The headlines have been filled with news about Puerto Rico since the commonwealth’s Governor Alejandro Padilla said on June 29 the island’s debts are “not payable.” The fiscal reset of 2008 was global and sharp, bringing a “new normal” in its wake, and the full effects are finally catching up not only in Puerto Rico but across the Caribbean region.

A number of significant macroeconomic conditions are lining up for the region, and specifically for Puerto Rico — the island nation of more than 3 million people — and after decades of underperformance, the Caribbean is setting up for a new stage of growth.

The old normal is prologue in Puerto Rico

Though its future seems to hang in doubt, the woes in Puerto Rico will not hang in the headlines indefinitely. There’s another story already taking shape in the commonwealth. In the new macroeconomic normal where North America leads, there are few geographies more interesting than the Cari