Posted on 07/22/2013 7:36:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama.html#VpVsMHHdWeII41kS.99
Almost all the “income” in Detroit is money confiscated from honest, hard working taxpayers in other parts of the country. If Detroiters could no longer live off other people's handouts and had to support themselves Detroit would look like Somalia or Zimbabwe full of starving children with distended bellies and flies on their faces,
It's been tried before. It's called "colonization". The end-game is when there are assets that can be seized, the natives rebel, take over what the colonists have built up, party for a while, and the place goes down-hill again (see Rhodesia).
It only works when the colonizers have the willingness to exterminate entire populations in order to ensure their claim to the area they have built up.
No, it already did:
Capitalism can only operate in an environment where private property is defended against expropriation.
The only thing that would work for Detroit would be to forever bar residents from receiving any sort of means-tested government assistance. No welfare, no food stamps, nothing. If you need means-tested aid, you would have to move elsewhere. Wait a year for the Democrat constituencies to leave, and then you could start to rebuild.
Tell the people to leave. All of them.
Bulldoze the buildings. All of them.
Sell the land by the acre to anyone who has real money.
Rebuild from the ground up.
No debt. No pensions. No unions. No criminal class. No aging infrastructure.
It is the equivalent of “taking off and nuking it from orbit”, and it’s the only thing that makes sense.
In China, they understand the concept of work for pay. I don’t they do in Detroit.
Before the deluge Detroit had the third-highest per capita income in the country. And it was more than that in 1960 dollars.
The author has some interesting ideas - an economic free zone with low corporate taxes and incentives for hiring. But I'm afraid trying capitalism in the United States is just a little too radical for the current administration.
The military could run brigade, or hell, division size operations on Detroit with hundreds of square miles of "free fire" and impact zones for mortars and artillery. Some parts of Detroit already look like that!
RE: The emptying part seems to be taking care of itself.
Another 750,000 left to empty.
The problem with rebuilding Detroit after the crash is that you are starting fresh with the same cast of characters.
Things could be done via a market-friendly gov’t...if that’s possible. For example, get the trade unions in Detroit to open up their apprenticeship programs to unskilled, unemployed youth. (Restricting labor supply in Detroit has no effect on local wages.) Have the city donate abandoned properties worth rehabbing and construction materials. The unions and new apprentices then fix up the properties and the local gov’t sells them, placing them back on the property tax roles. The funds from the sale could then be used to finance more rehabs. The unions get more new members in the long run, the city gets more tax base, and unemployed youth have a shot at a good job. Seems like a win-win to me.
They are in Bankruptcy which is a form of default. The court can order the city to liquidate many of its’ assets and probably should.
The biggest ruling would be a forced end to the Union contracts and elimination of the pension liability. If the retirees complain, tell them what happened to the Steel Workers Union Retirees. When the host dies, the parasites do as well.
The idea might even inspire a film,look for the union label.
Interesting concept. Think Hong Kong under the British.
Go through the federal laws and create an exception for Detroit in as many as possible, instead of a federal bailout. With the exception of Social Security pensions, stop all federal dollars at the city boundary. (That should clean out the parasites running the place now.)
Once Detroit again becomes a thriving city, as it likely would if the right regulations were jettisoned, move on to the next city on the long list of those currently being bankrupted by Democrats in charge.
Main problem with your suggestion is its reliance on “local government” officials and unions. These are the two culprits that are primarily responsible for Detroit’s condition today.
I thought that an influx of hipsters was going to save Detroit.
LOL.
Perhaps Detroit residences could be convinced that Zimbabwe beckons them to a life of comfort, ease and pleasure.
Emptying Detroit is a pure fantasy. I’m no fan of urban areas but they are vital infrastructure. In the case of Detroit its still a major port city and the second busiest freight crossing on the continent. (Likely to take top slot again when the new bridge goes up)
There is obviously money to be made in Detroit. If there weren’t, there wouldn’t be Grand Prix racing, powerboat racing, or air racing. Those are sports that tend to attract high dollar crowds. There is big money in Detroit but its largely kept tied up safe from excessive taxes and corruption.
To fix the corruption in Detroit you need to start right at the bottom and threaten prison to department and union heads with prison unless they roll over on the next guy up the line. Don’t stop till you can indict virtually every single city council member. Former council president Charles Pugh is already under investigation including an audit at the hands of the new city council president.
Local taxes and regulations need to be brought down to a manageable level. Those are the primary weed killers of small business.
We also need true conservative leaders on the streets and in the churches of Detroit to espouse conservative views like rebuilding the family and true freedom through free markets. We’ve got to break the social justice teaching in the churches. I call it my 3 F plan. Family, Faith, and Free markets.
There have been good conservative moves into the city like the AFP sponsored Frederick Douglass day celebration with the union conservatives. Rev. C.L. Bryant from Runaway Slave was a speaker at the event.
Detroit is just the canary in a big coalmine of America and if America is to be saved conservatives need to nut up and start taking these democrat strongholds away and showing what conservatism can do. No one is asking us to refill the city. It needs to be pared down and made to operate efficiently. I’m not Rick Snyder’s biggest fan but he’s right when he says the city should be run like a business and made to serve and attract customers.
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