Corporate gluttony? Liberal talking points. Corporations are in business to make money and create wealth, not be robbed by government.
Corporations have nothing to do with the mess that is Detroit.
Posted on 03/01/2013 11:29:43 PM PST by Kaslin
It’s fitting that on the day Washington, DC is cutting the budget by an agreement that they really didn’t mean, that the city of Detroit will finally get what’s it has needed for a long time: declaration of fiscal disaster.
Michigan’s Rick Snyder has appointed an emergency city manager to do for Detroit what Obama, Biden, the UAW, GM, Chrysler, the city’s council and mayor have not been able to even with a $80 billion bailout of the automotive industry.
“Snyder’s decision comes after a state review team report concluded last week that Detroit is in a financial emergency that it cannot fix on its own,” reports the Detroit Free Press. “The report detailed $14 billion in long-term bond debt and retiree pension and health benefits the city owes in addition to a $327-million accumulated deficit Detroit has been unable to tame. That figure could inflate by $100 million by July.”
The city has been powerless to stop plunging tax revenues. According to the Detroit News almost half of the city’s homeowners have not been able to pay property taxes:
“The News reviewed more than 200,000 pages of tax documents and found that 47 percent of the city's taxable parcels are delinquent on their 2011 bills. Some $246.5 million in taxes and fees went uncollected, about half of which was due Detroit and the rest to other entities, including Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools and the library.”
The article notes that delinquency is so bad that in one stretch of 77 blocks only one owner had paid their taxes.
And it’s not just that residents can’t pay. It’s that many of the taxpayers say they won’t pay taxes for services they aren’t getting.
More from the Detroit News:
"Why pay taxes?" asked Fred Phillips, who owes more than $2,600 on his home on an east-side block where five owners paid 2011 taxes. "Why should I send them taxes when they aren't supplying services? It is sickening. … Every time I see the tax bill come, I think about the times we called and nobody came."
Like America’s long decline into fiscal stupidity, Detroit’s problems didn’t have their start in the fiscal crisis of 2008. A combination union greed, corporate gluttony, short-sighted thinking from politicians at the federal, state and local level have combined to create a soup of fiscal insolvency.
Like most municipal and corporate emergencies, much of the problem starts with over-promising benefits to unionized employees and ends much later with institutions not being able to fulfill those promises.
“It needs to be said over and over again, this is a problem that started 50 years ago,” says former City Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel, a political consultant, reports the Free Press. “It’s a can that’s been kicked down the road for decades, and there’s no more can and there’s no more road.”
But at least the average American can take satisfaction that we have a thriving automotive industry, leading an American comeback in manufacturing.
Right?
Nope.
CNBC reported this week that the average Americans family can no longer afford to buy new cars.
According to a report by Intrest.com, there is only one major city where the average household income is sufficient to buy a new car.
Bingo!
You guessed it: Washington, DC.
“According to the 2013 Car Affordability Study by Interest.com,” says CNBC via Yahoo Finance, “only in Washington could the typical household swing the payments, the median income there running $86,680 a year. At the other extreme, Tampa, Fla., was at the bottom of the 25 large cities included in the study, with a median household income of $43,832.”
Only the countries of Lichtenstein and Qatar enjoy higher per capita income than DC’s median income of $86,680 a year.
Thank goodness. All this time, I thought that the runaway federal spending was just fueling a sense of entitlement, privilege and contempt for us commoners amongst the people who run our government.
For those of us lucky enough to live in areas that service federal employees, as apparently the auto industry does, we can be confident that given enough union pull, our city could qualify for a bailout too.
Just like Detroit.
It’s working out so well for them.
The same damned fools are running things.
Corporate gluttony? Liberal talking points. Corporations are in business to make money and create wealth, not be robbed by government.
Corporations have nothing to do with the mess that is Detroit.
Detroit needs a nuke. While Zero is visiting. Not declarations.
Who will be our Rick Snyder?
Those are not vacant lots, those are “green spaces” in Detroit.
At the time many individuals were under large personal and business debt burden at high interest rates. The conqueror's told the citizens if they embraced Islam they would not be expected to repay the debt and that it is illegal under Islam to charge interest on borrowed money.
The devil is a willy critter.
From the link:
CNBC reported this week that the average Americans family can no longer afford to buy new cars.
According to a report by Intrest.com, there is only one major city where the average household income is sufficient to buy a new car.
Bingo!
You guessed it: Washington, DC.
“According to the 2013 Car Affordability Study by Interest.com,” says CNBC via Yahoo Finance, “only in Washington could the typical household swing the payments, the median income there running $86,680 a year. At the other extreme, Tampa, Fla., was at the bottom of the 25 large cities included in the study, with a median household income of $43,832.”
Only the countries of Lichtenstein and Qatar enjoy higher per capita income than DC’s median income of $86,680 a year.
Exactly! Think of all the carbon credits Detroit will get when the time comes — with several square miles of abandoned inner city properties not using any electricity or creating sewage! Maybe they’ll trade their carbon credits to some other company burning coal for electricity somewhere else — yeah, that’s it! The future is bright!
Detroit is far from being the only city like this.
Wide open spaces while living in the city!
I live not far from there too. I buy a new car about every 10 years or more depending on how well the present car holds up.
I just looked around a couple of years ago and I noticed how much car prices had risen and how many more gadgets were in the cars and how hard it is to find cars without them.
Because I like to buy a reliable car and drive it for a decade rather than buy one every few years all that crap is pain because it breaks more easily and has to be fixed in most cases(electric controlled breaks, windows, car locks) .
Maryland gets brutally hot in the summer (and about 20 degrees hotter inside the car) and having lots of electronics inside it is contrary to the the laws of common sense, and chemistry.
And someone has to keep making all those old parts.
If you have way more money than you will need, or are just irresponsible (most people) then it doesn't matter. I often see young people with crappy jobs living with their parents, or living in debt, making much less than I do with expensive cars. Its status.
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