What Does Today's Primary Mean?

(Q) Not much, according to this reader:

I'm a Puerto Rican reader and I currently live in PR after living a good chunk of my adult life in the US. I've been following the primaries in the US closely. I studied in the States, have a masters degree. Out of my very highly educated friends, I'm the only one who's paying attention to what's going on in this election year in the US.

You cannot use Puerto Rico as a basis for explaining any phenomenon in the US.

We are a colony. We do not participate in any of the US political processes, really. There isn't a general understanding of US national politics, nor of the "Republican" v. "Democrat" mentality. We are consumed by our local politics and whether we should become a state, an independent country or remain as we are.

Clinton's victory here means nothing. There's a lot of name recognition and her husband is a rock star here. That's it. Don't extrapolate the results into anything. We are not Latinos in the same way that Mexican Americans are Latinos. Our vote has nothing to do with Obama's "problem" with Latinos. Anyone trying to frame the PR vote into anything other than name recognition, has no knowledge of PR at all and is, in short, full of it.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

US Underestimating Inflation

On Wednesday, Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris made a high-profile announcement that Dow would increase its prices by as much as 20%, starting June 1. Dow, the top U.S. chemical company, said the plan was necessary to offset the impact of rising costs for energy and related raw materials. Over the past year, Dow has already increased its price by about 12%, but those price changes have been phased in gradually rather than implemented all at once.

In the interview, Liveris said he thinks the U.S. is underestimating the level of inflation in the economy and he expects the rise in energy costs is beginning to destroy demand. Liveris expects the price increases his company made will eventually be passed on to the consumer: Bounce 2 CNBC Video

Map Shows All