Motor city
Steven Crowder takes audiences on a tour of Detroit, a place which he describes as the perfect example of liberal policy consistently implemented. One commenter says, “look at the bright side – once liberalism fully destroys an area, we can get some cheap real estate! well – that is if we have any money left to buy it”.
Detroit has achieved something extraordinary. It’s become a lost city in real time, at least on the Internet. There are sites like The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit. A pair of photographers have a glossy presentation simply called The Ruins of Detroit.
Increasing segregation and deindustrialization caused violent riots in 1967. The white middle-class exodus from the city accelerated and the suburbs grew. Firms and factories began to close or move to lower-wage states. Slowly, but inexorably downtown high-rise buildings emptied. Since the 50′s, “Motor City” lost more than half of its population. Nowadays, its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great civilization.
Slate has an upbeat article called “Exploring Detroit’s beautiful ruins”. Stephen Crowder, though, is not world-weary enough to be a consoisseur of degradation. He still thinks a bad thing, something which threatens to come to your neighborhood some time soon.
know that some of you may think that the last thing Detroit needs is another hit piece. Granted, some could consider this video as THE hit piece. Detroit however, can serve as a valuable lesson to the rest of the country. It has been the perfect laboratory for leftist policies at work. The more you examine the policies of Detroit’s politicians, the more strikingly similar to this administration they become. The results… are shocking. Notice how I added the “…” for dramatic effect? I’m thoughtful like that.
Given the scale of the failures of Detroit and perhaps now of California why is repeating the same mistakes not only inevitable but actually described as being desirable public policy? Maybe it is because we cannot help ourselves. Consider that before the year is out the Senate may have voted in health care bill which a majority of voters, if polls are to be believed, actually detest but which they are going to get anyway. Like the residents of Detroit, we take the handout we know will kill us and do it despite everything.
One of the saddest sights a man can watch is during election time in the Philippines when the poor are rounded up in dump trucks and rented buses and sequestered by politicians near polling precincts to vote. There they will receive ten dollars, if that, and an afternoon’s worth of gin and peanuts. In exchange for this meager handout they will troop to the precinct and vote for the villain. The luckiest of that sad crowd are too stupid or drunk to care. But a substantial number know exactly what is happening; they are fully cognizant that the pittance they are about to receive will be taken back from them a hundredfold by the corrupt politician. They know it with the certainty of a sentient cow walking into an abbatoir. But they take the money anyway. They take it because they need the money and the forgetfulness today. Today the money will buy some rice; the gin will let them forget. Tomorrow is a luxury they cannot afford. Of all the tragic sights on earth, nothing is so pathetic as watching a man sell his dignity with both eyes open.
Maybe it happened in Detroit because those who wouldn’t buy into it had somewhere to run. And the same kind of crew is counting on it happening elsewhere and leaving nowhere to run. It isn’t too wise to put one’s faith in the nobility of man. For a fistful of dollars and a little entertainment too many will sell out their tomorrows for a little bit more today.
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More by way of historical artifact than the means of putting forward a particular point of view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAjLIVISqRw
I lived on the outskirts of Detroilet for four months. I was near 12 Mile road and once you got on the other side of 12 Mile road things deteriorated. There was a Subway on the other side of 12 Mile Road and I went in there once and never returned — opting instead for one farther away, but at least that one was clean and the biggest infraction of the law that would occur there would be public intoxication or minors with cigarettes.
I arrived right after a snowstorm. The place was in a mess and they had a heck of a time digging out, not something one would expect from a upper Midwestern city. The Mayor asked people to pitch in and help and then older people started dropping like flies from heart attacks so the Mayor had to reverse himself.
Then came the schools fight. The DPSS is in a world of hurt. The State of MI was attempting to take over the DPSS (at the time the Gov was Engler) but nope, better to wallow in one’s own $#!+ than accept help from others.
The other anecdote I recall was a investigative film footage of a Detroit road works crew. Their truck was pulled over and they were just getting drunk.
I was in Southfield attending mainframe bootcamp, the area around Southfield was okay. Every restaurant or store I was in you could count on hearing a conversation in Arabic.
The voters in Detroit just don’t know any better. This is where the woman figured the money being given to her simply came from “Obama’s stash”.
Of course, their former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is a notorious character. Google him.
Splendid writing and links. Thank you.
And very illustrative!
“once liberalism fully destroys” ITSELF, with a big push from the citizens to get the whole corrupt thing crashing to the ground, we can get things running again.
Maybe even these old splendid factories will be again teeming with activity.
Of course we will have to hunt the political criminals down (see, there will be some fun in it, not all blood, sweat, and tears), and the ones we take alive will face trials for their crimes.
See, I’m real big on using a legal system, but certainly not the one we have now, against the criminals running us down the ruinous road we are now on.
There are a few taboos that tyrants cross that lead to their downfall. The Histories are fairly straightforward about this. One way a tyrant gets removed is by overstepping his external bounds and picking a fight with someone willing to crush him. That is what happened to Pol Pot in Cambodia but it is probably the most likely way that an oppressive regime can come to grief. It is far rarer for an entrenched dictatorship to collapse in the face of an internal revolt. The Soviet Union imploded, to an extent until the KGB reconstituted, under economic pressure. Marcos was swept from power by domestic forces. Tyrants can usually survive a reputation for incompetence and brutality. In fact when a regime begins to reform it is at the greatest risk. Louis XVI and Nicholas II were both more mild mannered than their ancestors. The only forms of corruption that are seen as justifying rebellion in most traditions is sexual license. The tyrant or his sons start assaulting the wives, daughters and sons of the gentry and they get removed. That is what happened in Athens to Peisistratus’ son.
So the sad fact is that running a community into the ground is a successful strategy for a politician, with two restrictions. Don’t so weaken the place or insult bigger powers that you get invaded. Don’t put your fingers on the personal, as opposed to financial, goods of the gentry. Obama has offended most foreign powers. His gratuitous confrontation with China will be paid for. So far he and his followers have not imposed to deeply on his victims sense of personal family honor. The Safe Schools Czar fiasco matters. Increasing pressure on education and abortion may make some feel that line is being crossed.
OT, I mentioned on the last thread a link to Red State that is shocking about what Reid is doing in the Senate, please read it. http://tinyurl.com/ybtjkbf
Almost exactly a year ago Matt Labash had a very moving and perceptive article on the decay of Detroit in the Weekly Standard:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/8ha3qx
Jamie Irons
After 7 years as a Detroit police officer, I was able to see up-close and personal the core of what is wrong there… to peel away all the layers of rot and see with perfect clarity what is wrong. But the citizens there don’t see it; their excuses are the typical cliches: crack, Whitey, etc. Their lives revolve around a victim-mentality, completely void of personal responsibility or any discernable American spirit.
Detroit is what it is because of welfare. Generation after generation are paid by their government to have babies out of wedlock, and remain unemployed. Couple that with the imagined grievances of a pervasive victim-mentality and you create a wasteland.
Like the paupers of the Philippines, Detroiters are slaves — without knowing they are slaves. They vote for democrats instinctively. There is no argument or debate. Liberal policies keep them in a perpetual state of catastrophe, yet the same ilk promise the only solution. Just keep voting for us, and get your free sandwhich. The Mayor and the entire city council are all democrats, the federal reps are some of the most embarrassing lunatics you will find in any public office anywhere, and they are safe as Hindu cows in their positions.
The crime situation in Detroit is completely unmanageable. You would not believe it unless you saw it for yourself. The root causes are a complete mystery to the people and their “leaders.” And it is impossible to reach them or rescue them. Their children are illiterate and twice as angry. Detroit is a perfect example of the adage about the definition of insanity.
Who now remembers Al Kaline
A stadium named Briggs
The brand new Ford assembly line
With shiny tools and jigs
After the war when car was king
And Reuther was the man
He made the deals, they kissed his ring
And for a while it ran
But came the city’s vacant nights
As crime and violence grew
And politicians chased the whites
With their vile liberal brew
Where now Kaline and Tigertown
Big Gordy and the Cup
Assembly lines are now run down
And all the jigs are up
LOTM,
Childeric was run off for a time for having his way with the women of his tribe.
It is hard to resist that carrot sitting at the back end of that box. Go in there to get it and you do not come out. Even for those who understand the carrot is nothing more than bait in a trap it is hard to resist. The people in Detroilet don’t even realize that, they only see it as is eloquently expressed by “Yes We Did” and that is what makes me uncertain about YWD.
I work in Detroit. It’s possible the “slaves” are waking up. They were giddy with joy (the suburbanites who work there as well as the residents) a year ago November. Now, not so much. They’re scared, because they already knew disaster was coming even for those still employed. They thought the election would turn everything around. Now I sense even the most heartfelt supporters of the new administration are losing hope fast. They are scared for themselves and for their children. Anyone living in the city who can get out, is leaving. Those who work there and live in the suburbs ironically are more trapped than the residents. They own homes.
So true! You deal with corrupt politicians, all can be corrupted. A very sad state of affairs.
Crowder’s final question and observation deserve much thought—the examples of what happens when the Left runs things are legion and worldwide, and the reasons for the horrid results are well understood. Why do so many people deny this manifest reality?
AS we look at Congress getting ready to trash the health care system and having just seen Copenhagen, is there any question more important, any solution more pressing?
Pittsburgh has lost half its population since the 1950s (676,000 in 1950 to 334,000 in 2000)
Like Detroit, it saw the catastrophic collapse of its main industry in a very short span of time. (90,000 steelworkers in 1980, to just 44,000 by 1984 … and all that was way down from the job #s in the peak years)
Like Detroit, Pittsburgh (really, the whole of Allegheny County) is a Democratic Party machine (5 to 1 Dem to GOP voter registration; no Republican mayor since 1933).
Like Detroit, there is a LOT of blight. There was just an article in today’s Post-Gazette with the headline, “Millions of dollars lost in taxes, investment because of ‘growing crisis’ of blight.”
And yet … Pittsburgh is not Detroit. There is a LOT wrong with how the city is run, but (knock on wood) we appear to have bottomed out with regard to the catastrophic effects of the steel industry collapse. I think public life here would be exponentially better with things like (a) a viable two-party system, (b) less punitive taxes, esp on businesses (more businesses = more job growth), and (c) more exposure & punishment of the insider dealing and corruption. But life here in the ‘Burgh is not bad in *most* places. In my old neighborhood it was bad, and I had the mugged-at-gunpoint experience to prove it, and I got the h*** out of that neighborhood.
But we are not Detroit. This is nowhere near an apocalyptic-feeling city.
What has made the difference, I wonder?
I don’t know if Crowder is serious about hope for the aftermath. Do not assume that when Detroit reaches total apocalypse, the citizens will reach some plateau of understanding and reinvent themselves. About 5 years ago, I retreated for a job in the suburbs. The problem is, Detroiters have made their environment so unlivable, they themselves become fed up & head north too. Consider that criminals and killers do not like to get robbed or murdered any more than you do. After fleeing the city, do they assimilate to the better example of suburban culture? No. They bring with them all of their dysfunction and misconceptions, I now get to watch –from the front row– these once quiet streets of Anytown Michigan begin to crumble.
My job as a suburban cop is to drive around in circles trying to convince former Detroiters to behave themselves. And it’s not working. I want to explain to them that buildings and blight do not make a ghetto a ghetto… PEOPLE DO! Here’s an article from the local paper expressing typical frustrations of suburban residents dealing with Detroit’s #1 export:
http://macombdaily.com/articles/2009/12/15/news/srv0000007084820.txt
On a positive note, there are some Detroiters who genuinely get it, and work tirelessly to spread the word of truth: DEMOCRATS ARE YOUR ENEMY! They resisted abolition for God’s sake!
God bless Joshua’s Trail: http://www.joshuastrail.org/
I hope their message spreads.
Yes, thousands of years later, bread and circuses still quite popular…
What has made the difference, I wonder?
Beats me.
Detroit:
Black (81.6%)
White Non-Hispanic (10.5%)
Hispanic (5.0%)
Other race (2.5%)
Two or more races (2.3%)
American Indian (0.9%)
Pittsburgh:
White Non-Hispanic (66.9%)
Black (27.1%)
Two or more races (1.6%)
Hispanic (1.3%)
Chinese (0.9%)
Other race (0.7%)
American Indian (0.7%)
Asian Indian (0.6%)
I am flying back home to SE Michigan for the holidays; mom lives in a first ring suburb. Worked summers on Ford assembly lines and my first job out of college was at Chrysler in Highland Park. We may brave a trip to Greektown during our stay.
We read our history books and the big defining events seemed to have happened overnight, but of course they didn’t. Far too often it’s a slow, inevitable slide once some point of no return has passed. The once proud Motor City has been sliding for a long time.
But who made the decisions to give up on manufacturing in this country, who thought “The Service Economy” was a great idea and the wealth would still magically be created? Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and the other once great centers for manufacturing wouldn’t be in such dire straits had we kept manufacturing jobs in this country. Where is the economic impact statement of the all the excesses of the enviromental movement? The irony is that the poverty created by the loss of those good jobs at the altar of Enviromentalism has lead to ugly filthy cityscapes, and dispair and degradation of masses of humanity.
Almost 40 years ago Arthur Hailey wrote Wheels. Back then he noted that auto company executives made sure that the cars assigned for their own use were built on Tuesday through Thursday, because that was when the workers were sober.
Wretchard — any idea why the stocks of health insurance companies just hit a 52 week high?
Wretchard — any conjectures as to why the stocks of health insurance companies just hit a 52 week high?
For an interesting read, check out Devil’s Night: and Other True Tales of Detroit by Zev Chafets. It’s been quite a few years since I read the book, so my memory is a little fuzzy. Chafets main argument was that Detroit fell into a third world mind set. I don’t know if I would call it a third world mind set, but it was/is definitely a loser’s mind set. But I will say that the relationship between the city and outer suburbs, during the 70s and 80s, resembled the relationship Venezuela has with the United States (It was not uncommon for Detroit mayor Coleman Young and Oakland County prosecutor L. Brooks Paterson to hurl barbed insults at each other on the local news shows. It was a sight to behold.)
Crowder’s piece was a bit of an oversimplification of what happened to Detroit, but much of the other things are far too nuanced to go into much detail (you know, the usual stuff. Corruption, cronyism, power politics, blah blah blah.) Oh, and for those who think Kwame Kilpatrick is a real piece of work, he’s a piker compared to former Detroit police chief William Hart (I think he got four years for embezzlement.)
One of the big reasons for Detroit’s failure, however, they really can’t be blamed for; they were to welded to the money that the “big three” automakers brought in, which is what made the city as prosperous as it was. There’s an old saying around here that when GM sneezes, Detroit (and all of S.E. Michigan) gets the flu.
Lownesdale @19
An economist and money manager told me the market probably thinks the health bill isn’t too bad – no public option, for example, and perhaps more business for insurers. However, the traders haven’t read the infamous bill, of course, and Wall Street is famous for a herd mentality. There’s also year-end “window-dressing” going on and a Santa Claus rally effect. (Not sure what that last means. . . maybe cheerful/drunk traders??)
About the seductive quality of a handout. . . I wonder if that, too, has an effect on Wall Street, at least in the short run. Free health care! Intoxicating idea. . .
Lownesdale, it’s not difficult to figure out. Obviously, Investors are betting that the Health Care plan about to be voted on by the Senate is going to be massively profitable for most insurance companies, and is bidding up their stocks in response.
Now will this last? Well, will the final bill look like Reid’s? But it’s not surprising since the bill as written looks like it will give a government mandate to people to buy private insurance. And anytime competition is diminished by extra regulation, it’s easy to game the profit margins up.
Now of course this does not tell us whether this will actually be the end result. But it sure likes the way all the smart money is betting just now.
So many BC commentators with connections to Detroit! Me too. I grew up in Troy/Birmingham, but moved to CA nearly 30 years ago during the last Great Financial Debacle under Carter1. I was very sad to see Crowder’s piece the other day (FYI, he’s a native too), but here’s my news: I plan on moving from the Hollywood Hills back to Michigan early next year… Call me crazy, but I see incredible opportunity back there right now (not in Detroit proper, mind you, but nearby). The Michigan real estate market has cratered like nothing I’ve ever seen, but the squalor evident in Detroit is mostly confined geographically. When Muslims next exhibit Islam in NY, DC, or LA, I think I’d rather be in Michigan … I’m putting my money where my mouth is… I’m also getting away while the getting is good!
Chafets main argument was that Detroit fell into a third world mind set. I don’t know if I would call it a third world mind set, but it was/is definitely a loser’s mind set. … they were to welded to the money that the “big three” automakers brought in, which is what made the city as prosperous as it was.
Well maybe Chafets is partly right. The Third World is like that. A resource is “found” because something turns out to be valuable … minerals, forests, or geography. The wealth doesn’t really come from a sense of human capital or entrepreneurship. So everybody looks to milk the accidental goose and they keep piling on until they kill it. They overbuild on the scenic outlook. The exhaust the mine and when its’ gone … it’s gone. Nothing left by the abandoned statuary of bygone days.
When the oil is gone from Saudi Arabia, there could be nothing left either, unless they wise up and work at building human capital. Kind of like gold-rush towns.
But the difference is this: the auto industry isn’t a classic natural resource. It has unnaturally become like one due to noneconomic factors in my view. They’ve treated an industry like they like they are treating taxpayers, as a non-renewable resource. This is why I dislike politicians. They behave like looters, not managers. Especially in the Third World a country is something to be despoiled, not managed for growth.
I was born in Dearborn almost 41 years ago to parents who grew up in the heyday of Detroit. Both sets of grandparents lived there until the mid-1970s, before they moved back south to complete the migration that brought them to Detroit for their working years. My childhood memories of Detroit are pleasant, but the decline of the city really pains my parents. Their impression was that the riots in the late 1960s were the real turning point that started the emptying of the city.
Driving through on I-94 or I-75, there are large shuttered factories all along the route, I wondered why they hadn’t been demolished until I considered the composition of factories built by paint manufacturers and parts suppliers in the 1930s and 1940s — in addition to most likely being classified as Superfund sites they are probably a treasure trove of asbestos and lead paint. The city would sue to prevent the demolition of those eyesores and they’d be right to do so, in part because the paperwork involved in documenting and remediating the plume of toxic crud that arose from said demolition would probably cost more than the injunction. My parents left Rochester Hills in 2004 and retired to Texas, maybe the best real estate decision they ever made. From a real estate value perspective, that’s like stepping off an elevator just before the cable snaps.
I was in Hiroshima this fall, the hotel I stayed in that night was less than 2 miles from the bomb site. Looking out the window, it was difficult to believe that 64 years earlier there had been only ash and rubble where now there stood a modern city with six-story buildings as far as the eye could see. Ironic that the city that contributed so much to ending WW2 has slid so far, and the scene of that world’s first atomic detonation is a bustling metropolis.
I was in Hiroshima this fall, the hotel I stayed in that night was less than 2 miles from the bomb site. Looking out the window, it was difficult to believe that 64 years earlier there had been only ash and rubble where now there stood a modern city with six-story buildings as far as the eye could see. Ironic that the city that contributed so much to ending WW2 has slid so far, and the scene of that world’s first atomic detonation is a bustling metropolis.
At the risk of sounding trite, a memetic bomb is in the long run more destructive than an atomic bomb. If you transferred all the material wealth in America and Japan to Africa and nothing more, Africa would be living in the ruins of cities in 10 years while the Japanese at least, while have rebuilt everything. The real wealth of nation is in its knowledge, skill and attitudes.
I wonder to what extent the Left’s hold on education has brought things to this pass? An A-bomb can kill a hundred buildings, but memetic corruption can kill a civilization.
Yep, let’s all pile onto the Leftists. And they are probably one of the causes of Detroit’s decline.
But let’s not forget, either, why the Detroit car industry declined as it did. Why was that? Because they make junk – and, moreover, junk that is no longer what a lot of Americans want to buy, even if it wasn’t junk.
Poorly designed, poorly made, inefficient, expensive to run. An obsession with planned obsolesence; each year’s new model the same old, same old with different tail lights.
And whose fault was that? Management. Management thinking about next quarter’s forecast profits (and no doubt their bonuses) and no thought for the long-term future of their companies. And also management that, probably for the same reasons, thought that perpetually giving in to Luddite unions was a good idea. Management that was incompetent, greedy and cowardly.
Off topic but on the subject of leftists:
I feel very conflicted after having just seen the movie “Avatar”. Without doubt, the movie’s director James Cameron is brilliant at his profession but he’s also a damned moonbat. Through out the movie he kept zinging the audience with gratuitous leftist/anti-American prattle. This amazing stupidity seriously degraded what should have been a science fiction movie classic in the same league as “2001″ and “Star Wars” (the special effects are in another league). If I was the CEO of 20th Century Fox, I would be livid with rage against Cameron. 20th Century Fox shelled out almost $300 million producing this movie. If Cameron could have controlled his infantile politics, 20th Century Fox probably would have doubled their investment in ticket sales. As it stands, they’ll be lucky to break even.
James Cameron is a jackass!!
Wretchard:
I thought that your comment in the last post bordered on the Pollyan-ish; now I see you were only setting us up for that incredibly depressing second-to-last paragraph. :-/
Fletcher Christian,
An interesting point. But ask yourself why they made junk. One possible answer: Because they had become a government supported oligopoly relying upon their tariffs who thought themselves “too big to fail”. It might also be worth asking what role the unions and federal regulation played in making them that way. I will not argue that this in the fact the case but I will pose that question all the same.
TB @ 30,
You stole the words right out of my post!
So, for the last few decades, the car companies (and many in other industries, too) mostly re-invented themselves as banks in order to survive. Autos became just an excuse to lend money. Perhaps that’s all management could do to overcome the unions and Congress?
Maybe we should get rid of Chapter 11, so that failure really does have consequences (assuming we can keep the gov’t from hyperventilating over too-big-to-fail?) It might be messier, but the changes wrought will be more thoroughgoing.
Paint peeling, plaster crumbling and idle merry-go-rounds. Roadside picnicking in the Detroit Exclusion Zone. Surely, Rod Serling will soon appear and tell us it was all just a dream – a dream of Christmas future.
The policies and consequences of the politics of “In the Name of the Poor”. Treating success as a modern day sin and ignoring pathological behaviors, if not in fact promoting them, that create and sustain poverty are obviously not advancing civilization. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t overcome basic human free will, no mater how self destructive it is. There have always been poor, there are poor, there will still be poor. Punishing the rest of society for the individual choices that collectively keep poverty a human condition gives you this.
Freedom of association allows people to leave a bad place for communities they would prefer. Or stay if the hellhole is what they really want.
The suffering or squalor in Detroit is probably more than offset by the joy in the lives of those who found better places to live. That’s how freedom of association is supposed to work. But the suffering and squalor are still there. And until the culture that created them is purged, and those in government who made it possible it suffer retribtion, they will always exist.
I don’t know whether or not it’s too late. I drive through this heartbreaking city every day, but I do see signs of hope.
When the Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy (what a great name!) looked straight into the camera and said of Kilpatrick “No man is above the law.”, the people of Detroit agreed. Many in this city know the old answers don’t work. They don’t yet know what to do about it, but they are sick of crime, sick of corruption, and sick of failing schools. Nobody here wants affirmative action, they want an education for their kids. I know people who work 2 jobs so their kids can go to Catholic schools (although they are disappearing too.)
Change begins at a grass roots level, below the radar, and I sense it is stirring.
Wasn’t it Rush that I heard say we should tax what we don’t want and subsidize what we do, not the other way around like government does it.
I am currently seeing an explosion in welfare/disability at the Pharmacies.
These folks are even getting reimbursed for their mileage to and from the Doc, hospital, and pharmacy.
More and more ADHD prescriptions as they get an additional $300/child for this “disability”. And all 6 kids have it!
16y/o white female on disability, with handfuls of scripts for Oxycontin, Fentanyl, hydromorphone, Soma, alprazolam, zolpidem, Percocet, well, you get it, endless!
And another in line right behind her.
And of course early fills/refills for these drugs, “see, I’m going out of town for the holiday and I don’t want to have to go to another pharmacy in Texas”. “It’s still too early, welfare won’t pay for it yet” is our reply. Next week when it will be covered and I ask about the Texas trip, they won’t know what I am talking about!
“Can’t you just give it to me anyway, it’s FREE you know!” Then my favorite, every year, “It’s Christmas!”
Ah, but you see, it wasn’t the liberal politicians’ fault. It was capitalism, private industry.
Just ask Michael Moore.
Back 15 years or so ago, Moore, in an interview, said how proud he was that his family had participated in strikes that shut down the auto factories. Then in the next breath he railed against the auto companies who “were making plenty of money. They didn’t have to move away!”
So you see, it was just that the capitalists and private industry would not continue to play their part in the production. Otherwise everything would have been A-Okay, if they had just kept making the rope that the unions and politicians would use to hang them.
Hiroshima vs. Detroit: The proof is in the pictures…
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/spiritual/pictures/news.php?q=1254861706
Was in Detroit a couple of months ago for a few days and have never seen anything like it in America (except for Cairo, Illinois, East St. Louis and parts of rural Alabama) Even western New York where the factories are long shuttered doesn’t have the same apocalyptic feel.. I don’t think it’s coming back. My wife who grew up there and left in 1980, said even then, there were bumper stickers reading” Will the Last One Out turn off the Lights” Is it an aberration or a Mad Max future when Obama and his gang run us off the cliff?
There was a young man yesterday at the laundromat where thanks to a faulty washer at home I have been washing clothes. He was about 20-25 and he was pushing dollar bills into a changer to get change. The change machine spits half the coins out one side and half the coins out the other which he had not considered and did not see. Upon getting his fifty cents for a dollar bill he turned and said to his wife, “It takes fifty cents just to change a dollar here.” She accepted the fact as gospel and he proceeded to drop more dollars into the machine in exchange for fifty cents in return. His acceptence for such a thing was stunning to me. His voter bumper sticker read Obama with the Obama logo much like his clothes which read FuBu. I guess that about says it all.
Just watched the Crowder video. To me, the most interesting thing was the picture of Jerome Cavanagh, the first uber-Liberal mayor who took office in 1962. Check out his photo around 1:26 in the video. He looks like a pod person, his eyes glazed over with the zeal of the true believer. Ahh yes, another white Liberal whose life work consisted of ruining the lives of thousands upon thousands of blacks. It’s interesting how the urban life cycle often plays out. White liberal true believer administration comes in. City starts to deteriorate, crime explodes. Whites move out. Black liberals take over political offices and run the city purely for graft, leading to third world conditions. Anyone who complains or suggests changes… racist!
The saddest thing is that any time a black official or commentator bucks the status quo, the black establishment labels them a Tom and marginalizes them. How is Detroit ever going to improve? The power structure has to be broken, but there isn’t anyone to break it.
It isn’t welfare alone that killed Detroit. In the seventies I lived in Ann Arbor and worked occasionally at Wayne County General Hospital, on the outskirts of Detroit. I remember driving by billboards, put up by the United Autoworkers Union, with the slogan “40 hours pay for 30 hours work”. I had a friend who worked at Ford’s steel mill who laughed at the signs, saying “Hell, we already only work 20 hours for 40 hours pay!” But I don’t think the union was trying to get the workers to work harder. I suppose this is why great civilizations fall. After just a couple of generations of comfort and security people just get lazy and forget how cold it is out there.
It is both sad and enlightening to view the Crowder video, but even more so the the DetroitYES Project photos by Lowell Boileau.
I lived in the Detroit area (Ann Arbor and Wyandotte) from 1965 into 1974, and would often go into Detroit for business and pleasure. The decay was already starting then; but has progressed by orders of magnitude since. The saddest is to see the once great homes of the well to do turned into such wrecks. Detroit reminds me of my visit to Berlin – both West and East – in 1963. Very sad!
“When the oil is gone from Saudi Arabia, there could be nothing left either, unless they wise up and work at building human capital.”
I know this wasn’t meant to get a laugh, but it was welcome comic relief.
What sprung to mind was the ruins of Roman Civilization in Britain… Far away from the hub, where the histories were still kept, the Anglo-Saxons invented legends of a race of giants who could build and support such monumental things.
I would assume that this is what Tolkien used as his model for the various ruins of the Dúnedain, which the party keeps running across. The Argonath, The Tower of Amon Sûl, places of former majesty of the Dúnedain, who themselves are descendants of the Númenóreans, now lost to the world…
Watch closely as history becomes legend, and legend becomes myth…
Slightly OT: in the GM deal, the UAW was offered 40% of the voting stock. They turned that deal down, for 15% of the voting stock, plus preferred stock worth 25%, with a dividend of 11%. (percentages approximate)
They didn’t want to own the company since they’d have to manage it, and it might fail. So they milk the company (11%!) instead of managing it.
Our version of regulatory socialism seems similar. If the congress owned the industries, they’d run them into the ground, losing their source of money, and get blamed into the bargain. By regulating them, congress milks industry for campaign contributions instead.
As an added benefit, by appointing regulators, they have a scapegoat handy when, say, the banking system collapses.
oldsj
W/26: “An A-bomb can kill a hundred buildings, but memetic corruption can kill a civilization.” Yet another excellent topic to discuss with my daughter — thank you for your insight.
I had a friend whose kin were in the Purple Gang. In my friend’s teens, his uncle took him to see the landfill where his dad had been dispatched. My friend got out of Detroit and never went back.
I have lived in communities that adjoin Detroit all my life (50+yrs). I have worked as a police officer in a border suburb for the last twenty-five years. I still marvel at careless squalor that charaterizes every level of government of that once-proud city. There hasn’t been an honest, responsible mayor in Detroit for as long as I can remember, excepting the brief period that Archer was in charge. He quit after one term, essentially a broken man. Bing is now in the position of the First-Mate who has been handed the wheel of the sinking ship of state, I pity him, he seems such a decent fellow.
Before I became a policeman I worked at Chrysler stamping, that was back in the late seventies, jobs were hard to come by but I had an Uncle that was a big-wig with the UAW and he finagled a spot for me. My first day I saw guys knocking off a couple of 40oz in the parking lot to “warm up” for the day. Drug use and alcoholism were rampant and the UAW blocked any efforts to discipline their members. I quit shortly after I started because working with stoners was too darned dangerous.
The Big Three (remember back that far?) were badly run but the UAW made it impossible to reform and build better cars when they finally saw the light.
For anyone who has not been to Detroit it is hard to imagine the devastation, the Crowder video only touches the tip of the iceberg. Go to GoogleEarth and look, there are vast areas of land standing vacant. Or try detroitiscrap.com for (an admittedly slanted) a look at day to day life in the wonderful ruins of Detroit.
For anyone who wants to get a feel for just how far Detroit has fallen, I posted an article on by blog entitled “Dynamic Detroit” that appeared in the American Mercury back in the 30′s. You can find it at:
http://helian.net/blog/2009/06/18/history/dynamic-detroit-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-us-automotive-industry/
Once in awhile it’s good to go back and read those old mags. They help you put things in perspective.
The public disgust with this sort of government has reached a tipping point. The hour, long felt in the air, has come.
We need to take our country back. Let’s roll.
wretchard@26:
I believe this is the greatest part of what’s wrong with our country today. Although, leftist control of Hollywood and the MSM isn’t far behind.
Most people have forgotten what it means to be free. When that fire goes out, it will never be re-lighted — no one will remember how.
The obligatory (but sincere) first: Your blog is on my very short “must read” list every day for your humane criticism of those who hold contrary views.
I’m one of those who thinks that tribalism explains a lot, if not everything in our current coarsened and extremely polarized political climate. And it explains this, too. Forgive me for saying so, but contemporary liberalism is nothing if not the triumph of faith over experience. Who, in looking upon the devastation that is Detroit, can take away from it, “Let’s do more of the same”? Liberals can. Because they’re not going to admit the error of their judgment to their rival tribe. Yes, I know there are those in the Liberal trible who aren’t concerned at all with philosophical questions of truth; their cynicism tells them to do what they do to keep power. Still …
I’m thinking right now of the monoliths on Easter Island.
Several years ago now I recall hearing an interview with a private company executive on NPR. He related how the major of one town said at a meeting he attended “What we need is plenty of those low skilled manufacturing jobs!” He said he just looked at her in stunned shock and said “But manufacturing does not work that way any more. We need skilled workers.”
So why would a mayor of any town want lots of low skilled manufacturing jobs? After all, if anyone can run a stamping machine or make one two inch weld after another then so can a computer controlled machine. Old fashioned low skilled manufacturing was always going away, whether to overseas or to a computer.
So why do some politicians pine for those days of yesteryear? Well, such workers don’t require much of a school system and can be told what to do by their union. People who program computers , design equipment, or even simply maintain automated manufacturing equipment have to be able to think for themselves.
The Old Detroit was always going to go away, whether people got disgusted and moved away, or foreign and domestic (e.g., Southern) competition drove it out of business or the factories simply filled up with Cyberdyne T-888’s working at the machines.
I think poverty occurs in the mind, not the pocket book. It is perpetuated like a (not so) positive feedback cycle.
Everyday I deal with two extremes, the extra ordinairily well educated and the welfare subsistence (rural NM). I talk to folks at each end of the spectrum everyday in a wierd little town that is at a remarkable crossroads of science, history, and the middle of nowhere.
Mostly, I observe they are all just folks like anywhere else. But the one dividing line is “the tech”. NMIMT is a strange little small institute of mining and technology in the desert in the middle of NM on the west bank of the rio grande. It’s an intenationally renowned, but tiny and locally unknown school.
Socorro, NM is a crazy little place. Half the town lives on your tax money. The other half will make the future possible. The cool thing is both factions live, get along, and party together. The only difference between the engineers, scientists, and deadbeats is what they think. Attitude is all. I’ve seen both trade places, due to stinkin-thinkin or alternately seein-the-light. After that it’s obvious with what they make of themselves.
Sorry, couldn’t help but plug my alma mater. I got my money’s worth…
Several of Crowder’s shots are a block from my home and depict the Michigan Central train depot, which was designed by the folks who built Grand Central Station. I live between Corktown (the remainder of an original Irish neighborhood) and Mexicantown (a burgeoning Latino neighborhood encompassing most of Southwest Detroit. These are two of the vital areas in the city at large.
Detroit has been de-populated by “white flight”. Period. Things got hairy and most everyone with the means fled, beginning forty years ago. If even 10% of the million the city lost were to return, some of the historical neighborhoods could be brought back to life. But it takes guts to stay on here, and the retail villages that sprung up in the sticks have softened up the emigres.
I’ve lived here in the thick of it since 2005, and I haven’t had any problems. I grew up in Dearborn, down the road, left for some country living in 1987 with my family, and found my way back to the Ruins. This place is surreal and stimulating. Anything can happen here. It is The Day After, every day. There are so many decent people here, it amazes me all the time. Unfortunately, the major brain drain has left the city prey to complete municipal corruption.
The Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit to Windsor, Canada, and is a major, major North American commercial transit point is privately owned by a transportation magnate. Mr. Matty Maroun is an international billionaire who maintains a stranglehold on Southwest Detroit and easily controls local government. Oh yeah, he also owns the Michigan Central building, which he maintains in a completely decrepit state to depress local real estate values, as if they need any help in that department! The entire region is dotted by his holdings, the common theme being utterly blighted, burnt out facades and gnarled, cyclone fenced weed strewn lots sheltering headcases and drug addicts and the occasional corpse. He’s a real card, old Matty. Nonetheless, Corktown and Mexicantown keep on in spite of him.
So…I guess what I’m saying is that there is more going on with this city than some images of blown out buildings can capture. I think the real story is how people are carrying on here in spite of all this decay. I don’t know if things will ever turn around or if they should. I’m hard pressed to think of a place that feels more real, where a three dollar breakfast in a brokedown cafe could taste better, or where an act of kindness could be more appreciated.
S.O.S. Detroit, U.S.A.
RE: 36. AWM, this is the second time you have mentioned this. How does a 16 year old, disabled or not, get so many prescriptions for what I thought were controlled drugs?
jWarrior,
How does a 16y/o get on Social Security disability? That’s the bigger question. We are seeing an explosion in the 20 (!!) and up age ranges. But 16 years old!! Still a minor, right?
As far as the scripts, well that’s what the many of the docs do, isn’t it?
No shortage of “pain” clinics, “back” clinics, “headache” clinics, “sleep” clinics, “ADD” clinics, all pouring drugs on the street!
Once, in a conversation with a nurse about the prescribing habits of her office’s docs, she mentioned it’s hard to reduce the prescribing of these narcotics, “because then you’d be messing with the patient’s income.” They often write multiple scrips on the same visit for Schedule 2 drugs (no refill possible), just date them for next months use. A practice that is actually illegal in many states.
It’s a free for all, and we, the taxpayer, are paying for it all. No wonder they want to legalize pot, so we can pay for that too!
Often you see the Percocet, Soma, and Xanax on the same script, a popular combination. A real crowd pleaser as I say.
This is certainly abuse, no way around it.
55 Johnny,
Visit Wakefield for a good, filling, and cheap breakfast.
What’s going to happen when Hollywood is gone? Let’s say the Left runs the industry into the ground. Who is going to make movies after them?
I think the answer to the rot of Hollywood is to find ways of making movies elsewhere. For that matter, why shouldn’t we be promoting new car companies in the United States? Why doesn’t General Electric or Westinghouse make cars?
Perhaps what the United States really needs is some form of patent reform. We need to keep existing corporations from using their patents to bully small entrepreneurs into closing up their shops. If that legal reform can’t be done, then the federal government could declare a compelling interest, justly compensate a corporation for its patent, and then encourage smaller, nimbler companies to use that patent.
Whenever copyrights, trademarks, and patents undermine America’s ability to compete in the marketplace, they lose most of their essential reason for existence.
on Youtube, you can find video tours of abandon Detroit. Block after Block of windowless shells. Not row homes or 5 story walk-ups. These are large homes and large lots, 1/4-1/2 acre or more. very suburban, complete with abandon fiberglass speed boats to go with the abandon houses and abandon cars. (there is also a video dedicated to abandon skyscrapers)
Will it come back? Never. Why would it? Who would open a new factory in Detroit with all the Government to support and with no workers there to hire. Why pay 40 hours of wage for 30 or 20 hours of work?
There is no education in Detroit.
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/12/23/black_education
“Detroit’s (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only 3 percent of Detroit’s fourth-graders scored proficient on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, sometimes called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Twenty-eight percent scored basic and 69 percent below basic. “Below basic” is the NAEP category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade level. It’s the same story for Detroit’s eighth-graders. Four percent scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic. “
After Hollywood, there’s still Bollywood and the burgeoning chinese market. There’s a glut of chinese war and action historicals lately, all of high quality, but I’m still waiting for a half-decent chinese sci-fi flick. Bodyguards and Assassins, which I watched a few days back, was kickass.
There is an interesting book by Thomas Sowell called “Black Rednecks, White Liberals”. In it he describes how the blacks from the southern states brough the Scots Irish culture of “honor culture” to the inner cities. Also how white liberals “excused” this culture of low achievement. It is very persuasive and believable. I have lived in SE Michigan since 1987 and witnessed the collapse of an industry/region. I am part of it since I lost my pension when my company reorganized. Oh by the way I am $40K underwater with my mortgage making relocation very prohibitive.
The interesting thing is to see how many people here in SE Michigan are still in denial. They still think/believe that the US owes them something for being the arsenal of democracy back in the 40′s. No lie. They can’t compute that since GM closed the Moraine plant in Dayton that HONDA makes more cars in Ohio than GM. OHIO!! Not Alabama, not Mississippi, not South Carolina. OHIO!! In GM there is a saying about SE Michigan workers. They have the Flint mentality. Simply put it is “GM owes me a living.” And “socially aware” management allowed it to happen with 30 and out retirement and the most egregious benefit of all…..JOBS Banks. How anyone could think that you could pay people not to work is a viable economic model shows just how “socially aware” management that cares for it’s employees can kill a company. They knew what would happen and didn’t take the tough hard steps to correct it. As Drucker said “a company that doesn’t make a profit is socially irresponsible.” It is so very true.
White liberals make excuses for avoiding hard decisions. They don’t want the be judgemental. They are “soft bigots” believing that brown skin people just don’t have it. Detroit is the result of their policy decisions. Michigan cursed with weak leadership has suffered for 9 years what the rest of the US is dealing with.
How to solve it. Simple. Expect, no demand everyone, white, black, brown or red to excel. That “society” is not to blame for your problems but yourself. The good news is that because Detroit is so broke all the thiefs have left because there is nothing left to steal. That the schools are so bad that even the most apathetic people are angry. The state appointed a special administrator named Robert Bobb to fix it and he is cleaning house. Right now he is so popular that he would be elected governor if he wanted t be. All by not accepting the status quo and calling people to account.
Is it enough? One thing for sure power has shifted from SE Michigan to the Western part of the state. This state has lost population so that is it now has less people than in 2000. Only one of three states to post such a record. The others Rhode Island and Maine has managed such an ignoble deed.
Jeff,
What worries me the most is that the toxin has infected the entire Lower Peninsula. The open wound of Detroit is bleeding the State white and probably will ruin it. The state govt’ is near bankruptcy and most of the costs are going into places like Detroit, Flint and Saginaw (all former bastions of the Big Three and UAW) these tumors are sapping the life-blood out of the rest of the state. I certainly would not open a business in any of those cities. Gaylord, St Helens, Marshall maybe; Detroit never.
#62 Jeff is right about Robert Bob. He is popular. The man has guts. He looked right into the camera and said of Detroit’s school children: It’s as if they never went to school. Slam Dunk!
Jeff from Michigan – this will sound counterintuitive at first, but it is serious advice.
Stop paying your mortgage.
You will *NOT* be evicted! In fact, after you get to the 2 or 3 month delinquent stage you will begin to be bombarded with offers to “renegotiate” at any of several different terms. All banks are *terrified* of foreclosing on anything in Michigan currently, and the backlog is such that no one will actually foreclose on you. (althogh they’ll threaten, be ready for that!)
The best deal of all will be if they offer to take back ownership (you don’t want to actually own that worthless piece of property anymore) but let you continue to rent at a better rate than you are paying now, plus you have no more home insurance (get renters insurance, of course) or property taxes to worry about.
It is by far the best way out of your situation, and you will be committing economic suicide to try and hang on. Take care of yourself first.
The Detroit school system is so broke that as of this week all the teachers have had to agree to ‘give up’ $10k a year for the next two. The Detroit Schoo system promises to give it back to them after that time. Will they? I doubt it. Then again….it’s better than no job.
65. wws:
Jeff from Michigan – this will sound counterintuitive at first, but it is serious advice.
Stop paying your mortgage.
You will *NOT* be evicted! In fact, after you get to the 2 or 3 month delinquent stage you will begin to be bombarded with offers to “renegotiate” at any of several different terms. All banks are *terrified* of foreclosing on anything in Michigan currently, and the backlog is such that no one will actually foreclose on you. (althogh they’ll threaten, be ready for that!)
The best deal of all will be if they offer to take back ownership (you don’t want to actually own that worthless piece of property anymore) but let you continue to rent at a better rate than you are paying now, plus you have no more home insurance (get renters insurance, of course) or property taxes to worry about.
It is by far the best way out of your situation, and you will be committing economic suicide to try and hang on. Take care of yourself first.
Be careful of this. With any debt “forgiveness” or renegotiated mortgage debt, the difference between that and the original is taxable by the fed as income, and probably by the state. I’m not sure what the Michigan laws are, but they probably suck for taxpayers.
If you are $40k underwater, and the bank offers to rewrite the mortgage for you and forgive the $40k (or more) your federal taxable income just jumped by $40k (or more) that you will have to pay taxes on. You’ll be in a higher tax bracket and have to fork over a lot of money you probably won’t have.
You may be much better off just letting them foreclose on you and living free for a year or two before they get around to kicking you out, or letting them take ownership of the property and you renting very cheaply, before taking a mortgage adjustment.
Always be sure to go over any offers with a tax and legal professional before signing anything.
I keep wondering what Barry Gordy would have to say about Detroit and his super-secret move of Motown from there to LA in 1972. Motown was a fabulously successful enterprise, owned and operated by Detroit black people. According to various interviews I have read, the mega-stars like Smokey Robinson, Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross made the move to LA, while the majority of employees and artists associated with Motown were left behind in Detroit. I’m remembering that the guys in the Funk Brothers studio band said they were never formally notified of the move — that they just showed up to locked doors one morning.
On the one hand, maybe Gordy (like Hugh Hefner) was merely seeking sunshine, because Motown never really prospered in Los Angeles. But, on the other hand, maybe Mr. Gordy saw what was happening around him in Detroit and got tired of paying the bribes and fixes that you just know he had to have been paying in order to stay in business there.
What happened to Motown is what is happening to America’s entrepreneurial spirit in a nutshell, though. I’m afraid for all of us now, as the bureaucrats open the veins of corruption deeper and deeper, leading to unstoppable hemorraging everywhere you look.
good point about the taxable income, cetera, I shouldn’t have left that out. We are in the ironic (idiotic?) position in which the less money someone has, the easier it is to game the system for benefits. (those with little to no income need not worry about taxation)
“You may be much better off just letting them foreclose on you and living free for a year or two before they get around to kicking you out, or letting them take ownership of the property and you renting very cheaply, before taking a mortgage adjustment.”
That last part is what I was trying to say, thanks for making it more clear. I know many may take offense at the “moral” lapse in this strategy, but remember how many hundreds of billions of dollars are being passed out to the banks and others right now. It’s all just monopoly money now, and all the big players have already been payed off. No reason why anyone should do nothing and get wiped out when their bank has already been paid off for the problem, which they have been.
I’ve kept reading this depressing thread to see if any of the lefties who occasionally comment here have anything to say about poor, sad-sack Detroit. The white man’s fault, probably. Yes we did, what color is my skin, bro?
Maybe it happened in Detroit because those who wouldn’t buy into it had somewhere to run. And the same kind of crew is counting on it happening elsewhere and leaving nowhere to run.
Leaving nowhere to run is exactly the policy of the ‘urban planners’ who are forcing densification on the residents of growing cities. New residents are limited to multistory boxes full of ticky-tacky, all looking just the same. If asked, most would like to live in single-family houses with a bit of yard, but they’re never asked, and the supply of SF is kept rigorously limited – therefore expensive.
Those boxes are built under policies of extorting profits from developers to transfer the funds as unearned subsidies to rents for folks whose economic opportunities are limited, but who can be counted on to vote Democratic in perpetuity from their rabbit hutches. There’s a red one, and a blue one, and a green one and a yellow one, and they’re all made of ticky-tacky….
Schwarzenegger To Seek Federal Help For California Budget
Facing another huge deficit, the governor wants $8 billion or threatens massive cuts in social services. He also plans to renew push for offshore oil drilling.
By Shane Goldmacher and Evan Halper
December 23, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento – Facing a budget deficit of more than $20 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to call for deep reductions in already suffering local mass transit programs, renew his push to expand oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast and appeal to Washington for billions of dollars in federal help, according to state officials and lobbyists familiar with the plan.
If Washington does not provide roughly $8 billion in new aid for the state, the governor threatens to severely cut back — if not eliminate — CalWORKS, the state’s main welfare program; the In-Home Health Care Services program for the disabled and elderly poor, and two tax breaks for large corporations recently approved by the Legislature, the officials said.
Schwarzenegger also will propose extending a cut in the state payroll that is scheduled to expire this summer. That cut has translated into 200,000 state workers being furloughed three days a month, the equivalent of a 14% pay cut. Lawmakers would have the option of extending the furloughs, imposing layoffs or some combination of the two.
The governor is scheduled to unveil his plan publicly early next month. Administration spokesman Matt David declined to comment on the details.
The governor and lawmakers have already had to close shortfalls this year totaling $60 billion, as tax revenues plummeted at rates not seen in California since the Great Depression. Amid the continuing budget crisis, the state ran short of cash needed to cover its bills and was forced to issue IOUs over the summer.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com …
what happens when the feds ignore his request????
69. wws:
I don’t see any moral issue from selectively or strategically defaulting on a mortgage. It isn’t a question of morals. That’s why we have contracts in this society, to make things black and white and not try and judge everyone by different moral standards.
Mortgage contracts are secured loans, and in most states they are non-recourse loans. This means that in the event of a default, the holder of the loan gets the property (securing the loan) and have no other recourse. They can’t garnish your wages, file liens against any cars or TVs or anything else you may have, etc. The property and any equity secures the loan.
Now, lots of stupid people took loans they couldn’t afford. Lots of stupid lenders made bad loans they shouldn’t. In each case, both parties are 100% responsible for a default where money is lost. Both had an obligation that neither met.
Thankfully, the mortgage contract and the law of the land is able to sort it all out. The laws and the contracts state what avenues are available to each party. It isn’t immoral to take advantage of the clauses in the agreement you signed and agreed to, and also the law you had a say in via your elected representatives. Both parties know the stakes going into a loan. It is up to both parties to do their home work as to the relative risk and exposure they have taken on when signing the loan. It may be immoral to sign the paperwork, but once signed, its certainly not immoral to utilize the tools at your disposal to protect your rights.
Its about damn time the public started taking advantage of the laws on their side, when they have been screwed over and over by the big banks and the politicians. People don’t default when they have to have big down payments on houses. Skin in the game makes a default hurt them, and they don’t do it. Skin in the game also keeps prices lower, as it is more expensive to buy. The housing bubble was deliberately inflated by the Fed, the government, and Wall Street. Banks took advantage of it, because it made them scads of money. Now when things go bad, that money that they squandered turned out to not be enough to cover the risk. That’s their problem, not ours, although we’re all being taxed to correct the problem (which in itself is immoral) with bailouts that aren’t working.
There are lots of immoralities when it comes to banking, finance, and the like. Protecting your family, the just fruits of your labors, your future security and stability, etc, no matter how you judge it, can never be immoral. Strategically defaulting in self-defense can’t be immoral.
Rather, I would submit to you that failing to strategically default on a mortgage and putting your family’s future and security at risk truly is immoral, and a grave sin.
All of these options should be weighed carefully in the minds and souls of the individuals affected. Regardless, do not make any decisions without professional representation and legal tax advice.
it seems off topic so I’ll keep my coment brief:
if you are thinking about defaulting on your mortgage, ask yourself the following questions-
Where will I live next? at what cost and how will the default affect my ability to rent in a nice/safe area? (remember total cost apartment rent plus storage unit rented for all your extra stuff)
How will the default affect my job prospects? know that it will prevent you from working in banking or finance even as a lowly collector. It will also affect your ability to be bonded or get a security clearance.
These pictures are so sad. Remember the people who created these wonderful buildings and homes in the early 20th Century. How proud they were of their accomplishment. Now they and their creations are ashes. The theaters were gorgeous. These old buildings in city that hasnt failed would be very high end property.
All killed by the meme bomb. There is no deterrent.
74. visitor:
All good comments, and things to think about. That’s why when facing a decision like this, someone is needed who deals with these things to help make sure all bases are covered, pitfalls accounted for.
I’m not at all certain that FICO scores are going to be worth much down the road, maybe even as early as a year from now. We’ll see. It may turn out that so many people will have credit issues that there is no longer stigma of any kind attached to it, and the public universally takes the attitude of “you got screwed, crap happens.” I don’t know.
Personally, I worry about all of it. For some reason, I keep thinking we’re heading for a time when that makes the Great Depression look like a time of plenty and opportunity for all. I pray every day that I’m wrong.
“what happens when the feds ignore his request????”
Hollywood money helped elect The One. It’ll be interesting to see if he’ll return the favor now, or just bow to his Manhattan and Chicago constituents.
///
“if you are thinking about defaulting on your mortgage, ask yourself the following questions”
It gets more interesting that defaulting on your mortgage. In the last week or so, here in Los Angeles, there have been carpet radio advertisements urging people to file for bankruptcy, and walk away from their debts. A “no harm / no foul” approach, which also cites the Federal government as approving it as a logical thing to do.
The ads a few weeks ago were telling people to call such&such a number to get information on re-financing, but they’re now just a blatent pitch for absolute bankruptcy, “walking away from your debts, and having the peace of mind you deserve.”
To all people providing advice on my mortgage I thought about it for a moment and rejected it. One – I know the tax consequence and don’t want that. I also have this ethos about honoring my debts. Two – I have a job and don’t have to move. Three – Markets go down and markets go up. Where I live in Troy Mi., it is a highly desirable location so any recovery will happen in my neighborhood first. It is all in the timing.
Thinking it over I really think that Sowell’s book really is pertinent. He talks about the “cracker culture” and how it devalues work. Then he goes on and shows in other cultures how people react who are thinking they are being exploited to another minority group (Koreans/Jews in New York, Lebanese in SW Africa, Chinese anywhere in SE ASIA). That is how people like Kwame, Monica Conyers, Alonzo Bates, Barbara Rose Collins, Martha Reeves (of Motown fame) and others maintained their power. They use the victim card over and over and people bought it particularly when they are in political trouble. When it really started to change is when the corrupt black power establishment tried to defeat other black reform candidates. The most telling example was when the city clerk (Betty Curie) fradulently had people vote for Kwame over Hendrix’s who is black and was deputy mayor under Archer. They turned her out for a totally untested unknown opponent. The fight over the city crown jewels like the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA), the Zoo, Cobo Hall (a dump by any stretch of the imagination) are all about the corrupt power bloc taking money from the suburbs and rewarding their friends. It is so sad to see. Now that there is no money to steal these people are leaving office. This book really does a good job describing what happens when a minority striving community WORKS HARDER than the local population it serves. Please read it.
As far as setting up a business in SE Michigan…. unless you love it or need deep engineering skills it is a pain in the rump. However right now you can hire on the cheap very experienced technical savvy world class engineers. This is why the Asian companies are setting up their technical centers in SE MI. Also BAE a defense contractor is setting up shop. In a job’s fair they held in the fall over one thousand engineers applied for 100 new slots.
The state of Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw schools are just deplorable. I deal with the outcome of their product almost daily. I remember I couldn’t hire a person who was bright, clean, ambitious but couldn’t speak standard English to save her life. She just couldn’t. She had tremendous difficulty spelling anything right on a simple Word test. It really mad me mad because I saw what she was capable of but couldn’t do because the black power structure thought it more important to have her under their control than have her learn. However in my area we have the second highest rated high school called International Academy. It is a true dichotomy.
The interesting thing is what will happen to Detroit when the 2010 census happens. The city of Detroit right now has two minority districts that have major overlap into the suburbs. After the census it can be one if you try and keep Detroit as one district or the minority districts are in true jeopardy of being overwhelmed by the suburbs. John Conyors hates Cheeks-Kilpatrick (Kwame’s mom). That political showdown will be very interesting if they run against each other.
Jeff from Michigan,
Interesting. New York has a larger design margin or more inertia to keep it running because it has or had more diverse industries and a more diverse ethnic mix. As for corrupt local minority pols using cultural sites or construction boondoggles to siphon money off the suburban voters we have that too. Our Governor’s father is Basil Patterson who milks the Apollo Theater. The Census is in the best of hands. You do not have to ask about the results.
To be blogged under the title “NYC & Detroit.”