How goes it Tackle Traders!?

This last week was nothing short of amazing and I was given the opportunity to return to Puerto Rico and observe the installation of Tackle’s solar donation to Off-Grid Relief. Three families in need were given free power for the next ten years in what I can only describe as a game changing solar system… And this is just the first round of donations from our trading community and outside acquaintances and I am very excited to see the impact we are able to achieve as this campaign develops. What I witnessed was profound and what Alberto, Kamil, Andres, and Antouine are doing is pure and unfettered. It is humanitarian work at its finest, folks—no bureaucracy, no waste, just complete and full impact. They make FEMA look like a bunch of amateurs! So, with great pleasure and supreme confidence what money we are able to raise and send their way will be made full use of; that, and the solar-kit Alberto has put together is cost-effective, functional, and ingenious. Were dealing with some serious stuff here, folks! Ive been around the block in world of volunteerism and humanitarian efforts and I have never seen anything quite like Off-Grid Relief. They really have nailed it on the head.

Now, to give a bit of context, I am sure all of us are aware of the damage Hurricanes Irma and Maria bestowed upon the island… and indeed it is as bad as it is made out to be. For well over 100 days now, neither the Puerto Rican provincial government, nor the United States government has made much made progress restoring the national power grid. And at times nearly 80% of the island is in the dark. This naturally affects other infrastructure system such as basic utilities and supply chain and has left an estimated 75k-100k households in the center of the island without power, indefinitely. Which has been incredibly problematic for the people who live in the mountainous center of Puerto Rico, the people most affected by these inefficiencies of government as well as the Hurricanes themselves. Now, the powers at be tarry on with this feeble attempt to rebuild what ultimately is a fragile, out-dated grid system—one which continues to fail and is a large reason the provincial government in P.R. is in debt in the first place.

Naturally I expected to see infrastructure damage and the like but what I did not anticipate was the degree of human suffering that was taking place… People are literally loosing their lives as a result of all of this. I mean, the first family we installed solar for lost a family member (Luis’s mother) because of the post-Maria living conditions. If they had electricity, most likely it would have spared her life. Very sad stuff, folks…Another man in the region has to walk upwards of three hours a day to get insulin and cannot tend to his family and farm as a result. And the last person we installed solar for was an old lady who lost her husband several years ago and has been with out fresh water, electricity, or aid of any kind for over 100 days now. She lives alone and as well has to walk several hours a day up and down a treacherous mountain slope to provide for herself. And then there is Danny, who approached our aid group as a desperate father of three on the verge of hopelessness. He begged and pleaded for any form of help that could be offered and I could see in his eyes that this situation had stripped any form of human dignity he may of once had. These people are in a tight spot, ladies and gentlemen.

Indeed one may extend the argument that maybe these should move, but what that person may not understand is that their land(s) has been in their family for generations. They also may not be able to afford to move in the first place; that, and many of them are the farmers which grow Puerto Rico’s food… which cannot and should not be given up on. Just think about Paul Harvey’s famous speech: “So God Made a Farmer”. That, or look at what happened to the Haitian economy after the nation’s rice farmers were put in a similar situation after a 7 magnitude earthquake devastated the country in 2010. To this day their economy has yet to recover, thus sending tens of thousands of Haitians around the world to seek new lives.

What is different in the case of Puerto Rico is that it would hundreds of thousands more people; that, and they are American citizens which pay most United States federal taxes, taxes that ought to provide aid in these desperate times. Indeed we sometimes think of moral reasoning as a way of persuading other people of this notion. But this is also a way of sorting out our own moral convictions, of figuring out what we truly believe in and why at the end of the day. Being that Puerto Ricans are our compatriots we find ourselves in a situation that is inescapably judgmental, just as it was in Hurricane Katrina. As Peter Singer once wrote in The Life You Can Save: “Most of us are absolutely certain that we wouldn’t hesitate to save a drowning child, and that we would do it at considerable cost to ourselves. Yet while thousands of children die each day, we spend money on things we take for granted and would hardly miss if they were not there. Is that wrong? If so, how far does our obligation to the poor go? Giving to strangers, especially those beyond one’s community may be good, but we don’t think of it as something we have to do. But if the basic argument presented above is right, then what many of us consider acceptable behavior must be viewed in a more ominous light. When we spend our surplus on concerts or fashionable shoes, on fine dining or good wines, we are doing something wrong.”

Therefore questions of justice are bound up with competing notions of honor and virtue, pride and recognition. For example, what the world witnessed with Katrina in 2005 was indeed undignified. In this case of Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico, however, justice is not only about the right way to distribute aid to our fellow Americans as it was in Katrina. But it is also about the right way to value things. It’s in this way the purpose of politics is not to simply protect economic or personal freedom, it should as well make us better people and enshrine moral values. Simply put: there are things that money cannot buy, such as human dignity. And to throw “paper towels” at the issue is a very undignified message to send to the world and to these people. My point is we can and should do better by Puerto Rico.

The good news is that we find ourselves in a very obvious situation, one which has an obvious course of action. And what we will be able to achieve as a trading community will have a massive impact on the lives of these particular people. Therefore, we will be doing a consistent campaign to raise money for Off Grid Relief and for those that they help. Any amount of money goes a long way with this aid group and carries full impact potential. You can also take a tax write-off through the non-profit Urban Health Plan when donating to Off Grid Relief as well. (Just make sure to note Off Grid Relief when doing so.) Beyond that the donation process is very simple and we have a very basic goal: to first raise 30k on gofundme and then power an entire village in the central region of Puerto Rico. Period, end of sentence.

Go Fund Me: gofundme.com/off-grid-relief

Urban Health Plan: www.urbanhealthplan.org

Lastly, the reasons we are doing this, beyond morality and ethics, is that this is a part of the Environmental Hedging trading system. That, in step 3 of the system (the Covered Call) a portion of profits we cash-flow every month, roughly 2-5%, will go to a cause like Off Grid’s. So here you go ladies and germs, if you are compounding the system as prescribed in steps 1-3 of the system you now have a very honorable and dignified cause donate to. And I couldn’t be more proud of our students in PR and around the world who are participating in the rebuilding of Puerto Rico through the financial markets. This is something we can all gather around as a community and help make impactful change in this day and age.

Cheers,

Bob Shannon