Detroit

[Vuk]

http://www.kentuckynewsnetwork.com/c...ticle=10356878
Oh Detroit. If ever there was a city more vile than Chicago, this just may be it. If it weren't for Walker, this is what Wisconsin could have looked like someday. Damn glad we got that guy.

[rvg]

Yes, it's pretty bad. I live a 30 minute drive from that cesspool of a town, and I just want to say this: whatever horror stories you hear about Detroit, they're all true.

[Fragony]

That's unions for ya

@rvg, my brother studied there, very briefly hehe

[drone]

[Hooahguy]

It makes Kiev seem appealing.

Which is saying something.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Plus the Red Wings don't have a defense this year.

[HoreTore]

A completely natural result of a free market policy.

With a proper social security net, an active state and proper unions, this would of course not have happened.

[Vuk]

A completely natural result of a free market policy.

With a proper social security net, an active state and proper unions, this would of course not have happened.

lol, Unions and entitlement programs are what turned it into what it is HoreTore! How can you say that about one of the most leftist cities in America, with some of the most active and powerful Unions in America? (Look at he UAW, and how it controls what used to be Detroit's biggest industry)
Dude, you are prescribing the infection to cure the disease!

[Major Robert Dump]

I hope HoreTore was being sarcastic.

Detroit is the pinnacle of a failed welfare system. Three, four and five generations in the same family on welfare, all clustered together in poverty pockets.

Only recently did they allow the common sense idea of allowing citixens to arm themselves again. There was a gun ban in that city I think for 15 years. Did a bang up job, let me tell ya

Huey Lewis is DISSAPOINT

[Ice]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption

[Major Robert Dump]

The White Flight argument is horse **** in the context that it blames whitey.

People will naturally move to a better location when they can afford to. With the influx of people came an influx of crime and lowered property values. So people left.

Instead of blaming the white people, maybe we should blame the second generation of the migrants who turned the neighborhood into garbage, and blame the banks and assessors who appraised the properties.

I always get a guffaw out of people who think that some family should tough out economic and social strife for the sake of some abstract idea of racial equality.
This has less to do with race and more to do with personal well-being. Black people moved out of the hood as soon as opportunity knocked. Havent you ever seen the Jeffersons???

[Ice]

Dump, I'm not blaming whitey. The white flight argument is not horseshit. Why is Detroit 90% black?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_Young

[Sarmatian]

It makes Kiev seem appealing.

Which is saying something.

Have you actually seen Kiev?

[rory_20_uk]

It wasn't white people that left - it was wealthy people that left. Most of those were white. Was there a massive influx of wealthy black people into the area? I doubt it.

Crime requires criminals. Unless it is people commuting in from elsewhere to commit crimes, it is the people that are there who helped wreck it. Where I live is a lot shabbier than it should be as people park on the verges, turning the nice grass banks into muddy ruts. There aren't even any parking restrictions on the roads! Most people have drive ways, many have garages!

Even animals have more sense than to shit where they live. It seems that many humans are beneath this standard.

[HoreTore]

I hope HoreTore was being sarcastic.

yeah, it's just a coincidence that you find these cities only in the places where the free market ideology is most advanced.

In states with a proper and functioning system of social security, unions, etc, you don't find anything like this, even though we also have plenty of de-industrialized cities. Skien in Norway is one example, the last cornerstone industry there(Union, a paper mill) was shut down in the mid-2000's. With proper government focus as well as a working social security, the city was re-educated and is now back stronger than it was before.

And do remember tha you're talking with a European leftie here. What you believe to be "leftist policy" is what I consider blasphemous right-wing ideological blindness...

Leftist policies like New Deal and Henry Ford built Detroit. Free market loonies like Milton Friedman tore it down.

[rory_20_uk]

Free market economics did ruin it. The Unions.

Unions grasped for everything they could as all that matters is NOW. Don't prepare for the future, don't invest in the community - money for their members ASAP!!!
They persisted in this mentality to the bitter end.

A much better model is Germany where companies tend to value their employees and employees value the company. This facet is separate to how socialist the country is - the company survives and people keep their jobs. Both sides work together through hard patches.

[Montmorency]

Could you please elaborate, Horetore?

Leftist policies like...Henry Ford built Detroit.

[Sigurd]

Dude, you are prescribing the infection to cure the disease!

Soo... like a vaccine?

[Major Robert Dump]

Dump, I'm not blaming whitey. The white flight argument is not horseshit. Why is Detroit 90% black?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_Young

I wasn't saying you were. And I am not denying White Flight existed. Nor am I denying that race was a factor in some Archie Bunker-ish situations.

I don't know about these days, but in college the professors always painted this as a Grand Conspiracy by Whitey to take the money and run, and to intentionally ruin the people who stayed behind. This always annoyed me, and led to many heated arguments in classes, where I became the punching bag of shite guilt hippies.

Sorry, I was having flashbacks......ptsd....

[Vladimir]

Sorry, I was having flashbacks......ptsd....

Your college flashbacks are from LSD not PTSD.

For some reason I kept typing LDS. Maybe I'm traumatized too.

[HoreTore]

Could you please elaborate, Horetore?

Henry Ford's focus on always increasing employee wages is what the workers movement was about. Ford didn't believe in unions, but that's because he believed his style of industrialism would become dominant; and in Ford's companies, there really is no need for a union. However, since Ford was wrong about what other industrialists do, unions are(unfortunately) needed.

Also, I second what rory says. Unions in "socialist business-hate"-land means a three-party partnership between the state, the workers union and the employers union(yes, employers also need to unionize). All three parties share several interests, but if things doesn't resolve itself, then the state can cut through and force a binding agreement between the two.

[Vuk]

Henry Ford's focus on always increasing employee wages is what the workers movement was about. Ford didn't believe in unions, but that's because he believed his style of industrialism would become dominant; and in Ford's companies, there really is no need for a union. However, since Ford was wrong about what other industrialists do, unions are(unfortunately) needed.

Also, I second what rory says. Unions in "socialist business-hate"-land means a three-party partnership between the state, the workers union and the employers union(yes, employers also need to unionize). All three parties share several interests, but if things doesn't resolve itself, then the state can cut through and force a binding agreement between the two.

Henry Ford is in many ways THE American capitalist! There is nothing leftist about him (the left looks to the government for help, remember?). It is not that the left believes people should be better off and the right wants them to rot. The difference is in how they think the betterment should occur. The leftists look to government, and conservatives look at social and economic opportunitty.
Ford was the latter. I don't know how much you know about Fordism, but it is an economic and business model designed to increase a company's profits. It is not about charity. Like all aspects of the free market, the idea is to harness selfish motivation and use it to better yourself and everyone else at the same time. It is actually unions that ruined that business model and made it impossible. That is the reason it is not the dominant business model today. The unions almost ruined the Ford company (they were literally striking for 4 hour work weeks at one point). Other companies were able to overtake Ford, mostly because of unions.
Unions are a scurge. Sure, they have been needed sometimes, but in the modern world, they are mostly only an evil. Very few workers (such as linemen) still need unions to protect them. When a union is no longer needed, it should be immediately dismantled to stop it from enslaving and abusing the workers.

[Lemur]

There is nothing leftist about [Henry Ford]

History fail. Ford ran as a "Peace Candidate" in 1918, and was strongly in favor of the League of Nations. So clearly he was a peacenik and a one-world government Freemason.

I don't think modern American right-wingers have any notion of how extreme they've become. Nixon passed Title 9 and founded the EPA, Reagan raised taxes and gave amnesty to millions of illegals, Teddy Rosevelt broke up corporations, etcetera. All of the heroes of the past would have be considered RINOs today. In fact, measured against President Obama's rather tepid response to the financial industry's riot of corruption, they would be considered socialists.

And don't get me started on Jesus of Nazareth, who gave out free healthcare and wouldn't shut the hell up about poor people. You would have hated him.

[rvg]

History fail. Ford ran as a "Peace Candidate" in 1918, and was strongly in favor of the League of Nations. So clearly he was a peacenik and a one-world government Freemason

and a Nazi sympathizer.

[Vladimir]

and a Nazi sympathizer.

So he was a socialist then.

[Lemur]

So he was a socialist then.

Ford wasn't on record advocating the private/public mix of Nazism, but boy did he hate them Jews.

[Vladimir]

Ford wasn't on record advocating the private/public mix of Nazism, but boy did he hate them Jews.

Like I said.

But what do I know? I still have duck cloaca on my mind.

[Lemur]

Wait, so Jew-hating means socialism? Man, I can't keep up with the latest wingnut re-definitions of language.

Maybe it would be simpler if we could get a list of what isn't socialism.

[Haudegen]

Henry Ford is in many ways THE American capitalist! There is nothing leftist about him (the left looks to the government for help, remember?). It is not that the left believes people should be better off and the right wants them to rot. The difference is in how they think the betterment should occur. The leftists look to government, and conservatives look at social and economic opportunitty.
Ford was the latter. I don't know how much you know about Fordism, but it is an economic and business model designed to increase a company's profits. It is not about charity. Like all aspects of the free market, the idea is to harness selfish motivation and use it to better yourself and everyone else at the same time. It is actually unions that ruined that business model and made it impossible. That is the reason it is not the dominant business model today. The unions almost ruined the Ford company (they were literally striking for 4 hour work weeks at one point). Other companies were able to overtake Ford, mostly because of unions.
Unions are a scurge. Sure, they have been needed sometimes, but in the modern world, they are mostly only an evil. Very few workers (such as linemen) still need unions to protect them. When a union is no longer needed, it should be immediately dismantled to stop it from enslaving and abusing the workers.

Hmm, wikipedia says on Fordism that his idea (and his payment-policy) was mainly that he wanted his workers as consumers, i.e. he wanted them to have enough money to be able to afford his cars.

Nothing wrong with that so far. But IMHO this works only as long as you´re focusing mainly on selling things in your own town. If your business grows to a point where you have to sell your goods in completely different regions or continents, the whole idea won´t work anymore.

[HoreTore]

Henry Ford is in many ways THE American capitalist! There is nothing leftist about him (the left looks to the government for help, remember?). It is not that the left believes people should be better off and the right wants them to rot. The difference is in how they think the betterment should occur. The leftists look to government, and conservatives look at social and economic opportunitty.
Ford was the latter. I don't know how much you know about Fordism, but it is an economic and business model designed to increase a company's profits. It is not about charity. Like all aspects of the free market, the idea is to harness selfish motivation and use it to better yourself and everyone else at the same time. It is actually unions that ruined that business model and made it impossible. That is the reason it is not the dominant business model today. The unions almost ruined the Ford company (they were literally striking for 4 hour work weeks at one point). Other companies were able to overtake Ford, mostly because of unions.
Unions are a scurge. Sure, they have been needed sometimes, but in the modern world, they are mostly only an evil. Very few workers (such as linemen) still need unions to protect them. When a union is no longer needed, it should be immediately dismantled to stop it from enslaving and abusing the workers.

Political fail.

"Leftism"(I'll assume you refer to social democracy) isn't about chqrity in any way, it's abiut maximizing profit for society. The difference between it and free market nonsense is that a social democrat believes that sustainable, long-term growth can only occur when all classes grow at about the same pace. Like how Henry Ford believed that he could only make money if he also made sure his workers made money. Which makes him a social democratic poster boy.

He shouldn't be used as a reference outside his role as an industrialist, however, seeing as he was a paranoid jew-hating scumbag...

And we'll all need unions, both employers and employees, as long as we negotiate our wages every year. Which means forever.