August 07, 2013

The City of Broken Promises
— Monty

What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. -- Pericles of Athens

When I was a kid, my mom promised to take me to an amusement park on our summer vacation if I brought home nothing worse than a B on my report card, and performed some extra chores around the house. Weeks later, I fulfilled my part of the bargain, triumphantly presenting my mom with a report card with nothing but AÂ’s and BÂ’s on it. I pointed to the spotless yard and tidy bedroom. Visions of a fun day at the amusement park already filled my head. I told all my friends about my impending trip, and saved every nickel I could for toys and food at the park.

However, as the big day came near, my mother sadly told me that the trip was off. Her hours at work had been cut back, and we could barely scrape up rent and gas money. We simply could not afford a day trip to the amusement park. I was devastated, and incandescently angry at my mother. She had promised, and I had fulfilled my part of the bargain. I donÂ’t remember the details of my tantrum that day, but it wasnÂ’t pretty, and it ended up with my mother blowing her stack and banishing me to my room for a couple of days.

It was only in later years that I realized how sad and ashamed my mom must have been for breaking the promise she had made to me. She had no choice in the matter; there was simply no money to waste on that kind of entertainment. We were barely getting by as it was. She made the promise to me when times were relatively good and she was getting plenty of overtime, and she had made the mistake of assuming that the status quo would continue indefinitely. She was mistaken, but the mistake wasnÂ’t malicious. Things just...didnÂ’t turn out like we expected. But it was years before I really forgave my mom, and I never did get that day-trip to the amusement park. It remained a bitter seed in my heart for a long time afterward.

The same dynamic is now playing out in towns and cities across America: promises were made to then-current public-sector workers -- years and even decades back -- that cannot now be met. The problem confronting politicians, city managers, bond issuers, bond buyers, and citizens of cities and towns across the nation is one of responsibility for those past promises. Who pays? WhoÂ’s responsible for making those promises good? Should those old promises be made good, especially if they were made in bad faith?
From the article:


"This is happening in too many cities and towns across America, where social services, because they can be cut, are cut," financial analyst Meredith Whitney, founder of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC, told CNBC. "(But) because pensions and bonds constitutionally cannot be cut, they're the protected class. I think you're going to see a real issue of neighbor against neighbor on these very issues."

But as Detroit has demonstrated, budget-balancing service cuts only lower the quality of life in a community, chasing residents away and further eroding the tax base. Raising taxes, on the other hand, discourages new business expansion, further reducing revenues. For cities and states that have failed to fund their pension promises, it's a death-spiral.

There is bitterness and anger on all sides, and recriminations flow like water. Much of the anger is perfectly justified. Many of the pension promises made to public employees were made in the spirit of “IBG,YBG”, or “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” before the repercussions of these promises were felt. Unions pressed for ever-richer benefit packages and pensions, and politicians and city managers alike found this an easier way to placate the workers than raising their per-hour wage. Twenty or thirty years ago, the consequences of these decisions seemed far-off and relatively minor. Taxes could always be raised; bonds could always be sold. The workers accepted the promises of future benefits in lieu of (or, more usually, in addition to) raises in pay. All the players in the drama accepted the status quo and assumed it would continue.

But as time went on and the fabric of America changed, it started becoming alarmingly clear that these rich pension and benefit promises could not be kept. This much was clear even before the 2008 recession. A changing economic landscape, changing demographics, and skyrocketing benefit costs put many cities in a terrible bind. Actuarial games could be played with pension contributions; simply assume a higher rate-of-return on investments, and voila! An underfunded pension could magically be made healthy just by fiddling some numbers in a spreadsheet. All the money that would have had to go into the pension could instead be diverted to municipal projects, payroll, and social programs. More patronage jobs could be offered to political allies and their families. Skyrocketing healthcare costs for both current workers and retirees could be made on a “pay as you go” basis, and hidden in general-fund spending. This strategy worked for a time (a surprisingly long time), but as America’s phase of explosive growth slowed and the population continued to age, the problems got harder to paper over.

A city really only has a few ways to generate revenue. The first is via taxation. The second is via “fees”, a loose term that encompasses things like parking meters, permits, certain licenses, and so on. Theoretically these “fees” are optional, but in fact are simply another form of taxation. Then there are state and federal grants and payments. When these revenue streams prove insufficient, many cities turn to the bond market to borrow money -- usually for infrastructure projects like streets, schools, civic arenas, and the like. In recent decades, the bond market has allowed cities to borrow funds willy-nilly at rock-bottom interest rates because municipalities were deemed nearly riskless in terms of default. However, it’s become increasingly obvious in recent years that the bond-issuers gravely underestimated -- and thus under-priced -- the risk. Ratings agencies have begun to downgrade both states and municipalities as the risk profiles become more alarming.

So here we are now, with many major cities facing some brutal arithmetic. To honor their pension and benefit promises to their current and former employees, theyÂ’d have to spend the bulk of their revenue, leaving little for city services. A city owes these services to its citizens; thatÂ’s what taxes are for. The implicit promise of government taxation is that your taxes will be used to fund the project or service the taxes are collected for. The bond markets are no longer endless fonts of easy and cheap money, and the debt overhang that many cities already carry are discouraging them from taking on even more debt.

So what does a city do when it can no longer buy, borrow, or tax its way out of trouble?

It goes bankrupt. Bankruptcy is an acknowledgement that many promises will be, must be, broken if the city is to survive. A cityÂ’s only purpose is to serve the people who live in it, so it would seem to be logical that the taxpayers would be foremost in the minds of the officials working to solve the problem. But alas, it is not so. Municipalities now apparently exist to service public employees and bond-holders more than their own citizens, which means that city services -- police, fire, garbage pickup, public lighting, sewer, street repair, and so on -- must go begging to satisfy the creditors. Yet without these public services, what purpose does a town or city really serve except to siphon money out of the pockets of people who live there? Cities caught in this death spiral -- Detroit is the prototypical example -- hemorrhage citizens as they flee to less dysfunctional homes. The tax rate continues to go up even as the tax base shrinks. Eventually, the whole machine freezes up and stops.

Cities are not forever. They are not permanent constructs, any more than states or nations are. All will pass away. There was a time when Detroit was one of AmericaÂ’s greatest cities, but that time is long past. Perhaps it is time to simply allow this city -- and others destroyed by mismanagement and historical forces -- to pass into history. Many people cannot bear to do this. They see the houses and streets and buildings and parks and decry the waste. But this is a form of the sunk-costs fallacy. The city cannot be saved by throwing good money after bad.

Adults must understand that all promises are provisional, and hostage to future events. Nothing is absolute; nothing is fixed. A broken promise neednÂ’t be the outcome of fraud or unfair dealing -- it may simply be due to changed circumstances. Public employees (retired and otherwise), bondholders, politicians, taxpayers: all need to understand this basic truth. It may be true that mismanagement, dishonesty, and fraud led a city into ruin, but it is also true that these seeds of destruction were sown decades before. Many of the malefactors have shuffled off this mortal coil, and are now beyond any but GodÂ’s justice.

Above and beyond all else, though, what we are finding is that debt-financed spending is a disastrous way to run an economy. This is perhaps the most iniquitous and corrosive aspect of the Keynesian philosophy, which has held sway in the public sector for so long. The notion that governmental entities cannot go broke, that they can spend virtually without limit and without fear of default, has been conclusively proven to be nonsense. Yet at every level of American government, from the smallest town to the Federal government, the public sector still behaves -- and spends -- as if there will be no reckoning. Taxpayers are viewed not as masters, but as cud-chewing cows to be milked as needed. Then shock and alarm when the cows move on to greener pastures.

Socrates argued in Crito that men owed allegiance to their city, perhaps more than they owed to their own families. This notion is predicated on the belief that the city is a moral as well as a physical place; that there is a moral contract (a promise, if you will) that the citizen will faithfully adhere to a cityÂ’s laws and mores in return for the protection and opportunity the city offers. But SocratesÂ’ view of the city as a repository of wisdom and law has suffered grievously in the centuries since his passing. Cities and towns are not abstract constructions of morals and law, but rather collections of human men and women, who are prone to all the weaknesses and vanities all mortals are heir to.

Cities can and do fail. It is wisdom to know when this is happening, and to move on, and to apply the lessons learned to the next home.

Posted by: Monty at 04:17 AM | Comments (345)
Post contains 1924 words, total size 11 kb.

1 That experience as a child is what make us conservatives. Priority of need vs wants. not enough parents tell their children no, you can't have that today, I can't afford it.

Posted by: cicero skip at August 07, 2013 04:25 AM (3m9Uc)

2 debt-financed spending is a disastrous way to run an economy

Just as it's a disastrous way to run a household budget.  You'd think that the idiots in government (especially local government, that can't print it's own money) would realize that spending more than you take in will eventually lead to a reckoning.

Posted by: GMan at August 07, 2013 04:25 AM (sxq57)

3 In the long run, we're all Detroit. Ceteris peribus.

Posted by: kreplach at August 07, 2013 04:26 AM (74T7W)

4 It's not "Let it burn" so much as "It's going to burn so let's stop fooling ourselves."

Posted by: butch at August 07, 2013 04:26 AM (EV3Uf)

5 To the moon, Alice!

Posted by: Mbruce at August 07, 2013 04:27 AM (BgZ8b)

6 Because the rightwing.

Posted by: No Information Occam at August 07, 2013 04:29 AM (Dwehj)

7 The difference between your mom and the average city is the complete absence of malice on your mom's part.  While the cities have no malice toward the unions, they do have nothing but malice toward the taxpayers.

Posted by: Count Von Count at August 07, 2013 04:29 AM (o44nj)

8 Here's a fun fact. New York City pays out more to retired cops than current on duty cops. So in essence NYC has two police forces one that works one that doesn't.

Posted by: kreplach at August 07, 2013 04:30 AM (74T7W)

9 Great post Monty !

Posted by: McCool at August 07, 2013 04:31 AM (nCSwS)

10 Way of topic already, but does anyone know how to buy through Ace's Amazon store if the product category isn't listed?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at August 07, 2013 04:34 AM (jjvz+)

11 I bow to a worthy post!

Posted by: BrianInNC at August 07, 2013 04:35 AM (u00Q0)

12 New York City pays out more to retired cops than current on duty cops. So in essence NYC has two police forces one that works one that doesn't. *** That's absurd.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at August 07, 2013 04:35 AM (jjvz+)

13 New York City pays out more to retired cops than current on duty cops.

---

NYC is not unusual in this regard. Many cities are now paying more to their retirees than they are paying to their active employees. In many cities so much money is going to pay salaries, pension benefits, healthcare benefits, and so on that there is no money left for the things a city is chartered to do: maintain public roads and thoroughfares; provide police and fire service; provide public infrastructure for sewer and water; and so on. Stockton, CA is a good recent example, and of course Detroit. Chicago is falling into this trap. It's pervasive.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 04:35 AM (G8OwX)

14 And when more and more dysfunctional cities go tits up and more and more of their citizens head off for greener pastures, where will they go and what kind of attitude will they bring with them? It could be comparable to Californication -- call it Detroitafuckation.

Posted by: joncelli at August 07, 2013 04:36 AM (Tb7OC)

15 The whole idea was bullshit from the beginning. To promise someone an guaranteed income based on the private sectors variable fortunes and to enforce that income with the threat and ability to confiscate private property to fulfill the politician's promise is criminal.
In other words..if everything goes to shit they'll take peoples property when they are unable to pay the taxes that are guaranteed to exceed abilities in almost all circumstances in order to fund their boondoggles.

Posted by: Dept. Of Acuracy at August 07, 2013 04:37 AM (VWfCN)

16

Very good column, Monty.  It should be required reading for every public employee and elected official.  Though knowing many of my fellow public employees it would go right over their heads.   They'd get to the end and say,  "...But I still get my pension, right?"

 

 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:38 AM (4df7R)

17 The bitch of it is, Monty, you're preaching to the choir.  We all KNOW debt-financed spending is impossible and dangerous.  That's why, in our own lives, to the extent possible, we don't do it.

Over half the nation, however, thinks it's totally fine, and there is nothing we can say or do that will convince them otherwise.  Nothing.

I have no solutions to offer or sage advice to dole out.  I have only a growing concern for what is coming and a growing sadness for what it means.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 04:38 AM (fwARV)

18 The plight of Detroit can be directly traced back to Coleman Young's 20 year reign as mayor starting in 1974. Detroit had it problems before that, but Young set the city on a trajectory that put it where it is today.

Posted by: Aviator at August 07, 2013 04:38 AM (usMY3)

19 ..."Taxpayers are viewed not as masters, but as cud-chewing cows to be milked as needed."

Sad but so true

Posted by: ET at August 07, 2013 04:39 AM (YpjaN)

20 Good post but you seem to be lacking a few story elements.
Your hero needs to contract cancer of some kind.
Suffer a horrible traffic accident.
Have their home consumed by fire on Christmas Eve.
Loose your employment, have a parent suffering from dementia, cops kill your dog, facing a huge back property tax bill, have your bank accounts seized by the IRS
all because you once rescued a kitty from a laboratory run by big pharma.

Then you might have  winner.
You should add a link for donations and you're golden.

Posted by: Paperback Writer at August 07, 2013 04:40 AM (eyF+r)

21 You mean paying the Visa card with the Master card won't work in the long term?  How long?? Damn..Just Damn....

Posted by: CSMBigBird at August 07, 2013 04:40 AM (jsWA8)

22 It sure would save money if lots of these retirees could be offed with a nice death panel.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 04:40 AM (AO9UG)

23

So what does a city do when it can no longer buy, borrow, or tax its way out of trouble?

 

It goes bankrupt. 

 

 

 

"Bankrupt?   Piffle!   That doesn't honor our illustrious President!"

 

-Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemary Aquillina

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:40 AM (4df7R)

24 Excellently put, as always. "(But) because pensions and bonds constitutionally cannot be cut, they're the protected class. I think you're going to see a real issue of neighbor against neighbor on these very issues." I've been saying this since I was 18, which is longer ago than I care to admit. We can, and will, scream at each other about what individual members of a generational cohort may or may not have done. The brutal mathematical facts remain that those who are still working will be asked to bear the costs for those who are not. Broadly speaking, that breaks down into age bands. Intergenerational warfare will result because there is no way that it cannot. I will not pay 70+% taxes in order to fund the retirements of those who failed to see that those promises made to them could never, ever, ever be met when I was able to see that before I finished high school. I won't. As far as having sob stories told to me about Susie who was the secretary for the municipality for 45 years and who was a single mother who had to put five kids through college and she didn't put anything aside for her retirement because the job was her retirement and now she's going to lose everything because she has no money, guess what? These are the fucks I don't give. Let her five kids care for her. I'm not going to do it. Of course, I may be wrong and the war will not be so much generational as it will be between public and private workers. There is already deep resentment by private workers that they have to pay for both their own retirement and the retirement of public workers. When it's pay for own retirement, pay for the public workers' retirement and pay to bail out the retirement of public workers in other states? Yeah. That's going to be be smooth sailing, that is. This is why I have moved from oh look at the pretty contrails to yes that is going to happen regarding private retirement account confiscation, oh I mean moving to secured government issued annuities. All that money sitting there is too tempting a pile for Our Betters to resist. This interesting times shit can stop any day now.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (VtjlW)

25 I essentially don't overly care about what happens to pensions of city employees, esp. those in non-hazardous occupations, because their unions would have eviscerated a man like me in an election (i.e., someone who was going to balance interests in a decent fashion). What goes around...

Posted by: T. at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (LwNBC)

26 @12 NyC spends 8.7 billion dollars on policing. 4.3 billion goes to current on the books police and staff. 4.4 billion goes to retiree benifits. Insane yes, but a fact none the less.

Posted by: kreplach at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (74T7W)

27

Detroit represents the very foundations of our Culture!

 

Fun Fact: Detroit is birthplace of the Yo Momma joke

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (3ZtZW)

28 I want that golden goose, daddy!

I want it now!

Posted by: Veruca Salt at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (a85rq)

29 Damn Monty...I didn't know. *buys Monty a season pass to the Six Flags of his choice*

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (GQ8sn)

30 In other DOOM-y news, "A Hunger Games-themed summer camp that culminates in a tournament at which children fight to the "death" (not literally, of course) has opened in Florida." 
http://tinyurl.com/ky6nnyu

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 04:41 AM (fwARV)

31 Outstanding writin and reasonin. The selfish child analogy is spot on. The difference is adults should know better. Unfortunately the infantilization of American is in full swing. Adults acting like children unable to see past their own wants. Not needs, but wants. It's not going to end well no matter who is in charge.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet at August 07, 2013 04:42 AM (XIxXP)

32 There may be the possibility of re-colonizing these cities after sometime.  Look at Hiroshima, you wouldn't want to be there a few days after the bombing, but now look at it.  I think it'll be a similar thing with these cities...wait for the bankruptcy bomb to subside, then entrepreneurs will see the potential of the (crumbling) infrastructure and will be able to build off of it.

Posted by: tunakermit at August 07, 2013 04:42 AM (ps3Oq)

33 NyC spends 8.7 billion dollars on policing. 4.3 billion goes to current on the books police and staff. 4.4 billion goes to retiree benifits. Insane yes, but a fact none the less. *** Oh no, not questioning your facts at all. Just blown away by them.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at August 07, 2013 04:43 AM (jjvz+)

34 This is a good time to mention again what made me choose the Republican party over the Democrat party. I realized Democrats promise me everything yet give me nothing, whereas Republicans promise me nothing, give me nothing. That's Soothsayerism #1. It was true more than 20 years ago, not so accurate today. Today the Republicans are Just The Tip party; they pander and promise, just less so than the Democrats.

Posted by: soothsayer & lewis, together again at August 07, 2013 04:43 AM (P+Rq+)

35 "For in their greed they have killed the golden goose."

Something I just probably cribbed from someone else.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 04:43 AM (vXdad)

36 And thus, we have the O Administrations quiet push for "regionalism," which will compel those who fled the cities because of mismanagement to support the dying wrecks those cities have become. Prevent suburbanization and essentially force Americans back into ultra-dense enclaves ostensibly to save the planet, but in reality to rescue the cities from their own folly.

Posted by: RS at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (YAGV/)

37 Well kids, must walk doggehs. Later.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (XIxXP)

38

>>>"A Hunger Games-themed summer camp that culminates in a tournament at which children fight to the "death" (not literally, of course) has opened in Florida."

 

Great idea! We should set up sommat like that after we buy up 5 city blocks of property in Detroit! It'll be like Outward Bound for teh little morons!

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (3ZtZW)

39 There may be the possibility of re-colonizing these cities after sometime. Look at Hiroshima, you wouldn't want to be there a few days after the bombing, but now look at it. I think it'll be a similar thing with these cities...wait for the bankruptcy bomb to subside, then entrepreneurs will see the potential of the (crumbling) infrastructure and will be able to build off of it.

Posted by: tunakermit at August 07, 2013 08:42 AM (ps3Oq)

 

ONly if they're allowed to start fresh.  There can be no vestiges remaining of the old, busted government.    Hiroshima was destroyed by an outside force, but Detroit (and other bankrupt municipalities)    have been destroyed from the inside out, by mismanagement,   corruption and    willful ignorance.   You have to carve out all of that rot and dispose of it before you can hope to rebuild from the ruins.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (4df7R)

40 So is it time to don our leather chaps, speak in Australian accents and steal each others gas?  But but I've loss too much hair to wear a Mohawk...what should I do?

Posted by: Paladin at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (ycm4Q)

41 Thank you for this wonderful essay.

Posted by: Janetoo at August 07, 2013 04:45 AM (PROOX)

42 Well done Monty.  If you go to Six Flags now, make sure your seat belt/harness is securely fashioned!

Posted by: CDR M at August 07, 2013 04:46 AM (BuYeH)

43 Well done Monty.  If you go to Six Flags now, make sure your seat belt/harness is securely fastened.

Posted by: CDR M at August 07, 2013 04:46 AM (JSetw)

44 First, brilliant, Monty. To my mind there are a couple of things that compound this issue at the national level. The first is the financialization of the economy (ugh, I sound like a Paulbot). Long-term investments are a thing of the past as the financial genius sector that gave us 2007 continues to play with a Fed safety net. In the end, the math will catch up there, too. In one of those "Connections" moments, fracking is probably the only thing that has saved the world from an explosive bout of inflation given the Fed's money policies and oil's central role in prices for almost everything. If something goes seriously sideways in the Middle East, we are in for some price shocks at the same time that money will have no where to go because of the Fed's near-zero interest rates. Chaos is only fun when it's in Zimbabwe. In addition, despite Obama's language, we're not "investing." The 2009 stimulus package was in the vein of most U.S. foreign assistance these days--"soft" programs that enrich a consultant class, but generate next to zero primary jobs and actual zero secondary ones. The big transportation, energy, space, and defense programs that do generate cascading jobs--like Keystone--are nowhere to be seen except for airy promises that will not be kept on high speed rail and greening initiatives.

Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at August 07, 2013 04:47 AM (659DL)

45

"A Hunger Games-themed summer camp that culminates in a tournament at which children fight to the "death" (not literally, of course)     has opened in Florida."

 

Give it time...

 

Death Race 2000 and    The Running Man USED to be fictional accounts of a dystopian future.  Now they read more like the    Thursday night lineup on NBC.

 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:47 AM (4df7R)

46 Do cities create Democrats? Do cities create the thing that eventually destroys the city? "All this has happened before, and will happen again"

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 04:48 AM (AO9UG)

47 Way of topic already, but does anyone know how to buy through Ace's Amazon store if the product category isn't listed? Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at August 07, 2013 08:34 AM (jjvz+) A couple of ways. First, just type whatever you're looking for in the search box above the ace store link and it'll jump you right to amazon with the referral link for ace. Second, from the ace store itself, click on the link under categories that says search all of amazon. That will also do the jump with referral link.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 04:48 AM (VtjlW)

48 Forget Hunger Games, play for all the marbles.  Battle Royale.  A class of high school kids kidnapped and put on an island full of booby-traps.  And they are all wearing explosive collars.  Only one kid is allowed to leave.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 04:48 AM (vXdad)

49 About twenty years ago I served a term on the city council of a smallish inner ring Detroit suburb.  I asked for a list of city employees receiving city pensions.  Then went through the list with the city manager and a couple of the longest serving city employees.

It was shocking to see just how many pensioners were utterly unknown to anyone in the city. The number of cops and firefighters who were on the city's pension roll for decades longer than they were ever on the city payroll was stunning.  One cop had stacked military and police service to get his 20 years and "retired" at age 39.

I remember thinking in 1994,  "Doomed. Doomed is what we are."  (I was a proto-moron.)

Posted by: Liechendiener at August 07, 2013 04:48 AM (u3N3z)

50 Except.liberals never learn. They're just a virus. They'll just destroy their next host.

Posted by: Lauren at August 07, 2013 04:49 AM (ELdpj)

51 ONly if they're allowed to start fresh. There can be no vestiges remaining of the old, busted government. Hiroshima was destroyed by an outside force, but Detroit (and other bankrupt municipalities) have been destroyed from the inside out, by mismanagement, corruption and willful ignorance. You have to carve out all of that rot and dispose of it before you can hope to rebuild from the ruins.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:45 AM (4df7R)

Agreed, I would think it would need to sit for a generation, possibly two.  Hiroshima had the environmental/health factor that made going back to it immediately too risky.  Detroit, and others, have the corruption factor.  The beneficiaries need to die off first before it would be safe to go back in.

Posted by: tunakermit at August 07, 2013 04:49 AM (ps3Oq)

52 Here are more fun facts about the NYPD There are 34,510 current active officers. There are 44,634 retirees drawing a pension.

Posted by: kreplach at August 07, 2013 04:49 AM (74T7W)

53 Hey MWR, busy writing more of the kumiho story.  Over a thousand words added so far.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 04:50 AM (vXdad)

54

"All this has happened before, and will happen again"

 

"So say we all"

/lulz

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 04:50 AM (3ZtZW)

55 Incidentally, you all need to read about the 'immigrant' who caused a major crash in Boston on Monday. She happened to have in her possession more than one EBT card. She also accused the cop of being racist, and she put a 'curse' on him. This is our future, folks. And the future is Now.

Posted by: soothsayer & lewis, together again at August 07, 2013 04:50 AM (P+Rq+)

56 A fellow I know is on the state pension investment board in NJ. Three years ago they were in a panic, realizing that workers had been over promised, savings were well known to be insufficient and returns were likely to stay below projections for years to come. Democrats particularly were nervous because the party depends on public union money and they only get that money if union heads feel flush. First comes the union leaders beach houses too, and so those leaders were feeling very nervous as well. Not good for Democrats. For some reason rationality didn't stick. Fear has subsided. That tells me we have years, and maybe decades, of tough economic reality ahead of us. It's the canary in the coal mine effect: America still hasn't figured out we cannot afford the day at the amusement park.

Posted by: MTF at August 07, 2013 04:50 AM (ZuiHO)

57 So is it time to don our leather chaps, speak in Australian accents and steal each others gas? But but I've loss too much hair to wear a Mohawk...what should I do? There's always Lord Humungous.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 04:50 AM (GQ8sn)

58 OK, this is off thread, but yesterday our HOA went in force to a City council rezoning proposal meeting. It was a water quality issue and we wanted none of it. Being a country club right outside the city limits, we thought they would walk all over us, but we prevailed! The chairman said it was the most people he ever saw in a rezoning hearing. 1st Amendment rules, baby! I had to leave early to take Auntie to a doctor appointment, but Mrs. E gave be the full report last night. However the highlight for me was the chairman laying out the ground rules at the beginning, when he stated 'It's like Byrne said "say it once,,," He paused and I said 'why say it again?'. I caught a few claps.

Posted by: EROWMER at August 07, 2013 04:51 AM (OONaw)

59 Forget Hunger Games, play for all the marbles. Battle Royale. A class of high school kids kidnapped and put on an island full of booby-traps. And they are all wearing explosive collars. Only one kid is allowed to leave. There can be only one. I heard about this movie. I think I should see it.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 04:52 AM (GQ8sn)

60 I have a plan that could save the Detroit pension funds, which I know the pensioners would support. They built that city which the young are now enjoying, right? So those idle young sitting around doing nothing should give back some work in exchange for what they have been given. The pension funds could be allowed to round up any men under the age of 30 who aren't gainfully employed (women too, if you don't want to be sexist) and use them as contract labor, in exchange for free room and board. All of the wages they would earn would go to the pension funds balance. Now a few would probably object, not being used to hard work, but once a few public examples are made of cost of defiance, the rest will fall in line -they always do. And if the pension funds need more money quickly, they should be allowed to simply sell the labor of these workers for a set value, in order to cash out now. It could be traded on some kind of public exchange. Now the last problem is that such men probably don't have any real skills, and so would have to start out at things like harvesting agricultural products in the field. But the best of them would realize that with a little bit of effort, they could move up to an inside job soon. I think that just about every current pensioner would support that idea completely, especially if they realize that their pensions may be on the line without it.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 07, 2013 04:53 AM (hTDbY)

61 Monty sure can paint a purty picture with his mouth/keyboard.
 
Really, though, what these 'leaders' has done isn't much different than what Madoff, Stanford, or Corzine did -- ponzi schemes where the early investors made out well while the tail enders got squat.
 
Or look at the ghost towns in the west -- when the silver ran out, so did the towns built to service the miners there. The towns were then without a reason to exist. Just being there, or being, isn't enough.
 
This applies to countries, too.

Posted by: GnuBreed at August 07, 2013 04:54 AM (ccXZP)

62 @59 13th Amendment problems?

Posted by: RS at August 07, 2013 04:54 AM (YAGV/)

63

There is bitterness and anger on all sides, and recriminations flow like water. Much of the anger is perfectly justified. Many of the pension promises made to public employees were made in the spirit of “IBG,YBG”, or “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” before the repercussions of these promises were felt. Unions pressed for ever-richer benefit packages and pensions, and politicians and city managers alike found this an easier way to placate the workers than raising their per-hour wage.

 

Don't forget as well, the tried and true blackmailing of "well, if we don't raise your taxes, we'll have to cut teachers, firement, policemen, libraries and Ewoks."  So our taxes got raised and the public sector kept fattening itself on our wallets.

 

I'm cold-hearted on this one.  You stole my money to bribe these slugs to vote your way.  You figured I would always be around to empty my wallet whenever you threw a tantrum.  And now you have no money and really have to cut services or toss the tax-fattened clowns out of their cushy pensions?

 

Fuck.  You.  Die, parasites.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 04:55 AM (zF6Iw)

64 It should be required reading for every public employee and elected official Yes, MWR, but today's public officials would scold mom for not breaking out the Visa and probably call child services because she made Monty sad.

Posted by: Schwalbe: The Me-262© at August 07, 2013 04:56 AM (9Bdcz)

65

Meanwhile you have idiots -- fucking IDIOTS -- like Robert Reich who think that Detroit should just annex the surrounding communities to make up for it's faltering tax base.   Because there's all that MONEY out there in the affluent suburbs, and dammit, it should be in Detroit!

 

I really can't put into words how    confoundingly stupid and ignorant this runt of a "man" is, so I'll let his words speak for themselves.  

 

Robert B. Reich: Income gap is what's tearing cities like Detroit apart

Detroit Free Press: http://tiny.cc/d45f1w

 

...But metro Detroit hasnÂ’t shrunk. While the Detroit city population fell by 62% between 1950 and 2012, metro Detroit grew by 42% during the same period. DetroitÂ’s wealthy and most of its middle class moved from the city to the suburbs.

 

Much in modern America depends on where you draw boundaries, and whoÂ’s inside and whoÂ’s outside. Who is included in the social contract?

 

If Detroit is defined as the larger metro area that includes its suburbs, it has enough money to provide all its residents with adequate if not good public services, without falling into bankruptcy. It would come down to a question of whether the more affluent areas of this Detroit were willing to subsidize the poor inner city through their tax dollars and help it rebound. ThatÂ’s an awkward question that the more affluent areas would probably rather not have to face.

 

Drawing the relevant boundary to include just the poor inner city, and requiring those within that boundary to take care of their compounded problems by themselves, lets the whiter and more affluent suburbs off the hook. Their city isn’t in trouble. It’s that other one — called Detroit.

 

In other words, all of those people who FUCKING LEFT DETROIT because it was FUCKING DETROIT should now be forced to once again call Detroit home, because racism     and   money.

 

My favorite quote is this one:

 

"Drawing the relevant boundary to include just the poor inner city, and requiring those within that boundary to take care of their compounded problems by themselves, lets the whiter and more affluent suburbs off the hook."

 

You know why   "Detroit" appears to inhabit a boundary that includes "just" the "poor inner city?"   Because fucking Detroit,  from   east to west, north to south,   IS   a poor inner city, FULL STOP. 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:56 AM (4df7R)

66 Good post Monty. From a conservative / common sense POV, this is a no brainer. Which is why the current politicians in charge (I refuse to call them leaders) will never get it. We don't have to let it burn. It will happen no matter what we do.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 07, 2013 04:56 AM (Bl77Y)

67

>>>I have a plan that could save the Detroit pension funds, which I know the pensioners would support.

 

They wouldn't support your plan. They *would* support mine, which is to take all the money and put it in Lottery tickets. Because they're Teh Stoopids.

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 04:57 AM (3ZtZW)

68 Hey MWR, busy writing more of the kumiho story. Over a thousand words added so far.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 08:50 AM (vXdad)

 

Awesome!

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 04:57 AM (4df7R)

69 The ones that do not understand will understand in time, because a hard lesson is coming.
Its kind of funny how we always have to learn lessons the hard way.
 
 

Posted by: MatkC at August 07, 2013 04:57 AM (Kf68R)

70 EC, here is a trailer for the movie
http://youtu.be/Y-T7yPJVvXw

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 04:57 AM (vXdad)

71 Here's another idea that the pensioners won't like so much, but at least it would be fair, and may be something that is close to what ends up happening: Fund the first $10,000 per year of any pension payments completely. Fund the second $10,000 at 90%. Fund the third $10,000 at 50%. Fund any amount between $30,000 and $50,000 at 10%, and fund any accrued payment over $50,000 at a penny on the dollar, just to remind them that they tried to ripoff the system and it didn't work.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 07, 2013 04:58 AM (hTDbY)

72 @32- " There may be the possibility of re-colonizing these cities after sometime. " Already going on in Detroit. There has been a slow, small, gradual retaking of parts of the D for a few years now. Best part is, in true frontier spirit they're making every effort to keep the corrupt and nasty city council out of things. Will this effort bring Detroit back from the dead? Probably not. But it'll give rootless hipsters a place to frolic and breed for a while. Perhaps we can put up a fence once a critical hipster mass has been achieved down on Woodward or in the Cass corridor.

Posted by: Chariots of Toast at August 07, 2013 04:59 AM (mm+xE)

73 NYC is not unusual in this regard. Many cities are now paying more to their retirees than they are paying to their active employees. In many cities so much money is going to pay salaries, pension benefits, healthcare benefits, and so on that there is no money left for the things a city is chartered to do: maintain public roads and thoroughfares; provide police and fire service; provide public infrastructure for sewer and water; and so on. Stockton, CA is a good recent example, and of course Detroit. Chicago is falling into this trap. It's pervasive.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 08:35 AM (G8OwX)


This is for a number of factors that the article spells out pretty well.  First - public employees (yes especially cops, firefighters and teachers) are wayyyyy overpaid.  Add to that their gold-plated health care benefits and ridiculous pension benefits, and you have disaster. 

In NY, public employees currently retiring at 30 years receive roughly 60% of their final average salary.  cops and firefighters all work extensive overtime for their final three years to get their final average salary up to about double their base salary.  So, they retire at 55 or so earning more than their base salary for the rest of their lives. 

Now, they get this ridiculous pension in return for "investing" 3 percent of their salary for the FIRST ten years of their public employment.  That's right - the first 10 years they worked, when they made the least amount of money of their entire careers, they invested 3% of their salaries in return for 25 years (or so) of pension at $70k a year.  So, figure they started out around $40k.  They invested roughly $1k per year for 10 years.  Now that is supposed to have accumulated up to $1,750,000 (actually more, because the pension goes up each year with COLA)? 

Compounding interest is wonderful, but it doesn't turn $10k into $1,750,000 in 30 years. In fact, according to my calculations, $10k invested at 7% interest for 30 years, compounding, is only about $76,122.

Yes, NY has "reformed" its retirement system several times, to decrease the percentage of final average salary you get (it used to go up to around 80%).  But, it is still based on investing 3% your first 10 years and it still allows wayyy overpaid public employees to stock up on overtime to over-inflate their final average salaries.

All of this is allowed because the public sector unions own the state legislature, and most cities and counties.  And no politician wants to go against firefighters and police (or teachers).  Even Scott Walker in WI exempted FFs and Police from his reform of WI public employee union laws.

Until we challenge the first issue - allowing public sector employee unions - we will never be able to reform any of the other issues.  There is simply no counter-force to those unions with remotely the money and activists.  And, as the original post points out - consequences of giveaways to unions are usually aren't felt until years later, after the politicians have moved on.  So even though the politicians know what they are doing is horrible policy, they do not care.  This is true for GOP and DNC politicians.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 04:59 AM (sOx93)

74 My city just mailed me a flyer telling me city residents will have to cough up more money if we want our 35 year old streets repaved. LIB.

Posted by: Eddie Baby at August 07, 2013 05:00 AM (AuaIf)

75

Many rivers to cross

And it's only my will that keeps me alive

I've been licked, washed up for years

And I merely survive because of my pride

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 05:00 AM (3ZtZW)

76 64 MWR Actually I think Detroit should attempt to annex the suburbs. Let the wars begin. The rest of the country has plenty of popcorn and beer and will love the entertainment. It will serve as a once the suburbs are deserted, THEN maybe they'll realize it is broke beyond repair.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 07, 2013 05:01 AM (Bl77Y)

77 "So is it time to don our leather chaps, speak in Australian accents and steal each others gas? But but I've loss too much hair to wear a Mohawk...what should I do? " Believe your first order of business would be to figure out "who run bahtahtown?"

Posted by: Chariots of Toast at August 07, 2013 05:02 AM (mm+xE)

78 Pensions are a reasonable benefit to promise workers--HOWEVER--you have to fund them.  You have to take real money, invest it, and then have it ready to go in an annuity when the employee is eligible.  But, cities and towns said we will promise folks things to get them to take a lower salary and haha, we won't put any money into funding that pension...after all the Feds have been doing his bait and switch forever and the problem is decades away.  Well, the decades slipped by and the unfunded or underfunded pensions are due.

BTW, that evil Armand Hammer sued and broke the pension fund my husband and I were vested in and took the money and bought Rembrandts.  I did get to see them when he brought the collection to Tulsa.  We had already been investing for our retirement, but, getting two settlement check for pennies on the dollar, while Hammer got $640,000,000, really crystallized our savings and investment motivation into a diamantine hard strategy.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:02 AM (kXoT0)

79 Actually I think Detroit should attempt to annex the suburbs. Let the wars begin. The rest of the country has plenty of popcorn and beer and will love the entertainment. It will serve as a once the suburbs are deserted, THEN maybe they'll realize it is broke beyond repair.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 07, 2013 09:01 AM (Bl77Y)

 

Ah, but they won't.  They never learn.  Once the suburbs are empty they'll just extend the tentacles further, to encompass the NEW suburbs.

 

What I love is the implication that this is something Detroit can just DO.  "We need more money.  Okay, we'll just say the suburbs are part of the city.   Then their taxes are our taxes.  Problem solved."    

 

Reich is an ignorant little shit. 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:03 AM (4df7R)

80 States, like Illinois - same thing. 

Difference is (at least at this stage of the game) that the situation is still salvageable.  Illinois is still spending recklessly on other social programs (like housing, Medicaid, etc, etc.).  They must stop that spending and honor their contractual obligations.

Contract enforcement is at the heart of capitalism.  Without it, no one will invest in business.  That's why the Contract Clause exists.

If you let a city like Detroit go "bankrupt" - then you should mean it.  You don't just wipe out the debt and turn it loose to go forth and - you know.  Wind up the enterprise.  Sell all the assets at auction and give it a decent burial.

Posted by: Handcuffed to the Bumper of a State Trooper's Ford at August 07, 2013 05:04 AM (eMtQ2)

81 Cut the pensions 50% on retirees that move away. No point subsidizing Florida

Posted by: Avi at August 07, 2013 05:04 AM (Vdmkz)

82 EC, here is a trailer for the movie Yeah, it looks every bit as brutal as I imagined it to be.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:05 AM (GQ8sn)

83 Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:56 AM (4df7R) And when people move away again you get out your pen and redraw the boundaries again. Typical Lefty thinking: sometimes freedom doesn't produce what we want, so we have to force things back to where we want them to be. Madness.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:05 AM (AO9UG)

84 Pension should merely be a diversion of wages, not an addition to it. Too often politicians (and some private sector employers) will pay off supporters and/or unions with pension benefits in addition to wages-- essentially, paying MORE for every employee than they would pay them directly via wages. The problem is worsened when deferring pension payments to the nebulous future, when it will be someone else's compounded problem. I know I say it every time, but paying people not to work is crazy, unless the employee has been taking lower wages throughout their career to have them deferred into a pension plan. You can't make good on bad promises, particularly when those promises, obviously bogus when they were made, are going to crash the remainder of the system.

Posted by: zsasz, Banal Drivelist at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (MMC8r)

85

This guy is important to us, if the GOP is to take the senate.

Tom Cotton

http://tinyurl.com/m2vbv6y

Posted by: maddogg at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (OlN4e)

86 What does a city provide that I want or need?  I think the answer is nothing.  The federal, state, and county provide much more government than I can tolerate.  Why add to it by living in a city?

Posted by: SpongeBob ReaverSaget at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (epxV4)

87 Good post, Monty. It should also make obvious why Democrats have a built in advantage at the ballot box over Republicans. A majority of voters are stupid or ignorant or both. A lethal combination for prosperity but a fat, juicy target for politicians who run on a platform of free stuff. Too many conservatives make the mistake of assuming that if they just explain the math of all this free stuff it will win the day with a majority of voters who just want to go to the amusement park on somebody else's dime regardless of whether or not somebody else actually has a dime. I'm afraid the only way this lesson will sink in with these LIVs is pain. I don't care about their pain but if history is any guide their pain will cause the rest of us pain too. That part I care about.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (g1DWB)

88

In a fit of boredom I actually sat through Detropia last night on Netflix. Visually it was somewhat stunning, but ultimately it was hollow, as to be expected. Liberals are still in a quandry about how such things could happen. There was a few vague attempts to pin it on capitalism and/or globalism; no mention of the half-decade of liberal policies strung around their collective necks.

 

I am a lonnnnng-time lurker here BTW- I think it was the return of Monty that has gotten me to post.

Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (U7X2u)

89 MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:56 AM (4df7R)

------------

This is just a variant of the "regionalism" ploy that's gaining traction among so many Democrats right now. They know that high-density urban centers are also disproportionately poor and non-white (hence Democrat). The promise of "city life" has always been a cultural one: music, art, a vibrant nightlife, whatever. But what city residents really want are not artsy boulevards or trendy loft districts; they want good roads, robust water and sewer systems, and responsive police and fire services. That's pretty much it. If the citizens want art and nightlife, they'll create it themselves.

Cities have squandered billions on sports stadiums, shopping areas, wharf/beachfront areas, and so on to attract more residents. Which is fine in fat times. But in lean times all those white elephants are still around and still soak up tax dollars. Add in the money to pay for bloated city bureaucracies, and pensions and healthcare on top of that, and pretty soon you find that you can't pay for all that basic stuff a city exists to do: water, sewer, police, fire, schools.

As quality of life degrades, people with the ability leave the city. Taxes go up even as the tax base falls. Democrats see this dynamic, and in true social-justice fashion their solution is simply to expand the boundaries of the city to encompass those who tried to flee. If you will not come to the city, the city will come to you and force you to pay.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 05:06 AM (G8OwX)

90 ONly if they're allowed to start fresh. There can be no vestiges remaining of the old, busted government. Hiroshima was destroyed by an outside force, but Detroit (and other bankrupt municipalities) have been destroyed from the inside out, by mismanagement, corruption and willful ignorance. You have to carve out all of that rot and dispose of it before you can hope to rebuild from the ruins. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:45 AM (4df7R) I am still furious at Boy BFF due to the screaming fight we had over Detroit. He point blank said that he shouldn't have to be forced to take care of his extended family when they lose their pensions when the various NEPA municipalities in which they work go belly up but could not understand why I was shrieking at him that how dare he make me take care of them. Remember, he claims to be a good, solid Republican and he is really is a math savant. But, nope, make it personal and he want someone else to pay. There are some truly horrible decisions on the near (by which I mean this year) horizon. The conflict between Federal bankruptcy law and the Michigan state constitution presents ramifications that I don't even want to consider. Why? Because the law and theory can say what they want but Math wins. Hell, I deal with this on a tiny level all the time. As we tell clients, we can get you a judgment. What you want is money and we probably can't get you that. The Michigan state constitution can say anything it wants and I can have whatever view I like about preemption. The brutal fact is that there is no money to pay the pensions at full rate. There's not. A promise that cannot be fulfilled won't be. Pretty words will never change that fact. I'm just going to go stare at the chart of potential SMODs for awhile. That should make me happy.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 05:07 AM (VtjlW)

91 DetroitÂ’s wealthy and most of its middle class moved from the city to the suburbs.
...
It would come down to a question of whether the more affluent areas of this Detroit were willing to subsidize the poor inner city through their tax dollars and help it rebound. ThatÂ’s an awkward question that the more affluent areas would probably rather not have to face.

Robert Reich is supposed to be super-smart, right. Rhodes Scholar, the epitome of smart. Oxford. Yale. Elite-education smart.

Then he asks a question he already answered two paragraphs before.

Whip-smart. On the fucking ball.

Posted by: Waterhouse at August 07, 2013 05:07 AM (uYaYO)

92 Now they read more like the Thursday night lineup on NBC.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:47 AM (4df7R)

I wonder if I could register myself...

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:07 AM (fwARV)

93 Monty,
Everything that you said is true but it also applies at the national level. 

The sad thing is that many Americans will see Detroit and understand that it cannot pay the retirees without gutting the system.  The same, however, can be said about Uncle Sam's Social Security and Medicare and its effect on the federal budget.  I see senior adults act the same way as the unions--someone has to pay and as Alex mentions above, the pot of 401k and 403b money is a tempting target.  Prepare yourself accordingly. 

 

Posted by: wg at August 07, 2013 05:08 AM (PQZKW)

94 Superb post, Monty.

Posted by: Alittleenglish at August 07, 2013 05:08 AM (hd3R7)

95 Pensions are a reasonable benefit to promise workers--HOWEVER--you have to fund them. You have to take real money, invest it, and then have it ready to go in an annuity when the employee is eligible. But, cities and towns said we will promise folks things to get them to take a lower salary and haha, we won't put any money into funding that pension...after all the Feds have been doing his bait and switch forever and the problem is decades away. Well, the decades slipped by and the unfunded or underfunded pensions are due.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 09:02 AM (kXoT0)

There should be no such thing as a fixed benefit pension, because it is impossible in the real world.  A fixed benefit pension assumes (wrongly) that the entity promising it will always grow and always be flush with money.  No fixed benefit pension plan ever invests enough (and frankly cannot - the amount required to invest to match the benefit promised is usually way too high).

Only fixed contribution plans should be allowed.  The contribution goes in, it is invested, and you have whatever you have at retirement.  That also forces municipalities and states to actually pay current dollars into the pension system for benefits they are promising, rather than making promises for payment 30 years from now - which as we see, doesn't work.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:10 AM (sOx93)

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:10 AM (sOx93)

97 I wonder if I could register myself...

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 09:07 AM (fwARV)

 

lol!   You might be a bit old for the "Hunger Games" camp, but I'd pay good money to watch you run over leftwing losers   in   "Death Race 2000." 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:11 AM (4df7R)

98 80 Cut the pensions 50% on retirees that move away. No point subsidizing Florida Posted by: Avi at August 07, 2013 09:04 AM (Vdmkz) If that were part of the original contract, okay. Otherwise, fuck that shit.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:11 AM (AO9UG)

99 I've been teaching Public Budgeting since 2000 to grad students from Metro Detroit [mostly].  I've been banging on the Detroit bankruptcy since soon after arriving here and getting a good upclose look at Detroit's budget.

I try to explain to my students that a city's number priority should be to keep the city a place people want to live.  At bottom this means decent public safety [police and fire, mostly -- the rest {restaurant inspections, housing codes, etc} is fluff], decent transportation [roads, signals], and decent schools at a 'price point' [total taxation] that the average middle class and upper-middle class taxpaying citizen finds reasonable.  Anything else the city provides is basically fluff.

It's easy to see if this is happening.  How many people move in versus how many move out and to which class do they belong?  I ask my students that when the city fails in the above balance, who moves out first?  And they have always answered "The rich."  I then point out that this is almost never true because the rich tend to live in sheltered enclaves.  Those who move out first are the middle and upper-middle classes, those who are most sensitive to an 'unfair' balance -- too much tax burden, too little 'service'.

They are replaced, if at all, by those in lower classes, and the spiral of decline begins.

Detroit has failed at providing, for sure, public safety and schools.  The middle classes have fled, never to return.  They're screwed.  So are most other cities that follow that pattern.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at August 07, 2013 05:12 AM (290l2)

100 Awesome post Monty!  I will be sending it to friends & family today.

Government pensions are downright ridiculous and I believe much of it is rife with fraud as folks start to pad hours and pay during their last 3 years before they retire.  It's pathetic.

I for one will not live in a municipality for the privilege of paying for inflated pensions of government workers.  Nope.  Not gonna do it.

Posted by: TexBob at August 07, 2013 05:13 AM (q4HPx)

101 40 But but I've loss too much hair to wear a Mohawk...what should I do? Have you considered a wig?

Posted by: Lace Wigs and Cat Filters R Us at August 07, 2013 05:13 AM (U82Km)

102 Adults must understand that all promises are provisional, and hostage to future events. Nothing is absolute; nothing is fixed -------------------- We have this argument frequently about Social Security. "But I paid into it! I earned it and I want my money!" Pace Joe Haldemann: The Universe isn't concerned with"fair." The universe is concerned with survival. Whining about how you got screwed is not a survival tactic. There is no more money and no one is coming to help you. Spend more time planning how to keep your family fed and less griping about how you were owed a living.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 05:14 AM (gJ3b4)

103 lol! You might be a bit old for the "Hunger Games" camp, but I'd pay good money to watch you run over leftwing losers in "Death Race 2000." Washington Nearsider can still make the Quarter Quell for older tributes.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:14 AM (GQ8sn)

104 The pensioners in question won't be getting screwed if they get reduced benefits, they'll be lucky to get anything. Unless they're all stupid as fucking rocks, they knew damned well that they were choosing/voting for a system that was designed to fuck over taxpayers. Tough titties that their scam didn't pay off.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 05:15 AM (ZshNr)

105 >>Tom Servo Hahahaha. You can't really believe that. Half the people you are talking about literally can't read or write and all most all of them have lived off welfare for generations.

Posted by: Aviator at August 07, 2013 05:15 AM (usMY3)

106 Liberals are still in a quandry about how such things could happen.  Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 09:06 AM (U7X2u)

Hmm, how did it happen?  Simple formula really, take every single witless fertile female and tell her that her vajayjay is a toy, not just a toy, but a sacred toy for her to share with everyone.  Don't work about babies, disease, family, or a man sticking around to help with any of that--we gotcha covered, girl--we got programs for you, your spawn, and, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we will look the other way if you slip the Boyz some of that sweet EBT money to keep them coming around after your sweet sacred vajayjay looks like Berlin after the war.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:16 AM (kXoT0)

107 It is brutal EC as pampered students snap, see friends murdered, and other friends betray them. All to be the one who survives. Yeah, there are quite a few movies that have borrowed this idea before: Lord of the Flies, Running Man, Condemned, etc. However, I'm guessing none of them do it quite like the Japanese do it.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:16 AM (GQ8sn)

108 Have you considered a wig?

Posted by: Lace Wigs and Cat Filters R Us at August 07, 2013 09:13 AM (U82Km)

I now have this image of Falco from Rock Me Amadeus in The Road Warrior as Lord Humongous.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:17 AM (vXdad)

109 59 I have a plan that could save the Detroit pension funds, which I know the pensioners would support. They built that city which the young are now enjoying, right? So those idle young sitting around doing nothing should give back some work in exchange for what they have been given. I like this. Don't like the actual plan, but I would gorge myself on popcorn watching the debate. You could make book on how long it would take individuals to catch on.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 05:17 AM (z9HTb)

110 take every single witless fertile female and tell her that her vajayjay is a toy, not just a toy, but a sacred toy for her to share with everyone. Damn straight, sister! Preach!!! *vajazzles vajayjay*

Posted by: A-"man"-da Marcooter at August 07, 2013 05:18 AM (GQ8sn)

111 Spend more time planning how to keep your family fed and less griping about how you were owed a living.

My brother-in-law spends every waking hour engaging in the later, at the expense of the former. I want to bitch-slap him every time I'm near him.

Posted by: The Third Horseman Of The Apocalypse at August 07, 2013 05:18 AM (Dwehj)

112 You might be a bit old for the "Hunger Games" camp, but I'd pay good money to watch you run over leftwing losers in "Death Race 2000."

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:11 AM (4df7R)

Well.  My retirement just got funded.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:19 AM (fwARV)

113

Simple formula really, take every single witless fertile female and tell her that her vajayjay is a toy, not just a toy, but a sacred toy for her to share with everyone.

 

Thereby more or less tossing the whole concept of "sacred"    out the window.

 

 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:20 AM (4df7R)

114 I for one will not live in a municipality for the privilege of paying for inflated pensions of government workers. Nope. Not gonna do it.

Posted by: TexBob at August 07, 2013 09:13 AM (q4HPx)

 

If idiots like Reich are already floating the idea of arbitrarily redrawing city limits, how soon before some solon proposes an "exit tax" on people, based on the projected amount of money you would have contributed to the place you're leaving if you had stayed?

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 05:20 AM (zF6Iw)

115 Washington Nearsider can still make the Quarter Quell for older tributes.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:14 AM (GQ8sn)

And I look 15, so there's that.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:21 AM (fwARV)

116 This is just a variant of the "regionalism" ploy that's gaining traction among so many Democrats right now. They know that high-density urban centers are also disproportionately poor and non-white (hence Democrat). The promise of "city life" has always been a cultural one: music, art, a vibrant nightlife, whatever. But what city residents really want are not artsy boulevards or trendy loft districts; they want good roads, robust water and sewer systems, and responsive police and fire services. That's pretty much it. If the citizens want art and nightlife, they'll create it themselves.
Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 09:06 AM (G8OwX)

I'd say half true.  The original reason cities sprang up was because people needed to be close to their employment.  Before cars freed people to go to the suburbs, most factories wanted to be in a fairly densely populated area so it had access to labor that could actually get to work.  Flour mills, etc.  Also trade grew up in cities for the same reason - access to a lot of customers.

The trade-off was always that so many people crammed together led to higher crime rates, etc., but on the plus side, that many people living close together allowed things like Museums and other art endeavors to be funded.

After the physical need for cities was gone, the left started to romanticize city life.  Now they believe cities are better than burbs because a) mass transit allegedly produced less harmful emissions and b) they tend to be liberal.

Now, with the cost of rent, the decaying infrastructure, the cost of transportation, and taxes and regulations in city areas, no manufacturer or large employer really wants to be in a City if they can help it.  So, cities will continue to corrode.

But, cities are the left's only true base of power.  That is where liberalism lies.  And liberalism lies in the cities because the cities cannot survive without tons of gov't spending.  So, city people worship gov't.  It provides for them and it is the only thing that can keep the city alive.  Think about it - a suburb could survive without much of a town or county gov't.  but a City needs big gov't for everything - they need a lot of police much more than a suburb does.  They need mass transit to keep running.  their water and sewer needs are much, much greater and troublesome. Same with trash pick-up.  Many of those things could be dealt with by individuals not living in the city if the need really arose.  Not so in a City.

So, now that Cities are truly dying, the left has to find ways to prop them up.  and thus regionalism.  Trying to force suburbs to pay for all of the city's expenses.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:21 AM (sOx93)

117 And I look 15, so there's that. Get off my lawn.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:22 AM (GQ8sn)

118 "Death Race 2000 and The Running Man USED to be fictional accounts of a dystopian future. Now they read more like the Thursday night lineup on NBC.
Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 08:47 AM"


Assuming we could fill the ranks of the players with Detroit politicians and other such Democrat riffraff, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:22 AM (knoK7)

119 So in essence NYC has two police forces one that works one that doesn't. Are we sure one of them works?

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie ® at August 07, 2013 05:23 AM (1hM1d)

120 114 I for one will not live in a municipality for the privilege of paying for inflated pensions of government workers. Nope. Not gonna do it. Posted by: TexBob at August 07, 2013 09:13 AM (q4HPx) If idiots like Reich are already floating the idea of arbitrarily redrawing city limits, how soon before some solon proposes an "exit tax" on people, based on the projected amount of money you would have contributed to the place you're leaving if you had stayed? Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 09:20 AM (zF6Iw) California, if I recall correctly, is way ahead of you.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:23 AM (AO9UG)

121 Thanks for that vignette.

This look into your past (if a true story) gives us an insight into how it seems that you take such delight in being a cassandra and wanting to blame old people.

tsk, tsk.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That (Ecclesiates 9:11) at August 07, 2013 05:24 AM (28TG+)

122 Reich lives in Elysium but he sees how it could all crumble.  So he plays games with peoples lives just to keep himself well coddled while preening into the mirrors of Versailles telling himself how clever he is.  Reality cares not for clever unless its a clever way to survive and what Reich does it not clever in that way.

Hey you thief, how about those billions you talked Clinton into sending to bail out Mexico and your Wall Street buddies.  How much did you get from that?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:24 AM (vXdad)

123 There should be no such thing as a fixed benefit pension, because it is impossible in the real world. A fixed benefit pension assumes (wrongly) that the entity promising it will always grow and always be flush with money. No fixed benefit pension plan ever invests enough (and frankly cannot - the amount required to invest to match the benefit promised is usually way too high).

Only fixed contribution plans should be allowed. The contribution goes in, it is invested, and you have whatever you have at retirement. That also forces municipalities and states to actually pay current dollars into the pension system for benefits they are promising, rather than making promises for payment 30 years from now - which as we see, doesn't work.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:10 AM (sOx93)


You just restated what I said.  My employer funds a pension for us--with real money invested properly.  They are an evil insurance company with dozens of actuaries to tell them how math/obligations work, so they know what the hell they are doing.  When I retire, I can choose a lump sum or a monthly check.  I have structured some annuities in my private portfolio.  I understand them, I know how they work.


What does not work is what the public pension plans do--a Ponzi scheme where every single dollar coming in the door is already pledged to pay several someones who already retired.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:24 AM (kXoT0)

124 I'm late to this party, but.....excellent post.

"Bankruptcy is an acknowledgment that many promises will be, must be, broken if the city is to survive."

This is a huge point, and one that will have tremendous repercussions if not done according to the rule of law.

Risk (debt) is evaluated by the financial markets according to the probability of repayment. Obama started the chaos on its merry way through our markets when he paid his union cronies at GM, rather than do it the way our markets expected.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 05:24 AM (gqgiP)

125 Get off my lawn.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:22 AM (GQ8sn)

I said 'look,' not 'am,' but I suppose for someone half as old as Vic, that's a distinction without a difference...

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:25 AM (fwARV)

126 RE: Battle Royale. I nearly fell over when that popped up in my instant streaming recs on Netflix. I distinctly remember watching a somewhat grainy bootleg copy because it wasn't officially released in the US for years and years. Now, "we think you might like to watch these teenagers kill each other but we actually show you the blood and stuff because we aren't wimps like the US". Ah, but they won't. They never learn. Once the suburbs are empty they'll just extend the tentacles further, to encompass the NEW suburbs. What I love is the implication that this is something Detroit can just DO. "We need more money. Okay, we'll just say the suburbs are part of the city. Then their taxes are our taxes. Problem solved." Reich is an ignorant little shit. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:03 AM (4df7R) Is it California that is or was considering implementing a confiscatory "exit fee" when people moved out of state? I love the presumption that people who moved once won't move again. Make it painful enough and people will do whatever they have to do to get away.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 05:25 AM (VtjlW)

127 Instead of annexing the suburbs, the county or state should abolish the municipal government and eliminate that expensive 18th c. albatross.

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 05:25 AM (3ZtZW)

128 And I look 15, so there's that.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 09:21 AM (fwARV)

 

Noooo, you look at least 18.     Otherwise I'll feel like a total perv.  

 

Assuming we could fill the ranks of the players with Detroit politicians and other such Democrat riffraff, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea.


 

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 09:22 AM (knoK7)

 

Oh   man.   Host a competition in every failing city.   Wouldn't you love to see Rahm Emmanuel running    through the streets of Chicago in a desperate attempt to outrun a    modified    Dodge Dart outfitted with    harpoons?

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (4df7R)

129 >>> Whining about how you got screwed is not a survival tactic. There is no more money and no one is coming to help you. You on vacation? You sound relaxed, almost laid back.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (z9HTb)

130 "Half the people you are talking about literally can't read or write and all most all of them have lived off welfare for generations."

--------

In economic terms, this is called "human capital", and it's the primary reason a broken city like Detroit probably can't be mended. A city is the people who live in it, not the buildings or roads or bridges it contains. If you put a collection of hard-working, responsible, ethical people into a broken city, they can probably get it working again -- not because they're feeling generous, but because it's in their own self-interest to do so.

But a city whose citizens cannot read or write, are elderly and/or infirm, who depend on the government for the necessaries of life: the self-interest of people like this is not to fix or reform the city, but to find someone else to do it. But what would make smart, responsible, ethical people want to move to a dysfunctional hellhole?

That's the paradox: when a city loses that ephemeral "quality of life" property, it's incredibly hard -- often impossible -- to get it back. Because the people who could improve the quality of life have long since decamped for better places.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (G8OwX)

131 >>And can Minneapolis and Saint Paul annex parts of Western Wisconsin?

That may already be in the works with Minnesota's regional plan, Thrive MSP 2040: http://m.startribune.com/opinion/?id=218173402&c=y

Posted by: Lizzy at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (CzGy/)

132 If that were part of the original contract, okay.

Otherwise, fuck that shit.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 09:11 AM (AO9UG)[/]

2 things.  (1) contracts are fairly meaningless when in bankruptcy and (2) the reality is that said contracts were fraudulently entered into by politicians on behalf of management.  Management is supposed to protect the public fisc.  But instead, in public employee union situations, management (Mayors, governors, etc.) need the public employee union's donations and support and thus, give them what they want - in other words, they breached their fiduciary duty to the taxpayers by agreeing to unreasonable contracts in the first instance, and both sides knew this - the union and management. 


There was never anyone representing the taxpayer at these negotiations of public employee union collective bargaining agreements.  That is why public employees are wayyyyyyyyy overpaid for almost every job and why they get benefits wayyyyy better than private sector employees and why these pensions are so ridiculous that most of us don't care if retirees lose a lot of their promised benefits.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (sOx93)

133 Outstanding post, Monty.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (zoehZ)

134 Thereby more or less tossing the whole concept of "sacred" out the window.
Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:20 AM (4df7R)

** Sigh, you truly GET me.  I swear we are sisters.  Have some champagne and chocolate. **

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:26 AM (kXoT0)

135 You could give Detroit all the wealth in the Galaxy, and it would be broke again in five years. Revenue is not the problem.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:27 AM (AO9UG)

136 MWR only if the Dodge Dart is also playing the Nutcracker.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:27 AM (CzPap)

137 >>Risk (debt) is evaluated by the financial markets according to the probability of repayment. Obama started the chaos on its merry way through our markets when he paid his union cronies at GM, rather than do it the way our markets expected. And what escaped so many, particularly those on the left who only saw a winning campaign message, is the dangerous door Obama opened by trashing decades worth of bankruptcy law. If he could so easily ignore the law with the GM bailout what is to stop him when the truly catastrophic stuff with the cities begins to break?

Posted by: JackStraw at August 07, 2013 05:28 AM (g1DWB)

138 Oh man. Host a competition in every failing city. Wouldn't you love to see Rahm Emmanuel running through the streets of Chicago in a desperate attempt to outrun a modified Dodge Dart outfitted with harpoons?

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:26 AM (4df7R)


With "Tiny Dancer" wailing out of speakers on the black helicopter gunship tracking the whole thing!  Make it all the Emmanuel brothers while we are at it.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:29 AM (kXoT0)

139 Monkeytoe, you have to put the slash before the i to close the italics tag. Or else, you should just take out a mortgage in the barrel.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:29 AM (GQ8sn)

140 Over half the nation, however, thinks it's totally fine *** Including some Nobel laureate economists.

Posted by: WalrusRex at August 07, 2013 05:29 AM (wcBFU)

141 The workers spent decades elevating the Union leaders/politicians that would promise them what they wanted, all coming from the pockets of the taxpayer, in exchange for power. Of course the Unions/pols promised the moon, they knew they weren't on the hook. And the employees knew it and kept going to the well, completely bypassing the vast majority of the citizens. It's not a fucking secret, the same people have making these promises publicly for decades.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 05:30 AM (ZshNr)

142 If idiots like Reich are already floating the idea of arbitrarily redrawing city limits, how soon before some solon proposes an "exit tax" on people, based on the projected amount of money you would have contributed to the place you're leaving if you had stayed?
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 09:20 AM (zF6Iw)

I feel relatively secure that will not happen in my little burg in Texas.  My property taxes for the city are very low due to a large retail sales tax base.  The citizens are very active in making sure the city council keeps it that way.

Posted by: TexBob at August 07, 2013 05:30 AM (q4HPx)

143 What sets Battle Royale apart from say Lord of the Flies is the government deliberately selects this class.  It is no accident that the class gets stranded on the island.  And unlike the almost tabula rasa of the school boys, these students are given incentives and means to kill each other.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:30 AM (CzPap)

144 Let 'em get the money from their precious union.

Posted by: AmishDude at August 07, 2013 05:31 AM (xSegX)

145 What sets Battle Royale apart from say Lord of the Flies is the government deliberately selects this class. It is no accident that the class gets stranded on the island. And unlike the almost tabula rasa of the school boys, these students are given incentives and means to kill each other. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:30 AM (CzPap) So spoil a little bit for me: what does the winner get?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:31 AM (GQ8sn)

146 You on vacation? You sound relaxed, almost laid back ----------------- Just got back. Also, Monkeytoe is slicing like a fuckin hammer on this thread.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 05:31 AM (gJ3b4)

147 So spoil a little bit for me: what does the winner get?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:31 AM (GQ8sn)

To live.

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (fwARV)

148 ** Sigh, you truly GET me. I swear we are sisters. Have some champagne and chocolate. **

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 09:26 AM (kXoT0)

 

*clinks glasses*   Cheers, soul sister!

 

 

MWR only if the Dodge Dart is also playing the Nutcracker.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:27 AM (CzPap)

 

"Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" or "Waltz of the Snowflakes?"   I can't decide which would be more    deliciously    droll.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (4df7R)

149 This post kinda reminds me of the comment from Keith Ellison about there being plenty of money out there, it's just that the govt doesn't have it......yet.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (GQ8sn)

150 Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:26 AM (sOx93) The proposal had nothing to do with the nature of the contracts or with the consequences of bankruptcy. It just offered a money-saving act. That act would set a bad precedent or two. Darth Vader liked altering agreements after they were made. Americans can live where they want ad can afford, and their contracts travel with them, for good or ill.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (AO9UG)

151 It is said that when the Roman Scipio Aemilianus surveyed the destruction of Carthage, he wept, because he knew such would be the ultimate fate of Rome. Gaze upon Detroit and weep for our once great country.

Posted by: RS at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (YAGV/)

152 All true Monty, but things happen now with the push of a Key and we should remember to have our leaders keep a forwarding address for the Republic..
Their accountability will be in their lifetime.

Posted by: Wolverine at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (3GuQx)

153 "Wouldn't you love to see Rahm Emmanuel running through the streets of Chicago in a desperate attempt to outrun a modified Dodge Dart outfitted with harpoons? Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:26 AM"

Damn, I love the way you think.  He'd need a tutu, though.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (knoK7)

154 Rahm's brother.  You want the end problem from Vincent Price in The Abominable Doctor Phibes.  Where the doctor has to race a flowing tube of poison to extract a key placed near the heart, if he gets the key then he can pull the patient away from the poison.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:32 AM (CzPap)

155 So spoil a little bit for me: what does the winner get?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:31 AM (GQ8sn)

 

The opportunity to not be dead.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:33 AM (4df7R)

156 "Unless they're all stupid as fucking rocks..."

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 09:15 AM (ZshNr)

Alas; they are, in fact, "stupid as fucking rocks."

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 05:33 AM (gqgiP)

157 A well written piece.  Nice one, Monty. 

Posted by: Rogue Low-Level Employee at August 07, 2013 05:33 AM (epWQP)

158 EC, 42 are put on the island.  But only 1 can leave.  If someone refuses to kill another student, well they have these nifty exploding collars to solve that moral dilemma.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:34 AM (CzPap)

159 So spoil a little bit for me: what does the winner get? Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:31 AM (GQ8sn) The opportunity to not be dead. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:33 AM (4df7R) That's it?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:34 AM (GQ8sn)

160 Monty's fatal flaw in this otherwise excellent post is that he forgot to blame the Joooos.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 05:35 AM (gqgiP)

161 Damn, I love the way you think. He'd need a tutu, though.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 09:32 AM (knoK7)

 

And    one of those magic wands you buy in the dress-up   aisle    of department store toy    sections,   with a wooden dowel for the handle and a sparkly gold star with three shimmery satin streamers.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:35 AM (4df7R)

162 Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:34 AM (GQ8sn)

And a set of steak knives.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 05:35 AM (gqgiP)

163 OT:  Said one resident of Martha's Vinyard about Obama - 'He really needs to find another place to go. He treats people here terribly'...

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 05:35 AM (fwARV)

164 114 If idiots like Reich are already floating the idea of arbitrarily redrawing city limits, how soon before some solon proposes an "exit tax" on people, based on the projected amount of money you would have contributed to the place you're leaving if you had stayed? Schwartzenegger ran that one up the flagpoe a few years ago.

Posted by: Anachronda at August 07, 2013 05:35 AM (U82Km)

165 EC, 42 are put on the island. But only 1 can leave. If someone refuses to kill another student, well they have these nifty exploding collars to solve that moral dilemma. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:34 AM (CzPap) So the winner doesn't get a spa vacation, a home version of the game, or appearances on GMA? The whole BR exercise is more a young population control mechanism?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (GQ8sn)

166 MWR, I vote for Sugarplum Fairy.  Just for the contrast between the tone of the music versus this being life or death.  And there is no cake in this.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (CzPap)

167 That's it?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:34 AM (GQ8sn)

 

They also get a pension.

 

That's it.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (4df7R)

168

Thanks for that vignette.

This look into your past (if a true story) gives us an insight into how it seems that you take such delight in being a cassandra and wanting to blame old people.

tsk, tsk.

 

Midol not working this morning, sugar tits?

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (zF6Iw)

169 "Is it California that is or was considering implementing a confiscatory "exit fee" when people moved out of state? Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 09:25 AM"

Reminds me of Client 9 in his AG days, threatening to prosecute any NY business that dissolved, moved and reincorporated in another state to take advantage of more favorable tax laws.  The sheer brazen lawlessness is breathtaking.  Hell, the AG's office under Spitzer should have been the target of a RICO probe.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (knoK7)

170 The proposal had nothing to do with the nature of the contracts or with the consequences of bankruptcy. It just offered a money-saving act.

That act would set a bad precedent or two.

Darth Vader liked altering agreements after they were made.

Americans can live where they want ad can afford, and their contracts travel with them, for good or ill.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 09:32 AM (AO9UG)


Is any of the above supposed to mean something?  "The proposal has nothing to do with the nature of the contracts. . . "  What do you think that means?

What would set a bad precedent?  Bankruptcy?  I think bankruptcy is pretty well set in statute and precedent.  Not sure what you are talking about.

Your contract may travel with you, but if one party to the contract declares bankruptcy, it isn't going to do you a lot of good.

So, not sure what you think your point is.  My point remains, the contracts were fraudulent to begin with, thus most Americans have little sympathy for public employee retirees losing some of their pensions in a City bankruptcy proceeding.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:36 AM (sOx93)

171 Interesting analogy, as the public sector unions are much like children, though generally more lazy and dishonest.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 05:37 AM (mSAq8)

172 "And there is no cake in this.
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:36 AM"

No cake?  But the driver will be hungry later.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:37 AM (knoK7)

173 Alas; they are, in fact, "stupid as fucking rocks."

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 09:33 AM (gqgiP)

Actually, they aspire to be the intellectual equal of rocks.  Rocks at least have some intrinsic value, no matter how small.  A meat sack sucking away at a crack pipe not so much--despite being "human", they are a very large net negative on society as a whole.  At some point being a vector point for crime, disease, poverty, and despair renders you a threat to the common good.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:37 AM (kXoT0)

174 OT: Said one resident of Martha's Vinyard about Obama - 'He really needs to find another place to go. He treats people
here terribly'...

Posted by: Washington Nearsider, The Colossus of Independence at August 07, 2013 09:35 AM (fwARV)

 

 

*POINTS AND LAUGHS AT THE VINEYARD!*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:37 AM (4df7R)

175

19..."Taxpayers are viewed not as masters, but as cud-chewing cows to be milked as needed."

Sad but so true

---

Come on, milk my teat. Maybe you'll get milk This Time.

Posted by: Buzzsaw90 at August 07, 2013 05:38 AM (SO2Q8)

176

Semi-OT, but in the sidebar is a link to some late 19th / early 20th century photographs.  Some in there are of Detroit.

 

And when you look at the city today compared to 100 years ago, it makes you even more sad over what mismanagement has done to that place.

Posted by: @JohnTant at August 07, 2013 05:38 AM (eytER)

177 What this city needs is Bruce Wayne.

Posted by: The Commish at August 07, 2013 05:38 AM (UzPAd)

178 "And one of those magic wands you buy in the dress-up aisle of department store toy sections, with a wooden dowel for the handle and a sparkly gold star with three shimmery satin streamers. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:35 AM"

*chuckles evilly*  Perfect.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:38 AM (knoK7)

179 Nearsider, you mean Gaylord has been taking deportment and manner lessons from Jena Francois Kerry?  Plus the fact that his visit totally clogs the island and cuts into the island's summer revenue stream.  Government rate does not equal the rate they can charge well heeled idiots.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:39 AM (CzPap)

180 What this city needs is Bruce Wayne The League of Shadows. Posted by: The Commish at August 07, 2013 09:38 AM (UzPAd) Fixed.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:39 AM (GQ8sn)

181 endless fonts: founts? (Something other than Comic Sans, adds the Mrs.) "Above and beyond all else, though, what we are finding is that debt-financed spending is a disastrous way to run an economy." Y'think? Math is harrrrd. Governments should administer justice, defend & police. Everything else, almost, fire, water, infrastructure, postal service, yes even parking spaces, can be dealt with in a different manner. But once you've got that gov't-services camel's nose in the tent... everyone is at the trough. Excellent overview, Monty. I never got my kids to Disneyland. Yet, years later, they live. :/

Posted by: mindful webworker, professional amateur at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (CNuph)

182

Thanks for that vignette.This look into your past (if a true story) gives us an insight into how it seems that you take such delight in being a cassandra and wanting to blame old people.tsk, tsk

 

You'd    ALMOST have a point,    except for the fact taht absolutely everything you said is completely wrong.   But thanks for playing!    Help yourself to some cake or death on the way out.*

 

*We're out of cake.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (4df7R)

183 Magical Evil Sugar Fairy Rahm

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (CzPap)

184 Awesome to have you back around Monty.  Your work is some of my favorite always thought provoking........Moar please.

Posted by: FITP at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (WcRGy)

185 We're out of cake. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:40 AM (4df7R) I was promised cake.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (GQ8sn)

186 162 Monty's fatal flaw in this otherwise excellent post is that he forgot to blame the Joooos Everything has to be about YOU, doesn't it?

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 05:40 AM (z9HTb)

187 ...or Snake Plisskin. (and Adrienne Barbeau)

Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 05:41 AM (U7X2u)

188 t?;dr

Posted by: [/i][/b][/s]akula_51 at August 07, 2013 05:41 AM (4p5/2)

189 Maybe your lazy ass mom should have gotten another job and boot strapped her way out of breaking promises?

Posted by: palooka at August 07, 2013 05:41 AM (aNlIg)

190 Interesting analogy, as the public sector unions are much like children, though generally more lazy and dishonest.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 09:37 AM (mSAq

 

*climbs on soapbox*

 

DISBAND AND DISMANTLE ALL UNIONS!!!

 

*leaps down   and kicks   SEIU   inna crotch*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:42 AM (4df7R)

191 Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:36 AM (sOx93) Someone proposed reducing pension payments by 50% if the pensioner moved away. I am saying doing such a thing is outside the boundaries of bankruptcy and alters a contract after the fact. It also binds Americans to a particular place by coercion.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:42 AM (AO9UG)

192 ...or Snake Plisskin. (and Adrienne Barbeau) Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 09:41 AM (U7X2u) If they ever re-make Escape From NY (one of my all-time movies), they should rename it Escape From Detroit because it just works.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:42 AM (GQ8sn)

193 What this city needs is Bruce Wayne.

Posted by: The Commish at August 07, 2013 09:38 AM (UzPAd)

 

He'd be bankrupt in a week.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:42 AM (4df7R)

194 Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 09:42 AM (AO9UG)

OK.  Sorry. Did not get what you were responding to.  Makes sense now.

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:43 AM (sOx93)

195 Don't laugh. A reboot of Escape from New York is in the works. They destroy everything that is sacred.

Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 05:43 AM (U7X2u)

196 *POINTS AND LAUGHS AT THE VINEYARD!*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:37 AM (4df7R)

 

I was born and raised in Massachusetts.  I have never been to the Vineyard or Nantucket or the Cape in my life.  I intend to keep it that way.

 

You voted for him.  Now kneel before Zod, plebes!

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 05:43 AM (zF6Iw)

197 Tying this thread and the previous one together:

Our commissary has had its days and hours cut. It's now open Wed-Sun, 0700-1900. Guess what? These hours are highly inconvenient for the primary benefit holders, active duty members and their families. But it is convenient for the (you guessed it) retirees who get on base once a week during business hours and load up their carts for themselves and their kids and their grandkids and whoever else they can think of. Sure, promises were made to retirees. But the commissary and BX were not built for them, and now active duty gets to scramble to obtain basic supplies after dealing all day with being told they can't do their mission due to sequestration.

*sends Hex outside to retrieve a bunny for a format sacrifice to The Blog Gods*

Posted by: pookysgirl at August 07, 2013 05:43 AM (kMnHs)

198 Don't laugh. A reboot of Escape from New York is in the works. They destroy everything that is sacred. Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 09:43 AM (U7X2u) Last I heard, they were still in the proposal phase. Maybe it will happen, maybe not.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:43 AM (GQ8sn)

199 Speaking of people that are as stupid as rocks.  Homeowners near John Wayne airport are forcing the airport to change the pattern again to lessen the noise that offends them.

They want jets departing John Wayne to follow a satellite-guided slalom course that will keep them over the bay and away from the homes that line its shores.

http://tinyurl.com/mzbccys

I have an easier solution, how about you idiots move.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (CzPap)

200 I'd go to decaf.

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (wR+pz)

201

I was promised cake.

 

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:40 AM (GQ8sn)

 

 

We only had three bits and we didn't expect such a rush.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (4df7R)

202 Posted by: palooka at August 07, 2013 09:41 AM (aNlIg) Insipiring. I'm going to the next Selectmen's meeting and demanding that they raise my taxes.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (z9HTb)

203 Monty,

that experience with you as a kid?  you really know how to write, dude.  got angry myself for that little kid and then got something in my eye and had to go get it out before I could finish up.   Great post man.  

Posted by: no one of consequence at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (whMsz)

204

Especially interesting is the case of public sector unions.   Look at Detroit.     Essentially, they negotiated with the politicians they funded with    political donations, to determine how much a third party (the taxpayer)   would pay.  When the taxpayer found out, they decided to leave if they were able, and the tax base collapsed.  In response, Detroit raised the tax rates until today they are amongst the highest, yet the bills still cannot be paid.

 

There is a solution for Detroit, just like there is one for a business.  They own enough art to pay off their debts and to re-fund  their retirement system, but they refuse to.  Perhaps a bankruptcy court will impose the   solution they refuse.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 05:44 AM (mSAq8)

205
I have an easier solution, how about you idiots move.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:44 AM (CzPap)

 

Which was first, the homes or the airport?

Posted by: Colorado Alex at August 07, 2013 05:45 AM (lr3d7)

206 196 Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 09:42 AM (AO9UG) OK. Sorry. Did not get what you were responding to. Makes sense now. Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:43 AM (sOx93) Thanks, Monkeytoe.

Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 05:46 AM (AO9UG)

207 There is a solution for Detroit, just like there is one for a business. They own enough art to pay off their debts and to re-fund their retirement system, but they refuse to. Perhaps a bankruptcy court will impose the solution they refuse.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 09:44 AM (mSAq

 

They're bringing Christie's in to do an appraisal of their art. 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:47 AM (4df7R)

208 There is a solution for Detroit, just like there is one for a business. They own enough art to pay off their debts and to re-fund their retirement system, but they refuse to. Perhaps a bankruptcy court will impose the solution they refuse.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 09:44 AM (mSAq


Yeah and then we will have to listen to grievance mongers from the "community" whine about the sale of "their" art and then propose that every resident of Detroit get a slice of the sale.  Note that I did not say every taxpayer in Detroit.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:47 AM (kXoT0)

209 And just so y'all know, the title of this post is going to have me humming "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" for the rest of the day.  Fucking Green    Day.     Commie asshole pikers.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:48 AM (4df7R)

210 They're bringing Christie's in to do an appraisal of their art.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:47 AM (4df7R)

Yeah, all that gorgeous art donated by evil capitalist pigs.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:48 AM (kXoT0)

211 What kind of art are we talking about? Originals from Jan Vermeer or some gigantic boulder on some rails?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:48 AM (GQ8sn)

212 Colorado Alex I really don't care.  The monied idiots in Newport already make the pilots firewall the throttles for a rapid ascent.  Then to lessen the noise over their million dollar houses the pilots have to throttle back.  Which makes the passengers kinda float for a second.  These selfish monied idiots are endangering the lives of innocents.  When its abundantly clear they have enough resources to move and build a new mansion.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:48 AM (CzPap)

213 >>There is a solution for Detroit, just like there is one for a business. They own enough art to pay off their debts and to re-fund their retirement system, but they refuse to. Perhaps a bankruptcy court will impose the solution they refuse. It's not really a solution, its a temporary stop-gap. Detroit, like every other city facing bankruptcy has a revenue/payment imbalance. Until that is addressed they are just throwing good money after bad.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 07, 2013 05:49 AM (g1DWB)

214 Fucking Green Day. Commie asshole pikers.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:48 AM (4df7R)


It is also Unity In Diversity day.  They can bite my pretty pink whatever and then get off my lawn.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:49 AM (kXoT0)

215 Cause if it's a Vermeer, I'll pay pennies on the dollar to get one for the wife. She like Vermeer.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (GQ8sn)

216 Midol not working this morning, sugar tits?

--------

Play nice, kids. Yellow light is flashing. You don't want to see it go red.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (G8OwX)

217 Yeah and then we will have to listen to grievance mongers from the "community" whine about the sale of "their" art and then propose that every resident of Detroit get a slice of the sale. Note that I did not say every taxpayer in Detroit.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 09:47 AM (kXoT0)

 

I find it distasteful that a CITY owns art.  Unless it commissioned that art   it has no business owning any.  That's not what taxpayers pay taxes for.  You want to hang up a    reprint of a Rembrandt in your city hall?  Fine.   You want to hang up an actual Rembrandt?  Fuck you no.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (4df7R)

218 Hey MWR did you ever get to look at those boots I linked to?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (CzPap)

219 So DETROIT! is going to annex the suburbs. Let's look at the numbers.
DETROIT! has roughly 700,000 people. The larger urban area has 3.7 million.

So, the ballot box won't work when you are out voted 5 to 1, and the people who live in the suburbs know all about DETROIT!. So you might try guilt, making the rich, white, democrats in the suburbs feel guilty about the circumstances in DETROIT!; the corrupt politicians, the crime, the pensions, the urban devastation. Except the suburbs know about DETROIT! because a good many of them used to live there.

So you might try shaming the suburbs into paying money to DETROIT!, except the suburbs know all about the situation there. So perhaps you could threaten violence; it used to work, except you are outnumbered 5 to 1 remember?

Except the suburbs know all about it. The scams don't work anymore.

Posted by: Demographics for the win at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (zQnZk)

220 Our commissary has had its days and hours cut. It's now open Wed-Sun, 0700-1900. Guess what? These hours are highly inconvenient for the primary benefit holders, active duty members and their families. But it is convenient for the (you guessed it) retirees who get on base once a week during business hours and load up their carts for themselves and their kids and their grandkids and whoever else they can think of. Sure, promises were made to retirees. But the commissary and BX were not built for them, and now active duty gets to scramble to obtain basic supplies after dealing all day with being told they can't do their mission due to sequestration.
Posted by: pookysgirl at August 07, 2013 09:43 AM (kMnHs)

Not arguing against your main point, which I agree with, but a side note/question:  when I was in the service, I found that the only things at the PX/Commissary that were actually cheaper than you could buy on the economy (in the U.S.) were tobacco and alcohol.  Pretty much everything else you could find at the same price or lower at most stores (this was mostly because sin taxes were so high on tobacco and alcohol). For instance, in most states, food isn't taxed, so there was no real savings at the commissary.  Is that still the case?

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 05:50 AM (sOx93)

221 My oldest got his first job. He worked a couple of days his first week and proudly proclaimed he would be paid 64 dollars. I told him he earned 64 dollars but after FICA, Social security and other taxes were taken out he would be paid much less. He was stunned My mother "helpfully" pointed out that the government takes out the money as forced savings because he would need it someday when he gets older She is an idiot. His money is going to people her age. She is drawing far more than she ever paid in. He will never see any of it. In fact, he needs to plan his future without it. How do you tell a parent that they are taking from their grandchildren

Posted by: Thunderb at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (HhOPl)

222

Just like Coleman Young set Detroit on its fiscally ridiculous path, we had the same thing in Lee. P. Brown in Houston.  Beginning in 2003 he set the pensions and retirees health care on the same destructive path.  Pension contributions went from the classic 10% of payroll to a whopping 53% in the first year.  He set the guaranteed growth at 12% and did not fully fund the plans after the first year as well.

10 years later Houston is carrying $6 billion in unfunded liabilities.  If your looking to move down here stay in the suburbs because it will hit this town too.

Posted by: DanMan at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (RusNE)

223

Anna,

 

I don't give a flying fuck about the lives of passengers if the airport was built after the community.  You want to build an airport in an already established community?  You agree to their fucking rules.  If the houses came after the airport, then yes the owners should move.  They new the risks when they bought property near an airport.

Posted by: Colorado Alex at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (lr3d7)

224 MWR, your legs cannot reach high enough for crotch kicking. Let's stay reasonable here.

Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (659DL)

225 What kind of art are we talking about? Originals from Jan Vermeer or some gigantic boulder on some rails?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:48 AM (GQ8sn)

-

They have several very famous pieces, among them Van Gogh's self portrait.  Just the assets in the art museum are valued at over 2 billion.  When you are facing bankruptcy, you sell assets if you are a business, don't know why a city should be treated differently.  I'm sure their zoo could have a sale too.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (mSAq8)

226 We have a Sydney Leathers economy. Cash out now and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

Posted by: WalrusRex at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (ee9LE)

227 Excellent thoughtful post. One of the best in a while!!!

Posted by: Aaron at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (8NiWI)

228

As I've mentioned before, Detroit could be a thriving city in just a few years if they just changed a few things.

 

The main thing is to totally eliminate the public school system.  Cut a deal with the state to provide a pure voucher and let the free market take over.

 

If this is done, people will sacrifice everything else to provide their kids with the best education possible.  Urban pioneers will flood the city and price the bad elements out in no time.

 

The only way to get people to live in a city is to provide something they desperately want.  Education is it.

Posted by: jwest at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (u2a4R)

229

I disagree with the broken mom promise  metaphor  in  that I  think that  the government should live up to their  promises  to its citizen workers  but that in these cases of broken cities,  the  problem is they OVER promised from the start.  

 

Its more akin to your mom promising to  buy you  a Corvette if you brought home A's and B's.    She couldn't afford that even if the times were great.   

Posted by: polynikes at August 07, 2013 05:51 AM (m2CN7)

230 Problem is that Detroit likely doesnt even own most of the art. Apparently 'donated' art is typically set up as a trust, with ownership remaining with the trust and not the museum. That way, bankruptcy/closure won't result in the artwork going somewhere that the trustee doesn't agree to. I don't know the details, but that is what I read in an article yesterday.

Posted by: In Exile at August 07, 2013 05:52 AM (AwxCS)

231

She is an idiot. His money is going to people her age. She is drawing far more than she ever paid in. He will never see any of it. In fact, he needs to plan his future without it.

 

This drives me nuts.     My own parents fall into this same trap, and my dad    is   in every other way a conservative.  He's more conservative than ME.   

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:52 AM (4df7R)

232 The answer to the taxpayer not giving me all the money I feel I deserve is, of course, that the taxpayer is racist. It just makes me so sweaty thinking about it.

Posted by: Karen Lewis At Large, really, really large at August 07, 2013 05:52 AM (a85rq)

233 "Who is included in the socialist contract?" - Robert B. Reich via MWR FIFY, RBR. Social is a different contract than Bob's.

Posted by: mindful webworker, significant other at August 07, 2013 05:53 AM (u1ZOY)

234 10 years later Houston is carrying $6 billion in unfunded liabilities. If your looking to move down here stay in the suburbs because it will hit this town too.

Posted by: DanMan at August 07, 2013 09:51 AM (RusNE)

-

The problem with that is that Houston has the right to annex the suburbs; I sure hope the Detroit suburbs are not in the same position.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 05:53 AM (mSAq8)

235 MWR, your legs cannot reach high enough for crotch kicking. Let's stay reasonable here.

Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at August 07, 2013 09:51 AM (659DL)

 

Ah, you are confusing me with our petite queen, AtC.   I, on the other hand,    have plenty of leg    with which to kick crotches.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:53 AM (4df7R)

236 Where's the headlines post?

/rattles cup against bars

Posted by: Waterhouse at August 07, 2013 05:54 AM (uYaYO)

237 The promises can't be kept, so they won't be kept. It's that simple. The promises were ludicrously irresponsible, and should never have been made in the first place. But when public unions buy politicians, this is what happens. The politicians give the unions what they want -- and pay little attention (if any) to what the taxpayers can actually afford.

Posted by: Trivial Pursuer at August 07, 2013 05:54 AM (/sohm)

238

[iWhere's the headlines post?



/rattles cup against bars


 

Posted by: Waterhouse at August 07, 2013 09:54 AM (uYaYO) [/i]

 

 

I don't know why, but I find that adorable.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:54 AM (4df7R)

239 If this is done, people will sacrifice everything else to provide their kids with the best education possible.

Hahahahaaahaha. No.

You *really* think that the welfare queens popping out 5 kids by 5 dads gives a shit about whether or not their kids get an education?

Posted by: GMan at August 07, 2013 05:55 AM (sxq57)

240 Where's the headlines post? /rattles cup against bars Posted by: Waterhouse at August 07, 2013 09:54 AM (uYaYO) I don't know why, but I find that adorable. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:54 AM (4df7R) This cell is for the people who are drunk and do not care.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 05:55 AM (GQ8sn)

241 212 They're bringing Christie's in to do an appraisal of their art. *** I hope for Detroit's sake there are a lot of doughnut pictures.

Posted by: WalrusRex at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (ee9LE)

242

 

*bounds back onto soapbox*

 

DISBAND AND DISMANTLE ALL UNIONS!!!

 

*somersaults down and punches UAW in the face*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (4df7R)

243 You've never been to Cape Cod? That's nuts. If you avoid Provincetown, I can assure you that you'll not find it any more liberal than the rest of the State. In fact, you'll see more American flags and Welcome Home Troops hanging from overpasses than anywhere else I've seen in MA.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (ZshNr)

244

*opens door, peers inside*

 

 

Oh, my.

Posted by: Roy at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (VndSC)

245 Welcome Back Troops signs

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (ZshNr)

246 And just so y'all know, the title of this post is going to have me humming "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" for the rest of the day. Fucking Green Day. Commie asshole pikers.

 

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:48 AM (4df7R)

 

I'll be hearing "The  Greatest Star Of All" from Sunset Boulevard, if that makes you feel any better.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (zF6Iw)

247 I find it distasteful that a CITY owns art. Unless it commissioned that art it has no business owning any. That's not what taxpayers pay taxes for. You want to hang up a reprint of a Rembrandt in your city hall? Fine. You want to hang up an actual Rembrandt? Fuck you no.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:50 AM (4df7R)

There is a Federal law pushed through by Liberals to help artists that states that every public building must be decorated with original artwork worth a percentage of the construction costs.  I forget the percentage.  The law also applies to private buildings that serve the public like corporate headquarters for a publicly traded company.  Most corporations cheerfully buy the art because it is a good investment.  In our headquarters building in Richardson, Texas, the art is so woven into the design that it is simply breathtaking.  Every painting, sculpture, etc is perfectly lit in a space designed around it--it is something to see.  Our building here in Tulsa, same thing.  I have three orignal giclee prints right next to my desk.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 05:56 AM (kXoT0)

248 got angry myself for that little kid and then got something in my eye and had to go get it out before I could finish up.

--------

It's one of those things I apologized to my mom for years later after I had grown up. I knew we were poor when I was a kid, of course (it was kind of hard to miss), but I never quite connected that fact with stuff like Christmas presents, new clothes, a new toy I wanted, or whatever. My mom told me later how shitty she felt -- not just for breaking her promise, but for getting pissed off at me and grounding me.

Believe me, this is one of the episodes in my life I wish I could go back in time and change. I wish I could go back to the kid I was, and instead of getting mad I'd shrug it off, give her a big hug, and ask her to come outside with me and take a walk down by the river.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 05:57 AM (G8OwX)

249 I'm sure it's been mentioned but needs repeating: According to the leftists, these cities have plenty of money . . . it's just in the hands of other people right now.

BTW: Property taxes ought to be unconstitutional as a violation of equal protection--so long as non-property owners are allowed to vote.

Posted by: RoyalOil at August 07, 2013 05:57 AM (VjL9S)

250 Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 09:50 AM (G8OwX)

Can I play with the siren? Please? Please?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (gqgiP)

251

They can bite my pretty pink whatever and then get off my lawn.

 

Go on. . .

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (zF6Iw)

252 Save Detroit! Keep the festering wound festering.

Posted by: WalrusRex at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (ee9LE)

253 Colorado Alex. John Wayne started out in WWII as the Santa Ana Army Airfield.  After the war it was turned over to Orange County by the government under stipulation it would remain open for air operations.  With DC-9s operating out of the airport in 1967.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (CzPap)

254 This post needs to go viral. It's that good. Or maybe bad. And both.

Posted by: jwb7605 [i](L.I.B.)[/i][/u][/b] at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (Qxe/p)

255

>>>There is a Federal law pushed through by Liberals to help artists that states that every public building must be decorated with original artwork worth a percentage of the construction costs.

 

 

How about a nice 10 Commandments   fresco, then?

Posted by: Roy at August 07, 2013 05:58 AM (VndSC)

256 "*somersaults down and punches UAW in the face* Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:56 AM"

See?  See?  All of that time on the trampoline has paid off, hasn't it?

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at August 07, 2013 05:59 AM (knoK7)

257 Beeedo. Beeeedo. Beeeedo.

Posted by: Thunderb at August 07, 2013 05:59 AM (HhOPl)

258 >>I'll be hearing "The Greatest Star Of All" from Sunset Boulevard, if that makes you feel any better. Burning Down The House - Talking Heads.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 07, 2013 05:59 AM (g1DWB)

259

Play nice, kids. Yellow light is flashing. You don't want to see it go red.

 

That was actually pretty mild for me, Monty.  The psychotropic drugs are kicking in early today.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 06:00 AM (zF6Iw)

260 121 114 I for one will not live in a municipality for the privilege of paying for inflated pensions of government workers. Nope. Not gonna do it. Posted by: TexBob at August 07, 2013 09:13 AM (q4HPx) If idiots like Reich are already floating the idea of arbitrarily redrawing city limits, how soon before some solon proposes an "exit tax" on people, based on the projected amount of money you would have contributed to the place you're leaving if you had stayed? Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 09:20 AM (zF6Iw) California, if I recall correctly, is way ahead of you. Posted by: eman at August 07, 2013 09:23 AM (AO9UG) That was a trial balloon sent up by Gov Shwartzenpecker before he left office to resume making bad movies. Got shot down but they lust after it.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (MBqvE)

261 Your metaphor mom (not the real one, since I can't judge the actual person) should have sacrificed something else to make sure she didn't irrevocably destroy her child's trust and respect. It's not just a trip to the park. Looking back it's the treasure you hold dear that makes our otherwise miserable and pointless lives bearable. Now Greece, which is a metaphor of the US, which makes mom a metaphor of a metaphor, can't just hold a yard sale, or get an extra freelance gig somewhere or ask her son to deliver newspapers to contribute or forego her own vacation or eat rice and beans a few nights a week to make it happen. What the government CAN do is get its suppressive tentacles out of entrepreneurial orifices. Trash the vast majority of regulations that prevent small businesses from starting up and expanding. Ahem-obamacare-EPA-ahem. Fire the huge army it employs to terrorize the citizens into mindboggling micromanaging compliance. Cut the pensions from here on in. Sell off the ridiculously huge tracts of land the Feds own, both for resource development and for private ownership. A new homesteader program. Cut funding to anything the gov has no business funding like tv shows and puppet performance art and snail mating studies. But the government is still run by can kickers. And they're voted in by spoiled dead-eyed welfare queens and funded by crony capitalists. We are simply outnumbered by the zombie hordes intent on getting their Obama phones.

Posted by: Spamf Roming at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (JKw+Y)

262 I was promised cake. Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 09:40 AM (GQ8sn) The cake is a lie!
Also I did note that we had a delurker above. Bannion! For to be fetching the welcoming box.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (VtjlW)

263

From the sidebar:

 

Let Obama Bore You For 20 Minutes

      Do I have to?

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (4df7R)

264 256 Colorado Alex. John Wayne started out in WWII as the Santa Ana Army Airfield. After the war it was turned over to Orange County by the government under stipulation it would remain open for air operations. With DC-9s operating out of the airport in 1967. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 09:58 AM (CzPap) Not to mention, airplanes are SIGNIFICANTLY quieter today than in the 60's. LA is woefully constricted in airport space because the NIMBY folks oppose expansion to meet the population. LAX is one of the busiest airports in the world, and it is TINY physically.

Posted by: In Exile at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (AwxCS)

265

"You *really* think that the welfare queens popping out 5 kids by 5 dads gives a shit about whether or not their kids get an education?"

 

You're missing the point.

 

No one is saying the current residents give a shit about their kids - they don't.

 

What I'm saying is that if the state allowed the total elimination of the public school system and gave a pure voucher for the equivalent (approximately $24,000/yr/kid), middle class people would line up at the border of 8 Mile Road and enter the city in community wagon trains to establish settlements.

 

The current welfare queens would soon be priced out of the Detroit real estate market and move to a lesser suburb.

Posted by: jwest at August 07, 2013 06:01 AM (u2a4R)

266

You've never been to Cape Cod? That's nuts.

 

It has nothing to do with liberals, otherwise I wouldn't be here.  I don't like beaches.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 06:03 AM (zF6Iw)

267 For to be fetching the welcoming box. Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 10:01 AM (VtjlW) Put your hand in the box.

Posted by: Bene Gesserit Witch at August 07, 2013 06:03 AM (GQ8sn)

268 *couriers over to MPPP, MWR, and AlextheChick cups of coffee and danishes*

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 06:03 AM (CzPap)

269 Put your hand in the box.

Posted by: Bene Gesserit Witch at August 07, 2013 10:03 AM (GQ8sn)

 

"Put your face in the book."

 

-G'kar

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:03 AM (4df7R)

270 It has nothing to do with liberals, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I don't like beaches. Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 10:03 AM (zF6Iw) What if Kate Upton was on it?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (GQ8sn)

271 Fear is the mind killer.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (CzPap)

272 Oh, that makes more sense.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (ZshNr)

273 Bravo! Furious clapping, while standing. Even a "YAHOO!" and a "HALLELUJAH!" Kudos and dittos and whatever that finger thing is that the occutards do. Well done sir. Well done indeed.

Posted by: losthusker at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (VuWJv)

274 Thanks, AP!   Mmm, danish.

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (4df7R)

275 "Put your face in the book." -G'kar Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 10:03 AM (4df7R) Ahh yes. I remember that.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (GQ8sn)

276 His mom was right to tell him the realities. That's life. You assume there is something else she could've cut. Like what? Food or rent? It was reality, it was painful, and he learned from it. Or is it better to live the false reality of a cocooned lie like my mother What nonsense

Posted by: Thunderb at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (HhOPl)

277 Go on. . .

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 09:58 AM (zF6Iw)

I can't.  We were scolded earlier this week for descending into the icky pits of salacious innuendo.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 06:04 AM (kXoT0)

278 Bravo! Furious clapping, while standing. Even a "YAHOO!" and a "HALLELUJAH!" Kudos and dittos and whatever that finger thing is that the occutards do. Well done sir. Well done indeed.

Posted by: losthusker at August 07, 2013 10:04 AM (VuWJv)

 

You mean this?

 

*up    twinkles*

 

It's all in the wrist.

 

*up twinkles*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:05 AM (4df7R)

279 The current welfare queens would soon be priced out of the Detroit real estate market and move to a lesser suburb.

Posted by: jwest at August 07, 2013 10:01 AM (u2a4R)


There are no 'lesser suburb'.  DETROIT! is a far down as you can go, unless you are thinking of exporting citizens to Zimbabwe.

Posted by: Demographics for the win at August 07, 2013 06:05 AM (zQnZk)

280 They own enough art to pay off their debts and to re-fund their retirement system, but they refuse to.

There's a race/class edge to the fight over the art...art is something rich white proggs like, and the people without police/fire services aren't rich whites.

But they've called in Sotheby's to appraise the city's art collection...bargaining stage of grief, I guess.  The folks who've been looting the city for 40 years looted it real good.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at August 07, 2013 06:05 AM (/kI1Q)

281 MWR, the nose in the book penalty.

http://youtu.be/Pcdw3zVJCls

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 06:06 AM (CzPap)

282 We were scolded earlier this week for descending into the icky pits of salacious innuendo. Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 10:04 AM (kXoT0) But it's ok if you're talking about no one in particular or yourself. Targetting someone specifically seems to be a no-no.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 06:06 AM (GQ8sn)

283

You can keep the promises if you are able to keep expanding the scope of those who get robbed to make good on them.   Don't expect them to take it sitting down.  They're not really promises though are they.  They were bribes to get the Democrats in power and now they think everybody should kick in to keep them rolling.  The promises weren't made by the cities or the citizens, and certainly not by the citizens (residents) of other cities.   Fk both the bribers and bribees, neither are innocent.

Posted by: Dirks Strewn at August 07, 2013 06:06 AM (VLifP)

284 From the sidebar:

Let Obama Bore You For 20 Minutes

Do I have to?>>

Only if you don't pay the Speech Skipping Tax.

This is how they can balance the budget.

Posted by: Buzzsaw at August 07, 2013 06:07 AM (wrS2o)

285 But it's ok if you're talking about no one in particular or yourself. Targetting someone specifically seems to be a no-no.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 10:06 AM (GQ8sn)

I am a good girl, I am.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 06:07 AM (kXoT0)

286 Ahh yes. I remember that.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 10:04 AM (GQ8sn)

 

My second favorite    part ever on "B5."  My favorite is Londo complaining about how cold it was in his quarters.

 

"When I said my quarters were cold, I did not mean, 'Oh, I think it's a little chilly in here, perhaps I'll throw a blanket on the bed.' No, I said it was COLD, as in, 'Oh, my left arm has snapped off like an icicle and shattered on the floor.'"

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:07 AM (4df7R)

287 I am a good girl, I am.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 10:07 AM (kXoT0)

 

 

You are a delicate, virtuous flower, like me.  *nod*

 

*fist bump of delicate, virtuous flower solidarity*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:09 AM (4df7R)

288 Dump up!

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit [/s][/b][/u][/i] at August 07, 2013 06:09 AM (4df7R)

289

"There are no 'lesser suburb'. DETROIT! is a far down as you can go, unless you are thinking of exporting citizens to Zimbabwe."

 

If my plan is followed, Detroit would be in the middle of a land rush not seen since the 1840's.  Prices would escalate daily until an equalibrium is found.

 

The downriver communities and other states would absorb the effluent of current residents selling out and moving on.

Posted by: jwest at August 07, 2013 06:09 AM (u2a4R)

290 My second favorite part ever on "B5." My favorite is Londo complaining about how cold it was in his quarters. Peter Jurasik lives near Wilmington, NC I think. I saw him on the local news as a just a regular person that was talking about some news event and his name appeared on the screen. I don't think anyone from the local station knew who he was, but I did. "What do YOU want?"

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 06:09 AM (GQ8sn)

291

; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;" class="MsoNormal">7564 MWR

Actually I think Detroit should attempt to annex the suburbs. Let the wars begin. The rest of the country has plenty of popcorn and beer and will love the entertainment. It will serve as a once the suburbs are deserted, THEN maybe they'll realize it is broke beyond repair.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn

; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;" class="MsoNormal">Eventually they will have to annex the suburbs of Miami and San Diego, if they don't annex the suburbs of Detroit first.

Posted by: Dirks Strewn at August 07, 2013 06:10 AM (VLifP)

292 His mom was right to tell him the realities. That's life. You assume there is something else she could've cut. Like what? Food or rent? It was reality, it was painful, and he learned from it.


Or is it better to live the false reality of a cocooned lie like my mother


What nonsense

Posted by: Thunderb at August 07, 2013 10:04 AM (HhOPl)

 

Well the way the story is written,  it  appears  that mom did not think about the promise again until it came time to pay up.   Once the promise is made, you start from that time preparing to be able to fufill that promise.     That's another thinkg the cities did  not do.   

Posted by: polynikes at August 07, 2013 06:10 AM (m2CN7)

293 Broken promises. Hell, just look at how many marriages end in divorce. A deal is only as good as the partner involved in the making. Consumers purchase "warrantied" items all the time, including automobiles, homes, insurance policies, etc., only to find that there is no warranty given a bankrupted corporation/manufacturer/business. So employees beware the liability of trusting in (union) bargains with employers. The "guarantee" is only as good as the employer's stability. And if the very benefits you rely upon are what breaks the employer's back into bankruptcy, that's business. HOWEVER, if the municipality, government, or business is squandering obscene amounts of money on the highest salaries for the elitists calling the shots that formulated the bargains into bankruptcy, the elitists siphoning their own salaries and BONUSES, sucking everything they can before going belly up, THAT IS WRONG. And I support the ACCOUNTABILITY of leaders, in business, industry, unions or government. Those who make the decisions, those who make the mistakes should be those who PAY for the mistakes and poor decisions. Republicans talk about TORT Reform, as if $250K (only one quarter what Bush gifted like candy to 9/11 global investment employee "more special" victims, buying silence) compensates for YOUR life or YOUR good health if it's YOU that insurance/medical-practitioners abuse, leaving your family with nothing after paying for that medical malpractice cumulative billings. Rather than TORT, I support legislative reform that rescinds protection from top dogs that play pirates and embezzlers in business, insurance and government. Example: why should tax payers provide the millions of dollars in jury verdicts when those leaders (decisions makers paid to be responsible and accountable) who are at fault in government/corporations should FIRST have their entire fortunes and properties confiscated and transferred to the victim for the decision-makers' own personal-professional failings. Imo, there'd be a lot less fraud that way, and a hell of a lot more accountability. And yes, investments would need be more selective and less speculative because the people heading the organizations are the FIRST to be held financially/morally responsible for enterprise failures. Wouldn't be the first time business would be conducted in a business like setting rather than the permeation of fraud bleeding America dry.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 06:10 AM (MhA4j)

294 *fist bump of delicate, virtuous flower solidarity*

Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 10:09 AM (4df7R)


Absoposititively, and I will cut a bitch who says otherwise.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 06:11 AM (kXoT0)

295 Not arguing against your main point, which I agree with, but a side note/question: when I was in the service, I found that the only things at the PX/Commissary that were actually cheaper than you could buy on the economy (in the U.S.) were tobacco and alcohol. Pretty much everything else you could find at the same price or lower at most stores (this was mostly because sin taxes were so high on tobacco and alcohol). For instance, in most states, food isn't taxed, so there was no real savings at the commissary. Is that still the case?

Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:50 AM (sOx93)

 

-------------------------

 

Commissaries and the PX/BX system are a waste of money.  So are Class Six outlets.  All they are is a jobs program for civilian government employees.  Overseas, they have theoretical need for an outlet to provide American goods for American troops, but in reality,  they are a license for foreign workers to outright  steal   those American   goods  and provide shitty service to American servicemen.

 

Want to avoid  alcohol taxes and whatever food taxes there may be  in your post's  locale?  Simple.  Show military  ID at the register.  Works for Injuns and shiftless layabouts with their SNAP cards.

 

Register programming would be a hell of a lot cheaper than running thousands of retail outlets on the taxpayer's dime.  And you'd get better service, too.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 06:12 AM (CJjw5)

296 The problem is political philosophy and nothing else. Liberal politics have become the teet off which its supporters suck, for everything.

Liberalism has promised its adherents that if "we" only take enough from the "rich"or those more well off, if we just tax a bit more, if we spend a bit more money than we have, if we just make a few more sacrifices, if we build a few more "green" cars or windmills, if we just demonize and shame opposition political parties or our neighbors who happen to have a bit more than us- we will have utopia.

It's the big lie and it demands a fair degree of ignorance or blind adherence absent fact, reality and history to keep its despicable, destructive affects rolling.

It's why Democrats support unskilled, low information or unwitting immigrants. Notice how they promise free largess, at the expense of others and then demonize people who inject issues such as common sense and math into the situation. It's why Democrats sell themes and popular culture or use lies, half-truths and their propaganda arm , the mainstream media, to sell their mendacity. Without such accoutrements they would die on the vine from their own ignorance and abject stupidity of their ideas.  

If anything visualizes there is not enough money, and you can't steal from other people to meet a level of fictitious, utopian foolishness that Democrats promise- it's Detroit. And trust me, there is more in the offing.

Do I feel bad for these people? Well, some, perhaps. But there are a whole slew of them who knew these benefits were gotten by stealing, foolishly from the taxpayers and they cared not for the future. They just didn't think the music would stop while they were still. To them I say- suck it. Enjoy the fruits of your handiwork and foolishness.

Personally,  I think they should treat Detroit like Carthage and salt the earth so generations can see what liberal policies and utopian promises that Democrats sell to the unknowing, unwitting or uncaring bring- scorched earth destruction.  

Posted by: Marcus at August 07, 2013 06:12 AM (GGCsk)

297 Over half the nation, however, thinks it's totally fine, and there is nothing we can say or do that will convince them otherwise. Nothing.
============
That right there is the worst part.

I could live with ignorance. Hey, they just don't know but they could be educated.

But, we are not dealing with ignorance--we are dealing with maliciousness; an intentional refusal to consider any other view.

But it goes a deadly and dangerous step further--it blames those who dissent for the failures as they start to trickle through.

It's the driver blaming the stop sign for their crash, jumping out of the mangled wreck, ignoring the dead they just T-boned and beating the sign with their tire iron.

Posted by: RoyalOil at August 07, 2013 06:13 AM (VjL9S)

298 Actually I think Detroit should attempt to annex the suburbs. Let the wars begin. The rest of the country has plenty of popcorn and beer and will love the entertainment. It will serve as a once the suburbs are deserted, THEN maybe they'll realize it is broke beyond repair.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 07, 2013 09:01 AM (Bl77Y)

Ah, but they won't. They never learn. Once the suburbs are empty they'll just extend the tentacles further, to encompass the NEW suburbs.

Currently, the "suburbs" extend as far as Brighton... which is about 60 miles away from the city of Detroit.

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at August 07, 2013 06:15 AM (QXlbZ)

299

>>>But, we are not dealing with ignorance--we are dealing with maliciousness; an intentional refusal to consider any other view.

 

 

And for that, I will destroy them.

Posted by: Arithmetic at August 07, 2013 06:15 AM (VndSC)

300 Don't sell the line that it's none of the taxpayer's or consumer's business how much the Mayor earns, or top positions in governance, in public education, OR IN BUSINESS. If there aren't sufficient funds to pay the laborers, it's administration that should get the salary/benefit axe FIRST. There are a LOT of highly qualified individuals prepared to do the work for less money. Show the top dogs their scab competition. Goose, gander.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 06:15 AM (MhA4j)

301 Your metaphor mom (not the real one, since I can't judge the actual person) should have sacrificed something else to make sure she didn't irrevocably destroy her child's trust and respect. It's not just a trip to the park. Looking back it's the treasure you hold dear that makes our otherwise miserable and pointless lives bearable.

----------

I don't know. It didn't damage my prospects or turn me into a serial killer, so it wasn't really that traumatic in the scheme of things. I got to do other stuff. It wasn't like I lived some terrible life of privation and misery. We were as poor as church-mice, but we did find fun stuff to do.

I was the asshole in this story, not my mom. I was only seven or eight, but still.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 06:16 AM (G8OwX)

302 The vote counts are stacked against the people pushing regionalization, so HUD brings the 'hood to you courtesy of Section 8 vouchers and failure to enforce illegal immigration laws. If you want to know why RINO turncoats are so hell bent on amnesty, look no further than this. Without further consolidation and centralization, this country is cruising to come apart at the urban/non-urban seams when the spread of misery hits imaginary lines we all have drawn in our heads. That would end the federal government as we know it and derail the D.C. gravy train. Another thirty million democrat voters magically appearing overnight makes this split impossible--or at least so the dumbfucks who believe we live in a mob-rule democracy think.

Posted by: FRONT TOWARD LEFT at August 07, 2013 06:16 AM (V3kRK)

303

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 10:12 AM (CJjw5)

 

I would travel with my father to Leesville / Ft. Polk as a kid so he could  specifically  buy his carton of cigs and do the rest of the shopping since he was there already.

 

I sure wish they had your plan in place instead because that  trip sucked and Leesville is a shithole.

Posted by: polynikes at August 07, 2013 06:16 AM (m2CN7)

304 So long as suburbs have already incorporated into cities, there'd be hell to pay in courts before they'd allow Detroit to swallow them.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 06:17 AM (MhA4j)

305 Will the IPAB be allowed to consider your pension load on the Government when they determine if your treatment is medically necessary?

Posted by: Jean at August 07, 2013 06:17 AM (CMlD4)

306 Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 10:12 AM (CJjw5)

The only places we should have PXs are in Muslim countries.

And they should sell only alcohol.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 06:17 AM (gqgiP)

307 Thank you, AP.  You're very sweet.  How would you like to be the mascot for the Imperial Raptor Hussars?  You'd look quite fetching in the uniform.  You hacve to ride sidesaddle, though.  We may ravage, but that's no reason not to act like a lady.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at August 07, 2013 06:18 AM (zF6Iw)

308 MWR, your legs cannot reach high enough for crotch kicking. Let's stay reasonable here. Posted by: Circa (Insert Year Here) at August 07, 2013 09:51 AM (659DL) I'm reasonably certain that MWR's legs are roughly 3/4 of my entire height. She is an idiot. His money is going to people her age. She is drawing far more than she ever paid in. He will never see any of it. In fact, he needs to plan his future without it. This drives me nuts. My own parents fall into this same trap, and my dad is in every other way a conservative. He's more conservative than ME. Posted by: MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit at August 07, 2013 09:52 AM (4df7R) There's a simple solution to this. Ask them if they think there's a separate Social Security account with their name on it that is sitting there waiting for them. They will say yes and possibly throw in an eye roll. Then point out that the Supreme Court held back in 1960 that there is no such right and that any benefits may be cut or eliminated at any time. There is no such thing is a "right' to Social Security and there is most certainly no such thing as an individual account. Throw in your own eye rolls back that they could believe something so ridiculous.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 06:19 AM (VtjlW)

309

Will the IPAB be allowed to consider your pension load on the Government when they determine if your treatment is medically necessary?

Posted by: Jean

 

 

 

 

Hmm. I like the way you think.

Posted by: DHS Bureaucrat at August 07, 2013 06:20 AM (VndSC)

310 EoJ - the register programming is already done.  Here in the DC area, all the diplomats and assorted hangers on have tax free cards they show at the registers.

Posted by: Jean at August 07, 2013 06:21 AM (CMlD4)

311 And we've become a nation of ignorant, uncaring, lazy idiots.

Look in the cars that have an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on it. Chances are you will see some baby boomer or middle-aged fool.

These are people who should know better- but they don't. They play politics like it's a football game and can't map their personal utopian desires with either the constitutional limits on our government, economics or basic math. They argue in platitudes such as "oh there is plenty of money- it's just Republicans or some such stupidity.

They are a scourge on this country and with their ignorance destroy everything those before them built.

Fuck them. Enjoy your Obamacare, because that will bring about the collapse. Idiots.

Posted by: Marcus at August 07, 2013 06:21 AM (GGCsk)

312

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 10:19 AM (VtjlW)

 

Al Gore promised them their money was in a lock box.  Crisp  one  hundred dollaar bills.

Posted by: polynikes at August 07, 2013 06:21 AM (m2CN7)

313 I was the asshole in this story, not my mom. I was only seven or eight, but still.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 10:16 AM (G8OwX)

And for those with insufficient imagination...it was a parable, not a point for point comparison with the issue of municipal pension reform!

Interesting what you said up the thread a bit...that this was one of those events that you wish you could revisit and act differently.

As the saying goes, "The unexamined life is not worth living," but the downside is that we have regrets and memories of small events that have had large impacts on our lives.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 06:22 AM (gqgiP)

314 Detroit's art that they're gonna sell isn't from construction laws. A private museum was donated to the city in 1919, and the city's run it since.  Most of the art was acquired when the city was flush.

http://is.gd/p35pbT

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at August 07, 2013 06:22 AM (/kI1Q)

315

314 And we've become a nation of ignorant, uncaring, lazy idiots.

 

That bears repeating. often.

Posted by: Roy at August 07, 2013 06:23 AM (VndSC)

316 Anyone and everyone who is retired for more than 10 years gets back 100% of what the "paid in" plus a modest interest.

But, my parents are in that class--"I paid, it's mine." Hmm. So, we are all to suffer because your generation actually admits they believed what politicians said?

I'd be ashamed to admit I believed any politician. But money is a funny motivator.

Anyway " Let her five kids care for her. I'm not going to do it"

Well, yeah. You are an awful human being if your only thought about your parents in their old age is "put them in home." Part of getting yourself adjusted to the new normal is planning on taking care of mom _in_your_ house_ after dad dies, at the least. Maybe both.

I'm not sure what the tradition was--youngest, oldest child--but, that's the way it used to be.

Posted by: RoyalOil at August 07, 2013 06:23 AM (VjL9S)

317

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 10:22 AM (gqgiP)

 

That's why metaphors aren't the best way to make a point.    The reason  it does not set well with me is the life lesson  taught to me  by my father is  never make a promise, in his words , commitment,  you cannot keep.   You do everything possible to make it happen.  A man is only as good as his word. 

Posted by: polynikes at August 07, 2013 06:27 AM (m2CN7)

318 Suck it.

I'd like to see these bastards who take from everyone else, living on big fat pensions with tons of gold plated benefits with their hands out for every possible entitlement going back to work or at least selling their BMW.

I've never seen so many people of a young age home all day and living it up at taxpayer expense.

Plus their would be more room at the local diner on my days off.

Posted by: Marcus at August 07, 2013 06:29 AM (GGCsk)

319 Detroit's art that they're gonna sell isn't from construction laws. A private museum was donated to the city in 1919, and the city's run it since. Most of the art was acquired when the city was flush.

http://is.gd/p35pbT

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at August 07, 2013 10:22 AM (/kI1Q)

Yes, that was my point.  A rich capitalist enterprise donated the art.  The other point I was making was with regards to why have art owned by municipalities?  It's the law.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 06:30 AM (kXoT0)

320  Posted by: Monkeytoe at August 07, 2013 09:50 AM (sOx93)

The commissary and BX are the cheapest places to shop. Most of the time, they beat Wal-Mart prices here. I only shop at Wal-Mart when I can't find something at the BX and I reaaaaalllllly need it. My sister-in-law actually cried when she came to visit us at Goodfellow AFB from St. Louis, because our meat was 1/3 the cost of hers and she had a family to feed.

Oh yeah, the Class XI store still rocks.

Posted by: pookysgirl at August 07, 2013 06:33 AM (kMnHs)

321 59 I have a plan that could save the Detroit pension funds, which I know the pensioners would support. They built that city which the young are now enjoying, right? So those idle young sitting around doing nothing should give back some work in exchange for what they have been given.

The pension funds could be allowed to round up any men under the age of 30 who aren't gainfully employed (women too, if you don't want to be sexist) and use them as contract labor, in exchange for free room and board. All of the wages they would earn would go to the pension funds balance. Now a few would probably object, not being used to hard work, but once a few public examples are made of cost of defiance, the rest will fall in line -they always do.

And if the pension funds need more money quickly, they should be allowed to simply sell the labor of these workers for a set value, in order to cash out now. It could be traded on some kind of public exchange. Now the last problem is that such men probably don't have any real skills, and so would have to start out at things like harvesting agricultural products in the field. But the best of them would realize that with a little bit of effort, they could move up to an inside job soon.

I think that just about every current pensioner would support that idea completely, especially if they realize that their pensions may be on the line without it.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 07, 2013 08:53 AM (hTDbY)

===========


A very modest proposal, indeed.


Posted by: RoyalOil at August 07, 2013 06:33 AM (VjL9S)

322 61 @59 13th Amendment problems?
========

It's a tax.

Posted by: The Piss-Yellow Coward John Roberts at August 07, 2013 06:34 AM (VjL9S)

323 The reason it does not set well with me is the life lesson taught to me by my father is never make a promise, in his words , commitment, you cannot keep. You do everything possible to make it happen. A man is only as good as his word.

--------

It's a good lesson, but are you responsible for the promises your father made to a third party? Especially if those promises were made without your knowledge or consent? Even if they were: what if you simply cannot make good on them? Do you bankrupt your own family to make good on a foolish promise? Do you punish your own wife and children to repay a debt you didn't even incur?

The answer is not to be dishonest; the answer is to avoid making unequivocal promises about future events.

A promise must always be understood to be provisional. There are no guarantees in life. We do the best we can, and if we are honorable we go to great lengths to make our word our bond...but there does come a point when keeping a promise causes more harm than it heals.

Posted by: Monty at August 07, 2013 06:36 AM (G8OwX)

324 Socrates, Crito...Cities can and do fail. It is wisdom to know when this is happening, and to move on, and to apply the lessons learned to the next home. What, that was then, this is now? There are plenty of ghost towns out west, mining boom towns, the biggest towns with all the amenities 19th Century. Boom or Bust. This is now. There is no more new frontier in the USA. Besides, Manifest Destiny is a hiss and a byword. What corporations mean by "move on" in the 21st Century is outsource. The 20th Century already saw the dissolution of citizens from family relations, from home town, to move out of state (several times), even temporary stints out of country to relocate for work, or as job assignment dictated. At this point, "move on" means leave the USA to be employed by foreign interests, or else a US government-industrial-military contractor/subcontractor "nation building" some "developing 3rd world" country, being part of the tax fund fraud destroying the USA. Rather, "apply the lessons learned" where you are now in America. Detroit, NO TAX FUNDS from outside your own municipality. That's the only way to remove the scumbags in charge. Plenty of accountability strings attached for any PRIVATE funding from those who VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE to invest in Detroit's future renaissance. As for limited tax fund allocations at present? Serve the laborers and administrative the same amount according to equal division, not by status, and everyone takes a cut, the highest paid get no more benefit funds than the lowest paid retirees.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 06:38 AM (MhA4j)

325 Good post, Monty!

Posted by: CanaDave at August 07, 2013 06:39 AM (jF97p)

326 Let's not forget the unions and civil service drones are not just victims here, but complicit in their own problems.

How many BILLIONS of dollars have they shoveled to the Democrat Party when they haven't even been meeting their own obligations such as funding their own health plans? Bet they miss that money now.

Posted by: richard mcenroe at August 07, 2013 06:40 AM (qvify)

327

Beautifully written, Monty. Good on you. Sorry about that day at the park. I grew up in a trailer park that was the ramshackle ghetto of my hometown. The good thing about growing up poor is that I appreciate every personal and professional achievement maybe a little more than somone who didn't.

 

To the point, I still wonder why the Republican Party hasn't produced at least one video starring the ruins of Detroit and California's once green and fertile Central Valley, which now looks like a wasteland out of the 'Grapes of Wrath'. No narration necessary: just a montage of ruined landscapes and desperate people, ending with the single caption: DEMOCRATS DID THIS.

Posted by: troyriser at August 07, 2013 06:52 AM (V9ol4)

328 perhaps government employment shouldn't be a lifelong career. perhaps pensions should not be offered at all.

Posted by: X at August 07, 2013 06:56 AM (KHo8t)

329

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

 

<call me Usul>

Posted by: Auslander at August 07, 2013 07:03 AM (U7X2u)

330 326 Monty, you're right that your mom felt more disappointed in having to deprive you of a fun time that you did indeed earn, the shame of self incrimination, especially as you undoubtedly made it clear you were disillusioned by her "lie". But really, that's just part of growing up. And as too many Americans today have YET to grow up, no need to 'splain further. Perhaps like your own, my parents lived through the depression as kids without starving because their poor-as-church-mice parents managed to keep them nutritionally fed, and studious at school, and busy earning their own spending money from jobs outside of home while also doing home chores. There was no such thing as an "allowance" during the Depression unless your parents were well to do (nice work if you can get it). We were brought up with a strict crack-the-whip mom, her mother's daughter, who assigned chores which did not pay allowance. There were on occasion "special" gardening stints that paid a coin for candy, digging the nut-grass out of the flower bed for example, or sweeping out the detached garage filled with black widows. By the time my older siblings were in high school, my parents began to promise a dollar-per-A on report cards. It didn't alter my siblings' effort, just some cash for what natural ability they had. By the time I was in high school, my mother was both pleased and irritated by my straight-A report cards. When my older siblings went off to college, my mom promised whatever sewing machine my sisters wanted upon their graduation. When I graduated, she refused me a gift, saying she knew I'd graduate regardless. Btw, after my freshman year, I earned my own way through school. Parents can be hard. Doesn't mean that they're bad people. Just hard. And it doesn't take an Asian or Jewish mom to be a tiger mom. Life isn't fair. So to all the big titty babies out there bitching and moaning that times are hard, as FDR famously asked in our parents' day, "Are you part of the problem or the solution?" -- the line our parents asked us in solving family squabbles.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 07:05 AM (MhA4j)

331 329 exactly. crony corruption Don't feed the monster.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 07:09 AM (MhA4j)

332

Every public union retiree receiving a pension must remain in the city from which he earned that pension.  You fucked it up, you stay there.  You leave, so does your pension.

 

Worth a shot.

Posted by: RickZ at August 07, 2013 07:16 AM (kf7gN)

333 "Now the last problem is that such men probably don't have any real skills, and so would have to start out at things like harvesting agricultural products in the field." Tom Servo, wtf? Detroit's agricultural products?! Detroit Labor has no real skills?! If you don't think that construction work requires quality control, then be happy with your poorly constructed pot hole ridden roads. Highly skilled labor machining precision manufacturing is yet discriminated against by white collared self righteous obese egos who think that being an asshole liar salesman telemarketer or Staples employee is the American ideal "good job" such as Mitt Romney advanced in his BIG FAIL potus campaign.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 07:21 AM (MhA4j)

334 335. Logical. On that line, I'm surprised the city hasn't the vacated property for the public housing of retirees in lieu of money allotments.

Posted by: panzernashorn at August 07, 2013 07:23 AM (MhA4j)

335

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!"

Detroit could easily fix its problem.  Simply pass a law that those receiving benefits from the city must reside within city limits.  Not only would they cut expenditures, and raise tax revenue, they would also have a large body of people moving back and fixing up the city.

Posted by: wimpy at August 07, 2013 07:30 AM (e5lnn)

336 Because civil servants have demonstrated again and again they have the mad skillz to save a city.

(Vision of a bunch of 68 year old fat men filling potholes.  Very. Slowly.)

Posted by: Richard McEnroe at August 07, 2013 07:56 AM (qvify)

337 I'll gladly pay the government Tuesday if they shut their america hating piehole today.

Posted by: BarakaTarkata at August 07, 2013 07:56 AM (si4cu)

338
Way late today, but Thumbs Up Monty.  Good piece.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at August 07, 2013 08:01 AM (qM18f)

339

So much truth here, from Monty of course and the commenters.

 

But Monkeytoe sort of nailed it, for me - the mere existence of public sector "unions" - and of course their pernicious ownership of one (often dominant) political party, are a simple and unfixable recipe for disaster. 

 

But economic illiteracy, replaced by irresponsible and despicable greed and arrogance, are key to today's situation.  That is, among "public servants".  Probably not 5% of the population understands that the "right" pay for any job is the least pay a qualified person will take to do the job right.  With few exceptions (military and intel) applies 100% to the public sector as well as the private.  No such thing as "they deserve more".   Any other approach to compensation in all private and most public goods results, of course and obviously, in either impoverishment or collapse - basic economics.

 

Curiously, I feel not tiny iota of a moral or emotional dilemma here.  Not one iota of "sympathy" for poor public sector folks who won't get what they were "promised".  And I've worked on the public dime all my life, one way or the other - never making very much money, always working my ass off, very often in dangerous or difficult conditions, and without any career path or "benefits" to boot (my own fault, but of no concern to me).  Both parts of "public" and "service" are pretty much dead with most public employees.

 

Yes yes there are the many committed teachers and cops et al - sorry but you have long been footnotes to the drama - the story is the corruption and greed of your unions and the irresponsibility and arrogance of your political "allies" - and the incompetence and idiocy of the voters.

 

I've told this one before, but on election morning one or two cycles back, at a corner in my neighborhood stood an EMT and fireman in their respective get-ups, holding a banner saying "Yes on D" (local proposition to - you guessed it! - give them even more $$$$$).  I stopped for the red light, looked over, and smiled weakly and in a non-committal fashion - I wanted to lower the passenger window and yell "IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT YOU'RE DOING, DO SOMETHING ELSE, LOSERS!".  Why didn't I?  First, not my style.  Second, which touches on another unbelievable and creepy element of what used to be America:  do I really want to yell at two members of The State, who can easily jot down my license and then access my personal info?  Sickening - exactly the same sort of "restraint" in the face of idiocy that I used to practice when dealing with Soviet customs officers and various Third World functionaries/thugs.  Wonderful relationship between citizen and public servant in a free republic, no??

 

Posted by: non-purist at August 07, 2013 08:26 AM (afQnV)

340 I would love to be able to jail my customers who refused to buy from me.

Posted by: tony redenzo at August 07, 2013 09:06 AM (888y+)

341 This is one of the best posts I have read in a long time! One quibble though - politicians only pay lip service to Keynsian economic theory, which is why it is only a theory that doesn't work in the real world. Much like Comunism. It requires the repayment of debt during good times, that was acquired during bad times. Human nature, from our politicians down to ordinary citizens won't allow that.

Posted by: Joel V at August 07, 2013 09:21 AM (pJB7q)

342 {b]test

Posted by: RickZ at August 07, 2013 12:10 PM (kf7gN)

343 test

Posted by: RickZ at August 07, 2013 12:10 PM (kf7gN)

344

Pension and benefit perks are not just easier; unlike salary increases, these don't show up on the next years' budgets, where residents would raise a fuss. Government specifically exempted itself from ERISA laws when those were passed. Actuaries have been saying for years that this was unsustainable and problematic, but who listens to them? And future pension obligations aren't a "sexy" problem; people (generally kind of busy with their own lives) don't pay much attention to things like these.

While I also firmly believe that government unions should be prohibited forever and ever amen, another step to take could be to require that any future benefit or compensatory promise to government workers has to show up in the present budgets reasonably amortized.

Then again, my overall pet idea is to change everything up in government every 5 years or so. Even if it makes things worse for a bit, it's just temporary. Government breeds corruption, but it could be harder to game things if the game keeps changing.

Posted by: Pam at August 07, 2013 12:46 PM (Rhha7)

345 Beautiful, Monty! Best piece of writing on Local Government I've ever read. Which says a lot, unfortunately. I would just add that when your mom had to backtrack on that trip to the amusement park, you were what, 10 years old? 15 maybe. The adults paying union dues as part of their city jobs are adults. True, those dues are probably mandatory as part of their jobs, but they did choose to take those jobs or stay on in them when they were at least in a position to be cognizant of the risk they were subject to. True, everyone in their union, the media, and the Democrat party was telling them otherwise, but really, is that a rationale for meeting those promises we're willing to live with. I think not. Of course its not only the city workers who stand to take a bath here. Wealthy, high tax bracket savers & investors getting that 4% tax free interest will get hosed too. And before you say, well, these are the 1% who should all know better, believe me, as a former stockbroker paid to push these municipal bonds, I can tell you a very goodly chunk of the principal for those bonds comes from the eighty year old widow with heirs who often isn't even in a high bracket. He/she just wants something safe with income and doesn't have to pay taxes on it. Oh, yeah, a lot of those bonds are insured by Insurance cos like Berkshire Hathaway. So, maybe the beat cop or the modestly well off retiree shouldn't be expected to understand all these risks, but I'd argue that the brokerages, the unions, the insurance cos, and the politicians should. Time for all of them to take a haircut.

Posted by: smokedaddy at August 08, 2013 12:28 PM (aXYtY)

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