LeDuff: A Detroit labor war is breaking out over pension funds

myfoxdetroit.com ^ | Dec 05, 2013 | Charlie LeDuff

[cripplecreek]

Rand Paul’s speech to the Detroit economic club will be on Cspan at 12:35 today.

[SgtHooper]

Most of these people went into their publicly-funded jobs knowing full well that the retirement benefits were incredible. Something about getting their fair share... I do not shed one tear for these sorts of people.

[cripplecreek]

Paul speaking at the opening of a new GOP office in Detroit today.

[grania]

Rand Paul's speech to the Detroit economic club will be on CSpan at 12;35 today.

Thank you....I have that information in time to watch it.

[Route797]

I do not feel sorry for them.

I feel sorry for anyone facing destitution in their old age, whether public or private employee, white or black, liberal or conservative. What are they going to do? If they lose their pensions how are they going to live? Will they go on public assistance? How will they, at their age, obtain jobs which are scarce for young people? Do we just let them die? They are human beings and fellow Americans whether we like it or not.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Mmmmm...just a feeling.

[TomasUSMC]

open that PANDORA’S BOX and you’d have NY, LA and Chicago leased off in no time.

[TomasUSMC]

Once Pensions are allowed to disappear, with nobody going to prison, fogetaboutit. The next step will be bank accounts and other savings.......well it really doesn’t matter though does it? If the damn government can make you buy superexpensive junk, and then fine you whatever amount they want if you don’t......that is the bottom of the barrel...the last straw......TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION .....AND IN AMERICA THAT MEANS ....THE TERRIBLE MOST HORRIBLE .....WAR.....WELL EXCEPT FOR.......War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping; posts.

Rand Paul speaks at opening Republican Party office in Detroit: Sen. Rand Paul speaks at the opening of the Detroit office of the Michigan Republican Party in Detroit on Friday, Dec. 6, 2013. Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press

http://www.freep.com/article/20131206/NEWS06/312060079/Rand-Paul-Detroit-economic-club-presidential-hopeful

[cripplecreek]

I like the economic idea as a means of proving conservative theory to the masses. The voting rights stuff was kind of pointless in Michigan because voting rights are restored as long as you aren’t in prison, on parole or probation. Plus its an issue for the individual states to decide. I agree that mandatory sentencing needs to go.

While I’m not a fan of drug legalization he did make a point I hadn’t thought about. He made the point that more blacks are arrested for simple possession not because of racism but because they’re easy targets. Whites are more likely to pay for a decent attorney while blacks use public defenders if they use a lawyer at all and that’s like asking to go to jail. Police know this and they go where the hunting is easiest.

[cripplecreek]

They are human beings and fellow Americans whether we like it or not.

Exactly.

While not wanting to pay for them is a legitimate complaint, the rabid hate is about as far from principled conservatism as one can get.

My inspiration to try to find good conservative free market ways to help actually echoed from Detroit.

Ronald Reagan 1980 Republican National Convention Acceptance Address delivered 17 July 1980, Detroit, MI

The American people -- The American people the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backward ourselves. And those who believe we can have no business leading this nation.

I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose. We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation's highest offices, and we stand united -- we stand united in our resolve to do something about it.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Set up an enterprise zone including the bridges to Canada, the shoreline and a nice chunk of adjacent land.

Yeah, it's funny how the only thing you ever have to do to restore prosperity to a given area is make government go away. Detroit's collapse is no more unintentional that Stalin's famines in the Ukraine - and it was accomplished by the same type of people with the same type of motivations.

[taildragger]

City workers explain why they don't want to be lumped in the same pension category.

No, it began a long time before Chapter 9 as many effected knew it was coming.

My fire fighter gnome who is no longer on the force over a year and a 1/2 ago noted that they didn't want to merge w/ the police or the general and these two think they are way less underfunded than the general fund.

I am waiting for data on these three as to how funded or underfunded they are.

CrippleCreek are those numbers out yet? I remember some rumblings about this that it is being look @ with a microscope type level, possibly looking for malfeasance?

[taildragger]

There was an investor who offered $1 billion for Belle Isle and turn it into a free market territory. The constitutional aspect was one argument against.

Should they have called it Reagan Isle, or Galt fLand?

Dang shame it didn't happen, look at the proposal sketch...

It would have been a giant up-yours to those in power moving us down the road of fundamental transformation....

[KeyLargo]

If you have Netflix or other streaming video service see this great 2012 documentary about firefighters in Detroit and how this is a look at the future of many big cities today run into the ground by thieving Democrat politicians.

Storyline

A documentary about Detroit told through the eyes of firefighters charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.

One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit

“BURN”
Documentary

BURN - Official Theatrical Trailer (2013)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioiMZvMdvas

TRAILER

http://www.youtube.com/user/detroitfirefilm

Detroit on Fire- a documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDoUpXNmcZA