Now you know why I had to leave my cushy job working for the yanquis in Puerto Rico. It isn't immediately obvious because its all so subtle and so neatly disguised under multiple layers of business bullshit. But after you work for a government agency doing public relations work for the US companies that control the local economy, it slowly starts to sink in. I went to college in the 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam and Civil Rights protests, but I was mostly apolitical until my hitch in the US Colonial Service radicalized me. I have seen close-up the practical results of what Oliver is talking about.

Incidentally, did you notice how many of those news reports Oliver used to document his rant came from AlJazeera? Could that be because the US Press doesn't really cover adequately the full extent and scope of US business activities overseas, and the way they are facilitated and abetted by US Government legislation and trade policy? This is the kind of "Deal" Mr Trump is always talking about.

There is one major ripoff Oliver left out. About a hundred years ago, Congress passed a law making it illegal for any cargo to be shipped into Puerto Rico except on US Flag ships manned by American crews. The result is that Puerto Ricans pay the highest shipping costs for maritime merchandise because the US merchant marine is one of the smallest and most expensive in the world. This law applies to all US ports, but in CONUS there are alternatives to ocean shipping. PR is an island, they have no choice but to pay extra for anything because they are an island where very little is produced. Most US companies register their ships in places like Panama and Liberia so they don't have to pay their crews American Seafarer's Union wages, and so they can skimp on safety equipment and regulations. Right now, if some other country wanted to ship emergency or relief supplies to Puerto Rico, technically, it would be illegal under US Law.

The major employers when I was there were labor-intensive industries like pharmaceuticals and machine assembly because of PR's low salaries and tax advantages. Cheap labor brought American industry in. So not only were American workers losing jobs, but Puerto Rican ones were being exploited.

If you scratch, just under the surface, things start making themselves clearer. You don't need Hessians in Red Coats or a tax on tea to have a colony.