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Judge rules Detroit bankruptcy filing UNCONSTITUTIONAL[W:584]

AliHajiSheik said:
You have referenced racial problems a number of times. What would those problems be and in what way are they ingrained?
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There are countless book written about it, countless studies written about it. In short, Detroit has been one of the most racially divided communities in the nation for a very long time. This goes back a full century after the great southern migration to the north and midwest. It proved to be one of the great factors in the exodus of whites from the city in the Fifties and Sixties which caused the decline in population and the decline in tax collections.

http://www.neurope.eu/news/wire/det...-troubled-racial-history-blamed-citys-decline

The "Arsenal of Democracy" that supplied the Allied victory of World War II and evolved into the "Motor City" fell into a six-decade downward spiral of job losses, shrinking population and a plummeting tax base. Detroit's singular reliance on an auto industry that stumbled badly and its long history of racial strife proved a disastrous combination.

"Most Midwest cities had white flight and segregation. But Detroit had it more intensely. Most cities had deindustrialization. Detroit had it more intensely," said Kevin Boyle, a history professor at Northwestern University who has written extensively about his hometown.
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I would advise people who want documented historical detail to read Professor Boyle's works.

Racial strife also infected the city. The migration of blacks into Detroit, which helped power its economic rise, was followed by an exodus of white residents for the suburbs. In the last decade alone — from 2000 to 2010 — Detroit lost about a quarter-million residents. The city's current population of roughly 700,000 is about 83 percent black.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943)

http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm
 
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justabubba said:
of all the creditors owed by the city of detroit, which should stand in line to receive what is owed them before the workers who spent their careers earning a retirement which was committed to them for their decades of service?
i'll wait for your answer
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The creditors you are referring to are the bond holders. Whenever a city needs money for a construction project or something, they sell bonds. These bonds are bought by many different sources, most of which wind up being part of someone's IRA or 401k. It is incredibly inaccurate and disingenuous to refer to this as "corporate interests". Without bond holders the city could not function because municipal bonds provide the exclusive means that the city has used to finance itself.

There is going to have to be shared sacrifice here. I just read that Detroit has annual revenues of about $1.1 billion and has been running a $300+ million dollar deficit and they're losing about $100 million in revenue every year due to population loss. Looks to me like their budget needs some drastic trimming. This SHOULD be the starting point.
 
Haymarket, exactly where did I say republicans can't be liberals? For that matter, where did I say democrats or republicans in the post you quoted?
 
justabubba said:
yet another extreme perspectivea rant which tells us he would similarly object to federal bankruptcy rules which provides wage earners a super-priority how dare the government look after the common citizen when it could instead be using its authority to vest corporations with more advantages
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I read your response as the extreme position. justabubba, democrat political machines like that have been around for 50++ years. It's in high school text books, it's not extreme, it's routine. And Detroit has been failing for decades. The common citizen is in the private market and doesn't have these taxpayer paid-for advantages, so stop with the common citizen B.S. You dont' want common, you want political favors, you vote in the guys that give you the better pension and protection. That's a travesty. That politicians have used government power to redistribute wealth to their constituents in the public sector, people who depend on those parties for their good jobs and benefits, of course is a terrible conflict of interest.

I would point out that it ultimately will lead to failure, but I think that's pretty obvious around the world, throughout history, and with this example in the OP. Extreme? Nonsense.
 
justabubba said:
they are STATE citizens
the state constitution does not just protect the interests of detroit residents
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Where I live there are State employees and County employees. They have separate pension plans so what applies to a State pensioner is not necessarily what applies to a County pensioner. If Michigan treats them all the same then it looks like it will suck to live there as you will now pay off the pensions promised by a city that cannot run itself correctly.
 
Henrin said:
Haymarket, exactly where did I say republicans can't be liberals? For that matter, where did I say democrats or republicans in the post you quoted?
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Which is why I gave you several examples of conservative dominance of the 1961-62 constitution writing process and who controlled it.
 
justabubba said:
of all the creditors owed by the city of detroit, which should stand in line to receive what is owed them before the workers who spent their careers earning a retirement which was committed to them for their decades of service?
i'll wait for your answer
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A most excellent question. I will never ever understand why libertarians and conservatives will bend over backwards and do all sorts of mental gymnastics just to screw the average worker when the choice is between corporate interests and the people.
 
haymarket said:
Detroit's downfall: Decline of autos, troubled racial history blamed for city's decline | neurope.eu
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I can accept that source as long as we all remember that haymarket supports this quote from that same source too:
The auto industry had started to expand beyond the city and was building plants and putting offices in suburban and rural areas, and eventually sought refuge from the city's powerful unions in other states and even overseas.
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Unions helped drive a stake in the auto industry. We all know this, some just hate admitting it, I think there is a recent thread about "the myth that unions hurt the auto industry". What's important is that Detroit faced nothing that to some degree many other cities have faced to one degree or another. They were hit hardest, but everyone understands that's because they were so heavily invested in one specific industry. All their eggs in one basket, of course that was high risk, and the severity of the collapse directly related to that ultra-high-risk investment in that one industry. When it declined, people understandably left. Maybe you should have put in the constitution that the white taxpayers were forbidden to leave, or they still have to pay Detroit taxes once they move....I mean, why stop with insane, just go for bat-****-crazy?
 
haymarket said:
Which is why I gave you several examples of conservative dominance of the 1961-62 constitution writing process and who controlled it.
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George W. Romney was not a conservative and I fail to see how anything else you provided points towards conservatives doing anything.
 
Henrin said:
OMFG! :lamo:lamo:lamo OMG! The BS meter just exploded. Since when have you defended the second amendment?
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Constantly. But feel free to point to any post I have ever made advocating that people do not have their rights honored under the Second Amendment.

Please do present that verifiable evidence as opposed to your own opinion which seems based on something other than verifiable evidence.

regarding the absurd right wing meme that taxation is theft

How did they get the taxation? Did they take it from by force and without the peoples consent? They did you say? Well then, it's theft. To put it lightly you're supporting theft right now.
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can you point to me any taxes in Michigan which were imposed upon people without going through the duly elected peoples representatives in our Constitutionally established government?

This THEFT nonsense is so without any factual foundation that it borders on the worst sort of extremist demagoguery.
 
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haymarket said:
A most excellent question. I will never ever understand why libertarians and conservatives will bend over backwards and do all sorts of mental gymnastics just to screw the average worker when the choice is between corporate interests and the people.
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How is that the choice?
 
Henrin said:
George W. Romney was not a conservative and I fail to see how anything else you provided points towards conservatives doing anything.
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I gave you two excellent examples of the conservative nature of the Michigan constitution that he helped write. Perhaps you need to look at the actual document produced and not judge those who produced it by 2013 tea party standards?
 
haymarket said:
There are countless book written about it, countless studies written about it. In short, Detroit has been one of the most racially divided communities in the nation for a very long time. This goes back a full century after the great southern migration to the north and midwest. It proved to be one of the great factors in the exodus of whites from the city in the Fifties and Sixties which caused the decline in population and the decline in tax collections.

Detroit's downfall: Decline of autos, troubled racial history blamed for city's decline | neurope.eu
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I've never been a fan of the word countless, it is usually used by someone trying to sell me something, but that is neither here nor there. I did see that you posted a link but could only see it when I quoted your post. I still haven't seen any reference to what the racial problems were/are. I see from your article from Europe that the declined had already begun in 1950 and "Detroit's singular reliance on an auto industry that stumbled badly and its long history of racial strife proved a disastrous combination." I read further and the only issues that were referenced was "white flight" and a shift of population to the suburbs. I still don't know what are the strife and racial problems being referenced in either the article or your posts.

Are you saying that white people moving out of a city is a cause of Detroit's downfall or one of the many symptoms? If so, you seem to be implying that leaving a city to a predominantly minority population will contribute to a cities decline.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
I've never been a fan of the word countless, it is usually used by someone trying to sell me something, but that is neither here nor there. I did see that you posted a link but could only see it when I quoted your post. I still haven't seen any reference to what the racial problems were/are. I see from your article from Europe that the declined had already begun in 1950 and "Detroit's singular reliance on an auto industry that stumbled badly and its long history of racial strife proved a disastrous combination." I read further and the only issues that were referenced was "white flight" and a shift of population to the suburbs. I still don't know what are the strife and racial problems being referenced in either the article or your posts.

Are you saying that white people moving out of a city is a cause of Detroit's downfall or one of the many symptoms? If so, you seem to be implying that leaving a city to a predominantly minority population will contribute to a cities decline.
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I provided several links. Read them.

this is also very good... a short synopsis

Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Thomas Sugrue explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Probing beneath the veneer of 1950s prosperity and social consensus, Sugrue traces the rise of a new ghetto, solidified by changes in the urban economy and labor market and by racial and class segregation.

In this provocative revision of postwar American history, Sugrue finds cities already fiercely divided by race and devastated by the exodus of industries. He focuses on urban neighborhoods, where white working-class homeowners mobilized to prevent integration as blacks tried to move out of the crumbling and overcrowded inner city. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II.
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http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0691121869

this is also very informative

http://www.amazon.com/Detroit-Racia...507912&sr=1-1&keywords=detroit+racial+history

this will also be helpful

http://www.amazon.com/Redevelopment-Race-Planning-Postwar-Detroit/dp/0814339077/ref=pd_sim_b_3

a short synopsis

In the decades following World War II, professional city planners in Detroit made a concerted effort to halt the city's physical and economic decline. Their successes included an award-winning master plan, a number of laudable redevelopment projects, and exemplary planning leadership in the city and the nation. Yet despite their efforts, Detroit was rapidly transforming into a notorious symbol of urban decay. In <i>Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit,</i> June Manning Thomas takes a look at what went wrong, demonstrating how and why government programs were ineffective and even destructive to community needs. </p><p> </p><p> In confronting issues like housing shortages, blight in older areas, and changing economic conditions, Detroit's city planners worked during the urban renewal era without much consideration for low-income and African American residents, and their efforts to stabilize racially mixed neighborhoods faltered as well. Steady declines in industrial prowess and the constant decentralization of white residents counteracted planners' efforts to rebuild the city. Among the issues Thomas discusses in this volume are the harmful impacts of Detroit's highways, the mixed record of urban renewal projects like Lafayette Park, the effects of the 1967 riots on Detroit's ability to plan, the city-building strategies of Coleman Young (the city's first black mayor) and his mayoral successors, and the evolution of Detroit's federally designated Empowerment Zone. Examining the city she knew first as an undergraduate student at Michigan State University and later as a scholar and planner, Thomas ultimately argues for a different approach to traditional planning that places social justice, equity, and community ahead of purely physical and economic objectives. </p><p> </p><p> <i>Redevelopment and Race</i> was<i> </i>originally published in 1997 and was given the Paul Davidoff Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 1999. Students and teachers of urban planning will be grateful for this re-release. A new postscript offers insights into changes since 1997
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haymarket said:
A most excellent question. I will never ever understand why libertarians and conservatives will bend over backwards and do all sorts of mental gymnastics just to screw the average worker when the choice is between corporate interests and the people.
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How convenient. You tie your political party to handing things out to the "average public worker", and then anyone who politically oppose how that party gets the money to redistribute in the first place, or the other things it does once in power, or how it goes about taxing, etc., is "against the average public worker". You're so transparent. What's worse, that you then slap on this false choice that if someone does rightfully oppose democratic expansion of government power, eroding individual freedom, taxing to fund their political party.....that Necessarily this means they are in SUPPORT of "corporate interests". How many ways can you be misleading in one simple post? Just so you know, it's OK to oppose both democratic party abuse of government, AND corporate abuse of government. omg I jus blew ur mind.
 
It appears that though the Constitution states the pension shall be fully funded each year, it hasn't done a good of enforcing it. Not diminishing the pensions may not limit taxes though. Tax law changes all the time, it's doubtful the legislators that wrote those constitutional clauses didn't think that tax law would ever change. Just because you fully fund a pension, doesn't mean that retirees won't pay taxes.
 
haymarket said:
Yeah - its pathetic isn't it. But it is the choice just the same in the minds of the right wing.
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What is that supposed to mean? The issue doesn't even involve business.


I'm not even sure how you can use corporate welfare against republicans when democrats support it as well. How is this red herring going, btw?
 
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Mach said:
How convenient. You tie your political party to handing things out to the "average public worker", and then anyone who politically oppose how that party gets the money to redistribute in the first place, or the other things it does once in power, or how it goes about taxing, etc., is "against the average public worker". You're so transparent. What's worse, that you then slap on this false choice that if someone does rightfully oppose democratic expansion of government power, eroding individual freedom, taxing to fund their political party.....that Necessarily this means they are in SUPPORT of "corporate interests". How many ways can you be misleading in one simple post? Just so you know, it's OK to oppose both democratic party abuse of government, AND corporate abuse of government. omg I jus blew ur mind.
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If libertarians and right wingers take positions to screw the average worker - that is on them - not me. I just let the chips fall as they may.
 
Henrin said:
What is that supposed to mean? The issue doesn't even involve business.


I'm not even sure how you can use corporate welfare against republicans when democrats support it as well. How is this red herring going, btw?
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I was referring to posters on this topic taking the position that bondholders and banks should come before pensioners.

that is NOT a red herring. It is reality.
 
American said:
It appears that though the Constitution states the pension shall be fully funded each year, it hasn't done a good of enforcing it. Not diminishing the pensions may not limit taxes though. Tax law changes all the time, it's doubtful the legislators that wrote those constitutional clauses didn't think that tax law would ever change. Just because you fully fund a pension, doesn't mean that retirees won't pay taxes.
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Could you please quote from the Michigan Constitution where it says what you claim it says?
 
justabubba said:
then by acknowledging you ARE familiar with that provision of the state's
constitution, you should then also recognize the state judge had a compelling reason to rule as she did
so why the reich wing outrage over her obviously appropriate determination of fact
or is it that your side would simply prefer to **** on the facts when they intrude on your ideology?
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"Reich wing " outrage ? Thats one of the more oustanding and ignorant things I've seen you write.

Right now given the State of Detroit and other similar Cities I think the default position on the issue shouldn't be the position of people like you.

You DO want to see Detroit back on its feet again don't you ?

Well then you could be of some use as those in charge of sifting through this mess would, I'm sure be happy to have a reminder of basically what NOT to do.

They could ask you your opinion and then know when to take that hairpin turn back to reallity.
 
haymarket said:
I provided several links. Read them.

this is also very good... a short synopsis



The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton Studies in American Politics): Thomas J. Sugrue: 9780691121864: Amazon.com: Books

this is also very informative

Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide: Joe T. Darden, Richard W. Thomas: 9781611860665: Amazon.com: Books

this will also be helpful

Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (Great Lakes Books Series): June Manning Thomas: 9780814339077: Amazon.com: Books

a short synopsis
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Your posts keep changing and now include links. On this post, have you actually read the books you suggest or are you just suggesting them?

No doubts that Detroit has had racial tensions and even violence, but to continue to blame the steep decline of Detroit on racial problems after so many years of mismanagement is giving all those politicians a free pass--the ones who were jailed, the ones now jailed and the many that should be jailed.
 
AliHajiSheik said:
Your posts keep changing and now include links. On this post, have you actually read the books you suggest or are you just suggesting them?

No doubts that Detroit has had racial tensions and even violence, but to continue to blame the steep decline of Detroit on racial problems after so many years of mismanagement is giving all those politicians a free pass--the ones who were jailed, the ones now jailed and the many that should be jailed.
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Nobody is giving any corrupt politicians a free pass simply by acknowledging the reality of the role race has played in Detroit and Michigan and the problems that have stemmed from it. And the reality is well documented in the links I provided for you.

I have read the Sugrue book in full. Others I have used in part as references for data and local history. The Thomas book was sent to our office in Lansing and looks outstanding but I have not had the chance to fully read it. But it looks really good based on a casual looking through it. I think it has much of what you requested.
 
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