FinanceDude
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2006
- Messages
- 12,483
I can not say I am surprised. Huge unemployment, etc., it was only a matter of time before the city ran out of money...........
PS. Detroit's debt works out to around $26,000 per resident. Unemployment is 16%. Per capita income was $15K in 2011.
How is it going to work out?
........How is it going to work out?
I've lived in metro Detroit all my life and I don't see any easy answers. ..... The result is way too much infrastructure that cannot be maintained and giant legacy costs from all the past city employees, most of whom have long fled the city. ...
There will be legal challenges. The Michigan state constitution prohibits laws that reduce accrued pension benefits. The current challenge asserts that the law that authorized the EM (emergency manager) to take the city into Federal bankruptcy with the intent of reducing pensions was an unconstitutional law.
On the other hand, the state government in Michigan, including judicial branch, have quite a conservative makeup in recent years.
Stay Tuned...
-gauss
Doesn't federal law trump state law?
The assertion here is that the bankruptcy filing was made without standing. Government officials couldn't, for example, sell the state to another country, so any papers they prepared and submitted along those lines would be without force of law, just like if someone sold you property that they didn't own.Doesn't federal law trump state law? I am not a lawyer, but I don't think a bankruptcy filing can be withdrawn. I have never heard of that being done.
I've lived in metro Detroit all my life and I don't see any easy answers. The city proper is 138 square miles with 700,000 mostly poor and poorly educated residents. In other cities, there are the poor, but Detroit has managed to concentrate that poverty in an extreme way. .
Did Detroit 'concentrate that poverty' or is it the result of those better off slowly leaving and just the poor remained?
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In the meantime, we have schadenfreude and finger pointing.
The reasons it happened are complex and most discussions along this line end up in a finger pointing contest, which have thus far proven unproductive.
Doesn't federal law trump state law? I am not a lawyer, but I don't think a bankruptcy filing can be withdrawn. I have never heard of that being done.
Who and at what ability level is going to work for the city in a non teacher capacity when benefits and salary will pale in comparison with surrounding jurisdictions.
clifp said:A city 16% unemployment with a median home price of $50K, meaning house payments are <$400, should be able to find workers without too much trouble.
The one big advantage of Detroit is everything is cheap there.
Even food and energy?The one big advantage of Detroit is everything is cheap there.
I've lived in metro Detroit all my life and I don't see any easy answers. The city proper is 138 square miles with 700,000 mostly poor and poorly educated residents. In other cities, there are the poor, but Detroit has managed to concentrate that poverty in an extreme way. The result is way too much infrastructure that cannot be maintained and giant legacy costs from all the past city employees, most of whom have long fled the city.
For the near term, I see a city with services reduced to the absolute minimum just grinding along day to day. Until there is a reason for the middle class to move back within Detroit city limits, there is no recovery or growth.
In the meantime, we have schadenfreude and finger pointing.