In My Native City Of Detroit, Atlas Has At Long Last Shrugged

Forbes ^ | 07/24/2013 | Prof, Mark Hendrickson

[SeekAndFind]

I’m sad. Detroit is my native city. It’s decline from being arguably the world’s richest city to being America’s “first Third Word city” is tragic, politically criminal, and a warning to other Americans.

The official declaration of Detroit’s bankruptcy last week could not have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the Motor City’s atrocious financial condition. The city had no hope of ever recovering from its colossal over-indebtedness, and without a central bank standing by to create fiat credit to augment its insufficient revenue—the scheme that is the only thing keeping the even more colossally over-indebted national government solvent—the only question was when someone would pull the plug.

Fiscally speaking, Detroit had been in the “walking dead” category for years. Last Thursday’s announcement by Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, finally acknowledged the inescapable facts.

Clearly, some Michiganders are still in denial and refuse to face those facts. Last Friday, Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina insisted that the Chapter 9 bankruptcy declaration be withdrawn, stating the Michigan constitution forbids any action that would decrease the pension benefits of public employees. In the first place, Judge Aquilina should read my article about will and abandon the delusion that a constitution can alter reality by making nonexistent funds magically appear; in the second, it is an unjust constitution that confers a protection on public employees that private-sector employees don’t have. A sounder constitution would have prohibited the city government from gaining control of employees’ retirement funds contributions and instead have mandated that those contributions all go into a private fund in the workers’ names where the city couldn’t touch them.

[dinodino]

Sorry, couldn’t get past the misused apostrophe in the third sentence. The writer is a complete idiot.

[Publius]

Atlas ping. There are similarities to the Daniel Hannan article, but this article from Forbes looks at it from a slightly different angle.

[SeekAndFind]

One apostrophe and you judge the writer’s intellect... wow, that’s deep.

[Rummyfan]

...Judge Aquilina should read my article about will and abandon the delusion that a constitution can alter reality by making nonexistent funds magically appear; in the second, it is an unjust constitution that confers a protection on public employees that private-sector employees don’t have. A sounder constitution would have prohibited the city government from gaining control of employees’ retirement funds contributions and instead have mandated that those contributions all go into a private fund in the workers’ names where the city couldn’t touch them.

Don't want to rush to judgement here, but Aquilina seems to be an idiot.

[knarf]

double dinosaured ...

[dinodino]

He might be a smart guy, but he has no business whatsoever writing newspaper articles! If you don’t understand elementary English grammar, don’t write for publication!

[DManA]

Wow, its on the web site too. The editors were the first ones fired when the profits started dropping off the cliff.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the ping.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The only problem is that it took so long. Other cities and states and even the federal government ought to learn a lesson from Detroit, but they won’t. Not as long as there is one person out there left out there to loot.

[dinodino]

I know, it’s completely ridiculous. I went to the Forbes site before I posted my complaint just to make sure the original poster didn’t insert the error himself.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: He might be a smart guy, but he has no business whatsoever writing newspaper articles!

Has it not occurred to you that people sometimes MISPRINT or MISSPELL things?

Your penchant for grammatical perfection while ignoring the content of the article is astonishing.

[The KG9 Kid]

There is a missing ‘l’ in ‘Third Word City’ as well, but you’d have to school me on apostrophes.

[upchuck]

Bump.

[Baynative]

I was on the phone with a customer service guy a while back and while he was bringing up information we made small talk. I asked him where he was and he said recently moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I had never heard the term and he explained it to me.

I though maybe he had migrated there from somewhere after seeing the TV commercials touting Michigan, but he said he had moved out of Detroit partially because he had a new woman in his life who wouldn't come to his house because of the neighborhood.

I asked him if was hard to sell a house like that and he said he just left it and walked away. I said, "Wow, that must have hurt." But his reply was that it only cost him $4,400 in the first place.

I've thought about that often in hearing the stories of Detroit's demise. For anyone not to have seen this coming long ago amazes me. For anyone to have stood by and ignored the obvious amazes me even more. How the hell did no one care to do anything about the condition of this once great city when the cost of a home had slipped lower than John Kerry's bicycle?

[dinodino]

Do people commonly make mistakes like this while writing for FORBES? We’re not talking about the author’s grocery list here—we’re talking about a published article. Do you *really* think that’s acceptable? If so, you have a job waiting for you as a public school educator.

[luvbach1]

It is a fact that those who know nothing can belong to "it" can sometimes still make the mistake of adding an apostrophe as if it were possessive. I know because I've done it.

[kabumpo]

Thanks, I agree. It’s like writing an article on finance and reversing the numbers.

[Standing Wolf]

It’s decline from being arguably the world’s richest city to being America’s “first Third Word city” is tragic, politically criminal, and a warning to other Americans.

Sorry, couldn’t get past the misused apostrophe in the third sentence. The writer is a complete idiot.

I agree whole-heartedly, dinodino. I'm surprised Forbes can't afford a copy editor to clean up after its apparently Detroit-educated "writer."

[luvbach1]

I agree, however, that such errors should never creep into a publication.