I liked the twitter comment that Mark Steyn mentioned:” If Obama owned a city, it would look like Detroit”.
You’re right about the moment but can the pupils be taught and how many will grasp the lesson?
Asian mercantilism played into it also. We opened our markets to rebuild the Japanese economy after the war, they have never done the same.
Two Words: DemocRAT Run
There are a lot more Detroits out there suffering from the maladies of liberalism. Lost in yesterday’s news coverage of Detroit was another significant financial event: Moody’s downgraded Chicago’s debt rating because of its growing pension liability.
Because the producers were forced to pay for the slackers, and so they left, leaving the indolent to take more and more money from the state. Finally it all collapsed.
“I was curious about what caused a diminishing Detroit but at the same time”
1. Democrats
2. Liberals
3. “Minorities”
1) unions
2) pensions
liberal politicians
No tax base
= BK
This is a great video from an article at American Thinker that Provides some insight into the tragedy that is Detroit.
One article - here: http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/spiritual/pictures/news.php?q=1254861706
And it was discussed by Freepers in 2009 - here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2349112/posts?page=61
Scary ...and it is where the rest of the US is heading if we don’t end liberalism. (As Margaret Thatcher said....the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money. ....and we are already into a debt hole that we can’t dig ourselves out of!)
I have a remedy for helping really dysfunctional organizations that I stole from the medical community. It’s called “SOAP”
S ubjective input
O bjective input
A nalysis
P rescription
I believe Doctors also make a diagnosis and develop a prognosis.
We have the Subjective input. We have the Objective input. We are analyzing. The Diagnosis is: a bad case of the Democrat party. The prognosis? If we don’t dismantle the Democrat party, the nation will die. The Prescription? Dismantle the Democrat party.
The proximal cause that made all the other ones so much worse was the rising crime rate from the later 50’s throughout the 60’s, culminating in the 1967 riots. But even before the riots, Detroit was becoming a less-desirable place to live due to safety and security issues.
By the end of the 60’s, statistics like the murder rate had risen to that of a low-level civil war, where they have remained ever since.
The old Adam Smith saying “there is much ruin in a nation” was meant to show how even badly-mismanaged countries can keep a certain level of prosperity going, and it can take a long time from decline to fall.
Well, there was much ruin in a city, but Detroit managed to find most of it pretty quickly. Once the crime got out-of-hand, many of the non-criminals fled, especially those with assets or possessions worth stealing, leaving behind something of a husk.
New Orleans, for example, has similar problems with extreme levels of crime, but it has a constant infusion of tourist/convention dollars. Detroit had no such economic engine after many of the automakers pulled up stakes and moved operations to the city’s suburbs.
Were it not so unbelievably crime-ridden, Detroit’s recovery would be a whole lot easier.
Why? Very simple.
Detroit’s main employment driver was (obviously) automobile production. When union labor to build a GM vehicle is $72 an hour in Detroit, and non-union labor to build a Toyota anywhere averages $48 an hour, GM will lose a lot of market share and not have enough employees to dun in order to pay the pensions of retired workers from GM. There also will not be enough employees to pay the city taxes needed to run the city.
Why? Marxist unions...Marxist pols.A match made in a place somewhat lower than Heaven.
Tragedy of the Commons
when the collective has ownership, no ONE takes responsibility
He played that game successfully until he died, and from what I understand, he and his cronies looted that city, drained it dry while stoking the flames of racial discord. For him (and his cronies) it was a wonderful run. For the city of Detroit it was a disaster. His legacy: A hollow shell of one of the premier cities in America. A bitter, racist, violent inner city that may never recover.
Two of our kids live in the close suburbs now (what used to be called auto worker heaven), and one thing not being talked about is the new generation surrounding Detroit that is making a cultural and economic revival occur there. It's really quite impressive. They use the city sometimes, for the sports teams, a few restaurants, cultural events, but other than that, Detroit itself remains the same hollow shell that Coleman Young left it.
MI discussion thread about Detroit’s bankruptcy.
Another great resource for your consideration ... Detroit, An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff.
“So much out of LeDuffs book reads like scenes out of MAD MAX, where bands of criminals roam the streets and rule the night in the post apocalyptic city”...
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/10/Detroit-review-Charles-Hurt
Reporter plays golf through (not in, but through) Detroit. From 8 Mile Road to Belle Isle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9uzDelNvDg
Sad and sickening.
“I was suspicious if the pictures were accurate.”
Google Street View. Nuff said.