The Liberal Canary...

[4est_4est_Gump]

Can California be far behind?

The Downfall of Detroit
It took only six decades of “progressive” policies to bring a great city to its knees.
Mark Steyn, NRO
JULY 19, 2013

By the time Detroit declared bankruptcy, Americans were so inured to the throbbing dirge of Motown’s Greatest Hits — 40 percent of its streetlamps don’t work; 210 of its 317 public parks have been permanently closed; it takes an hour for police to respond to a 9-1-1 call; only a third of its ambulances are driveable; one-third of the city has been abandoned; the local realtor offers houses on sale for a buck and still finds no takers; etc., etc. — Americans were so inured that the formal confirmation of a great city’s downfall was greeted with little more than a fatalistic shrug.

But it shouldn’t be. To achieve this level of devastation, you usually have to be invaded by a foreign power. In the War of 1812, when Detroit was taken by a remarkably small number of British troops without a shot being fired, Michigan’s Governor Hull was said to have been panicked into surrender after drinking heavily. Two centuries later, after an almighty 50-year bender, the city surrendered to itself. The tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, is now a border between the First World and the Third World — or, if you prefer, the developed world and the post-developed world. To any American time-transported from the mid 20th century, the city’s implosion would be literally incredible: Were he to compare photographs of today’s Hiroshima with today’s Detroit, he would assume Japan won the Second World War after nuking Michigan. Detroit was the industrial powerhouse of America, the “arsenal of democracy,” and in 1960 the city with the highest per capita income in the land. Half a century on, Detroit’s population has fallen by two-thirds, and in terms of “per capita income,” many of the shrunken pool of capita have no income at all beyond EBT cards. The recent HBO series Hung recorded the adventures of a financially struggling Detroit school basketball coach forced to moonlight as a gigolo. It would be heartening to think the rest of the bloated public-sector work force, whose unsustainable pensions and benefits have brought Detroit to its present sorry state (and account for $9 billion of its $11 billion in unsecured loans), could be persuaded to follow its protagonist and branch out into the private sector, but this would probably be more gigolos than the market could bear, even allowing for an uptick in tourism from Windsor.

So, late on Friday, some genius jurist struck down the bankruptcy filing. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit’s bankruptcy “unconstitutional” because, according to the Detroit Free Press, “the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees.” Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional.

So a bankrupt ruin unable to declare bankruptcy is now back to selling off its few remaining valuables, as I learned from a Detroit News story headlined “Howdy Doody May Test Limits of Protecting Detroit Assets.” For those of you under 40 — okay, under 80 — Howdy Doody is the beloved American children’s puppet, in western garb with a beaming smile and 48 freckles, one for every state, which gives you some idea of when his heyday was. The Howdy Doody Show ended its run on September 24, 1960, which would have made sense for Detroit, too. The city’s Institute of Arts paid $300,000 for the original Howdy Doody puppet — or about the cost of 300,000 three-bedroom homes. Don’t get too excited — you can’t go to Detroit and see him on display; he’s in storage. He’s in some warehouse lying down doing nothing all day long, like so many other $300,000 city employees. Instead of selling him off, maybe they should get him moonlighting as a gigolo and sell it to HBO as Hungy Doody (“When you’re looking for the real wood”). What else is left to sell? The City of Windsor has already offered to buy the Detroit half of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, perhaps to wall it up.

With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we’re told that “innovation hubs” and “enterprise zones” are the answer. Seriously? In my book After America, I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is as nothing compared to the decay of the city’s human capital. Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor. Why would any genuine innovator open a business in a Detroit “innovation hub”? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence.

Given their respective starting points, one has to conclude that Detroit’s Democratic party makes a far more comprehensive wrecking crew than Emperor Bokassa ever did. No bombs, no invasions, no civil war, just “liberal” “progressive” politics day in, day out. Americans sigh and say, “Oh, well, Detroit’s an ‘outlier.’” It’s an outlier only in the sense that it happened here first. The same malign alliance between a corrupt political class, rapacious public-sector unions, and an ever more swollen army of welfare dependents has been adopted in the formally Golden State of California, and in large part by the Obama administration, whose priorities — “health” “care” “reform,” “immigration” “reform” — are determined by the same elite/union/dependency axis. As one droll tweeter put it, “If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit.”

After the Battle of Saratoga, Adam Smith famously told a friend despondent that the revolting colonials were going to be the ruin of Britain, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation” — and in a great city, too. If your inheritance includes the fruits of visionaries like Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, and the Dodge brothers, you can coast for a long time, and then decline incrementally, and then less incrementally, and then catastrophically, until what’s left is, as the city’s bankruptcy petition puts it, “structurally unsound and in danger of collapse.” There is a great deal of ruin in advanced societies, but even in Detroit it took only six decades.

“Structurally unsound and in danger of collapse”: Hold that thought. Like Detroit, America has unfunded liabilities, to the tune of $220 trillion, according to the economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Like Detroit, it’s cosseting the government class and expanding the dependency class, to the point where its bipartisan “immigration reform” actively recruits 50–60 million low-skilled chain migrants. Like Detroit, America’s governing institutions are increasingly the corrupt enforcers of a one-party state — the IRS and Eric Holder’s amusingly misnamed Department of Justice being only the most obvious examples. Like Detroit, America is bifurcating into the class of “community organizers” and the unfortunate denizens of the communities so organized.

The one good thing that could come out of bankruptcy is if those public-sector pensions are cut and government workers forced to learn what happens when, as National Review’s Kevin Williamson puts it, a parasite outgrows its host. But, pending an appeal, that’s “unconstitutional,” no matter how dead the host is. Beyond that, Detroit needs urgently both to make it non-insane for talented people to live in the city, and to cease subjecting its present population to a public “education” system that’s little more than unionized child abuse. Otherwise, Windsor, Ontario, might as well annex it for a War of 1812 theme park — except if General Brock and the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles had done to Detroit what the Democratic party did they’d be on trial for war crimes at The Hague.

“We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.”
Barack Obama, October 2012 (Detroit went bankrupt July 2013, after the election.)

We're the coal mine.

 

[RobDownSouth]

“We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.”
Barack Obama, October 2012 (Detroit went bankrupt July 2013, after the election.)

We're the coal mine.

As I said yesterday when your bro Ishmael brought this up, and the day before when your intellectual soulmate Dazzle1 brought it up, anyone with an IQ over room temperature realizes that President Obama was using the word "Detroit" as rhetorical shorthand for the Detroit auto industry, not the city.

Once again, you bring great shame to yourself, your family, your tribe, the United States Marine Corps and good ole Sensei K.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We're not far from the day when we once again have forts for decent citizens to flee to for safety.

 

[mercury14]

“We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.”
Barack Obama, October 2012 (Detroit went bankrupt July 2013, after the election.)

We're the coal mine.

"Detroit" in this context is used to represent the American auto industry. Let's see the quote in context:

Just a few years ago, the auto industry wasn’t just struggling – it was flatlining. GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse. Suppliers and distributors were at risk of going under. More than a million jobs across the country were on the line – and not just auto jobs, but the jobs of teachers, small business owners, and everyone in communities that depend on this great American industry.

But we refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.

Today, auto sales are the highest they’ve been in more than four years. GM is back. Ford and Chrysler are growing again. Together, our auto industry has created nearly a quarter of a million new jobs right here in America.

Yeah you're just flat out lying now.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We're not far from the day when we once again have forts for decent citizens to flee to for safety.

I read this morning that the suburbs surrounding Detroit are considering a 12-foot wall, but as any good Liberal will tell you, walls do not work...



... maybe some of the suburbs are Liberal enough to declare themselves as "Sanctuaries."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Fat an dumb are following me from thread to thread spewing their Liberal hate.


Angry old white men with "enemies."

 

[mercury14]

I read this morning that the suburbs surrounding Detroit are considering a 12-foot wall, but as any good Liberal will tell you, walls do not work...



... maybe some of the suburbs are Liberal enough to declare themselves as "Sanctuaries."

Are we allowed to put your bitching about liberalism in the context of all of the other liberal-run cities which are not going bankrupt?

OF COURSE NOT! Factual, appropriate, reality-based context is your enemy. Your belief system cannot survive in reality.

 

[mercury14]

Fat an dumb are following me from thread to thread spewing their Liberal hate.


Angry old white men with "enemies."

Nobody hates you bro. They just disagree with you. Every damn time someone raises a point against yours you refuse to defend your assertion, insisting that it's an attack on your being instead. You're this *constant* victim and it's nothing more than an attempt to escape responsibility for your actions.

I have patients in therapy all the time that do the exact same thing as you.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Hey, dumb and dumber, what happened to fat?

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Oh, lookie, it's Doctor Know . . . Doctor No . . . no, a doctor?


You're shitting me, right???


I can see how this works:

 

[mercury14]

Hey, dumb and dumber, what happened to fat?

Every post you make is either a personal attack or a declaration of how you're being so horribly personally attacked.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Nobody hates you bro. They just disagree with you. Every damn time someone raises a point against yours you refuse to defend your assertion, insisting that it's an attack on your being instead. You're this *constant* victim and it's nothing more than an attempt to escape responsibility for your actions.

I have patients in therapy all the time that do the exact same thing as you.

Disagreeing with the Chief is technically "ad hominem by class". Just ask him.

 

[mercury14]

Oh, lookie, it's Doctor Know . . . Doctor No . . . no, a doctor?


You're shitting me, right???


I can see how this works:

AJ's ideas are under fire?


WAT TO THE RESCUE!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

AJ's ideas are under fire?


WAT TO THE RESCUE!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This week saw the inevitable denouement of decades of mismanagement and incompetent leadership in Detroit, the country’s eleventh-largest city. Once one of the symbols of American industrial power, the city declared bankruptcy and is seeking protection from creditors in federal court. It is one thing for a smaller city, perhaps even a county, to seek bankruptcy protection, but quite something else for one of the country’s biggest and most iconic cities to do so. It marks a watershed in modern American urban history, and has laid bare the unsustainable and misguided governing theories of the American Left.

...

The cause of this ruin is decades of mismanagement by the city’s elected officials. Detroit’s voters kept returning to office a city council and mayors who negotiated huge contracts with public-sector unions, so city employees expected lavish pensions. Fraudulent accounting almost certainly played a role as well. When Orr took over earlier this year, Detroit’s long-term debt was estimated at a mind-boggling $14 billion; Orr now says that the city’s books hid the real amount, which is at least $16 billion and perhaps as high as $20 billion. The city’s budget deficit is at least $380 million, and it is out of cash; the state refused to pay the later installments of a bailout plan when the city council refused to accept certain conditions. Indeed, it was the obstructionist actions of the city council in March, in the face of almost certain bankruptcy, that forced Governor Snyder to appoint Orr in the first place.

It is a grim testament to the failure of governance at the local level that a city of 700,000 people finds itself under the control of an emergency manager. In order to act, Snyder had to determine that city officials were unable or incompetent to solve the crisis. That is a damning indictment that strikes at the core of our belief that democracy, while messy and clearly less than perfect, nonetheless is the best system yet devised for politics. Detroit’s slide into “dictatorship” and bankruptcy raises fundamental questions about the health of American democracy, and whether there is any hope for realistic solutions to the endemic debt and deficits that poison every level of government, from small towns to the federal government.

Sadly, Detroit is far from being unique. Four other failed Michigan cities have been under the control of EMs, while in California, Stockton and San Bernardino, along with some smaller cities, have already declared bankruptcy. New reports estimate that California’s total unfunded pension obligations are an inconceivable $328 billion, and Illinois is not far behind. There are dozens of other large cities around the nation that face the same crippling trap of unsustainable city contracts, high unemployment, and hollowed-out tax bases.

Most dangerously, Detroit may be the harbinger of things to come. If local, state, and federal governments keep failing to act responsibly and to be stewards of the fiscal health of the nation, we may well see the rise of the emergency manager in many other places, perhaps even in sovereign states. After all, who wants to condemn innocent residents to the permanent mismanagement and decline of their cities or states? Of course, it is those same voters who heedlessly return incompetent officials to office in election after election. The rot is not just in the Detroit city council or the similarly bankrupt Illinois state legislature; it is in the voting booths of citizens who are all too happy to get their unfair share of the pie and pass the costs on to others (“soak the rich”) and to their own children.

As I wrote earlier on Detroit’s tragedy, our democratic tradition starts at the smallest, most local level, and works its way up to the federal government. Anything that undercuts our sense of personal and local responsibility is to be feared, just as the pathetic, corrupt, and incompetent failings of locally elected government are to be condemned. The demise of democracy is a slow thing. In Rome, it took centuries for the republic to exhaust itself and for the temporary dictator to become a permanent fixture. But when that became accepted, the die was cast and the dictator was merely a symptom of a disease that could no longer be cured. Detroit may have crossed a Rubicon not merely for itself, but for America.

Michael Auslin. NRO


What begins this rot? The drive to use government to altruistic charity work and the envy of those who have "too much."

 

[mercury14]

Disagreeing with the Chief is technically "ad hominem by class". Just ask him.

In AJ's distorted mind only he's allowed to debate ideas. As soon as someone else tries to debate his ideas he declares them to be invulnerable and insists that all comments against those ideas are ad hominem. It doesn't matter if nobody is talking about him as a person in the least bit, he presents himself as horribly crucified in order to avoid having his ideas challenged in the context of reality.

It's Sarah Palin's bread n' butter tactic, only AJ does it much more consistently.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Fat and dumb are really spitting mad today.


I guess the Liberal Dream enacted is not winning the a lot of the support that they assumed they would have once they controlled all three branches of government and saved Detroit and brought us lower insurance premiums while insuring everybody and insuring that we get to keep our current health plan and doctor.



“We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.”
Barack Obama, October 2012 (Detroit went bankrupt July 2013, after the election.)

 

[Wat_Tyler]

And that, Ladies, would be a goddamn shame.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Fat an dumb are following me from thread to thread spewing their Liberal hate.


Angry old white men with "enemies."

Our resident libs rarely start threads as theyre terminally timid. Classic reactionaries. Che wouldn't be happy with reactionary dawgs that chase every car passing on the street.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

*chuckle*


If the economy is so good, why are they so terrified of tightening money policy?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Our resident libs rarely start threads as theyre terminally timid. Classic reactionaries. Che wouldn't be happy with reactionary dawgs that chase every car passing on the street.

Nail on the head.

Nor do they offer opinions, just questions designed to attack the opinions of others. Allah forbid they actually put forth and try to defend the many contradictory truths that they hold as self-evident...

 

[Adre]

*peeks in, sees one-trick pony, hears same old liberal-bashing, moves on*

 

[mercury14]

Fat and dumb are really spitting mad today.

Nobody's mad at you. Rationalization by accusing others of "you're just mad" to is really primitive.

 

[RobDownSouth]

*chuckle*


If the economy is so good, why are they so terrified of tightening money policy?

Ah, psychological projection at it's finest.

Newsflash, Chief: it's not MY side of teh aisle moaning dooooom 'n gloooom about tightened monetary policy.

As I was explaining to your Comrade Vettebigot yesterday, this is yet another vindication of Keynesian policy, i.e. times are getting better so it's time to pay back the money we borrowed to recover from the Bush recession.

 

[mercury14]

Our resident libs rarely start threads as theyre terminally timid. Classic reactionaries. Che wouldn't be happy with reactionary dawgs that chase every car passing on the street.

I agree, conservatives start a shitload of threads there. 99% of them are utter trash but yeah they have volume.

We have a couple conservatives here that have started literally thousands of threads, not sure why you'd hold it against liberals for not quite keeping up with that pace.