Death throes of a once-great city

[Starving Steve]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

This is likely the most ridiculous statement you have made on this site to date...and you have made some incredibly ridiculous statements.

There's no big debate necessary about Detroit, nor is there any deep thinking needed. Conyers is a joke. She is obviously a mental midget and morally misguided. She should have never been elected in the first place. When the electorate continues to elect representatives like her and Kwame Kilpatrick, well, you get what you deserve.

Detroit is not a failure of republicans or democrats. Detroit is not a failure of capitalism or communism. Detroit is an example of what occurs when morally bankrupt, low intellect persons are provided positions of power and decision. In fact, Steve, it is an excellent example of why "equality of outcome" doesn't work. Conyers doesn't deserve to have her position. It's that simple.

My remark about what capitalism and inequality have done to Detroit (and America) was not posted as a reply to the city council woman's remarks. (My brother's computer down here in Cal. does not retrieve YouTube segments.) Rather, my remark about what capitalism and inequality have done to Detroit (and America) was posted upon reflecting upon my childhood: when everyone could buy a new car and everyone had a job, when everyone had a small home, and everyone had savings in silver dollars or silver certificates at the bank. Everyone then had a future, and everyone then had a union card.

Now, after four decades of rightwing Republican rule in America, we have gun-toting, drug war, gang war, the hidden gulag of prisons, the McMansions, the bubble economy, the fiat money, the debt pyramids, the greed, the Ponzi-schemes, the de-regulation, the arrogance, the bail-outs for bankers, the bail-outs for Wall Street, the bankruptcy of California, the Proposition 13, the billion-dollar bonuses, the dark markets (after-the-bell), the lobbyists, the corruption, the dis-mantling of manufacturing, the derivative markets, on and on and on........

No, take a good look at what 40 years of Republican rule has done, from Ronald Reagan becoming Governor in California in 1968 to George Bush Jr. becoming President; from Jack Welch running GE into the ground to Bernie Made-off and his Ponzi-empire. This is what capitalism has done.

Let the world take note of what has happened to America and what de-regulated capitalism has meant in the long run. And let no Republican or libertarian deny the truth about what has happened, because the truth is evident for all to see.

[Raz]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

... Everyone then had a future, and everyone then had a union card.

Now, after four decades of rightwing Republican rule in America, we have gun-toting, drug war, gang war, the hidden gulag of prisons, the McMansions, the bubble economy, the fiat money, the debt pyramids, the greed, the Ponzi-schemes, the de-regulation, the arrogance, the bail-outs for bankers, the bail-outs for Wall Street, the bankruptcy of California, the Proposition 13, the billion-dollar bonuses, the dark markets (after-the-bell), the lobbyists, the corruption, the dis-mantling of manufacturing, the derivative markets, on and on and on........

No, take a good look at what 40 years of Republican rule has done, from Ronald Reagan becoming Governor in California in 1968 to George Bush Jr. becoming President; from Jack Welch running GE into the ground to Bernie Made-off and his Ponzi-empire. This is what capitalism has done.

Let the world take note of what has happened to America and what de-regulated capitalism has meant in the long run. And let no Republican or libertarian deny the truth about what has happened, because the truth is evident for all to see.

Your "knowledge" of history of the past 40 years is so selective - and downright false - that it boggles the mind.
Right in there with your view of Stalin, although not as offensive.

The Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress for 26 of those 40 years, and it was the Democrats who put in place the never-ending Federal spending - not the Republicans. They were late converts to the whoredom of public finance, and now both parties are a pox and a curse to the American nation.

And you conveniently leave out the awful decade of the 1970s - the over-regulation, high taxation, stagflation and decline of that period, 90% of which can be laid squarely at the feet of the Democrats. Yes, and you omitted those wonderful Carter years, the shining star of incompetence in the executive branch, though he looks rather dim in the "light" of George W. Dumbass.

But at the present rate of fiscal insanity the Obamanites together with the Pelosiites just might rescue Bush II from being the worst period of governance in modern America.

[hayekvindicated]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Democracy is based on the theory that the people know whats good for them and deserve to get it good and hard.

H.L. Mencken

[Chomsky]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Democracy is based on the theory that the people know whats good for them and deserve to get it good and hard.

H.L. Mencken

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Oscar Wilde

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

The country has to get past this storyline, and get to radical, nation-changing solutions to the problem that we don't make enough things the world will employ our citizens to make. Until that happens, you can run this program every couple of years with the exact same outcome.

But the solution, fundamentally, is a new system of governance. Democracy has proven once again to always devolve to into plutocracy. How do we create a new system of governance that is immune to corruption? that is the question no one dare answer today.

The collapse of the FIRE economy also is the harbinger for the collapse of democracy itself. We are witnessing, finally, a radical shift in the consciousness of the people in that they can see in every level of governance the incompetence and impotence of the typical elected representative of the people.

While this is a dangerous time, it also provides those of us alive today the unique opportunity to make history.

[lsa420]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

My remark about what capitalism and inequality have done to Detroit (and America) was not posted as a reply to the city council woman's remarks. (My brother's computer down here in Cal. does not retrieve YouTube segments.) Rather, my remark about what capitalism and inequality have done to Detroit (and America) was posted upon reflecting upon my childhood: when everyone could buy a new car and everyone had a job, when everyone had a small home, and everyone had savings in silver dollars or silver certificates at the bank. Everyone then had a future, and everyone then had a union card.

Now, after four decades of rightwing Republican rule in America, we have gun-toting, drug war, gang war, the hidden gulag of prisons, the McMansions, the bubble economy, the fiat money, the debt pyramids, the greed, the Ponzi-schemes, the de-regulation, the arrogance, the bail-outs for bankers, the bail-outs for Wall Street, the bankruptcy of California, the Proposition 13, the billion-dollar bonuses, the dark markets (after-the-bell), the lobbyists, the corruption, the dis-mantling of manufacturing, the derivative markets, on and on and on........

No, take a good look at what 40 years of Republican rule has done, from Ronald Reagan becoming Governor in California in 1968 to George Bush Jr. becoming President; from Jack Welch running GE into the ground to Bernie Made-off and his Ponzi-empire. This is what capitalism has done.

Let the world take note of what has happened to America and what de-regulated capitalism has meant in the long run. And let no Republican or libertarian deny the truth about what has happened, because the truth is evident for all to see.

Steve

I share many of your sentiments and ask many of the same questions that you obviously do. My conclusion differs from yours significantly about the root cause or causes of the problem, as you see capitalism/de-regulation as the source of our problems.

I'm not sure if you've read anything by Hazlitt, Hayek, Rothbard or Mises, but what they teach about economics is true free market capitalism and it has NOTHING to do with the way America has operated over the past 100 or so years. Hazlitt was railing on our BS system of government and "economics" since before WWII. We have had a nasty form of crony-capitalism where the economy has been infected with corporatism and statism, with the government, big banks and big corporations colluding together to get their crony buddies elected, write all of our laws AND write all of the onerous regulations that are supposed to protect us from ourselves. Check out Hazlitt's Man vs. Welfare State here for an insight into what capitalism actually is, i.e., not George "I'm a free market guy" Bush.

Add to that the fact that we have had a secret central bank setting the price of money and interest rates for 100 years. Doesn't capitalism require a free pricing mechanism? My question is, how can we have "capitalism" when the price of money is set by a small group of people who own and run the big banks? "Money" is 1/2 of every exchange and no one ever talks about this most horrendous and egregious form of price fixing. Oops!

P.S. The same big banks who get all the printed money first go on to use it to enrich themselves, crash the financial system and destroy the middle class. As a final insult, these criminals pass the tab onto the American taxpayer (our children and grandchildren), and tell us that if we don't bail them out immediately and keep their failed system intact, then society and the world as we know it will collapse and be plunged back into the dark ages.

Free Market Capitalism the problem? Not hardly. It is our only solution.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Steve

I share many of your sentiments and ask many of the same questions that you obviously do. My conclusion differs from yours significantly about the root cause or causes of the problem, as you see capitalism/de-regulation as the source of our problems.

I'm not sure if you've read anything by Hazlitt, Hayek, Rothbard or Mises, but what they teach about economics is true free market capitalism and it has NOTHING to do with the way America has operated over the past 100 or so years. Hazlitt was railing on our BS system of government and "economics" since before WWII. We have had a nasty form of crony-capitalism where the economy has been infected with corporatism and statism, with the government, big banks and big corporations colluding together to get their crony buddies elected, write all of our laws AND write all of the onerous regulations that are supposed to protect us from ourselves. Check out Hazlitt's Man vs. Welfare State here for an insight into what capitalism actually is, i.e., not George "I'm a free market guy" Bush.

Add to that the fact that we have had a secret central bank setting the price of money and interest rates for 100 years. Doesn't capitalism require a free pricing mechanism? My question is, how can we have "capitalism" when the price of money is set by a small group of people who own and run the big banks? "Money" is 1/2 of every exchange and no one ever talks about this most horrendous and egregious form of price fixing. Oops!

P.S. The same big banks who get all the printed money first go on to use it to enrich themselves, crash the financial system and destroy the middle class. As a final insult, these criminals pass the tab onto the American taxpayer (our children and grandchildren), and tell us that if we don't bail them out immediately and keep their failed system intact, then society and the world as we know it will collapse and be plunged back into the dark ages.

Free Market Capitalism the problem? Not hardly. It is our only solution.

I honestly don't know how to re-build America to what it once was. I don't know how to bring manufacturing back to America. And I fear that this miserable Great Recession could bring about the rise of Hitlerism with a new Hitler.

But I don't agree at all that free-market capitalism is the only solution. Helping small business would be fine as far as small business goes, but helping the big banks get bigger and Wall Street get even more opague and more in-bed with government--- the end-result, so far, of American of capitalism--- is not my idea of a desireable solution.

The direction to move toward is one of bringing the cost-of-living down, securing the value of money, producing more energy, raising taxes on everything, paying-down deficits, and instituting a social safety net for all. That is the only way out of this Great Recession.

Some of the specifics of my plan would be more atomic power, more hydro-electric dams, more drilling for oil offshore, more de-salinization of seawater, more land for cities to grow, a new Bretton Woods Agreement, some gold-backing to the currency, a federal sales tax on everything, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, an outlawing of influence-pedalling, better regulation of lobbyists, a return to the Glass-Stegal Act in banking and finance, elections to be called the very moment that the the Administration (the Executive Branch of govn't in the U.S.) loses the confidence of the Congress, national health insurance for all, a new public schools curriculum, the abolishment of the U.S. Senate, and a complete abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank..... This would be a start.;)

[lsa420]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Some of the specifics of my plan would be more atomic power, more hydro-electric dams, more drilling for oil offshore, more de-salinization of seawater, more land for cities to grow, a new Bretton Woods Agreement, some gold-backing to the currency, a federal sales tax on everything, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, an outlawing of influence-pedalling, better regulation of lobbyists, a return to the Glass-Stegal Act in banking and finance, elections to be called the very moment that the the Administration (the Executive Branch of govn't in the U.S.) loses the confidence of the Congress, national health insurance for all, a new public schools curriculum, the abolishment of the U.S. Senate, and a complete abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank..... This would be a start.;)

I couldn't agree with you more on most issues, so I think we're much more on the same page than it may appear from our different definitions of "capitalism" in America. Thanks for the intelligent conversation and debate, I appreciate your views.

[rchdenton]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Fascinating story. Reminds me of Liverpool, England. A once great city in terminal irreversible decline. From the Cotton Exchange of a bygone era to turdsville.

Does anyone have suggestions for the counterpoint city - somewhere lively, dynamic, intelligent and affordable?

[touchring]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Fascinating story. Reminds me of Liverpool, England. A once great city in terminal irreversible decline. From the Cotton Exchange of a bygone era to turdsville.

Does anyone have suggestions for the counterpoint city - somewhere lively, dynamic, intelligent and affordable?

Shenzhen. But not exactly a livable place, but inversely mirrored the decline of Detroit to a couple of factors.

[ggirod]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Does anyone have suggestions for the counterpoint city - somewhere lively, dynamic, intelligent and affordable?

Pretty much any city with good mass transit and laid out to be enjoyed on foot, bicycle, and transit would qualify for "lively, dynamic, intelligent".

Affordable is a matter of adaptation - without the non-trivial costs associated with daily automobile use, the costs of living in such cities are decreased, but the high quality of urban life keeps rents, property prices, and other costs high due to demand. Boston and Toronto come to mind; many people like Chicago and I am sure others can identify many that qualify.

In the future, walkable/bicycle cities with viable mass transit will be those that prosper, the rest will languish. Quality of life in those cities will improve as the concentration of residents' wealth attracts fresh high quality produce and other locally produced products and services to its markets while other cities will not have the disposable income to attract them, nor will some things be as practical when including transportation and more complex distribution. Concentrated wealth will also help to solve energy/pollution/water problems for residents because of the advantages of scale that results from serving higher population densities. So, existing successful cities will be among the first to resolve their coming energy and resource problems, making themselves yet more attractive.

Just my .02 worth.

[rchdenton]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Thanks ggirod, I hadn't really thought of concentration of wealth as a factor in creating solutions to these issues but there is sense in what you say.

[Chief Tomahawk]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

This abandoned railroad depot haunts the Detroit skyline....

(EVERY window broken)

http://blog.mlive.com/svengustafson/..._it_right.html

http://onlyndetroit.com/html/decay/o...-all_abord.htm

[mmr]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6926247.ece

Unburied bodies tell the tale of Detroit - a city in despair

The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant freezer in Detroit’s central mortuary, like discarded shoes in the back of a wardrobe.

Some have lain here for years, but in recent months the number of unclaimed bodies has reached a record high. For in this city that once symbolised the American Dream many cannot even afford to bury their dead.

“I have not seen this many unclaimed bodies in 13 years on the job,” said Albert Samuels, chief investigator at the mortuary. “It started happening when the economy went south last year. I have never seen this many people struggling to give people their last resting place.”

Unburied bodies piling up in the city mortuary — it reached 70 earlier this year — is the latest and perhaps most appalling indignity to be heaped on the people of Detroit. The motor city that once boasted the highest median income and home ownership rate in the US is today in the midst of a long and agonising death spiral.

[rchdenton]

Re: Death throes of a once-great city

Great photos of the train station.

Looks like the curse of the family mansion to me. One generation makes a lot of money and wastes a lot of it on a "fine house". The following generations are cursed with the excessive upkeep costs and the sense of obligation to the family to pass on this great treasure to future generations. Britain is full of it.

Why do the ridiculous excesses of previous generations take on this aura of holiness? Beats me.

I do love that stuff though, but am also very thankful New Zealand has so little of it. It does not help so much to dwell on past glories as it can distract from getting on with today's jobs.

Sad though.