Detroit files for bankruptcy

[Ducimus]

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/18/news/economy/detroit-bankruptcy/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/18/detroit-files-for-largest-municipal-bankruptcy-in-us-history/

[Spiced_Rum]

Unbelievable :nope: All the media coverage on Snowden and GZ trial, and something far more serious happens.

[Stealhead]

I thought they went bankrupt back in like '78 and nobody realized it.

[garren]

That city is underwater. It's not worth saving.

[Dan D]

Asteroid B-612 - Sonic's Rendezvous Band ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS1A4OjQ-h8 )

Oh, wrong thread.

[Tchocky]

This is exactly what should be happening. The population and tax base has collapsed into a much smaller horizon, so the city can't meet the pension/etc obligations of a 2-million city with the tax base of a 700,000-city. Creditors are going to lose some.

[August]

This is exactly what should be happening. The population and tax base has collapsed into a much smaller horizon, so the city can't meet the pension/etc obligations of a 2-million city with the tax base of a 700,000-city. Creditors are going to lose some.

Pensioners too. It will impact them far more than it'll hurt the banks.

[AVGWarhawk]

Pensioners too. It will impact them far more than it'll hurt the banks.

I believe the pensioners are part of the overall problem. Most of the city workers are now 401K. It is the older workers that were on a pension plan and retained those after the switch to 401k. Rightly so, these folks were retired or ready to retire. No savings as they had a pension. Unions played a roll as well. As Tchocky said. The number of tax payers has dwindled. The number of city employees I would say have not. Less revenue. Same amount of expenses each month unchanged.

[Armistead]

I'm sure Obama will try to bail it out. It's nothing more than a war zone. The average police response time is one hour, 2 out of 3 ambulances don't run, but you can buy a house for a dollar.

[AVGWarhawk]

Some people are buying entire blocks. It is a sad state of affairs. It was once a great city of industrial strength. The big Three! Now awash in crime and decay.

[soopaman2]

Gee wiz! Who saw that coming!

I guess the pillaging by it's leaders and the mass exodus of jobs and taxpayers finally caught up with them.


It's like sim city, if your city sucks, is full of crime, no one will want to live there.
So I guess I will indirectly pay for this utter mismanagement of a city over multiple generations?


Give Michigan to Canada.:O:

My solution. Alot of takers for the free healthcare. *backslap*

[Skybird]

It has been many years in the coming, and not surprising. The fall has been long and constant.

Like Tchocky said, when your net payer base collapses, you are in trouble. A fate that will repeat in many other places inside and outside the US as well.

Just two days ago, Sinn, a know economist over here who is very sceptic of the Euro and the debt union it brings, wrote about the overaging society and the warning it means that so many middle class enterprises in Germany now are collapsing (amongst them: Heckler&Koch...), drowning in debts, or already have gone bancrupt. If the current social policies are being followed on and all the demands still are being held up high against all reason, he calculated a bill that sees over 50% of employee's fees burning up just for social and pension insurrances - other, older people'S pensions, that is, not the paying generation's future safeties. The state's prey - taxes - and other fix costs like healthcare and so on are not even included in that. Already now the ordinary employee and worker looses over 50% of his wages i n taxes and social insurrances. When social insurrances and pensions will claim that share of the pie alone, you can imagine where it leads.

There will be plenty of fun ahead. Children will curse their parents. But what still unites all people is that the demands to the state and for all-inclusive nanny service nevertheless grow right as high as the sky is wide.

P.S. Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin have even higher debts than Detroit, and eroding financial basis. It just is in the German law that cities and federal states cannot declare bancruptcy over here. For cities, the federal state is liable. For the federal state, the national state, meaning: all German must pay, in all federal states. The mechanisms we have to compensate for the lower incomes of some states motivate these states to invest much into socialist hobbies, and not to manage well and form a competitive industry and business world. The states running well-managed economies and thus are successful, get punished and get stolen billions and billions every year that they must transfer to the poorly managed ones. Lovely system. I wish we would have had Detroit happening not in the US, but in Germany. But that bill of ours will be presented one day, too.

[AVGWarhawk]

Skybird:
A fate that will repeat in many other places inside and outside the US as well.

I think a few cities(in the US) that are on the edge or simply struggling will jump on the band wagon if Detroit is bailed by the Federal government. A precedence will be set if Detroit is bailed(for a second time. GM is Detroit). Why bother struggling when one can simply cry chapter 9 and get bailed? No incentive to align with the new reality. Just cut a check and dole it out.

[soopaman2]

Skybird:


I think a few cities(in the US) that are on the edge or simply struggling will jump on the band wagon if Detroit is bailed by the Federal government. A precedence will be set if Detroit is bailed(for a second time. GM is Detroit). Why bother struggling when one can simply cry chapter 9 and get bailed? No incentive to align with the new reality. Just cut a check and dole it out.

Cities and banks are too big to fail, so yeah, get out your checkbook Americans.

I say let them flop around like a fish on dry land, maybe if Americans saw its future, they would stop allowing the outsourcing (and the taxbreaks they get) of decent paying jobs, and not leave people with the option of Mcd's or Wal Mart at 7.25 an hour.

[Oberon]

There's going to be a lot of finger pointing for causes, and it's a catch-22 for the US government. If they leave it then they catch flak for abandoning Detroit in its time of need and if they bail it out they catch flak for spending money on what is generally recognised across the US as a lost cause.

Detroit could benefit from a large scale rejuvenation project, but it's also problematic in that this will push up house prices in the region which will kick out the lower class workers eventually in a manner in which has taken place in London over the past four decades. Furthermore, the US doesn't really have the governmental money for such a project, so it would have to be private sector, and that's a helluva gamble and I don't see private sector companies wanting to take such a gamble in the midst of a recession.

[eddie]

NYC had to be bailed out a number of times, first time was under Presdident Ford, back in 1975.

[soopaman2]

There's going to be a lot of finger pointing for causes, and it's a catch-22 for the US government. If they leave it then they catch flak for abandoning Detroit in its time of need and if they bail it out they catch flak for spending money on what is generally recognised across the US as a lost cause.

Detroit could benefit from a large scale rejuvenation project, but it's also problematic in that this will push up house prices in the region which will kick out the lower class workers eventually in a manner in which has taken place in London over the past four decades. Furthermore, the US doesn't really have the governmental money for such a project, so it would have to be private sector, and that's a helluva gamble and I don't see private sector companies wanting to take such a gamble in the midst of a recession.


Ever see Robocop?

OCP took over Detroit and turned it into a dystopian craphole, despite that the crime was still astronomical.

Hollywood is right in this rare case.

Flop like a fish detroit, maybe you will stop electing hucksters.

Canada, want it? We will keep Nickleback and Bieber in exchange, hopefully locking them in Guantanimo.

Fair trade, 2 turds for one.

But only if you take Michigan.

[Jimbuna]

Unbelievable :nope: All the media coverage on Snowden and GZ trial, and something far more serious happens.

Agreed.

[Oberon]

Ever see Robocop?


:oops::oops::oops::oops::oops:

I really need to borrow my father-in-laws copy. :yep:

[Father Goose]

The United States is as bankrupt as Detroit...they just don't know it yet! :O:
Bailout? No way! :nope:
Next up...California.

[BossMark]

So Detroit is bankrupt and the unpaid police officers are considering going on strike.

In other news OCP have built a robot police officer....