Free Republic

Hold on to your wallets, folks. Without a powerful intervention, California may soon become the first big domino to fall in America's public pension debacle. To help prevent catastrophe, the California Public Policy Center (CPPC) has just made public a new database detailing the size and scope of the state's outsized expenditures on public employees — the largest ever compiled in California. Legislators and voters should take note, because California can't afford another round of fact-free partisan warfare. As recently reported in the New York Times, the fate of California cities such as Desert Hot Springs — where civic bankruptcy...

Texas-based Furr’s Fresh Buffet restaurant chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company announced Tuesday. The chain employs more than 2,000 people but plans to continue operating its 29 restaurants in New Mexico, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas during the Chapter 11 process. Buffet Partners LP said a December ice and sleet storm in North Texas, leaving tens of thousands of people without power and stranding drivers, severely hurt its already tenuous liquidity. Barry M. Barron Sr., who was named chief executive of Buffet Partners last June, said in a statement that because of “the challenges facing our...

Investments in renewable energy were supposed to be a sure thing, with wind park operators promising annual returns of up to 20 percent. More often than not, however, such pledges have been illusory -- and many investors have lost their principal to boot. Indications are mounting, however, that green capitalism will not be able to meet all expectations. In courts around the country, complaints are mounting from wind park investors who haven't received a dividend disbursement in years or whose parks went belly up. Consumer protection activists are complaining that many projects are poorly structured and lack transparency. In the...

Freedom Industries, the unfortunately named company whose chemical leak contaminated the water supply for parts of West Virginia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday. The company voted to pursue bankruptcy protection during a voluntary board meeting on Friday, according to WVNS-TV. The Wall Street Journal reports official company papers from the meeting estimate their debt at roughly $10 million, which does not include the impending clean-up costs and lawsuits, which will no doubt be immense.

As I’ve said before, I love Detroit. Born and raised there to parents who were born and raised there, and went to college at Wayne State. It’s an amazing place. I passionately want to see Detroit revitalized. But part of loving something means being honest about it, and Detroit is a mess. To save the city, to really save it and get it out of the mess it’s currently it means making sacrifices. That's why the recently announced $330 deal to "save Detroit's art" and fund pensions is so disappointing. It has nothing to do with Detroit's long-term viability and...

Like Enron, Greece, and Donald Trump before us, America is about to go bankrupt. Unfortunately, our bankruptcy will probably be more Enron and less Donald Trump because we're very unlikely to come back bigger and better in the lifetime of anyone reading this column. Instead, most Americans are probably going to experience skyrocketing taxes, spiraling inflation, widespread disorder, and a dramatically reduced standard of living. This isn’t a crisis that our great-grandchildren will have to figure out one day. To the contrary, it's entirely possible it will occur within the next decade and unless we make big changes no one...

the bogey man known as “systemic risk” to gain advantage over the other creditors . ... In order for the OTC casino to work, the derivatives contracts had to be given special priority in bankruptcy. Speculative derivative instruments such as credit default swaps (CDS), which caused the failure and government bailout of American International Group, could never exist in significant size were in not for the safe harbor from bankruptcy for derivatives created by Congress in the 1980s and 1990s. Members of Congress from both parties were paid very well for their treachery. ... The intellectual author of the “systemic...

Detroit’s decline into bankruptcy and decay seems to have boosted its desirability as a sight for tourists to visit. Howard Carter, a recent visitor to the City’s ruins, was quite enthusiastic, “It’s like seeing the pyramids without having to wait thousands of years for them to turn into ruins.” Carter congratulated himself on his good fortune. “Instead of having to pay thousands of dollars to take the family to Egypt we were all able to hop in the car and drive over from Canton,” Carter boasted. “At most we’re out a few hundred bucks instead of the thousands an overseas...

The tentative decision prohibits the city from forcing current employees to contribute significantly more toward their pensions, as called for in last year's Measure B. That left each side claiming victory, even as both expected to appeal.

Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, is threatening to take over one of Detroit’s pension funds after a report found that retirees received extra payments while the funds lost value. Mr. Orr proposed for Detroit to pay 20 cents on the dollar for the $3.5 billion that the city says it owes its two pension funds, one for 20,500 nonuniformed retirees and one for 12,700 retired police and firefighters. Detroit, of course, is the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, although New York City and Cleveland came close. This comes after another Detroit-area fiscal meltdown, the infamous General Motors bailout. Treasury...

With the news of Betsey Johnson, the Octomom and many other celebs facing bankruptcy in this economically uncertain time, it seems appropriate to look at other celebs who have really tanked their finances. More often than not, these actors, singers and entrepreneurs are just starting out and hoping to break out in their respective industries. But many celebs are just irresponsible with finances and blow everything they earned (we're looking at you Courtney Love). 1) Anna Nicole Smith thought she was the victim of secret sabotage. Anna Nicole Smith thought she was the victim of secret sabotage. When Anna Nicole...

“Anytime somebody says it can’t happen, I whip those pictures out and say, ’Oh, don’t you bet against it,’” Orr said the other day, not long after a federal judge allowed Detroit to become the nation’s largest city ever to enter bankruptcy. “Let me show you what can happen.” Orr, 55, who has never run for political office, finds himself in an extraordinary role. He holds power even more concentrated than that of the emergency control board that intervened when New York City was teetering near bankruptcy: an unelected lawyer chiefly responsible for the reinvention of a major American city...

Detroit's workers and retirees are no longer just fighting the emergency manager over their pensions - they're fighting each other. Fox 2's Charlie LeDuff explains the two Detroit pension funds: one for police and fire and the other for other city employees such as secretaries and janitors (known as the General Retirement System). City workers explain why they don't want to be lumped in the same pension category.

Officially, the City of Detroit is the largest municipality in U.S. history to enter Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

Local Media is covering it on TV and Radio, the Judge is laying out the potential reasons for, local TV people noting what is going on, the Court is not live if you will, data must be coming to them via text etc...

[...] What is being overlooked is the new and higher deductibles and total annual out-of-pocket expenditures, especially in the Bronze and Silver plans. The amount of these greatly exceeds the ability of most individuals and families to pay, thus providing the real possibility of personal bankruptcies due to medical bills and high losses for providers who cannot collect. [...] So what will happen? The family, being responsible citizens, will initially try to pay the bills, but that will soon prove impossible. They will ultimately default. And in any case, they will most likely end any college planning or retirement savings...

The U.S. Treasury Department said it expected to sell its remaining shares of General Motors by the end of the year, a plan that may leave taxpayers with a shortfall of about $10 billion on the automaker’s 2009 bailout. It must be nice to be bailed out by Uncle Sam. Most companies go through the bankruptcy process without the Federal government interfering with the proceedings. But what about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered mortgage giants held in conservatorship by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)? More to the point, why didn’t the failed giants go into bankruptcy instead?...

Back in July, the city of Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in United States’ history, with the city owing more than $18 billion in debt and liabilities following decades of purely blue leadership. The city’s appointed financial managers have already gotten to work on digging the city out of the massive hole into which it dug itself over the years, but not without the requisite challenges and lawsuits from unions and pension funds irate about the major losses that are going to be foisted upon everyone involved — and all of the work the city has done so...

Scranton could be headed towards another fiscal crisis like the one that resulted in city workers having their pay cut to minimum wage in 2012... Moody’s warned investors that Scranton could be facing the threat of default or bankruptcy thanks to a $20 million budget gap for the fiscal year that begins Jan. 1. The city is supposed to approve a new budget by Nov. 15, which would have to close that deficit to balance the budget. ... A similar crisis hit the city in July 2012, which lead to Mayor Chris Doherty cutting all city workers’ pay to minimum...

Desert Hot Springs, the resort town near Palm Springs, may become the first city since Detroit to seek bankruptcy protection from creditors ... Chapter 9, it would be the fourth California city since June last year to do so.