Free Republic

Of all the depressing facts about the once great City of Detroit, this to me is the most upsetting: In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000. Government -- federal, state, and local -- made this happen. I know this from experience. Government corrupted the Detroit work force. That corruption drove away my company too. Until 1984, I was a business owner in the city, employing about 20. I moved my business 60 miles away. I didn't want to leave, but I was, in effect, forced to. Many think that crime spurred...

A federal bankrutpcy judge ruled Wednesday that federal courts will decide if Detroit is eligible for bankruptcy, staying challenges to the bankruptcy in state court. Detroit's Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr—a bankruptcy expert appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder earlier this year to oversee Detroit's finances—has said the federal bankruptcy filing is necessary to get the city out from under some $18 billion in liabilities. But the city's employee unions argued the bankruptcy is an end-run around the state constitution, which protects their pension benefits. The unions backed a series of lawsuits filed in Michigan courts to block the bankruptcy. Last week,...

Listen up folks, after you read the bankruptcy filing for Detroit. 1. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its citizens. 2. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its creditors. 3. The failure of the City to meet its obligations to its citizens is the primary cause of its inability to meet its obligations to its creditors. 4. The only feasible path to ensuring the City will be able to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the bankruptcy process that recognizes the fundamental importance of ensuring the...

In the 1950s, Detroit was the fourth largest city in America, with a population of nearly 2 million. It was also a middle class paradise, with the highest median family income of all major cities in the entire country. The last Republican mayor of Detroit was elected in the 1950s. Then the 1960s happened, and Detroit became a socialist one party state. And you know what that one party was. Over the next half century, city politics in Detroit was a battle between Left and Lefter, or socialism versus communism. Let’s face reality and speak the truth. We see there...

Federal judge blocks lawsuits against Detroit’s bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes stopped three lawsuits threatening to undo the city’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. Detroit retirees had argued that the bankruptcy could dimish their pensions. DETROIT — A federal judge agreed with Detroit on Wednesday and stopped any lawsuits challenging the city's bankruptcy, declaring his courtroom the exclusive venue for legal action in the largest filing by a local government in U.S. history. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was a major victory for Detroit, especially after an Ingham County judge last week said that Gov. Rick Snyder ignored the...

Current vending laws state that it is illegal, even for licensed vendors, to sell on both public and private property in the most populated areas of Detroit, including Midtown, the central business district and near the stadiums. Even more surprising than the rules regarding where vendors can sell is the extremely narrow list of approved items they are allowed to sell. The ordinance governing stationary vendors, foot peddlers and street vendors states they "shall be allowed to sell only the following items from an approved location: coffee, beverages and frankfurters as approved by the department of health and wellness promotion,...

Detroit Barack City

With all of the attention focused on the National Labor Relations Board these days, many people may not realize that there is another labor board that governs labor relations exclusively in the airlines and railroad industries. That labor board is the National Mediation Board (or NMB) and serves to enforce the 1926 Railway Labor Act. Right now, the NMB has its hands full with an ugly fight between unions that has just gotten uglier amid allegations of one of the unions forging signatures as three unions fight for which union(s) gets to claim $15 million per year union dues. Since...

We were going to suggest that this is the Detroit City Council’s way of pointing and yelling “squirrel,” except it wouldn’t be remotely believable because all of the squirrels moved out several years ago. Believe it or not, having just become the country’s largest municipal bankruptcy in history and with no other more pressing issues at hand, the Detroit City Council passed a resolution calling for a federal investigation of George Zimmerman. Detroit City Council passes Zimmerman investigation resolution goo.gl/fb/h56yx— 590 KZO News (@590KZONews) July 24, 2013 For many Twitter users, this only helps further explain what’s happened to...

The Deal on Detroit, Part II. Date Monday, July 22, 2013 at 01:40PM By Peter M. De Lorenzo Detroit. The headlines last week were terrible for those of us who call this region home, a kaleidoscope of every possible way to say that Detroit had run out of room and run out of time. Bankrupt. Broke. Busted. And now it’s all over but the hand-wringing and the legal wrangling for the Motor City. For those of us who live in the area, it was no surprise in the least. This city and this region have been teetering on the brink...

The Trayvon Martin speech of Barack Obama is the greatest symbol of his style of governance and the focus of his administration. Detroit became the largest city to declare bankruptcy last week, but Obama chose to stir the flames of racial division and give America a lecture on racism rather than address the factors that led to the Motor City's demise. This exemplifies how Obama perceives his office – it's more of a celebrity post than a seat of governance. There are countless examples. He preached on the necessity of Obamacare, but left the details of the law to Congress....

DETROIT (WWJ) – A new hockey arena for the Detroit Red Wings got another step closer to reality Wednesday with Michigan Strategic Fund Board approval of $450 million in bonds for the structure. State officials said the overall project, which includes a total of $650 million in arena costs and retail, residential and restaurant development around the arena on 45 acres, would create 4,380 construction jobs. The city’s bankruptcy is not expected to interfere with the project, which backers said consists of 56 percent private investment from Olympia Development and 44 percent public financing from tax capture in the Detroit...

In the city of Detroit, 60 percent of children reportedly live in poverty, 40 percent of the streetlights don't work, police take about an hour to respond to any call, it filed for bankruptcy protection last week, and, according to mayoral candidate Tom Barrow, it's all a lie. "Chess moves are thought way in advance," Barrow tells the local ABC affiliate WXYZ. Barrow was visiting the WXYZ studio to introduce himself to the public that may not know who he is, for a get-to-know-the-candidate-who-really-believes-all-of-your-city's-problems-are-entirely-made-up segment. "These are really big claims you're making...the way you're talking, these problems are all made...

Take Oakland, which is Detroit's doppelganger on the West Coast. The run-down Bay Area city, which has the highest crime rate in California, recently laid off more than 100 police to fund retirement benefits and pension-obligation bonds. Murders and robberies shot up by nearly 25% last year. To avert steeper cuts, the city borrowed an additional $210 million to finance pensions. . . Philadelphia is spending about 20% of its budget on pensions to make up for years of short-changing the system.

Detroit & other liberal success stories (Intellectual Froglegs S2E5 VIDEO)

“Of course, it’s an 85 percent black city,” Mr. Dyson replied. “It’s been perceived as a colony of black people who are ringed by suburban white areas that are now going into the city to plunder it. The perception is that there is a massive takeover of resources and materials and properties, basically being occupied.” “We have to acknowledge that part of this has to be the racial animus that has characterized that city for the last 50-some-odd years,” he continued. “The service industries hemorrhaged jobs in the inner city, depleted that city of its economic infrastructure and left it...

Other cities now on the radar include Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and Santa Fe, N.M. -- following Moody’s saying in April that they and 11 other municipalities were being reviewed for a possible credit downgrade, the result of a new analysis system that further considers pension liabilities. Though much of the national concerns have focused on pension liabilities, heath care costs for retired municipal employees pose an equally if not larger problem.

<p>What a difference four decades makes. In the mid-’70s, New York City’s threat of bankruptcy was a horror that the state, feds and city ultimately avoided. Last week, Detroit declared bankruptcy because Michigan thought it was the best choice — and Washington stayed silent.</p>

Tuesday, July 23, 2013 So Long Detroit Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog A century ago it was the lure of work that drew people from rural areas and far away countries to American cities. The big cities had jobs. Unlike rural areas, they had such high concentrations of them that if you moved there, then you might be able move from job to job without having to turn hobo and travel to find work. The big city offered workers to employers and employment to workers. That arrangement worked when cities were places where things were made....

Detroit City Council member JoAnn Watson on Tuesday introduced a resolution supporting the U.S. Justice Department's investigation into the Florida slaying of Trayvon Martin. Federal investigators are looking into whether or not George Zimmerman violated the teen's civil rights when he followed him in his gated neighborhood out of suspicion, leading to an altercation and the fatal shooting.