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Detroit goes bankrupt; Michael Moore blames guns, Bush, racism, and a dogged refusal by Americans to embrace Castro

Ha!  Fooled you!  Michael Moore said no such thing. Yet.

But only because he was still in his enormous tub, having his pet illegals spoon feed him his morning bowl of farina and congealed bacon fat.

What is true, though, is that Detroit is bankrupt and it’s politicians are demanding a federal bailout.  To which I say, why the fuck would those states who haven’t elected Democrat crooks, been coopted by union labor, and spent years buying voting clients with promises they obviously couldn’t keep — and now demonstrably can’t keep — bail out a failed city government under which we had no representation whatsoever.

My advice to Detroit?  Sell yourself off to the Lions and the Tigers and the Red Wings.  Then you could re-brand as the Lion Detroits, the Tiger Detroits, and the Red Wing Detroits — and be run by private enterprises that seek to make money, not to buy power and run with the spoils until they leave their dull client base in abject poverty, dependency, and finally, bankruptcy.

As Jim Pethokoukis asks, must there always  be a Detroit?     To which my answer is, of course not.  Just as there doesn’t have to be a California or an Illinois.  Unless they become subsidiaries of Texas / North Dakota Inc.

The plain and obvious truth is, there needs to be consequences for electing bad government repeatedly and then riding the gravy train until it inevitably derails, its individual cars empty of the spoils it’s long promised and less and less frequently been able to deliver upon.  And those who greedily or ignorantly enabled them need to be taught economic reality.

Meaning, those consequences are not to be born by those of us who rejected the government of those cities and states, and who have no say in their implementation.  That is taxation without representation, and conflicts have begun over such government-protected thievery.

Ironically, it was but a year ago when Obama declared that his nationalizing of several auto companies — screwing bond holders in the process while handing power over to his union cronies (in a detestable and unconstitutional legal ruling) — would save Detroit from bankruptcy.

Like everything else the lightbringer promises, that turned out to be all flash and no heat.

37 Replies to “Detroit goes bankrupt; Michael Moore blames guns, Bush, racism, and a dogged refusal by Americans to embrace Castro”

  1. Shtetl G says:

    My advice to Detroit? Sell yourself off to the Lions and the Tigers and the Red Wings. Then you could re-brand as the Lion Detroits, the Tiger Detroits, and the Red Wing Detroits — and be run by private enterprises that seek to make money, not to buy power and run with the spoils until they leave their dull client base in abject poverty, dependency, and finally, bankruptcy.

    That should be the plot to the new Robocop remake.

  2. Curmudgeon says:

    Actually, Michael Moore is leaving his wife. Or maybe she wised up and is leaving him. One can only hope he gets his in the legal fight.

  3. Liquidate the city’s assets, dissolve the city, and see if Wayne County can do anything with it.

    Then, in 2033, liquidate Wayne County’s assets, dissolve the county, and see if Ontario province is willing to keep Michigan from failing lest we foist it on them in 2053.

  4. geoffb says:

    Chicago has never been one to allow Detroit to be #1 for long.

    It’s an interesting web the union has spun for itself: its power to negotiate lavish pensions for teachers has helped bankrupt the city, which is now forced to sack teachers. And with Chicago’s budget deficit at $1 billion and revenue declining, there’s no end in sight, and no tenure and no pension is safe.
    […]
    The immediate impact on children and families of Chicago’s fiscal failure is obvious enough, but the long-term impact is perhaps even more grim. The city’s budget cuts, harrowing crime rate, and broken politics are forcing people out: Chicago’s population has declined to numbers not seen since before the 1920s, with the black population falling by almost a fifth in the past decade alone.

    This trend means even less revenue for the city, even fewer children to fill the classrooms, and even more talent and potential lost.

  5. Curmudgeon says:

    “Liquidate the city’s assets, dissolve the city, and see if Wayne County can do anything with it.”

    That would be interesting, if the voters of Grosse Pointe and other portions of Wayne County can outnumber the ghetto Left of Detroit. Then again, they might not want the ghetto Left ruining their electorate.

    It would make Wayne County the county with the largest percentage of unincorporated urban population, an “honor” previously held by my own Sacramento County I think.

  6. I grew up in Sacramento County. Anything that deprives it of a superlative, however dubious, is a good thing. #ToughLove

  7. Curmudgeon says:

    No kidding? I grew up in San Jose, but live in Antelope now, another “economic exile” in search of an affordable home.

    To quote journalist and local scholar Dan Walters, in his book “The New California”: “….leaving the {Sacramento} area with the highest proportion of unincorporated urban development….”

    This was written back in 1986, but things haven’t changed that much.

    Walters goes on: “A distinct unwillingness of liberal city officials and the civic leadership to expand the city’s boundaries into then vacant land north and east of Sacramento after World War II laid the groundwork for the suburban expansion under a pro-development (then) conservative county government. And ultimately, it weakened the city’s ability to affect critical land-use decisions for the region. Ironically, the very suburbanization that the liberal civic gentry wanted to prevent was increased by its head-in-the-sand attitude.”

  8. He wrote that when there were still only four cities in the county; Elk Grove, Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova took a lot of those uninc residents into cities, but the county’s population is still mostly unincorporated.

  9. Curmudgeon says:

    Yah, when he wrote that in 1986, Citrus Heights (1997), Elk Grove (2000) and “Raunchy Cadaver” (2003) had yet to incorporate. All got a lot better once they did. County govt is fine for rustic rural areas, but once you have a real city or suburb, it’s time to incorporate, or be annexed.

    Perhaps the solution to Detroit is to break up the City, leaving the most ghetto mentality Leftists to rot in their mess, and the salvageable working class portions to form their own North Detroit, etc.

    There was (still is?) a movement afoot for this kind of action in LA, where the San Fernando Valley, the last refuge of the middle class in the city, wanted to separate from the rest of LA, leaving the limosine Leftists in Bel Air and Westwood stuck with the ghetto and barrio Leftists of the rest of LA.

  10. bgbear says:

    Someone beat me to the Robocop reference.

    Dammit if only Murphy had minded his own business they would at least not be financially bankrupt and everyone could be driving around in SUX6000s.

  11. Darleen says:

    There was (still is?) a movement afoot for this kind of action in LA, where the San Fernando Valley, the last refuge of the middle class in the city

    Yep, been several tries for that since I was a kid (raised in Granada Hills from 1954-68, then moved to OC)

    But there are still more votes on the southside of the Sepulveda Pass to keep the red-headed step child around for tax reasons and occasional beatings.

  12. Curmudgeon says:

    Yep, been several tries for that since I was a kid (raised in Granada Hills from 1954-68, then moved to OC)

    But there are still more votes on the southside of the Sepulveda Pass to keep the red-headed step child around for tax reasons and occasional beatings.

    Yah, I remember seeing political maps showing where Richard Riordan (the last GOP mayor of LA) got most of his votes. You guessed it– “The Valley”.

    Similar political maps can be found from the Sam Yorty vs. Tom Bradley mayoral race going even further back. However, in those days, before the mass importing of them as an impoverished underclass, the Mexican American neighborhoods vote of the time was also strongly for Yorty.

  13. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I understand Robert B ReissshhhhhaaAH blamed the rich.

  14. Curmudgeon says:

    Like “Escape From New York”, only with Detroit Instead.

    The Michigan GOP needs a “Snake Pliskin” like character.

  15. BigBangHunter says:

    Chicago’s population has declined to numbers not seen since before the 1920s, with the black population falling by almost a fifth in the past decade alone.

    – And that’s just counting homicides.

  16. Curmudgeon says:

    I read that. Yet another “wise Latina” on the court.

    This passage was particularly chilling:

    Prior to her ruling on Friday, the judge criticized the Snyder administration and Attorney General’s Office over its hasty move to outflank pension board attorneys.

    “It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the judge told assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin. “It’s also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy.”

    Aquilina said she would make sure President Obama got a copy of her order.

    “I know he’s watching this,” she said, predicting the president ultimately will have to do something to make sure existing city workers’ pension agreements are honored.

    Ruling on the actual law? Anyone? Anyone?

  17. well put Jeff….

  18. geoffb says:

    “It’s also not honoring the (United States) president

    Aquilina is looking for an Obama federal appointment. Ruling on actual law would be a strike against that.

  19. […] for Americans outside of Detroit being called-upon to bail out that hallmark of Leftist Planning, Jeff Goldstein’s remarks are dead solid […]

  20. palaeomerus says:

    “That should be the plot to the new Robocop remake.”

    Yeah Robocop 3 sort of came true only without all the robots and evil corporation and the new city and the angry residents parts. It just fell apart on its own and people left and now Drew Carey tries to get people to come back.

  21. happyfeet says:

    Mr. gulrud found this

  22. newrouter says:

    there’s lots of farming opportunities in detroit these days.

  23. Drew Carey is from Cleveland — and Valerie Bertinelli is more likely to be helping Cleveland these days.

  24. We should put a fence around Detroit and make it into a museum, where people can come and gaze on the results of Leftism In America.

    Either that or we should burn it to the ground and salt the ground where it once stood.

  25. geoffb says:

    A piece from June 20th before the bankruptcy filing.

    Constitution may not protect Detroit’s pensions
    […]
    “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof and shall not be diminished or impaired thereby,” reads Section 24 of Article IX.
    […]
    The wording may appear to be clear, but if bankruptcy by definition is a venue where debtors can restructure or reject contracts, wouldn’t the “contractual obligation” protecting pensions also be vulnerable?

    Then again maybe the pension portion is to be an obligation of the State which would be any and all smaller units of government could sign contracts for any size pension benefits for employees and then have the State be “on the hook” for payments that the State’s politicians and voters never approved of or even had any say in the spending of their tax dollars. That could be a sticking point.

    BTW the State constitution was approved in 1963 during the glory years of the unions.

  26. geoffb says:

    Link for the second part above.

  27. geoffb says:

    On the third leg of the stool is this comment to the effect that by filing for Federal bankruptcy 5 minutes before Judge Aquilina heard the union filing her court lost all jurisdiction in the matter and so her ruling is void. Federal Bankruptcy court now has jurisdiction.

    If this wasn’t so serious it would be a comedy show.

  28. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Well, if it turns out that the taxpayers of Michigan are indeed on the hook for Detroit’s unfunded liabilities, I hope you people do the rest of us a favor and raise the money by selling what’s left of the city for scrap.

    Not that libtards are capable of heeding either a cautionary tale or an object lesson.

  29. geoffb says:

    [R]aise the money by selling what’s left of the city for scrap.

    Then we can sell the 89,600 acres to grow corn for ethanol at the going price of $12,000 per acre that brings in just over 1 billion which would cover about 6.5% of the debt total.

    Wait till California goes tits up. It’ll make Detroit a local yokel opening act.

  30. sdferr says:

    It would be a fine thing to see that judge pitched out on her ear. The world would be better off without her in any position of authority such as that.

  31. Wait till California goes tits up. It’ll make Detroit a local yokel opening act.

    Detroit will be the precedent — so the fireworks will be on this one, with the outcome of the other depending on what happens here.

    And if the Detroit unions lose, California might even twitch ever so slightly toward cleaning up its mess.

  32. geoffb says:

    Detroit is in the hole for 18 billion, 11 billion is pensions and healthcare. Chicago is 36 billion down on pensions alone and sinking by 1 billion more a year. So their solution? Same as the Detroit unions. get someone else to bail them out.

    Emanuel issued a response to the downgrade, shifting responsibility for the city’s inability to solve its financial mismanagement away from himself:

    This confirms what I have been saying for more than a year. Without comprehensive pension relief from Springfield, municipalities such as Chicago will continue to receive negative reviews from rating agencies.

    Democrats, the one lame trick pony.

  33. happyfeet says:

    a lot of piggy piggy Chicago cop sluts take steroids

    moreso than in any city I ever been to

    what’s up with that?

    It’s deeply weird about them.

    If any of the piggy piggy cop whores would take steroids you would think it would be the Angeleno ones.

    But nope.

    It may be an Irish thing I think steroids are still legal in Ireland

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