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  • Detroit is in ruins, but they're building a $140M, three-mile streetcar line and you're helping pay

    08/26/2013 11:07:58 AM PDT · by The Old Hoosier · 27 replies
    Conservative Intel ^ | 8/26/13 | David Freddoso
    ...So $140 million is the cost of 3.3 miles of light rail in the city of Detroit, which by April was already well on its way to bankruptcy. In fairness, the project will mostly be privately funded. But why are federal taxpayers being put on the hook for even a single dime?...
  • Detroit bus brawl: Shocking video shows driver come out fighting after passenger spits on her

    08/22/2013 11:37:37 AM PDT · by NotYourAverageDhimmi · 49 replies
    Daily Mail ^ | August 22, 2013 | David McCormack
    Passengers on a Detroit bus were recently witness to a shocking no holds barred fight between the driver and a belligerent member of the public. According to one witness, the incident happened after the unnamed passenger lost her cool when her ticket got stuck in the machine as she attempted to transfer. The unruly passenger then started to argue with the driver, demanding her ticket back and even spat at the driver. That proved to be the final straw for the driver who, dressed in her white work shirt, got up from her seat and lunged at the passenger. Video...
  • Detroit bankruptcy challenged on constitutional grounds

    08/20/2013 3:53:49 AM PDT · by Oldeconomybuyer · 20 replies
    Reuters ^ | August 20, 2013 | By Joseph Lichterman and Bernie Woodall
    Public labor unions took aim at Detroit's historic bankruptcy filing on Monday, asking a U.S. court to toss the city's bid for protection from its creditors because it is constitutionally flawed on both the state and federal levels. A union that represents public-sector workers even took the unusual step of arguing that Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code, under which municipalities seek protection from their creditors, violates the U.S. Constitution. But as a midnight deadline for filing objections to the bankruptcy passed, Detroit's bondholders were conspicuously absent from the long list of unions, pension funds and individual creditors lining...
  • Creditors file objections to Detroit bankruptcy

    08/19/2013 12:37:51 PM PDT · by John W · 17 replies
    AP via Yahoo news ^ | August 19, 2013 | Corey Williams
    DETROIT (AP) — Individual creditors who fear losing their pensions and paying more for health care were among those who began filing objections on Monday to Detroit's request for bankruptcy protection, the largest municipal filing in U.S. history and a move aimed at wiping away billions of dollars in debt. Federal Judge Steven Rhodes set Monday as the eligibility objection deadline in the bankruptcy petition by Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr. Attorneys for creditors — including bond holders, insurers, banks, employee pension funds, individuals and companies that provided services — have until just before midnight to file objections electronically. City...
  • The Tales of Three Bankrupt Cities

    08/13/2013 7:44:30 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 9 replies
    National Review ^ | 08/13/2013 | Michael Barone
    In the industrial midwest, the city government of Detroit went into bankruptcy in July. Out in California, the city governments of Stockton and San Bernardino entered bankruptcy proceedings in 2012. But the Detroit and California bankruptcies, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, are not alike. They suffer from quite different ailments. You can see the difference by comparing their populations in the 1950 and 2010 censuses. In 1950, Detroit – then the nation’s fifth-largest city – had 1,849,568 people. In 2010, it had 713,777. Stockton and San Bernardino were not much more than small towns in 1950, with 70,853 and 63,058, respectively....
  • Detroit Shows How Cities Can Shakedown Obamacare

    08/10/2013 12:55:17 PM PDT · by Kid Shelleen · 6 replies
    Reason ^ | 08/07/2013 | Shikha Dalmia
    --snip-- Detroit is hardly the first city to think of having ObamaCare subsidize its retirees. Chicago, which is in financial difficulty but not bankruptcy, announced a similar plan even before Detroit. Other cities — some not even financially distressed — are contemplating doing the same thing. And why not? ObamaCare imposes no penalties on governments that offload their retirees — in contrast to large employers who offload their active employees.
  • The key to Mike Duggan's odds-defying primary win in the Detroit mayoral race

    08/08/2013 3:58:26 AM PDT · by cripplecreek · 25 replies
    Mlive.com ^ | August 08, 2013 | Tim Skubick
    “I’m proud of Detroit.” On the other end of the line was Sen. Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), who is a member of the Mike Duggan inner circle. He was calling to remind everyone of what the senator said last week in the midst of a media story line that somehow his candidate for Mayor of Detroit could not win an uphill write-in campaign. So much for that story line. “You said you would save that tape,” he chuckled as he basked in a very impressive victory for his guy for mayor. Mr. Duggan defied the experts and finished fir - not...
  • Yikes: Mayor Bloomberg Warns New York City Could Have Same Fate as Detroit

    08/08/2013 12:01:16 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 22 replies
    Townhall ^ | 08/08/2013 | Katie Pavlich
    After Detroit filed bankruptcy two weeks ago, the attention turned to America's other financially distraught cities. Think Motown is the only major U.S. city in a boatload of financial trouble? Think again. Detroit's bankruptcy filing sent shivers down the spine of municipal bondholders, government employees, and big-city urban residents all over the country. That's because many of the 61 largest U.S. cities are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit into Chapter 9 bankruptcy this summer. These cities have amassed $118 billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities. These are legal promises to pay healthcare benefits...
  • Emanuel's Chicago Is On Path To Be The Next Detroit

    08/08/2013 9:50:43 AM PDT · by raptor22 · 22 replies
    Investor's Business Faily ^ | August 8, 2013 | IBD EDITORIALS
    Cities: Chicago appears to be following Detroit's lead to financial disaster, perhaps the latest victim of decades of one-party rule by Democrats eager to redistribute wealth while driving real wealth creators out of cities. Moody's Investors Service downgraded the Windy City's credit rating by three notches last week, partly the result of $19 billion in unfunded pension debt, leaving Chicago's lower than 90% of Moody's public finance ratings. Among the nation's five largest cities, Chicago has put aside the smallest portion of its looming pension obligations, according to a study issued this year by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The condition...
  • How Much Has the Detroit Police Force Really Been Cut?

    08/07/2013 5:30:57 AM PDT · by MichCapCon · 22 replies
    Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 8/3/2013 | Tom Gantert
    Soon after the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, many blogs and news sites began running "facts" about the city. One common "fact" repeated often was that "the size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade." Although it makes for interesting reading, just how much the police department has been cut is not that simple to determine and is another example of the city's dysfunction. For example, the city's 2003 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states there were 4,810 uniform police officers that year. However, the city's 2012 CAFR lists the...
  • 20 Cities That May Face Bankruptcy After Detroit

    08/06/2013 11:37:05 PM PDT · by Olog-hai · 31 replies
    Newsmax ^ | Tuesday, 06 Aug 2013 09:23 PM | Steve Moore
    Think Motown is the only major U.S. city in a boatload of financial trouble? Think again. Detroit’s bankruptcy filing sent shivers down the spine of municipal bondholders, government employees, and big-city urban residents all over the country. That’s because many of the 61 largest U.S. cities are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit into Chapter 9 bankruptcy this summer. These cities have amassed $118 billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities. These are legal promises to pay healthcare benefits to municipal workers beyond the employee contributions to finance those funds. This is a giant fiscal sinkhole—and...
  • Pandemic of pension woes is plaguing the nation

    08/07/2013 12:33:47 PM PDT · by Lorianne · 37 replies
    CNBC ^ | 05 August 2012 | John W. Schoen
    Detroit, you're not alone. Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with fear. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar financial hole. A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation's largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of financial burdens as aging work forces near retirement. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have dug for...
  • We must rid our justice system of racial and class bias (Note the source)

    08/01/2013 7:22:50 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 8 replies
    The Arab American News ^ | August 1, 2013 | Carry McGehee
    In conjunction with the observance of the 85th birthday of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. in January, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights is organizing a community-wide conversation with the goal of ridding our justice system of racial and class bias. Representatives of police agencies and courts, together with clergy, interested citizens and community leaders, will be invited to address and find solutions to the troubling implications arising from the” not-guilty” verdict rendered in Florida’s People vs. Zimmerman case. The members of the jury seemed to believe they had little choice but to find Zimmerman not guilty, due to...
  • Our Federal Government Is Twice as Bankrupt as Detroit

    08/01/2013 3:49:15 AM PDT · by IbJensen · 20 replies
    Stansbury Research ^ | 7/31/2013 | Porter Stansbury
    Detroit declared bankruptcy a few days ago. I've written, for years, about how Detroit should serve as a stark warning to Americans who believe in liberal social policies, like highly progressive taxes and expensive social safety nets. These socialist programs don't cure income inequality. They merely destroy wealth by reducing incentives for building businesses and encouraging dependency. That's why societies with lots of government spending typically have few civil institutions and a small middle class. Here's the message our politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to miss: 50 years ago, Detroit was one of the largest and wealthiest...
  • Using Immigrants to Save Detroit?

    08/05/2013 9:12:34 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 14 replies
    Ricochet ^ | August 5, 2013 | Mark Krikorian
    For the open-borders crowd, immigration is a patent medicine, able to cure whatever ails you. The latest pitch is that requiring immigrants to live in Detroit is the solution to that city's many ills -- see here and here, for instance. The second link, from National Journal, is aptly titled "A Modest Proposal", because it's no more real than Jonathan Swift's 18th century essay by the same name calling for the Irish to escape poverty by selling their children as food to the rich. The problem is that the Detroit suggestions do not seem to be intended as satire. And...
  • China's Newest Real Estate Investment Craze: Detroit's Housing Crisis

    08/05/2013 12:15:10 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 16 replies
    International Business Times ^ | 08/05/2013 | By Michelle FlorCruz
    Downtown Detroit’s housing market was hit hard by the recession, as well the collapse of manufacturing and the long-term exodus of people. Currently one of the nation’s worst housing markets, the prices of homes have plummeted, while foreclosures continue to skyrocket. While the city is struggling to recover, China’s real estate-hungry buyers see an investment opportunity. While many people in the United States aren’t looking to purchase homes, a new craze has hit Chinese investors hoping to cash in on Detroit’s woeful housing economy. After announcing that the city filed for bankruptcy on July 18, Detroit property has been a...
  • Blowing Down the Windy City: Is Chicago Next After Detroit?

    08/02/2013 7:19:44 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 13 replies
    National Review ^ | 08/02/2013 | Michael Auslin
    Chicago — Having just been downgraded three notches by Moody’s, Chicago is suddenly hearing the uncomfortable shifting of deck chairs, as people wonder if the nation’s third-largest city is about to slam into the same debt-and-pensions iceberg that sank the SS Detroit last month. It was once inconceivable that the Motor City would become the setting for post-apocalyptic visions of burned out, abandoned neighborhoods, a corrupt and incarcerated city government, and all-but-nonexistent public services. Yet Detroit’s collapse took but a few decades. Now, the same disbelief and denial about Chicago is being heard, yet the evidence for the inescapable bill...
  • Pandemic of pension woes plagues our nation

    08/05/2013 2:58:34 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 27 replies
    CNBC via Yahoo Finance ^ | 08/05/2013 | By John W. Schoen
    Detroit, you're not alone. Across the nation, cities and states are watching Detroit's largest-ever municipal bankruptcy filing with great trepidation. Years of underfunded retirement promises to public sector workers, which helped lay Detroit low, could plunge them into a similar and terrifying financial hole. A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation's largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of burdens as their aging workforces near retirement. Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it's not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have...
  • Public Pensions After Detroit

    08/03/2013 4:16:02 PM PDT · by Libloather · 14 replies
    NY Times ^ | 8/03/13
    Detroit’s bankruptcy and the problems facing its pension funds offer two important lessons to other communities. One is that state and local governments need to do a much better job managing retirement funds. The other is that they should not pre-emptively reduce hard-earned benefits at the first sign of trouble. Several state and local pension systems around the country are under serious stress. Not surprisingly the hardest hit retirement funds are in places devastated by global economic forces like Detroit, as well as inland cities in California like Stockton, which was battered by the real estate collapse and has also...
  • Kevyn Orr: How Detroit Can Rise Again

    08/03/2013 9:18:54 AM PDT · by re_tail20 · 20 replies
    The Wall Street Journal ^ | August 2, 2013 | Allysia Finley
    What do northwest Washington, D.C., South Beach Miami and upper Manhattan have in common? Less than 50 years ago, the now vibrant communities didn't look much different from most of Detroit, says emergency manager Kevyn Orr—whom Gov. Rick Snyder tapped in March to revive the broken Motor City. This is what gives him hope that Detroit can stage a comeback. "D.C. in '91 was still burned out from the 1968 riots," recalls the youthful 55-year-old attorney who worked for 22 years in D.C., at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Resolution Trust Corporation, Justice Department and Jones Day law firm. "You...