years while food reproduction has declined. Our data has shown that Puerto Rico will not be able to survive three weeks to sustain itself locally without an importing food from outside countries, if this is to occur. But let’s take look at it for a famine or crises situation, Puerto Rico this week was hit by a category 1 hurricane (Irene), winds up to 75 miles an hour. Within 48 hours over 50% of the islands population close to 800,000 customers were without electricity and 15% without water and the Executive Director (AEE) Miguel A. Cordero, indicated that we will not have full capacity within two to three weeks. Three weeks, Why, because again our thinking again is not biological not organic, its mechanical, why does it take three weeks to be at full capacity in the 21^st? Because the word efficiencies is not in the vocabulary, Inefficiencies yes. Having electrical cable underground is efficiency. Having them above ground is not.

Inefficiencies = pollution

Inefficiencies = mechanical thinking in a biological environment

Inefficiency = 3 weeks to get at full capacity = non productivity = lose of Money

This bring me to my third point, Natural selection. Natural Selection, is the process of variations to adapt to its environment, by being the most adaptive to survive and to adapt so that your genetic code or DNA can continue to survive, compete and pass on to the next generation. If infrastructures, i.e. utility, water, and roads are part of some of the important variants for countries to be competitive, does Puerto Rico find itself in the process of extinction in the whole global game of competition, but more so in the struggle for its existence in the 21^st century. As some of the leading economist of the island have said, Puerto Rico only has a few years to reposition itself to compete. I go even farther, we have only a few years for our struggle of our existence, because Natural selection, although nonrandom, is violent and will not wait for weakest to adapt globally. The question for Puerto Rico has to be: Do we adapt and evolve? Do we work as ants colonies, were ants individually are not efficient, but as a million of ants “smart swarm” together create the most efficient systems in the world to compete and evolve. They have been doing it for more than 350 million years, lets learn from them. Do we invest with a sense of urgency in variations to adapt, i.e. utility, water, and roads? Do we look at creating a competitive business ecosystem, an environment of competitiveness? Do we move away from the entitlement or social incentive economy? Natural Selection does not believe in entitlement economy to compete. Puerto Rico has answered these fundamental questions globally in specific  industries; Miss Universe pageants, Major league baseball players, boxing, and the rum capital of the world, no entitlements were used, only Natural Selection made them the best in their industries. Now, why not to a bigger audience. Puerto Rico; we can do it!    

Article soon to be released in the Hartford Business Journal

Juan Morales, MBA, Author:  What businesses can learn from a competitive ecosystem: How Darwin, ants, coquis, beehives, clusters help us connect and create a better business ecosystem (A primer) sold though Amazon.com