Detroit

[Fisherking]

Wait, it was the government that went bankrupt, why is it a discussion of the poor?

They taxed themselves out of existence. They could not operate any longer on promises and raising taxes. They went from a population of around 2 million to 700,000.

Jobs left the area so people had to follow. Not all can be laid at the feet of the city government, the national government played a part to, as did the fall of manufacturing jobs but much of that was all intertwined.

My heart goes out to all the pensioners who are now left with almost nothing. They also had to pay in their money to retirement funds but have now lost it.

It could happen elsewhere too. Is Social Security much better off?

[Ice]

Wait, it was the government that went bankrupt, why is it a discussion of the poor?

They taxed themselves out of existence. They could not operate any longer on promises and raising taxes. They went from a population of around 2 million to 700,000.

Taxes only contributed to Detroit's problem. People didn't leave the city because of high taxes.

On a side note, I find it funny property taxes in the city of Detroit are often more than the homes themselves! Why anyone would pay high taxes to live in residential cease pool is beyond me.

Jobs left the area so people had to follow. Not all can be laid at the feet of the city government, the national government played a part to, as did the fall of manufacturing jobs but much of that was all intertwined.

I 100% disagree. Almost all the blame can be placed on the city government. Jobs and people left Detroit BECAUSE of the city government and corrupt, incompetent, and often racist leadership. There is a reason why Southeastern Michigan is and will continue to be much better than the city of Detroit itself. Jobs (for the most part) didn't disappear, but simply move to the more friendly suburbs. There is absolutely no reason to set up shop or continue to operate a business within the city. I still work on a few clients located within the city and I admire their loyalty.

My heart goes out to all the pensioners who are now left with almost nothing. They also had to pay in their money to retirement funds but have now lost it.

On one hand I feel bad because a lot of people aren't financially savvy. On the other, anyone who did any kind of research or paid attention what was going on in Detroit could have seen this coming 20 years ago.

It could happen elsewhere too. Is Social Security much better off?

Yes. Social Security is still solvent and will be for years to come.

[The Lurker Below]

•Obama’s weekly address, October 13, 2012: “We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.”

Yesterday was an illusion created by that conservative over there behind the curtain. Didn't really happen. Clearly, nearly a year ago, Obama saved Detroit.

On one hand I feel bad because a lot of people aren't financially savvy. On the other, anyone who did any kind of research or paid attention what was going on in Detroit could have seen this coming 20 years ago.

All this happened once before, 40 years ago. Now we find it easier to build new than to renew. It's happened prior to that to a smaller degree in every American manufacturing center. It was only slowed down in Detroit 40 years ago because the unions made all their workers put MY CAR WILL EAT YOUR IMPORT bumper stickers on their cars.

[Lemur]

Obama’s weekly address, October 13, 2012: “We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.”

This has been making the rounds on Facebook, so I looked up the transcripts. It's pretty obvious that Obama was referencing the Big 3, i.e., Chrysler, GM, and Ford, with the shorthand of "Detroit."

All politicians do this. When Mitt Romney wrote his op-ed titled Let Detroit Go Bankrupt, he was not referencing the city itself, but using the common shorthand for the established American automakers. This practice is so common it should be beneath comment. And yet ...

This is about as deliberate a misreading of the President's words since "you didn't build that," when he was clearly and obviously talking about roads, bridges, and infrastructure.

Just drives home the reality that some folks need to construct an largely fictional Obama to hate.

As for the actual city of Detroit, the two people I know from there have an interesting attitude, very fatalistic about the whole thing.

[Ice]

As for the actual city of Detroit, the two people I know from there have an interesting attitude, very fatalistic about the whole thing.

What's the attitude?

[Lemur]

What's the attitude?

very fatalistic about the whole thing.

They're just kind of non-reactive about it. It's a husband and wife whom I've known for a couple of decades, and Detroit is very much their home. But their take on the whole bankruptcy can be best summed up as "meh."

Which is surprising, at least to me. I spent a large chunk of my life in Chicago, and if you told me Chicago was falling to ruin I'd be a little upset. I have many good memories from that town.

So I find their attitude, this mix of "whatever" and "yeah that's been coming for a long time" kind of ... well, I'm not sure what I think of it.

[Ice]

They're just kind of non-reactive about it. It's a husband and wife whom I've known for a couple of decades, and Detroit is very much their home. But their take on the whole bankruptcy can be best summed up as "meh."

Which is surprising, at least to me. I spent a large chunk of my life in Chicago, and if you told me Chicago was falling to ruin I'd be a little upset. I have many good memories from that town.

So I find their attitude, this mix of "whatever" and "yeah that's been coming for a long time" kind of ... well, I'm not sure what I think of it.

That's pretty much how I feel. The city has had such obvious problems for decades, yet no one did anything about it. Go figure.

[Papewaio]

So is meh denial or acceptance?

Or do they expect someone to bail out a city of the poor like a corporation of the rich?

[HopAlongBunny]

Well, Poors don't get bail outs so....

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Can someone explain to me what's actually happened here, what it means, and what happens now?

Does this mean, for example, that the Detroit PD will close? Or is it just investments like pensions that are wiped out?

[Fisherking]

The right wing cites 50 years of Democrats in office but it has to be more than that.

The city put all its eggs in the Auto Corps’ basket. Then they skipped town with most of the jobs, moving to the south and after NAFTA to Mexico, and now on to China and elsewhere.

I mostly wanted to know what those who live there thought about it. Meh seems to be about it.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The right wing cites 50 years of Democrats in office but it has to be more than that.

The city put all its eggs in the Auto Corps’ basket. Then they skipped town with most of the jobs, moving to the south and after NAFTA to Mexico, and now on to China and elsewhere.

I mostly wanted to know what those who live there thought about it. Meh seems to be about it.

OK - maybe I didn't make myself clear.

How can a city go "bankrupt"?

I don't mean "how can they make bad investments" I mean "how can the machinery of government go bankrupt"

I don't understand.

[Fisherking]

Try here, but you may need to do a lot of reading before you find what you're looking for.

http://www.cml.org/uploadedFiles/CML...eral_bonds.pdf

[The Lurker Below]

They rely on long term loans to pay expenses and can't repay them. The borrowing has been going on so long and so much that their annual loan repayments were nearly 480 million. They owed $33 for every $1 in assets back in 2011. Probably even worse now. This is to over 75,000 different creditors. They ran out of people wiling to loan them money.

Even though the governor backs this move, a meaningless county judge is trying to stop it. His motions don't have authority, but perhaps a higher court might get ideas?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Try here, but you may need to do a lot of reading before you find what you're looking for.

http://www.cml.org/uploadedFiles/CML...eral_bonds.pdf

That's a political document.

I want to know what's going on.

In the UK - a city cannot go bankrupt - the loans would be covered by central government and the City Council would lose control of spending until the Council was made solvent. The bills would still be paid.

So - what's going on​?

[Tellos Athenaios]

That's a political document.

I want to know what's going on.

In the UK - a city cannot go bankrupt - the loans would be covered by central government and the City Council would lose control of spending until the Council was made solvent. The bills would still be paid.

So - what's going on​?

Pretty much the same here. In fact, councils must report their budgets to central government and if a municipality continues to run a structural budget deficit for some time central government will appoint a curator to take control of spending and assume responsibility for fixing the budget. Being officially relegated to that category is sufficiently painful for local politicians to come to agreements quickly in order to avoid it.

[Ice]

So is meh denial or acceptance?

Acceptance. It more a matter of when than if.

Or do they expect someone to bail out a city of the poor like a corporation of the rich?

Corporation of the rich? Bailing out General Motors helped the entire Midwest, specially southeastern Michigan. Part of federal assistance required gutting the entire senior management. Our economy would look pretty scary if General Motors had flat out went bankrupt without government assistance. I would think unemployment (already above the national average) would be double what it is now. I'm not sure I'd even have a job.

That being said, I would think the federal government does not want to start precedent and start bailing out cities. I mean, what would stop half the cities in California for asking for the same treatment?

Can someone explain to me what's actually happened here, what it means, and what happens now?

Lots of litigation will happen. Creditors will get paid off in order according to federal bankruptcy law resulting in a lot of unhappy people getting pennies on the dollar. Hopefully, this means a fresh start for Detroit, resulting in tax revenue being reinvested into the city and not used to pay crushing debt.

OK - maybe I didn't make myself clear.

How can a city go "bankrupt"?

See my links on the first page of this thread. A combination of corruption, a shrinking tax base, mismanagement, and making promises that you can't keep.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

See my links on the first page of this thread. A combination of corruption, a shrinking tax base, mismanagement, and making promises that you can't keep.

I suppose I just have a problem with the State of Federal Government letting the municipal government actually default - given that you have a process to bail out business.

Like I said - it literally can't happen here, lights stay on no matter what, the whole City Council could go to gaol and you'd see no difference on the street.

[PanzerJaeger]

If we're going to invoke White Flight, can we also invoke the failure of majority black governance? Wherever it emerges, trouble ensues. Plenty of cities have lost major employers, and plenty have reemerged stronger than before. Very few have responded with violence, riots, and wanton acts of destruction aimed at themselves. These people have turned themselves into third world animals, and state control was long, long overdue.

[PanzerJaeger]

America or Somalia... maybe Lincoln was right after all.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's the fault of the parents.

[PanzerJaeger]

You blame their race? Maybe I should dig up a documentary on rural white Alabama or Georgia or Kentucky and you can eat your shoe.

Thanks for the documentary though. Its more on point than you are.

I am saying that the way African Americans govern themselves in the US - block voting, single party adherence, rampant corruption and mismanagement, poor leadership, lack of accountability, etc. - is just as much of a factor in Detroit's decline as White Flight and the fall of auto manufacturing. Detroit is a particularly stunning example, but metros with majority black populations and black leadership have been suffering for years. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

And please find me a rural white community that had even a tenth of the resources available that Detroit has squandered over the years. The auto decline started in the 70's; it wasn't as if the current situation suddenly occurred. Literally billions upon billions of dollars have been dumped into Detroit at the state and federal level for reinvestment, all to disappear down the rabbit hole. Compare that to, say, Indianapolis, which took steps long ago to ween itself off of auto manufacturing, as any competent city administration would have.

[PanzerJaeger]

Throwing labels around is never conducive to honest conversation. You have acknowledged many, many times on this forum that the black experience in America differs significantly from that of the white (such as the post preceding this one). Why would that different experience not translate to their abilities at self governance on a macro level? Is it because the connotations attached to my acknowledgement of those different circumstances are not quite as sympathetic as when you highlight them?

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim on the one hand that African Americans are poor rubes with no ability to understand changing economic conditions, as you did, and then whinge with righteous indignation when I suggest that maybe such people aren't the best at making informed decisions in their best interest.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Throwing labels around is never conducive to honest conversation. You have acknowledged many, many times on this forum that the black experience in America differs significantly from that of the white (such as the post preceding this one). Why would that different experience not translate to their abilities at self governance on a macro level? Is it because the connotations attached to my acknowledgement of those different circumstances are not quite as sympathetic as when you highlight them?

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim on the one hand that African Americans are poor rubes with no ability to understand changing economic conditions, as you did, and then whinge with righteous indignation when I suggest that maybe such people aren't the best at making informed decisions in their best interest.

There absolutely are differences worth acknowledging. You missed the part where the socio-economic differences come from hundreds of years of government mistreatment, though. Do you honestly think a predominately white detroit would be doing any better today? Do you even see why I think you're being racist? I don't just throw that term around loosely.

When the majority voting-block is made up of one community and the educated are a totally different community, you are headed for problems.

I'm not sure that Panzer is saying that Blacks are inherently incapable of governing, more that the black population in Detroit are poor and do not produce competent and well-educated administrators.

It's a catch 22 - either let the locals run things into the ground or bring in outside administration with no local connections and no sympathies.

Neither works.

You have the same problem with outside educators - bring in teachers from outside to staff Detroit schools and they'll become a class apart that neither the children nor their parents will trust.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

My point is that you have corrupt governments all over the world. You can blame the Democratic party, and you can even blame the black caucus if you want, but to blame black people for not having good management skills is silly. This is a socio-economic and political issue, not a biological one. If the roles were reversed and a black society was keeping white detroit down, it would be the same kind of crap.

It's not a biological issue - it's a cultural one.Part of the issue is the attempt to ape the Northern-European model of society, to a greater or lesser degree.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Which is a valid argument, especially if you consider that the attempt to "ape" that model of society was poor executed from the start.

The notion that blacks have been led to vote against their best interests in many districts is a perfectly valid one, as is the white republican gerrymandering on the other side. The problems go so far past race that it is not worth stopping to have a look at. You should go straight for the jugular, i.e. the two-party system as a whole.

It most definitely is a "race" issue, though.

In the UK Afro-Caribbean boys are acknowledged as doing worse than all other groups because they see academic education as a "white man's" game. Their culture actively disengages them from society at large, which is why many of them turn to crime - they see no reason to follow "white" laws.

You have the same problem in the US but worse because of the much sharper association with slavery.

There's nothing you and I can do, because we're white, and any black man who tries to help young black men is invariably labeled a racial traitor.

Look up what Black Rights groups said when Paul Simon released Graceland - they said he shouldn't work with SA musicians because there was a moratorium on cultural export from SA, so even black SA's were personae non gratia. Then the same rights groups claim Simon can't understand these musicians, because he's white, but these Americans blacks (not musicians) can, because they're both black.

Of course, nobody told the American "blacks" that the SA blacks wouldn't see them as "black" at all.

[Strike For The South]

As much as I love PJs bellicose style, and as much as I love to blame black people for bad things, I can't lay all of this at their feet.

Let us not forget the white unions whom refused to plan for the future or ever give an inch.

Certainly, there is this deep sense of unfairness and mistrust that black people as a group seem to have toward the power structure in this country. Not unfounded feelings by any means but not something that can't be bridged. Unfortunately these real and completely understanding feelings are hijacked by populist demagogues that line their own pockets. When you feel like there is no hope, you vote for the man who promises much. These men tend to be the ones who burn things down the quickest.

Just look at Detriots revolving door of mayors and council canidates. ALL of them promised to FIX the police and FIX the poverty and KEEP the jobs. They were either outright lying or ran headfirst into their own stunning incompetence. Most of the time both.

I know white flight is a whipping boy, but I would like to point out that these god fearing white Protestants didn't set out in the wilderness with their coonskins and civilization building genes. They took the newly minted interstate, cut themselves from the costs of the cities, and maintained the benefits. Jobs, entertainment, consumption, culture, all these things still were in the city. In 2013 some of these things may have moved to the suburbs, but in the 50s they were very much in the city. It should come as no surprise that cities that grew later (ie Sunbelt towns) all tended to annex their new suburbs.

Atlanta Ga has seen amazing growth since black leadership has taken over. Buffalo New York continues to decay with white people at the helm .

[Fisherking]

You may have some grounds to criticize modern black culture and cultural views but not black people.

One party policies and one party rule may have contributed to Detroit’s decline. Political incompetence too, perhaps. But black people are not the problem. I have never met a black person that was any stupider than anyone else. In fact, most I have met seem to have more common sense than the vast majority of most other groups. But prevailing views in the black community at large could be an issue.


At roughly the same time we ended the Jim Crow laws we also instituted policies that began the destruction of the black family and a major exodus of blacks from rural areas to cities.

The black integration into schools grew out a genuine desire for equal education for children and equal opportunities for them.

With the end of Jim Crow there was a degree of black backlash at the society that had kept them in poverty but the breakup of black families resulted in a dysfunctional culture where white education was also seen as undesirable and to be seen as oppressive. A society that previously placed high value on education was now one that rejected it. Coming at the same time were the massive government programs in welfare and housing which gave poor blacks a feeling of entitlement for past wrongs and a wholesale shift from Republican allegiance to Democrats believing that they had their best interests at heart.

This was a time of rejection of old ideas and a young generation who rejected the ideas and ideals of their fathers, not just black but all the boomers thought they knew better. Everyone of them was angry and someone needed to pay. This was also the last black generation to come from primarily two parent families. Much of that anger became engendered into black culture and continue to this day.

An example of this, though not very clear to most, was the vilification of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Forrest was a slave dealer, slave owner, Confederate General, and first leader of the Ku-Klux-Clan. I know I have a C there and not a k but that is how it was known when he headed it.

He was also a very admired figure in the black community of Memphis and the surrounding areas. His birthday was a holiday (13 July), and a day to remember all the things he did to promote equal rights for blacks. Something most people don’t know about. They accepted his explanation that he saw the Clan as a means to re-enfranchise Confederate soldiers and he disbanded the organization at the end of the 1860s. He held the black men who served with him in high honor and he essentially bankrupt himself working for equal employment rights and pay for blacks and was open about his feelings until the end of his life. The only documented case of him beating a black man was not for being uppity or politics but for being an unrepentant wife beater.

For these last things he was honored and seen as a hero by the black community until the death of MLK. After that point, he was seen for what he had been before the Civil War and needed to be hated as an evil white man.

So, now the park that used to host large crowds of black families pick nicking or having community Barbecues with huge masses of bouquets of flowers laid on his grave to remember him, is renamed because of the outrage of the black community that a Confederate slave dealer and kkk chief would have his name on anything.

I find it ironic that they not only abandoned the White man’s schools as not being worth the effort to learn, but the knowledge and values of their own fathers and forefathers.

In the 1960s low black test scores were seen as proof of their inferiority but as single parent families became more prevalent, and even a norm in society all scores seemed to take a dip. If blacks scores are lower today it is the way they view education and not mental limitations that are at fault. No amount of money thrown into schools will make a difference in attitudes at home.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Its a race issue in the sense that their skin color is a factor in how they've been treated. Its not a race issue in the sense that blacks aren't capable of governing themselves.

This is a cut and dry case of the two party system's long, long, long-standing tactic of playing the public against each other finally bearing fruit. Detroit collapses because of corporate greed, inept Unions, poor education, and incredibly bad government and people turn it into a race issue. Sad is what it is.

You're too wedded to the idea that the American political system is at fault institutionally - you need to think more about the social experiences that have shaped that system.

Why do Blacks tend to vote Democrat - doesn't make a whole lot of sense, really.

[HoreTore]

I suppose I just have a problem with the State of Federal Government letting the municipal government actually default - given that you have a process to bail out business.

Like I said - it literally can't happen here, lights stay on no matter what, the whole City Council could go to gaol and you'd see no difference on the street.

Yeah I'm having trouble with this as well.

Is Detroit literally bankrupt?