Escape from Detroit

[4est_4est_Gump]

Remake Detroit, or Empty It
We should restructure its entire government into a free-enterprise zone, or encourage people to leave.
James Pethokoukis, NRO

If Detroit were its own city-state — a bizarro version of prosperous Singapore — it would be a place the U.S. State Department would regularly issue travel warnings about, where “long-term, protracted conditions make a country dangerous or unstable.” Detroit’s murder rate, for instance, would be higher than that of all but a handful of other countries. The Democratic Republic of Detroit would also be relatively poor, with annual per capita income of around $15,000, making it a middle-income country like Mexico.

Except Detroit would be a nation in decline rather than on the rise. Detroit would be a nation literally dying off, its shrinking population abandoning territory the central government could no longer afford to supply with basic services. Oh, yeah, its disastrous public finances. Well, maybe those would be a minor bright spot in this alternate reality: Detroit could always pay creditors, at least for a while, with devalued Fords, the local currency named after one of its founding fathers.

Eventually, however, this shrunken, crime-ridden, impoverished city-state — with no one willing to bail it out — might be forced to make a choice: capitalism or collapse. Out of options, it might just make the China choice. A key part of Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market economic reforms in 1979 was the creation of four Hong Kong–inspired “special economic zones” of liberalized labor laws and tax incentives to attract foreign investment. One of these little pockets of economic freedom, Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong itself, is now a center for technology manufacturing and one of China’s richest cities.

The stunning success of China’s economic experiment showed economist Paul Romer how better rules and institutions could work wonders for economic growth. Romer has proposed that developing nations allow the creation of “charter cities,” where the host nation would provide a large, uninhabited piece of land to be governed by market-friendly rules and perhaps run by a foreign government. Workers, businesses, and investors from anywhere could move in and out freely. Basically, Hong Kong in a box, ready for delivery. For example, instead of giving foreign aid to some poor African nation such as Mauritania, New Zealand and Norway might partner together to run a charter city there. With good governance in place and cheap land and labor available, the theory goes, private investment would pour in.

Although Romer’s concept remains just a fascinating thought experiment — a deal with Honduras fell through in 2012 — and was intended for what used to be called “Third World nations,” why not turn abandoned Detroit into New Detroit, a business-friendly charter city where taxes are low and regulation light? Governance could be guaranteed by some outside entity. Although neighboring, well-run Canada is an obvious choice, maybe an American city could play the role in exchange for a cut of future tax revenue. Reason Foundation analyst Shikha Dalmia suggests Houston as a candidate.

...

If Detroit can’t fix itself, maybe Washington could help, with an idea proposed by economist Enrico Moretti, author of The New Geography of Jobs: People living in areas of high unemployment, such as the Motor City, could receive part of their unemployment check in the form of a relocation voucher. The idea might even inspire a film, Escape from Detroit.

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I just got in from Detroit.
All I want is a bottle of whisky and a quiet hour to drink it in.​

 

[Sean]

liberalized labor laws, better rules, market-friendly rules, cheap land and labor available

So you want to turn America into a third world sweat shop. Got it.

 

[Busybody]

liberalized labor laws, better rules, market-friendly rules, cheap land and labor available

So you want to turn America into a third world sweat shop. Got it.

put an ice pick in your ear

 

[RobDownSouth]

liberalized labor laws, better rules, market-friendly rules, cheap land and labor available

So you want to turn America into a third world sweat shop. Got it.

Glibertarians never pass up an opportunity to use a crisis to promote their own hellish version of Murica.

After all, businesses will be much more profitable once they're allowed to dump untreated pig shit into the Mississippi river. Stoopid EPA!

 

[tactful]

The Pawning Detroit, if it isn't Hard Core Pawn, it just isn't.

 

[Sean]

The Pawning Detroit, if it isn't Hard Core Pawn, it just isn't.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/130951248586

 

[Busybody]

Treyvon's moved in

Zimmermans moved out

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Government Motors Is Alive And Detroit Is Dead. “In the face of government incompetence, it was the people of Detroit who went on strike. Detroit lost a quarter-million residents between 2000 and 2010. A population that in the 1950s teemed with 1.8 million is struggling to stay above 700,000. Much of the middle-class and scores of businesses also have fled, taking their tax dollars with them.”

Obviously, we need a law making it illegal to move without government permission.

 

[Busybody]

THEY ARE FUCKING

NUTS


MSNBC’s Michael Eric Dyson Blames Racism For Detroit’s Bankruptcy…




You knew this was coming.

Via NRO’s Andrew Johnson:


. . .“Of course, it’s an 85 percent black city,” said Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson when host Ed Schultz asked him if race has been relevant to the city’s bankruptcy process. “We have to acknowledge that part of this has to be the racial animus that has characterized that city for the last 50-some-odd years.”

“It’s been perceived as a colony of black people who are ringed by suburban white areas that are now going into the city to plunder it,” Dyson explained, referring to the bankruptcy process, apparently, as “a massive takeover of resources and materials and properties, basically being occupied.”

 

[VaticanAssassin]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/130951248586

now that's funny. Well done random internet dude.

 

[unregistered]

 

[koalabear]

The libs created it, let them eat it. Have the DNC bail then out.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

THEY ARE FUCKING

NUTS


MSNBC’s Michael Eric Dyson Blames Racism For Detroit’s Bankruptcy…




You knew this was coming.

Via NRO’s Andrew Johnson:


. . .“Of course, it’s an 85 percent black city,” said Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson when host Ed Schultz asked him if race has been relevant to the city’s bankruptcy process. “We have to acknowledge that part of this has to be the racial animus that has characterized that city for the last 50-some-odd years.”

“It’s been perceived as a colony of black people who are ringed by suburban white areas that are now going into the city to plunder it,” Dyson explained, referring to the bankruptcy process, apparently, as “a massive takeover of resources and materials and properties, basically being occupied.”

Reminds me of KC's white flight when I was growing up.

The blacks were blamed for the reason that people were fleeing, but it was actually the city government they were fleeing as it went stark raving Liberal mad...

Example one: hiking taxes to rebuild the areas the urban poor lived in only to watch them tear it back down.

Example two: taking your kid out of the neighborhood school and bussing them 45 minutes, one way, into a school in the rebuilt neighborhood while the youth of that neighborhood were destroying schools that had housed generations of hard-working people who were proud of their schools and communities...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

My current stimulus is for rehab work for houses built in . . . 1996.


Well, it's been a millennium already . . . .

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

*chuckle*


Take the projects that Rezko and Obama built, for example...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Reminds me of KC's white flight when I was growing up.

The blacks were blamed for the reason that people were fleeing, but it was actually the city government they were fleeing as it when stark raving Liberal mad...

Example one: hiking taxes to rebuild the areas the urban poor lived in only to watch them tear it back down.

Example two: taking your kid out of the neighborhood school and bussing them 45 minutes, one way into a school in the rebuilt neighborhood while the youth of that neighborhood were destroying schools that had housed generations of hard-working people who were proud of their schools and communities...

That's the SOP most places.

But sane blacks move away, too, and their feral cousins shoot each other often enough that theres hope.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It started to go to shit about the time the Libs got the Catholic kids kicked off the school bus, even though their parents still had to pay the property taxes.

They were some of the first to begin leaving their traditional generational neighborhoods for the surrounding countryside...

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Vertical reservations.

You left out the phrase, "crumbling infrastructure..."

 

[Wat_Tyler]

*chuckle*


Take the projects that Rezko and Obama built, for example...

Sad thing is, not all can be blamed on lousy management, even though there was plenty of that. A lot of what I am seeing outside is shit-for-wood trim with pigmented piss-paint over it, and it just hasn't lasted.


Swear to Gaia, I'm not using exterior wood again, not as long as there is PVC "lumber".

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We have some furniture from another time, stuff that did not come out of a box and assemble in 15 minutes with one special tool, an allen wrench...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

You mean, with mortises and tenons and no locking cams???


Blasphemy. Gaia will shit all over you.


I have a bit of it myself, but I have added some bits of steel to some of it to strengthen a poor design. Take my damned Duncan Phyfe table, for example.


I need to dig up some new stimulus.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Maybe next time you shall build something of more lasting permanence, something as impressive as Mopar...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Maybe I should just switch totally to building Mopars . . . and wait for Fiat to buy me out.


I have two career-change-type irons in the fire. We'll see.


Of course, I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.