Somehow, I don't think Bill Bonner's suggested solution will work.
Sometimes the only solution is fire and brimstone, as was the case with
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Compared to Detroit, the Cities of the Plain still had a fighting
chance.
Baltimore Redux
Want to save money? Sell your house. Move to Detroit. The median house
in the Motor City sold for $7,500 in December. How about that, dear
reader? You can buy a house for the same price as the Dow stocks. A
little low on cash? Put it on your credit card.
Of course, then you've got to live in Detroit. The papers report
that life in the city is so grim 1,000 people move out every month.
We've never been to Detroit. Out of curiosity, we offered to take
Elizabeth for a romantic getaway to Detroit for her birthday. Our offer
drew this reply:
"Are you out of your mind?"
Poor Detroit. No one goes to the city for a holiday. Not even students.
As near as we can tell people only go there if they have to. And then,
they get out as soon as they can.
We can imagine what it is like. We lived in the Baltimore ghetto for
nearly 10 years. If you want to know what it is like, there's a TV
show that chronicles life there — The Wire.
Was it disagreeable living in the inner city? No, it would have to
undergo major improvements to be disagreeable. It was Hell. Drug dealers
on the street corners. Trash in the alleys. Everybody with a pistol in
his pants and a chip on his shoulder.
Elizabeth was once on the phone with her brother.
"What's that noise in the background?" he asked. "It
sounds like popcorn popping."
"Oh, that's just someone shooting in the alley," Elizabeth
replied. "I think they're trying to settle an argument."
We'd been there too long. Elizabeth hadn't even noticed the
gunfire.
But it shows what government can do when it tries to fix a problem. In
the case of Detroit and Baltimore, the government provided massive
bailouts. Education standards collapsed...so the government provided
money to the local education bureaucracy. Jobs disappeared (largely
because people couldn't read or write)...so the government provided
massive bailouts in many different bureaucracies — training centers,
welfare, food stamps. Pretty soon, the only industry left was the
welfare bureaucracy.
We don't know how it works now, but when we lived in the ghetto a
girl's best career path was promiscuity. She got more money with
each child she had...provided, of course, that the father didn't
take responsibility for it. Then, the child grew up...took drugs and
stole cars...until he got sent to prison. One problem led to another
— but it could all be traced to the government's giveaways. They
had the same effect in Baltimore as they had in Burkina Faso. The
political elite took the money and lined their pockets...the masses
become more miserable than before. And the worse conditions got, the
more money the cities received from federal bailout programs.
Baltimore is still in business. But from what we read, Detroit sounds
like it has become a kind of Port-au-Prince with snowdrifts. The whole
city sounds like a hellhole without the warm fires.
And now Obama is proposing to make things worse. More bailouts...more
giveaways...more programs...more bureaucrats... Already, the
"rich" support whole sections of the population. Obama says he
will raise taxes on "the rich," creating even more parasites. Of
course, who cares if the rich have less money? They will still live in
their leafy suburbs and send their children to private schools. But pity
the poor parasites.
Neither Mr. Obama nor any of the candidates for Mayor of Detroit (the
last mayor is doing time in a federal penitentiary) has asked for our
advice. We will give it anyway. Want to save Detroit? Here's how:
Abolish all welfare of all sorts...no unemployment insurance...no child
tax credits...no welfare...no foods tamps...no nothing, except
privately-sponsored charities. Close the public schools. Kick out all
the bureaucrats and all federal and state employees. Abolish all rules
concerning employment — no minimum wages, no overtime, discriminate
all you want. Require all residents to say please and thank you...dress
properly...and sneer at people who don't seem to be gainfully
employed or polite. Declare the city an Open City and Free Trade Zone.
In exchange for cutting all federal aid programs, eliminate federal and
state taxes for people living in the city. Allow unlimited immigration
into the city...giving all immigrants a U.S. passport after five years
of residency. Levy a flat 10% tax to pay for basic services. Eliminate
elections...have the city controlled by a town council composed of 1 0
citizens chosen at random.
Within five years, Detroit would be the most dynamic city in the nation.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
The Ruins of Detroit:
http://www.white-history.com/hwrdet.htm
An article entitled "Detroit Mayor Plans to Halt Garbage Pickup, Police Patrols in 20% of City; Expect Bankruptcy, Massive Municipal Bond Turmoil in 2011"
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives...etroit_mayor_p .php
An article entitled "“Experts” can’t figure out why Detroit is dying"
http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/...ds/2011/03/29/ experts-cant-figure-out-why-detrot-is-dying/A recent article by the New York Times makes mention of the fact that Detroit has lost over 25% of its total population during the course of the past decade. It’s always comical for me to read these so-called “experts” attempting to draw a conclusion for the collapse. They’ll conjure every hypothesis you could think of except for the most obvious one of all.
Detroit is dying because it is a majority black city. Crime, violence, and squalor follow non-whites wherever they go. Black people themselves don’t even want to live around one another, as this story further proves. I just can’t put it to you any more plainly (or accurately) than that. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows this is true but they don’t have the guts to say it. I do.
You can’t have a First World nation with a Third World population.
It's certainly insensitive of these officers to talk about quitting, and positively racist of they actually do it.
Even if they're black or brown themselves.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/...-for-visitors/
Enter At Your Own Risk: Police Union Says ‘War-Like’ Detroit Is Unsafe For Visitors
(1) Detroit police chief Ralph Godbee was suspended in October after an affair with a subordinate became public. Godbee's predecessor had been fired for the same reason (among other reasons), and in fact, Godbee had previously had an affair with the same subordinate who had been implicated with his predecessor. (2) The former mayor of Flint, Don Williamson, who resigned in 2009 while being targeted in a recall election, recently erected a large bronze statue of himself outside his home in Davison Township. (3) In June, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, having served 99 days in jail on obstruction-of-justice charges and still awaiting a federal corruption trial, asked Michigan prison officials to relieve him of "community service" parole obligations -- because he had a number of paid speeches scheduled out of town. [Detroit Free Press, 10-2-2012] [Associated Press via West Virginia Gazette (Charleston), 11-2-2012] [Associated Press via Austin American- Statesman, 6-5-2012]
http://newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw121223.html
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