Posted on 07/18/2013 3:00:40 PM PDT by whitedog57
The City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy Thursday in federal court, trying to get out from under billions in debt. If approved it would be the largest city bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The filing was under what is called Chapter 9 of the U.S. code, which allows municipalities to restructure debt under bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy filing begins a 30-to-90 day period during which the court will determine whether the city is eligible for Chapter 9 and how many creditors will want a piece of the city’s limited resources. A city must be insolvent to seek Chapter 9 protection.
Detroit is near the statutory limits of its ability to tax. That power has been dragged down by a drop in the city’s population, down 60 per cent from almost 2 million at the peak in the 1950s to just under 700,000. The led to a 40 per cent drop in tax revenues since 2000. The city has had to borrow money to meet its operating budget which has been slashed. With the City retiree pool currently outnumbering active employees by an over-2 to 1 margin and growing, the City must address pension and retiree!healthcare liabilities as part of any comprehensive restructuring. As discussed above in Section 3(b), the City and its advisors are currently evaluating ways to reduce these unfunded liabilities, which involves an evaluation of plan design and benefits offered, to identify potential cost savings.
detpen
Faced with the obvious solution of slashing pensions, a Michigan judge (Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina) temporarily barred the state’s governor and Detroit’s emergency manager from taking any action that would allow cuts in pension benefits for city retirees.
The Obama Administration quickly responded: “We remain committed to continuing our strong partnership with Detroit as it works to recover and revitalize and maintain its status as one of America’s great cities,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage says in e-mailed statement.
Do I smell a Federal bailout … again?
Orr must have gotten wind of what she wanted to do, and they jumped the gun on her to keep their options open...
Holy %h!+ Batman that was close and serious...
But if we don't protect our markets, that will eventually be every city. Even cities that avoided debt and didn't promise their employees crap will eventually be dropping basic services and turning out the lights.
The big O is not a dream? I beg to differ. He is a nightmare.
If Obama had a city.............................
> Obama will bail out the Detroit pension recipients.
***************************************************************
I certainly hope not. I’m getting a little tired of the statists and the employees of the statists’ instrument of power (the government) being protected and sheltered.
Funny how all the DemoRat strongholds are running out of money and going bankrupt while the conserative regions are staying solvent and thriving. Surely just a coincidence. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there...
Better yet. The city could use those old abandoned buildings to grow weed and poppies with solar powered black lights.............
all the black ones, anyway.
It's real funny, from an article linked to by the article I linked:
An attorney for the pension funds said he feels blindsided because he agreed to delay the emergency hearing five minutes at the request of attorneys for Gov. Rick Snyder. He was seeking a temporary restraining order to block the historic bankruptcy filing.Suckers!During those five minutes, he said, attorneys filed in federal court in Detroit for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, which generally results in a stay in all other pending litigation involving the city.
Looks like they ran out of other people's money and it's very likely that the takers outnumber the makers by 10 to 1.
Who’s going to feed the ‘rats when there are only ‘rats left?
Obamacare’s death panels will deal with the overabundance of retirees quite effectively.
Pension gap divides public and private workers (2007 article but timely)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-20-pensions-cover_x.htm
You can bet the politicians will be looking for ways to steal the 401k savings of the non-government retirees to fund the bloated benefits of the government retirees. The former group has nobody to defend them. The latter has politicians and unions feeding at the trough.
Read pensiontsunami.com regularly.
It’s a compilation of news reports, mostly local or regional, about pension problems and abuses everywhere. You’ll see what regular Joes are angry about.
www.pensiontsunami.com
But I thought Obama single handedly saved the Motor City.
BK is Federal The BK judge will overrule one way or another.
Labor corruption has deep and tenacious roots.
Sell off Miggy, I know a few teams that’ll buy him.
Along with Dole, McCain, Lindsey, Rubio, Christy, etc....
Great idea. All the people who voted for Obama can be tapped for the bailout. Leave the rest of us the heck alone.
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