Nope, Not Cyprus

[CurbsideProphet]

Unsecured bondholders are being asked to accept 10 cents on the dollar.

78,000 abandoned and blighted structures.

40% of street lights do not work.

Only 1/3 of the ambulances were in services during Q1 2013.

The average police response time for Priority 1 calls is 58 minutes.

99.6% of the OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) liabilities are unfunded.

Emergency Manager was just interviewed and admitted they are "insolvent."

If you're still wondering where this is, it's Detroit, Michigan.

http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4206913614.PDF

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[farlack]

So what you're telling me is that there are 78,000 cheap places to live, slim chance to hit a red light, 1/3 of ambulances are running, but with the slim chance to hit a red light you save yourself $1000 going to the hospital yourself, and the cops wont come running on my shit for smoking a joint on the sidewalk.

If I didn't hear that Detroit was a gang ridden, shitty place to live to begin with, sounds like paradise to me.

[CurbsideProphet]

I'm saying the chinks in the armor are starting to show.  This is a major US city.  Another example, Illinois also has the largest unfunded pension liability in the US at over $100 billion. 

[crumbs]

"Initial reaction from debt holders and labor unions was negative." -Reuters 

[wachtwoord]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/detroit-on-bankruptcy-s-brink-stops-paying-some-debts-orr-says.html

[PrintMule]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/detroit-on-bankruptcy-s-brink-stops-paying-some-debts-orr-says.html

I like their signs, in the photo, which basically say "We fucked up! Make those banks pay!"

[wachtwoord]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/detroit-on-bankruptcy-s-brink-stops-paying-some-debts-orr-says.html

I like their signs, in the photo, which basically say "We fucked up! Make those banks pay!"

Yes, they are telling the city to default on the bond holders. Since the bond holders should be first in line in the case of bankruptcy they are asking the city to steal. And they are actually pretending to be on the moral high ground ....

[Crypt_Current]

I'm saying the chinks in the armor are starting to show.  This is a major US city.  Another example, Illinois also has the largest unfunded pension liability in the US at over $100 billion. 

I like to refer to it as "Hellanois"

[bitbybit2]

Bad effects of overprinting money. Mickey mouse money.

[bjack0815]

Very very sad.
Watching youtube videos from Detroit reminds me to Prypjat near Tschernobyl.

[legitnick]

This is exactly why Bitcoin is the solution every dollar the government prints people will grow more in favor of Bitcoin.

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Unsecured bondholders are being asked to accept 10 cents on the dollar.
[...]

Trying to remember... what did Pirateat40 offer on the dollar again?
/duck

[Kluge]

Bad effects of overprinting money. Mickey mouse money.

Detroit should actually be better off from the Fed's actions to inflate the monetary supply. It's a major debtor, so the real value of its debt should be decreasing while collecting inflation-adjusted property taxes.

Detroit's been a running joke in MI for years (look up Fox 2 Detroit segments -- you'll think you're watching Comedy Central), but truth is, the city gave up on large sections of the city, everywhere government (or voluntary aid) is most needed, the same way Chicago has (VICE recently did a good segment on Chicago's method of segregating services called "Chiraq"). They've segregated and discriminated services based on how "bad" the area is, trying to focus on "nice" areas and trying to let unchecked poverty, removal of government services/maintenance, and access to guns be a solution to poverty. It's a long-term plan, and I suppose we'll never really know if bankruptcy was part of it. Urban Detroit has a small handful of semi-functional fire engines, while suburban Detroit, with a much lower population density, has access to the services you'd expect from the high property taxes Detroit levies, including a fleet of brand new engines.

Ultimately, it's really not funny. It's a tragedy. Detroit has more-or-less bankrupted the entire state (itself semi-regularly having government stand-downs where legislators refuse to approve the state budget because they always have to raise taxes and cut services -- Republicans want to cut services to make up for the deficit, Democrats want to raise taxes) to the point where most rural roads would be safer to drive on if they were dirt roads rather than paved. The potholes in roads are big enough where you have to drive in the center of the road or likely need to call a tow truck. In Winter, non-urban areas are effectively non-driveable, losing tons of revenue because people literally can't drive to work unless communities are able to scrounge up their own voluntary fleet of ice-removal trucks at 4am before people start to commute. -But we're still paying more in taxes and fees.

ETA: Mixed up local channels -- Fox 47 is Lansing, Fox 2 is Detroit

[Branny]

Bad effects of overprinting money. Mickey mouse money.

Has nothing to do with printing money.


Has everything to do with a city owned by a class of people who want to steal from the rich to give to themselves. All the while destroying industry and forcing the type of people out of the city who could provide a solution.

Every mayor Detroit has had for the past 50+ years has been a communist.

This is what happens when your people want to institute a culture of theft.

[Stampbit]

detroit has always been a very poor area.

[farlack]

This is a major US city. 

The only people who care about Detroit are those that think they're hardcore because they say 'I'm from Detroit".



Everywhere is doing shitty, a shitty place doing even shittier... well no shock there.

[RandyFolds]

This is a major US city. 

No, no, no. This WAS a major US city, like, fifty years ago. Get with the times, my man. It's just another dead port town, like hundreds of towns along formerly major international shipping routes, along with pretty much every US foundry and steelworks town. The car was on it's way through the guardrail anyways, the crooked politicians stomped on the gas and got their pockets lined in paper. (Car metaphor for Detroit - bam).

[crumbs]

This is a major US city. 

No, no, no. This WAS a major US city, like, fifty years ago. Get with the times, my man. It's just another dead port town, like hundreds of towns along formerly major international shipping routes, along with pretty much every US foundry and steelworks town. The car was on it's way through the guardrail anyways, the crooked politicians stomped on the gas and got their pockets lined in paper. (Car metaphor for Detroit - bam).

Some awful purty pics though:  http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/

[Kluge]

This is a major US city. 

No, no, no. This WAS a major US city, like, fifty years ago. Get with the times, my man. It's just another dead port town, like hundreds of towns along formerly major international shipping routes, along with pretty much every US foundry and steelworks town. The car was on it's way through the guardrail anyways, the crooked politicians stomped on the gas and got their pockets lined in paper. (Car metaphor for Detroit - bam).

New car sales are way up, and related manufacturing is actually still pretty strong in MI - it's just foreign companies now own all the component manufacturers used in "American" autos. The Japanese and Italians own just about all automotive component manufactories in the state. However, now all the subcomponents are actually made in factories overseas, so really "American" cars are merely "assembled in America," with the majority of true profit being sent to the foreign nations. What has happened is that US factories are expected to operate on razor-thin margins, buying overpriced, low-quality sub-components overseas (the US factories are expected to do QC for the foreign companies, too...). Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and some other "foreign" auto manufacturers actually now use many components assembled in the US where they previously did not - it's just that none of the sub-components come from the US, anymore, but are instead imported. The lion's share of profit is leaving America, and we've wound up in a bizarre, historically un-American position of being the exploited rather than the exploiters. - But it's just the effects of the nationally-cherished ideal of greed. Still, somehow the American public gets hyped up every time they hear a new manufacturer is going to start assembling products in the US. Hoo-fucking-ray.

I worked for a time, fairly recently, producing automotive compressors. Everything, down to the bits and tubings were made by subsidiary companies of the parent company which owned us, though the components were actually all made in the country of the company's headquarters, so only what was absolutely necessary for the label was "Made in USA." The subcomponents were not selected for use based on merit, but chosen simply because the parent company owned a manufacturer making the part, and built factories back home, where they were not feeding the US supply so much as the US factory was feeding the Japanese companies demand. Still... MI has retained a lot of the jobs related to automotive manufacturing, and many are actually in a phase of rapid expansion right now. A local Brembo plant (a factory formally being owned by Hayes Lemmerz, and before that, American) and the compressor plant nearby are both rapidly expanding their workforce right now, to a such an extreme where there simply aren't enough people around to employ. While these corporations are rapidly expanding, the expansion seems to be focused on more rural areas, because these localities suck ass at negotiating and are happy to give them a few acres, permission to destroy the road infrastructure, and pay nothing in taxes in exchange for offering the residents jobs, with the local government hoping they can use this "score" to justify raising property taxes, so residents end up paying these foreign fucking factories (whether they work there or not) just to exist, which just continues to fuel this idea that employers are some deity for the lowly to worship, instead of it being an equal exchange of labor for wages.

Anyway, the steel industry would've been fucked no matter what. I'm not sure if any major factory in MI works with steel anymore. We're on to aluminum, car-related and elsewhere.

[RandyFolds]

This is a major US city. 

No, no, no. This WAS a major US city, like, fifty years ago. Get with the times, my man. It's just another dead port town, like hundreds of towns along formerly major international shipping routes, along with pretty much every US foundry and steelworks town. The car was on it's way through the guardrail anyways, the crooked politicians stomped on the gas and got their pockets lined in paper. (Car metaphor for Detroit - bam).

New car sales are way up, and related manufacturing is actually still pretty strong in MI - it's just foreign companies now own all the component manufacturers used in "American" autos. The Japanese and Italians own just about all automotive component manufactories in the state. However, now all the subcomponents are actually made in factories overseas, so really "American" cars are merely "assembled in America," with the majority of true profit being sent to the foreign nations. What has happened is that US factories are expected to operate on razor-thin margins, buying overpriced, low-quality sub-components overseas (the US factories are expected to do QC for the foreign companies, too...). Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and some other "foreign" auto manufacturers actually now use many components assembled in the US where they previously did not - it's just that none of the sub-components come from the US, anymore, but are instead imported. The lion's share of profit is leaving America, and we've wound up in a bizarre, historically un-American position of being the exploited rather than the exploiters. - But it's just the effects of the nationally-cherished ideal of greed. Still, somehow the American public gets hyped up every time they hear a new manufacturer is going to start assembling products in the US. Hoo-fucking-ray.

I worked for a time, fairly recently, producing automotive compressors. Everything, down to the bits and tubings were made by subsidiary companies of the parent company which owned us, though the components were actually all made in the country of the company's headquarters, so only what was absolutely necessary for the label was "Made in USA." The subcomponents were not selected for use based on merit, but chosen simply because the parent company owned a manufacturer making the part, and built factories back home, where they were not feeding the US supply so much as the US factory was feeding the Japanese companies demand. Still... MI has retained a lot of the jobs related to automotive manufacturing, and many are actually in a phase of rapid expansion right now. A local Brembo plant (a factory formally being owned by Hayes Lemmerz, and before that, American) and the compressor plant nearby are both rapidly expanding their workforce right now, to a such an extreme where there simply aren't enough people around to employ. While these corporations are rapidly expanding, the expansion seems to be focused on more rural areas, because these localities suck ass at negotiating and are happy to give them a few acres, permission to destroy the road infrastructure, and pay nothing in taxes in exchange for offering the residents jobs, with the local government hoping they can use this "score" to justify raising property taxes, so residents end up paying these foreign fucking factories (whether they work there or not) just to exist, which just continues to fuel this idea that employers are some deity for the lowly to worship, instead of it being an equal exchange of labor for wages.

Anyway, the steel industry would've been fucked no matter what. I'm not sure if any major factory in MI works with steel anymore. We're on to aluminum, car-related and elsewhere.

Well I sure as hell ain't driving no faggy jap truck! Ammmmmmmurika!

Seriously, though, I had never really pondered the dramatic implications on quality that go hand in hand with a manufacturer owning their entire supply chain. Slag pits in third world slums are a hell of a lot cheaper than treating your industrial waste to EPA standards.

It's pretty interesting to get your insider's perspective on it...over the course of my youth in the midwest, I watched the taconite industry dwindle to a trickle, and watched the iron belt continue to slowly suffocate in the resulting void. I kind of had detroit slapped in as another casualty of a lost industry, but it sounds like there is a lot more tomfuckery at play than just steel becoming a chinaman's game.

[realdos]

Maybe it's time for chinese to invest in real estate there and boost the economy.