Questions for Debate: What is the main cause of Detroit's financial woes and bankruptcy? Is this a picture into the future of more cities and possible states? Did Detroit have an alternative to bankruptcy? What role did government mismanagement play in this situation? Should the city be forced to sell its assets, including the "priceless" art collection of the Detroit Institute of the Arts?
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/26/news/economy/detroit-bankruptcy-arena/ They are not broke, they are just using the Donald Trump method. Bankruptcy Shmankruptcy, it doesn't matter. They got bailed out once, it will happen again.
I think American Airlines was bankrupt for a couple years, still operating and then merged just recently... You are right about the Trump method...It's not as much getting bailed out...You get rid your debt (for pennies on the dollar) and start over...God Bless America!
They have the infrastructure and expenses for a population of over 2 million. Unfortunately the UAW and democratic leadership have driven the population to 700,000 of which 16% are unemployed. It was inevitable.
Detroit was built around a single industry. Much of that industry went overseas. It's also more complicated than that, but when you are founded around a single industry you are definitely going to go under at some point. Nothing lasts forever and economic diversity is one of the few factors that can mitigate against that basic reality. Nothing is happening in Detroit right now that didn't happen in Steel Country over the last 50 years or so. It's just on a bigger scale.
New $444 million hockey arena is still a go in Detroit http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/26/news/economy/detroit-bankruptcy-arena/ I get that stadiums generate revenue, jobs, business, etc, but is this REALLY a good idea??? Seems stupid to me, but what do I know?
Ford just started pulling a lot of long-standing motor sports sponsorships. I'm guessing they tried to help the city and got fucked for their efforts. But since I hate Fords, I really don't give a shit.
Retired city employees are about to learn that their benefits are no more safe than pensioners of companies that use bankruptcy to shed this weight. I cannot think of something more loathsome than stripping a retiree (usually no longer able to generate a living wage) of his contractually attained retirement benefits. If a bailout comes in one form or another, cities will flock to this models as corporations have used government programs to hand over pension obligations to the government or to default on them altogether. Cities will try to find a way to foist this obligation onto the federal or state governments. (my choice would be state if this has to happen, much of Detroit's tax base has moved beyond the decaying city's limits. I think a metropolitan area is a more sound fiscal ecosystem than a city) But I predict it will be worse. This will be a test case for using municipal bankruptcy to shed pension obligations and when it works, cities will file bankruptcy and shed this obligation. They may even find ways of doing so without defaulting on bonds. This will hit the people of a struggling state quite hard and I doubt their voices will be heard clearly. Sacred capital will get its slice and retired labor will be despised as a group that greedily demands to be paid in full for what it rendered in full with their tool and sweat. Their families will bear the burden and bank executives and former corrupt and inept officials will go along their merry way in snowbird paradise...
Public sector unions retirees in a city with a much too high ratio of municipal employees per resident have created the situation (and the government which negotiated the deals) but its all a harbinger of the greater problem facing most Western (and East Asian) nations of too many people retiring from the workforce and not enough to replace them. Welcome to the future.
This is what happens when you export your jobs overseas and make successful big families unworkable economically. You still have some big families but there aren't enough jobs available to make them economically viable. Most people looking at that reality settle for one or two kids, because that's what they can support in the low job economy and the overall population begins to thin out. Soon you have more retirees than new job entries and things really bottom out. The only people who win in that scenario are the top of the food chain who made out like bandits on the profits that outsourcing produced and the Dinks and low child families that can support themselves and their children in reasonable style. Then even the Dinks and low child families begin to lose out because their retirement is now shaky and their kids don't have solid opportunities.
i think it had something to do with vomit on his sweater already... possibly mom's spaghetti. then we all just figured we had to lose ourselves in the music, and the rest was history
The issue is that unions have controlled that city for way too long. They are paying 65% of every tax dollar collected on Union pensions and benefits. Why is it the responsibility of the current worker to support the extravegant pensions of the retired worker? 149 full time employees are involved in the payroll process. It costs Detroit $62 for every paycheck it cuts. Detroit is exactly why there shouldn't be public employee unions. When you can vote in your boss there is a huge conflict of interest.They tried to negotiate with the unions and pension officers. They refused to reduce any of the pension payouts or benefits.
