• Detroit is now defaulting on its loans. The city is now insolvent and may go bankrupt.
    98 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;41042104]Basically the city would suspend practically all social programs and services, and be unable to pay wages to many employees. It would also force them to privatize much of the services originally held by the city, and to sell off any assets they have. [/QUOTE] [img]http://shirtoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ocp.jpg[/img] ?
Everyone knows detroit is fucked. So they leave. Thus making the problem worse. And sending the city into an unstoppable spiral.
[QUOTE=greendevil;41042640]Everyone knows detroit is fucked. So they leave. Thus making the problem worse. And sending the city into an unstoppable spiral.[/QUOTE] It hit that spiral 30 years ago
[QUOTE=Drsalvador;41042575]You made out that Detroit would be a libertarian dream-city in an attempt to make a shitty and snarky quip. Ignoring the fact that detroit is a total fucking shithole as it is and will only become a real life Killing Floor when the government loses the already-loose leash it has.[/QUOTE] That's why I [I]only[/I] quoted the part about privatisation and said "this part".
But Detroit rock city Where else will I get up and move my feet and get down
[QUOTE=Drsalvador;41042517]Are you this stupid? [editline]15th June 2013[/editline] Detroit is already anarchic and filled with chaos as it is. It's a veritable Sodom right now, and it will only spiral out of control.[/QUOTE] Lol really now? Prime example of someone talking out of their ass. Have you ever even left the UK before? I live in Detroit, and believe it or not it is not a "veritable Sodom", and it is not spiraling out of control. Much of the city is no worse that the shadier parts of London (a city I actually have been to). Detroit happened to fall on very unfortunate circumstances, causing its economic collapse. It's true when people say that the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Detroit, for quite a while, was the automobile capital of the entire planet. A few of you actually have summed it up quite nicely. Detroit was attractive in the 50s because of the gold mine that was the automobile industry. Once this industry died out, those who could afford to move out did, and those left working whatever jobs remained + those who couldn't afford to pack up and leave stayed. [editline]15th June 2013[/editline] So no, just because Detroit ran out of money does not mean that it will suddenly become a deathmatch. There are other factors contributing to the violence in and around Detroit, and while money is a part of it, it isn't the entire story. Granted I'm sure crime rates will increase once the city goes under, but that could be said about any city in the entire world.
Could you fucking imagine if Detroit was just, abandoned. Detroit went bankrupt, it became difficult to get more basic supplies as richer shop keepers fled the dying city. People, and at last, the government flee. Detroit sits silent beside a busy Windsor, with cars crossing over the bridge every now and again. Devoid of lights, devoid of people, a migrant population of homeless drifters move in, occupying the few livable spaces. Nature stretches up to reclaim what she has lost, as old buildings collapse under the weight of their own structure. The first modern American ghost town.
I think one of the main problems here is that people still believe the car manufacturers are just going to come back, which is dumb to think seeing how michigan already gave them tax breaks on basically everything and they still move. The right to work thing might have worked 10 or 20 years ago, but the auto workers union took advantage and becomes part of the problem now. It didnt help that Kwame and pals had free reign for a decade and basically for the most part chose to ignore the problems that were obviously brewing. I'm a firm believer that they need to downsize what they consider the greater city of Detroit and lower costs of living and consolidate neighborhoods to reduce the cost of upkeep that they obviously can't afford.
[QUOTE=greendevil;41042640]Everyone knows detroit is fucked. So they leave. Thus making the problem worse. And sending the city into an unstoppable spiral.[/QUOTE] What else can they do? The area doesn't have much going for it since the automobile industry went to Japan and China.
They 'appointed' an emergency fund manager so this wouldn't happen This is bullshit because they literally forced a republican. Into the city when we've voted liberal every time they completely skipped the democratic process and as far as I'm concerned that was a shifty ass move by republicans to force one of their own into office [editline]15th June 2013[/editline] For those rating disagree, read this article then come back. We voted to keep Emergency Fund Managers out of our state, and they fucking passed the bill again. [QUOTE][B]Michigan residents might be wondering how this EFM got appointed. Didn’t they roundly reject financial managers in a statewide referendum in November? Michigan residents voted to repeal the EFM law by 53-47 percent after 200,000 people signed a petition to put the issue on the ballot. But this outburst of democracy didn't stop the Republican-controlled legislature and Governor Rick Snyder from ramming through a new law to do the exact same thing during a lame-duck legislative session a month later.[/B] Detroit's new EFM is Kevyn Orr, a prominent bankruptcy lawyer who worked on the massive Chrysler restructuring in 2009 with the Washington, DC law firm Jones Day. Orr has his work cut out for him if he wants to win over the community. Many Detroit residents are vowing continued protests and resistance to the takeover, saying that taking away democratic governance is not the way to fix the serious financial challenges the city faces. After the EFM law was repealed in November, a new version of the law was passed and put on the governor's desk within 37 days. The new bill included many of the same extensive powers that voters rejected at the polls. This time the lame-duck legislature added a $700,000 appropriation, making the law immune to another veto referendum. (The same lame-duck session rammed an ALEC-inspired union-busting "right to work" bill through despite public outcry and massive protests.) Technically, the new EFM law will not go into effect for another few days. An existing law from 1990 provided the legal justification for Orr's appointment, but the new, superseding law will greatly expand the powers the state's EFMs have. [B]Under the new law, EFMs replace the Mayor and the City Council and can "exercise any power or authority of any officer, employee, department, board, commission or other similar entity of the local government whether elected or appointed." EFMs can modify, reject, or terminate any contract at any time for any reason, including with public employee unions. They can sell public assets (other than utilities), take the city into bankruptcy with the approval of the governor, and can even ban any individual who does not comply with orders from government buildings and communications.[/B][/QUOTE] [url]http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/12031/detroits-first-day-under-emergency-financial-manager[/url] Basically this guy has complete control over the city, I don't agree with this. The public did not want this, yet politicians still went and did it under our noses what the fuck.
[QUOTE=breakyourfac;41043193]They 'appointed' an emergency fund manager so this wouldn't happen This is bullshit because they literally forced a republican. Into the city when we've voted liberal every time they completely skipped the democratic process and as far as I'm concerned that was a shifty ass move by republicans to force one of their own into office [editline]15th June 2013[/editline] For those rating disagree, read this article then come back. We voted to keep Emergency Fund Managers out of our state, and they fucking passed the bill again. [url]http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/12031/detroits-first-day-under-emergency-financial-manager[/url] Basically this guy has complete control over the city, I don't agree with this. The public did not want this, yet politicians still went and did it under our noses what the fuck.[/QUOTE] Yeah, they did it and it's complete bullshit.
[QUOTE=lolwutdude;41042188]is there any actual way to revive detroit to a good standing or is it just fucked[/QUOTE] It's already out of luck, the only real thing to do is just lower taxes.
If Detroit suddenly became abandoned one day I imagine it'd become a heaven for urban explorers (and critters).
So, how much for Detroit?
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;41042554]Don't libertarians love privatisation?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Charles Johnson]There is something called privatization which has been a hot topic in Leftist circles for the past 15-20 years. It has been a big deal in Eastern Europe, in third world countries under the influence of the IMF, and in some cases in the United States, too. Naomi Klein has a new book on the topic, which has attracted some notice. Klein’s book focuses on the role that natural and artificial crises play in establishing the conditions for what she calls privatization. But privatization, as understood by the IMF, the neoliberal governments, and the robber baron corporations, is a very different beast from privatization as understood by free market radicals. What consistent libertarians advocate is the devolution of all wealth to the people who created it, and the reconstruction of all industry on the principle of free association and voluntary mutual exchange. But the IMF and Naomi Klein both seem to agree on the idea that privatization includes reforms like the following: • Tax-funded government contracts to corporations like Blackwater or DynCorp for private mercenaries to fight government wars. This has become increasingly popular as a way for the U.S. to wage small and large wars over the past 15 years; I think it was largely pioneered through the U.S. government’s efforts to suppress international free trade in unauthorized drugs, and is currently heavily used by the U.S. in Colombia, the Balkans, and Iraq. • Tax-funded government contracts to corporations like Wackenhut for government-funded but privately managed prisons, police forces, firefighters, etc. This has also become increasingly popular in the U.S. over the past 15 years; in the case of prisons, at least, it was largely inspired by the increasing number of people imprisoned by the U.S. government for using unauthorized drugs or selling them to willing customers. • Government auctions or sweetheart contracts in which nationalized monopoly firms — oil companies, water works, power companies, and the like — are sold off to corporations, with the profits going into the State treasury, and usually with some form of legally-enforced monopoly left intact after privatization. One of the most notorious cases is the cannibalistic bonanza that Boris Yeltsin and a select class of politically-connected Oligarchs helped themselves to after the implosion of Soviet Communism. Throughout the third world, similar auction or contract schemes are suggested or demanded as a condition for the national government to receive a line of tax-funded credit from the member states of the International Monetary Fund. • Yet Another Damn Account schemes for converting government pension systems from a welfare model to a forced savings model, in which workers are forced to put part of their paycheck into a special, government-created retirement account, where it can be invested according to government-crafted formulas in one of a limited number of government-approved investment vehicles offered by a tightly regulated cartel of government-approved uncompetitive investment brokers. This kind of government retirement plan is supposedly the centerpiece of privatization in Pinochet’s Chile, and has repeatedly been advocated by George W. Bush and other Republican politicians in the United States. Klein and other state Leftists very claim that these government privatization schemes are closely associated with Right-wing authoritarian repression, up to and including secret police, death squads, and beating, torturing, or disappearing innocent people for exercising their rights of free speech or free association in labor unions or dissident groups. And they are right. Those police state tactics aren’t compatible with any kind of free market, but then, neither are any of the government auctions, government contracting, government loans, and government regulatory schemes that Klein and her comrades present as examples of privatization. They are examples of government-backed corporate kleptocracy. The problem is that the oligarchs, the robber barons, and their hirelings dishonestly present these schemes — one and all of them involving massive government intervention and government plunder from ordinary working people — as if they were free market reforms. And Klein and her comrades usually believe them; the worst sorts of robber baron state capitalism are routinely presented as if they were arguments against the free market, even though pervasive government monopoly, government regulation, government confiscation, government contracting, and government finance have nothing even remotely to do with free markets.[/QUOTE]
we also only have about 4 traffic lights that work. most are just turned off or converted to 4-way stops but i will continue to love this city
Lets just turn the whole damn city into one big paintball/ airsoft field.
[QUOTE=breakyourfac;41043193]This is bullshit because they literally forced a republican. Into the city when we've voted liberal every time[/QUOTE] Clearly it worked so well.
If the city becomes bankrupt, people might become zombies or something
I wonder what would happen to sports teams in Detroit. Not my Red Wings no.
[QUOTE=Medevilae;41046176]^ He's not joking, by the way If the above interests you: [video=youtube;nQmSZeijmlk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQmSZeijmlk[/video][/QUOTE] I wish there was some movement, some massive thing like the push for civil rights that called for the end of things that are slowly killing democracy in this country. Something that I could really support you know? There just isn't. This will be met with blind eyes by citizens and the most I can do is keep myself informed and try to make others informed- but if you take notice in the actual wrongdoings in government you're not a respected citizen anymore, you're just an angsty young adult that never got enough free handouts. Go back to bed America, watch your football and accept your $7.25.
[QUOTE=Ridge;41046454]Clearly it worked so well.[/QUOTE] You don't have to fucking dissolve the entire democratic process though. You are seriously justifying this by saying "lol well the people obviously can't pick for themselves!". These emergency fund managers also control like 80% of the entire black population in the state of MI
Related [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny4a-oxOndo[/media]
If the city does default, what effect will it have on Airports? I gotta fly into this city for a connection next week....
Damn, I don't think Sarif Industries is around to economically save the city.
poor detroit :'(
[QUOTE=Vasili;41042081]Mm I should probably go to bed, I read that as doritos. The problem is detriot was built due to industry there, now there is none, thus the city will in time will fade unless new industry takes its place.[/QUOTE] Sarif Industries will rise soon.
Is there any way to fix detroit?
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;41042142]How did they fuck up this badly in the first place?[/QUOTE] When you build a city around an industry and that industry collapses or is severely crippled in that are then the city tends to go with it. Massive unemployment means that anyone who can afford it will leave and those left behind can't exactly provide a lot of the revenue that a city needs for services and other such things. If Detroit can find a new industry/source of employment then there's a chance it could get back on its feet. It's happened with smaller towns before but I don't think I've ever seen it happen with a city as large as Detroit.
[QUOTE=Aesir;41048952]When you build a city around an industry and that industry collapses or is severely crippled in that are then the city tends to go with it. Massive unemployment means that anyone who can afford it will leave and those left behind can't exactly provide a lot of the revenue that a city needs for services and other such things. If Detroit can find a new industry/source of employment then there's a chance it could get back on its feet. [/QUOTE] Industry isn't going to be that useful for Detroit since the developing world is flooding the market with cheaper goods. American workers are not willing to work for pennies in a factory with limited job security and almost no benefits. Workers in the developing world are. Detroit needs to strike oil or something to get out of it's mess.
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