Dawdling While Puerto Rico Burns

Puerto Rico says it's facing an imminent debt crisis, but its latest restructuring plan doesn't appear to be a concentrated effort to resolve it. It seems content to wait on a solution to somehow appear from some quarter, but it's far too late for wait-and-see.

The island did finally come forward with its first concrete road map for how to manage its suffocating $70 billion debt pile. It said it would cut obligations by 46 percent, delay any interest payments for years and create "growth bonds" that would most likely be worth nothing.

Unfortunately, the proposal was dead on arrival. It didn't even move the ball forward enough to engender some confidence from creditors that there could be a path to a speedy resolution, which was crucial to making progress.