09:00 – Well, it appears that there’s no interest at any level in bailing out Detroit. The state of Michigan isn’t going to do it. Obama isn’t going to push for a bailout, and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats in the Senate or House are interested in throwing any more money down that rat hole.
Even if anyone were interested in bailing out Detroit, there’s nothing there to be bailed out. With the Chrysler and GM bailouts, there was at least the prospect of those companies returning to financial health by continuing to produce and sell automobiles. The city of Detroit doesn’t produce anything. It consumes. Bailing out Detroit would be like bailing out Greece, and we all know how well that’s worked.
The real problem is too large, too sparsely populated, and too poor to be salvageable. The city sprawls over 142 square miles–that’s a square 12 miles on a side–and has a tax base large enough to support less than 10% of that area. In 1950, Detroit was the 4th largest city by population in the US, at just under 2,000,000 residents, and had one of the highest per capita incomes of any city in the US. In 2013, Detroit’s population has fallen by almost two thirds, and its per capita income is one of the lowest. Businesses have abandoned Detroit in droves, as have those with middle-class and better incomes. Only the poor and those with lower-middle class incomes remain, and even the latter have been abandoning the city in increasing numbers over the last couple of decades. The city is gutted, both physically and economically, and yet it still must somehow provide city services to that whole 142 square miles. That’s unsustainable, and of course it hasn’t been sustained.
Declaring bankruptcy was a good first step, but it’s not enough. What Detroit needs to do is dissolve itself. It could then start with a clean slate by re-incorporating as a much, much smaller New Detroit, a new legal entity with only 10% of the area and population of the old entity, and none of the debt.
Is it going to be expensive just to demolish all the derelict parts that don’t make it in to New Detroit and turn that 130 square miles in to park land?
(I’d bet on the Democrats being persuaded to pour more dough down the sink.)
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Nah, it won’t cost anything. They can just keep doing what they’re doing–nothing–and the buildings will gradually collapse back into the landscape. That’s already happened in large areas, with what used to be urban looking increasingly rural. A hundred years from now, they’ll look like untouched land. In fact, there are already serious efforts underway to plow under formerly built-up areas and turn them into farm land, literally.
And we all know full well by now that the common sense solution mentioned here by Robert just now will never even be attempted. The city is just going to be allowed to disintegrate into a Blade Runner/Mad Max dystopian nightmare and there will be warning signs on the outskirts to ward off visitors. Fed troops may be patrolling and of course the drones and choppers will swing overhead once in a while.
This will be replicated over the next decades with other large cities and at least several states. There will be fairly health economic/political regions and then there’ll be places like the former Detroit, a frontier fort long ago, and Kalifornia.
80 here today, I’ll have to put on a sweater, sun and blue skies. Mrs. OFD off to the City of Brotherly Love at 14:00.
And there is no Omni Consumer Products to step in and take over law enforcement for Detroit.
I’d buy that for a dollar!
Oh, not just large cities. Look at Harrisburg. It may be the capital of Pennsylvania, but it’s really a small town. IIRC, it’s under 50,000 population. And then there’s New Castle, PA, where I was born and grew up. It was about 50,000 at it’s peak in 1950. When I left in the 70’s, it was down to 35,000 or thereabouts. Now it’s something like 23,000. When I was growing up, manufacturing was still huge, with factories like Johnson Bronze, Shenango Pottery, and dozens more. When I left, nearly all of the factories had closed. Now, they’re gone except maybe the two huge fireworks companies, Vitale and Zambelli, and I don’t even know if they manufacture in New Castle any more.
That’s what scares me about this area. When I moved here in 1980, the whole area was a beehive of manufacturing. The Big Three were tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Now there’s only a pale shadow of any of them. When a town loses its manufacturing, it’s doomed. Services can’t take the place of actually making things. When hospitals, universities, public schools, and local government become the major employers, that place is in deep, deep trouble. Fortunately, we still have some manufacturing–much more than most places–but we need more. The area as a whole has been pretty successful at retaining what we have and recruiting more, including a decent amount of heavy manufacturing and lots of medium and light manufacturing. We’re also benefiting from the moron anti-gun politicians who are driving gun and accessory makers out of their states. I’d love to see one of those big empty tobacco or textile or furniture plants converted to making firearms and ammunition. Or several of them converted. We’ll see what effect the current changes in taxation have. They’re supposed to make North Carolina more business-friendly. The next two or three years should be the test of that. My guess is that we’ll gain a lot of manufacturing.
Maybe the EPA should declare Detroit a superfund site. Certainly all those decaying building contain many many many hazardous materials. Then there will plenty of monies to pass out. Maybe even a few jobs for the locals (as long as they’re union and prevailing wage).
I should probably clarify a bit here; to me a large city is anything over 20k; but I’m well aware that’s ridiculous and by the common measurements, large cities would be 100k and up to the mammoth ones like NY and LA and Montreal.
And speaking of places like NY and Boston; anyone who thinks that colleges and universities and art museums and restaurants and government will keep them afloat is whistling past the cemetery. Manufacturing first went south on us from up here and then overseas and I hope Bob’s right and states like NC will get it back again; I have no such hope for New England, where Dem and librul elites reign supreme.
For now.
Oakland CA is trying to stave off municipal bankruptcy by encouraging new growth industry. Specifically, the growth of medical marijuana for which activity they have authorized the outfitting of a huge indoor growing facility. However, the feds have quashed the whole thing as federal law prevails over state.
I recall our host somewhat lamenting the passing of the ubiquitous 35mm film canister. We have areas where the youth severely affected with difficult to describe pains self medicate with medical marijuana in unapproved and unlicensed outdoor treatment facilities. They do not recycle the containers which are about 1 x 2 inch plastic cylinders much like the film containers. If one would need those for other purposes, they might be acquired from your local medical marijuana provider.
Ah, I love 35mm film canisters. Great for storing change and people think I’m really clever for having thought of it.
Metal with screw lids.
And if the nabobs in Oakland think that med pot will save their dump they have another think coming. In fact, I’d bet money that Oakland and several other Kalifornia cities are lined up right behind Detroit now. Also New Orleans.
This next ten years is going to be very interesting worldwide and here in North America.
Mrs. OFD just arrived in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was betrayed in 1787, and her seatmate on the flight was Vermont’s former Governor Jim Douglas. They chatted about various stuff and had a good time; he’s now teaching political science (of course) at Middlebury. And she’s training another class of instructors down there to themselves teach mental health first aid; the city’s mayor is apparently committed to bringing the program to “everyone living in the city.” Wife and her colleagues will have work coming out of their ears nationwide for years to come. OFD himself will continue being an IT serf/drone of one kind or another, probably, and keep working on sonnets and a couple of screenplays, while learning amateur radio, gunsmithing. and how to fix everything in this house and on the vehicles. Mrs. OFD is now buying a pristine 1997 yellow Saab convertible, which looks as if it came off the showroom floor, for $3,255.00; owners never drove it in winter and kept it bubble-wrapped in their heated garage.
Now that the upstairs isn’t a stifling inferno I can get back to configuring my office here and some other tasks.
OFD wrote:
“The city is just going to be allowed to disintegrate into a Blade Runner/Mad Max dystopian nightmare and there will be warning signs on the outskirts to ward off visitors.”
Our host could move there. He’d make a good Lord Humungus.
“Bust a deal and face the Wheel.”
Manufacturing is in terminal decline here too, Ford is closing its Australian plants by 2016, Holden/GM and Mitsubishi are sucking the government tit for all it’s worth. In the Seventies it seemed to me that 3/4 of cars here were made locally by the big three American subsidiaries. Now they’re all in big trouble.
Lord Humungus was in the “…Road Warrior” flick; the Wheel was in “Thunderdome.” And Bob and me and at least one other guy here are actually bigger than Humungus. We could kick his ass.
Road Warrior = Mad Max II
Humungus, Wheel, same franchise.
And Humungus had 30 goons to do his bidding. You reckon you’d last against Wez?
I should probably clarify a bit here; to me a large city is anything over 20k; but I’m well aware that’s ridiculous and by the common measurements, large cities would be 100k and up to the mammoth ones like NY and LA and Montreal.
This reminds me of the old line:
Q: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
A: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t mean it is one.
Hey, maybe Bob and me have a bunch of goons to do OUR bidding, too! Which one was Wez, the mohawk dude? I could snap his neck like a pencil.
Wez: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/Wez
He got upset when the Feral Kid took out his boyfriend.
There’s a “standard” way to break necks which is shown in many action movies and taught in some martial arts classes: Hold your target’s shoulders in place from behind while you grab his head, face, or jaw with the other hand. Jerk his head a little bit to the left or right, then jerk hard in the opposite direction.
I have serious doubts about whether this will work. For one thing, it’s the method shown in movies, and Hollywood action movies are 99 44/100% bullshit. For another, the instructors who showed me the technique have never killed anyone, nor actually broken anyone’s neck. A few of their instructors had killed men, but only as soldiers or police, and so far as I know only with weapons. For a third reason, my hypothetical experience in breaking necks doesn’t have it working that way, not reliably. A dislocated jaw might take someone out of the fight, but it might not, and in either case it’s not the same as a broken neck.
The reliable neck-breaking methods, in my hypothetical experience, are a) from behind, force the head too far forward, or b) from the front, slam the back of the neck into something hard, like the edge of a dumpster. Both take a fair bit of strength, though not as much as OFD’s suggested breaking of the neck like a twig. (Even if I were still strong enough to do that, my fingers aren’t long enough to wrap far around anyone’s neck except a real pencil-necked geek or a two-year-old. And not a fat two-year-old, either.)
Place your left arm around the guy’s neck, with the throat in the crook of your elbow. Place your left wrist in the crook of your right elbow. Place your right hand on the upper right rear part of his head. Twist.
Hypothetically, that’s almost exactly what I’ve done several times, except that, hypothetically, I pulled my right arm straight forward rather than twisting.
Maybe 35 years ago. Now, there are probably girls who could kick my ass. Well, I exaggerate, probably. But plenty of younger guys, certainly. Of course, he’s 35 years older too.
Hasn’t Mary had you begging for mercy with her Fist of Death ™?
And all that neck-twisting and snapping has to be done really fast, like before the person can stick you or shoot you with something. But stuff I could do forty years ago ain’t gonna go down quite as fast these days; better to blow shit up.
Oh Lordy, just saw the temp here; 76. Definite extra blankies tonight and maybe light up the stove and sweaters tomorrow. Ha, ha. This is twenty degrees lower than the other night; told wife it was suddenly like fall.
She’s in Philly for the week and we now await her way overdue pay checks and my apparently unending background check.
my apparently unending background check.
I first read this as unending unemployment check.
I may have gotten a S&W 629 over the weekend with a 5″ barrel. Sweet, sweet gun. Beautiful finish. Am very ready to go shoot it, maybe next weekend.
“…unending unemployment check.”
UI ends for me by Thanksgiving, barring any extensions. Maybe the damn check will be done by then. Read as “endless hoops to jump through for IT drone gig.”
I have three other firearms on my personal bucket list but number four may be a Frontier Arms SA .44 Mag with a 7.5″ barrel. Stainless with ivory grips. Right after the Ruger New Model Blackhawk in .41 Mag with 7.5″ barrel.
79 and gorgeous again here today.
Lynn wrote:
“I may have gotten a S&W 629 over the weekend with a 5″ barrel. Sweet, sweet gun. Beautiful finish. Am very ready to go shoot it, maybe next weekend.”
Okay, just don’t take it anywhere near the Brazos.
And I will remember not to take mine out in the canoes and kayaks on the Lake here. Which is more or less back to normal.
Mrs. OFD does not dig Philadelphia; city air all brown and gritty, like in the song, sidewalk hotter than a match head, etc. She also had a genuine Philly steak ‘n cheese sub with all the junk they throw on it; delish but now sitting in her stomach like a lead block. Who was it here who was disgusted by the piles of meat that Merkans tend to eat, was it you, Miles_Teg? Neither of us are big meat-eaters; so when we indulge it hits us a bit differently than with someone who gorges on it constantly.
I have real trouble getting through more than 12 oz of steak in one sitting. A restaurant I used to frequent had a Sumo Challenge: eat 1 Kg of steak (+ vegs) and a litre or so of beer in 45 minutes. I couldn’t eat that much even with a gun pointed at my head.
I see these monster meals at US steakhouses and just think Why? How?
I went through a stage of liking steak, but now I’m back to my preferred meats: fish and chicken.
Ruger New Model Blackhawk in .41 Mag with 7.5″ barrel.
Not sure that they make that combo anymore:
http://www.ruger.com/products/newModelBlackhawkBlued/models.html
The dealer we went to this weekend had a Ruger KGP-141 for $605. I was tempted but I resisted. The wife would have killed me.
You don’t have to tell her. I’ll bet she doesn’t tell you about everything she buys.
You don’t have to tell her. I’ll bet she doesn’t tell you about everything she buys.
Don’t you know about the golden rule? Everything she has is hers and everything I have is hers. I tell her everything, she just does not have to agree with it.