• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Detroit Files for Largest Municipal Bankruptcy in US History

MaggieD said:
Breaking contractual promises is done all the time. There's a cost. Taxpayers are better off paying that cost and letting union aristocracy get 401K's like the rest of America.
Click to expand...

So what do you do with the retirees in their sixties, seventies and eighties who fulfilled their end of the deal and now fear getting screwed so the banks and corporations can get a little bit more on their end?

What would you tell your mother or father in that position Maggie? Do you think your ranting about anti union nonsense will fill their stomachs or light their furnace when the pension is gone with the wind?
 
Captain Adverse said:
ANYONE WANNA JOIN ME IN FOUNDING OMNI CONSUMER PRODUCTS (OCP) CORPORATION?

We can buy up Detroit's debt, take over the police force, and build our own Robocops!!! Wooohoooo!!!
Click to expand...

Even running around Detroit ten years ago, you got a clear idea why they chose that as the setting for Robocop. The cass corridor looks like something from an urban warzone in africa
 
haymarket said:
So what do you do with the retirees in their sixties, seventies and eighties who fulfilled their end of the deal and now fear getting screwed so the banks and corporations can get a little bit more on their end?

What would you tell your mother or father in that position Maggie? Do you think your ranting about anti union nonsense will fill their stomachs or light their furnace when the pension is gone with the wind?
Click to expand...

Those people who are already receiving their pension benefits won't lose a dime. Social Security got re-structured for those under a certain age -- so will union retirement benefits.
 
MaggieD said:
Those people who are already receiving their pension benefits won't lose a dime. Social Security got re-structured for those under a certain age -- so will union retirement benefits.
Click to expand...

You should live here Maggie. That is not at all what is in the works. Not at all.
 
Dr. Chuckles said:
Even running around Detroit ten years ago, you got a clear idea why they chose that as the setting for Robocop. The cass corridor looks like something from an urban warzone in africa
Click to expand...




Maybe because it is an urban warzone(But not in Africa, of course.)
 
haymarket said:
You should live here Maggie. That is not at all what is in the works. Not at all.
Click to expand...

You should really tell us what's in the works.

However, what's "in the works" isn't going to happen if it includes taking monthly benefits away from those already retired. Betcha $$ on that.
 
shrubnose said:
Maybe because it is an urban warzone(But not in Africa, of course.)
Click to expand...

No, I mean it looks like the area was bombed or something, not just random thugs shooting at each other.
 
MaggieD said:
You should really tell us what's in the works.

However, what's "in the works" isn't going to happen if it includes taking monthly benefits away from those already retired. Betcha $$ on that.
Click to expand...

I dearly hope you are right Maggie. But in the couple of meetings I have been to on this, far more drastic options were presented to us which including cutting the amount of money that current retirees are getting. That is current retirees - not just future ones.

This was presented as one of several options. So I hope it never happens.
 
haymarket said:
I dearly hope you are right Maggie. But in the couple of meetings I have been to on this, far more drastic options were presented to us which including cutting the amount of money that current retirees are getting. That is current retirees - not just future ones.

This was presented as one of several options. So I hope it never happens.
Click to expand...

You can make bank on it, Haymarket. I understand your concern though. But the only reason your head's letting you worry about it is that it effects you personally. If it didn't? You'd be as confident as I am. ;)
 
MaggieD said:
People don't know the fiscal condition of their state. They don't know what pension benefits are promised to public sector workers. They don't know how under-funded pension plans are . . . how many cops they have on the street they don't need (now that their population has gone from 1.8 million to just over 700,000 . . . they don't know how union contracts constrict a city's ability to fire workers . . . lay them off . . . they don't know how politicians are paying their brothers-in-law to punch in on the city timeclock at 7 AM in the morning, go to their "other jobs" and punch back out at 5 PM.

Put the blame where it belongs. On the dufus's that mismanaged and stole from the city coffers.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with that.

That might be true on average but Detroit's fiscal woes have been very widely reported for well over a decade now. They've been making the New York papers for years and I have a difficult time believing The Detroit Free Press hasn't covered it more thoroughly than The New York Times. You can't tell me they didn't notice the city has halved in size, police response times have risen astronomically, and they don't have money to run street lights anymore even if they haven't picked up a newspaper since the Johnson Administration.
 
Last edited:
Dapper Andy said:
I don't agree with that.

That might be true on average but Detroit's fiscal woes have been very widely reported for well over a decade now. They've been making the New York papers for years and I have a difficult time believing The Detroit Free Press hasn't covered it more thoroughly than The New York Times. You can't tell me they didn't notice the city has halved in size, police response times have risen astronomically, and they don't have money to run street lights anymore even if they haven't picked up a newspaper since the Johnson Administration.
Click to expand...

They somebody's stoking the voting machines. The mayor is new since 2009, but still a Democrat. Hasn't been a Republican mayor since 1962. What accounts for it? Idiocy? Or my first reaction -- voter fraud?
 
MaggieD said:
Breaking contractual promises is done all the time. There's a cost. Taxpayers are better off paying that cost and letting union aristocracy get 401K's like the rest of America.
Click to expand...

West Virginia did that and it failed miserably. Many forget that teachers can't collect social security.
 
MaggieD said:
You can make bank on it, Haymarket. I understand your concern though. But the only reason your head's letting you worry about it is that it effects you personally. If it didn't? You'd be as confident as I am. ;)
Click to expand...

I am NOT impacted by this.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
West Virginia did that and it failed miserably. Many forget that teachers can't collect social security.
Click to expand...

I quickly looked up West Virginia, and the taxpayers got screwed royally. What else is new? In a nutshell, the state closed the defined benefit pension plan to new hires in 1991 and put them on 401K's -- you know, like the rest of America. Well, in 2009, those teachers in the 401K's demanded a do-over -- and the WV legislature went along with it! "Let's pretend like the last 18 years didn't happen and give us our defined benefit pension plans!! What a freaking joke. It is only a matter of time until taxpayers revolt against this nonsense. It's getting closer and closer every single day.

Public sector employees like the West Virginia teachers are quickly becoming the only Americans left with decent pensions. But the problem is that private-sector taxpayers have to foot the bill, while at the same time, their own retirements are going to pot.

I am reminded of a comment that Dallas Salisbury, the president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, made to me a few years back: "The public employee, no matter who you compare him to, has become the dominant sector of the labor force that is well pensioned and well benefited," he said. "And the real question is, At what point, vis-a-vis tax burden, does the nonpensioned public start to pay attention to that as voters?"
Click to expand...
 
haymarket said:
A big reason Orr did this was that the major creditors and pension holders would not give in to his demands. I strongly hope and pray that the judge will see the very practical difference between major corporations who hold bonds with the city and people on pensions who pushed a broom or cleaned bathrooms or drove a bus for 35 years to get a small pension. The judge should treat the two very very differently.
Click to expand...

Yes, there's no question that the latter groups you mention will contribute nothing to the recovery, and that has to be consitered.
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
West Virginia did that and it failed miserably. Many forget that teachers can't collect social security.
Click to expand...

I would trade any one of those teachers my future Social Security benefits for their Teacher's pension. Do you think there would be any takers?
 
rabbitcaebannog said:
West Virginia did that and it failed miserably. Many forget that teachers can't collect social security.
Click to expand...
Why should any government employee with a guaranteed pension be able to collect social security? That's double dipping any way you slice it.
 
The Man said:
I would trade any one of those teachers my future Social Security benefits for their Teacher's pension. Do you think there would be any takers?
Click to expand...

I doubt Tommy Boy's ex-wife would trade you. She receives a $130,000 a year teacher's pension. She's 57 years old.
 
Re: Detroit emergency manager files bankruptcy

BUT...BUT...BUT that city is run by good Democrats and President Obama saved the American auto industry - so the report MUST be false.
 
MaggieD said:
I quickly looked up West Virginia, and the taxpayers got screwed royally. What else is new? In a nutshell, the state closed the defined benefit pension plan to new hires in 1991 and put them on 401K's -- you know, like the rest of America. Well, in 2009, those teachers in the 401K's demanded a do-over -- and the WV legislature went along with it! "Let's pretend like the last 18 years didn't happen and give us our defined benefit pension plans!! What a freaking joke. It is only a matter of time until taxpayers revolt against this nonsense. It's getting closer and closer every single day.
Click to expand...

Tax payers and teachers got screwed over. Teachers that went to retire after 30 years received an average pension of $23,000 to live off of until they died. Of course, that got them half a year and then they went on welfare. I suppose you could say poor tax payers because they ended up paying out for welfare until these teachers died. Pension systems (that are not corrupt) save the tax payers money. Just a fact.
 
The Man said:
I would trade any one of those teachers my future Social Security benefits for their Teacher's pension. Do you think there would be any takers?
Click to expand...

I suppose you wouldn't say that if you were not given your pension and your social security and to make matters worst when your spouse died you could only collect one third of his/her social security after a life time of both of you paying into the system.
 
Re: Detroit emergency manager files bankruptcy

Detroit was a city built on the great industrial/auto revolution and then WWII and once again in the wealth of the 1950s and 60s.

By the early 1970s, the Federals had made it so that between EPA and DOT regulations with existing limited technology then - and the massive costs of retooling basically everything pre-computer - the US auto industry was limited to building completely crap automobiles - and this continued well into the 1980s. The Japanese, already tooled for small motors and cars and with a fraction of the employee costs filled the gap - permanently - and Detroit was dead.

In 1971, the year the first EPA regulations hit hard, Ford has only a few years earlier tooled for it's next generation motors - NONE of which could possibly meet the regulations. Threatening to file bankruptcy, the EPA adjusted enough to allow Ford's motors to be used, although so downgraded a form as to be junk. Horsepower dropped as much as 40% in one year, and gas mileage went down too. Chrysler was hit worse and relied on selling Japan made cars called Chryslers. GM faired a bit better, having calculated to use EPA and DOT standards to wipe out about 90% of the worlds' smaller car makers from being able to import - and making a run at shutting down Porsche, for which Porsche responded with the (then) incredible 928 - for 3 years the fastest production car in the world and putting Corvette to shame... while still stinging from the Corvair disaster - ending the prospect of America making cars to compete with Euro sports cars. Ralph Nader became famous by shattering GM making a highly efficient, gas economy more Euro-style rear engine car that put VW to shame...

Anyway, the actual history of the death of American auto industry is popularly blamed on unions, when the real greater blame lays with the Greenies and the "OMG CARS ARE DANGEROUS!" folks. It was the end of the decades long the truly great design, creatively and uniquely American history and love-affair with the automobile. Cars actually used to have STYLE!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom