Homelessness, Poverty and Groundcover

How are we going to solve the problem of poverty. Is it just a question of bad individual choices? For some people, it certainly is. For others it's not. An overemphasis on individual decisions can lead people to miss the big picture. 

MLK wrote that "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Doing the work of "restructuring" is very dangerous and very tiring. Sometimes it is easier to concentrate on the small changes that you can make. And there's nothing wrong with that I think.  Although it is good that this non-profit organization is taking individual steps to assist people I still think that the entire society must make institutional changes so that people who have reached advanced age or who have fallen on hard times have a more robust safety net.  

I'm not sure that selling papers in freezing weather is all that different from panhandling. But if this project has helped some people transition into business owners or higher paid employees I can't say anything negative about it. We all just need to do more, that's all.

Do You Want A Cashless Society?

If you went to pay your bill at a restaurant or wanted to buy something at a grocery store would you be put out of sorts if the business didn't accept cash? I think I would be. I don't always want to put items on credit cards. For me it's far too easy to spend more money than I intended to spend if I use a credit card.

There is also the case that I may not always want the bank issuing the credit card to know where I was or what I was purchasing. However more businesses are starting to refuse cash. Not everyone is happy about this.

Sam Schreiber was mid-shampoo at a Drybar blow-dry salon in Los Angeles when someone from the front desk approached her stylist with an emergency: a woman was trying to pay for her blow-out with cash. “There was this beat of silence,” says Ms. Schreiber, 33 years old. “She literally brought $40.” 

More and more businesses like Drybar don’t want your money—the paper kind at least. It’s making things awkward for those who come ill prepared. After all, you can’t give back a hairdo, an already dressed salad or the two beers you already drank. Ms. Schreiber was tempted to wait and see how the Drybar employees would handle the situation with the customer, who had no credit or debit card with her; instead, she intervened from the shampoo bowl. “I said, ‘I can just pay for her and she can give me cash or Venmo me,’ ” she says.

A few moments later, one of the employees came back to hand her the $40 and expressed thanks on behalf of the stranger. 

Armored Truck Loses Cash: Do You Keep It?

How moral or self-interested are you? If the grocery clerk accidentally gives you a $20 bill when she should have given you a $10 bill will you point out the mistake? If you are at a self-serve grocery kiosk and you notice that the man ahead of you is in such a rush that he has left his change behind, will you alert him to his mistake and/or run after him to give him his money? 

Does it make a difference if it's just a small amount or instead a few $20 bills? Does it make a difference if anyone notices you? If it's too late to catch the guy do you hand the money to the clerk? Or do you swipe the cash and congratulate the universe for finally doing you a solid for once?  Things could get well, interesting, if the fellow realizes he left his money in the kiosk and comes back to ask you where it is. Recently some people in New Jersey had to ask themselves some similar questions, when the door latch on an armored truck malfunctioned, spilling cash on the expressway. The driver was trying to gather up the cash and put it back in the truck. Other people had different ideas.

An armored truck spilled cash on a New Jersey highway Thursday, leading to two crashes as drivers “went a little bit crazy,” stopping their cars and scrambling to grab the swirling money. The frenzy happened during morning rush hour in East Rutherford, near MetLife Stadium, where the New York Giants and New York Jets play. In online videos, a man in uniform is seen running through traffic trying to collect money, while others exited their cars to do the same.

Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

As predicted here recently, the City of Detroit just became the largest municipality in US history to file for bankruptcy. Typically for the ways things are done around here, even the filing was filled with some shenanigans as Governor Snyder and Emergency Manager Orr filed the bankruptcy just before a judge was set to grant a temporary restraining order preventing such a filing. I think this is a sad day. But it is probably one that was necessary. My only interest now is in hoping that the retirees and their dependents, some of whom are very close to me, don't get the shaft in whatever comes out of this process. But being the pessimistic sort I think they probably will.

The city of Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history Thursday afternoon, culminating a decades-long slide that transformed the nation’s iconic industrial town into a model of urban decline crippled by population loss, a dwindling tax base and financial problems. The 16-page petition was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit.

Gov. Rick Snyder’s office was making plans this afternoon to hold a 10 a.m. Friday morning news conference at the Maccabees Building, 5057 Woodward in Midtown, according to his office. It’s the same location where the governor declared a financial emergency for Detroit on March 1.  Snyder authorized Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to file bankruptcy under a law the Legislature passed in December that replaced the previous emergency manager law voted repealed last November.

The bankruptcy filing came minutes before Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina was set to hold an emergency hearing Thursday afternoon on a request for a temporary restraining order blocking Snyder from authorizing a bankruptcy filing. “It was my intention to grant you your request completely,” Aquilina told lawyers for Detroit’s pension boards.

The judge did grant temporary restraining orders against Snyder and Orr taking further action in the bankruptcy proceedings. Ronald King, an attorney representing the police/fire and general retirement pension systems, said he may file a motion Friday in the case seeking to require Orr, an officer of the state, to withdraw the bankruptcy filing. After the hearing, King expressed frustration with the governor’s office after filing a motion for a temporary restraining order at 3:37 p.m. and giving Snyder’s attorney extra time to get to the downtown Lansing courthouse. The bankruptcy case was filed at 4:06 p.m. and Aquilina convened the emergency hearing at 4:11 p.m.

The Chapter 9 filing could take years, experts say, despite hopes by the governor and Orr that the case can be wrapped up in a year. A bankruptcy judge could trump the state constitution by slashing retiree pensions, ripping up contracts and paying creditors roughly a dime on the dollar for unsecured claims worth $11.45 billion. During a month of negotiations, Orr has reached a settlement with only two creditors: Bank of America Corp. and UBS AG. They have agreed to accept 75 cents on the dollar for approximately $340 million in swaps liabilities, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The bankruptcy plan was expected to closely follow Orr’s restructuring proposal that was unveiled to creditors on June 14 — a proposal that drew criticism from some creditors who said the cuts were too deep and did not include the sale of city assets, including Belle Isle and a Detroit Institute of Arts collection worth billions. He proposed paying most of the money owed to secured creditors while pension funds, unions and unsecured bondholders would receive, in some cases, 10 cents on the dollar.

LINK

As I wrote previously there is no good reason that anyone with a working brain would accept 10% of what they're owed when someone else is getting 75% of what they're owed. You'd have to be extra special stupid to go for that deal. And how convenient is it that two of the more criminal banks that could be said to exist were going to get most of what they claim they were owed. It feels good to be a bank, no?  From a purely public interest standpoint there could be an interesting legal battle to determine if federal bankruptcy law can ignore the Michigan constitution which has generally been understood to prevent the alteration of public pensions. As we know in most cases the federal rules reign supreme. But there are still a few areas where the states can tell the feds to back up and go away. But of course it's not the state which is filing bankruptcy but the city. So yes this will all be "interesting". But that aside there are some good people who are gonna get hurt. Some of them I know. So this is not a good thing. 

Detroit has been on a downward spiral financially for years. This day has been probably inevitable since at least the late nineties. That was the time then to make the changes required to avoid this. The city needed to get rid of useless assets, collect taxes that were owed, cut taxes where possible to stop driving off businesses and citizens, deal with an intransigent and occasionally corrupt bureaucracy, take steps to get the crime under control, start an aggressive program to demolish abandoned homes, be unapologetic about requiring that Detroiters get work on projects inside the city (made more difficult by state rules against affirmative action), and do everything possible to bring in more revenue while cutting costs. Unlike the federal government cities can't create Keynesian stimulus on their own. They have to pay back their creditors. But for a variety of reasons, some good but mostly bad much of these things did not happen and here we are. Ironically some of the people that were cheerful about Detroit bankruptcy because they enjoyed seeing bad things happen to Detroit are suddenly somewhat worried about what a Detroit bankruptcy could mean to other (ie. THEIR) municipal or state borrowing costs. So stay tuned sports fans! This is going to be messy.

Thoughts?

Kwame Kilpatrick Convicted in Federal trial

This is not exactly news which ought to surprise anyone but former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of 24 counts of racketeering and extortion and other crimes.  He could face 20 years in prison. I'm not jubilant nor am I sad. It's just really disappointing because he was someone who could have done a lot of good for the city of Detroit and maybe even the state of Michigan. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he got caught up in the trappings of power and more interested in how he could enrich his friends, family and business partners than how best to serve the citizens of Detroit. Coming on the heels of a soon to be announced emergency financial manager for the city of Detroit, this conviction doesn't bode well for those who argue that the city can get out of the horrible political and financial situation it finds itself facing.

Kilpatrick's hardly the only black politician to get taken down by the feds and he won't be the last. You would think that corrupt black mayors, representatives, and senators would learn that unlike NY banks and financial institutions, the Justice Department and federal prosecutors, do not in fact, consider them to be too big to jail.


So if you know that the police are constantly following you as you drive down the expressway, even though that might be unfair and irritating, do you obey the speed limit or do you step on the gas, speed up to 90 mph and start weaving in and out of traffic? I know what my answer is. And I know what Kilpatrick's answer is too..

But some people always have to learn things the hard way. A hard head indeed makes for a soft behind.

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his longtime friend Bobby Ferguson have just been convicted of racketeering and extortion, marking an end to a more than decade-long public corruption investigation. The three faced a combined 45 charges accusing them of racketeering, extortion, bribery and mail fraud, among other things. Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, including five counts of extortion, racketeering, bribery and several mail, wire and tax fraud charges. On three counts he was found not guilty and on three there was no verdict reached.

Ferguson was found guilty on nine of 11 counts, including racketeering and several counts of extortion. He was found not guilty on one count and there was no verdict on another. Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on one of four counts. He was convicted on a tax charge. There was no verdict for Bernard Kilpatrick on the racketeering charge and he was found not guilty on two other charges – attempted extortion and a tax charge.

Detroit: Heads Spikes Walls!!!

I used to rush to defend Detroit (and by extension all inner cities) against detractors. I would point out that high unemployment, internalized hatred, a ghettotization of the mind, combined with segregation and a paucity of other opportunities explained much of the problematic behavior that we saw. I would also note that crimes or violations which received probation or a wink and nod in other areas were often prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (and then some) in majority black areas.

I still believe that -at least to an extent but two three recent incidents also made me realize that statistics aside some people are just "evil",  for lack of a better word. It's not because of their race or that their father wasn't around or that they didn't get enough hugs as a child. There are some people who should be in prison permanently. And some people DEFINITELY need to be removed from the planet-thus the Tyrion Lannister quote in this post's title. You put a few heads on spikes and everyone else will get the hint.

I'm tired of defending the indefensible. Unfortunately, some people lack self-control, morality or any sense of future time orientation. The only way to interact with these folks is to impress upon them the certainty of severe, harsh, immediate punishment should they break the law. Currently too many criminals apparently don't fear getting caught or don't fear prison. We can change that if there is the political will to do so but it won't be pretty. Only a small percentage of Detroiters cause problems. Most Detroiters are good decent people who are just trying to get through the day. But it only takes a small number to ruin the lives of a great many. And as the story about the WW2 vet shows, the actions of these few can cause the rest of us to harden our hearts and become uncaring and callous in an attempt to survive.

I want to paraphrase what Stephen King wrote in Salem's Lot:

"And when you get home stay away from Detroit. Things have gone bad in Detroit now".

Detroit Teen Commits Matricide

DETROIT (WJBK)-- There is shattered glass in the front window of a Detroit home on Burns where an act of rage and violence has shattered lives. Family members say 14-year-old Joshua Smith shot and killed his mother, 36-year-old Tamiko Robinson, while she slept on the couch.
"He just shot. Every chance he got a chance to shoot again, he shot again, and there's just buckshot, holes everywhere. He murdered her, and he didn't do it with sorrow or [anything]. He did it like he wanted to do it, like he meant to do it and he[knew] what he was doing," LeShaun Roberts, the victim's brother, told us.

WW2 Veteran Carjacked-Video shows he was ignored as he crawled across gas station lot 

The 86-year-old World War II Air Corps veteran, knocked to the ground during a carjacking on Detroit's west side, crawled across the gas station parking lot as people walked by. No one stopped to help, he says. Aaron Brantley, who worked for 31 years as a welder at a Chrysler plant in Hamtramck, recalled the ordeal Friday, two days after he was robbed outside the BP gas station on West McNichols at Fairfield, just east of the University of Detroit Mercy campus. 

Brantley estimates that at least four customers walked past him as he struggled for help, unable to walk because his leg was broken.  "I never bothered anybody, and I always try to help somebody else when I could," he said Friday from home, his leg in a soft cast to his hip and not a tinge of bitterness in his voice.  Brantley was on his way home from Bible study at Corinthians Baptist Church in Hamtramck, where he's a trustee, when someone hit him from behind and grabbed his keys at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday. The thief drove off in Brantley's 2010 Chrysler 200 -- bought to replace another car recently stolen.

9 month baby murdered because of fight at baby shower

Detroit — A fight over a seat at a baby shower triggered the killing of a 9-month-old boy, according to the victim's grandmother. Delric Miller IV died Monday as he slept on the couch in his home on the 8400 block of Greenview Avenue. Police said someone fired at the house with an AK-47-type assault rifle about 4:30 a.m., leaving behind 37 shells. One of the rounds hit the baby, who was pronounced dead at Sinai-Grace Hospital. 

Delric's grandmother, Cynthia Wilkins, said she believes the shooting was retaliation for a skirmish Sunday at a baby shower at Club Celebrity on Plymouth Rd. in Detroit. "The shower was overbooked, and there was an argument because there weren't enough seats," said Wilkins. Her daughter, Diamond Salter, attended the shower, which was thrown by a friend, Wilkins said."A woman got mad because she couldn't find a seat, so she started knocking tables down, and it escalated from there," Wilkins said

Questions
1) What should be done about inner city violence?
2) Was Rudy Giuliani right? Do we need police that harass people and ignore the Bill of Rights within certain areas?
3) Do we need an expedited and public death penalty? 

The Urban Beat: Patricia Stephens Due

A problem with the "great man" view of history is that it not only elides the fact that there were also "great women" but more importantly it overlooks that fact that social movements are indeed just that. They are made up of numerous people (men and women) who made contributions, both big and small. Many of these people don't get into the history books but were it not for their collective actions, the man or woman in the media spotlight wouldn't have the ability to make the changes they did.

One such woman who just passed away who may have not gotten the recognition from us all while she was here was one Patricia Stephens Due, a leading civil rights activist, author and mother of author Tananarive Due and mother-in-law of author Steve Barnes.
Read more about her incredible life here.

Patricia Stephens Due, whose belief that, as she put it, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things” propelled her to leadership in the civil rights movement — but at a price, including 49 days in a stark Florida jail — died on Tuesday in Smyrna, Ga. She was 72.

At 13, Patricia Stephens challenged Jim Crow orthodoxy by trying to use the “whites only” window at a Dairy Queen. As a college student, she led demonstrations to integrate lunch counters, theaters and swimming pools and was repeatedly arrested.

As a young mother, she pushed two children in a stroller while campaigning for the rights of poor people. As a veteran of integration and voting rights battles, she went on to fight for economic rights, once obstructing a garbage truck in support of striking workers. As an elder stateswoman of the movement, she wrote a memoir to honor “unsung foot soldiers.”

She fought beside John D. Due Jr., a civil rights lawyer, whom she married in 1963. For their honeymoon, they rode the Freedom Train to Washington to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Mrs. Due paid a price for this devotion. She wore large, dark glasses day and night because her eyes were damaged when a hissing tear gas canister hit her in the face...

I thank Mrs. Due and all the men and women of generations before and after her that kept up the good fight, even when things looked their bleakest.

QUESTIONS
1) Had you heard of Patricia Stephens Due before?
2) Are we collectively doing a good job of capturing the stories of the older civil rights generation and giving them the respect they deserve? 

Detroit City Council President-Broke and Busted

I don't know about you but I like to model my behavior after those who are successful at what they do. If I need to lose weight I'm not going to pick a doctor, dietitian or personal trainer who's morbidly obese. If I want career advice I won't listen to some fellow that has been in the same job without promotion for his whole life. And if I want to be successful with the opposite sex I certainly wouldn't seek counsel from a man that hasn't been on a date since the Reagan Administration. But that's just me. Evidently some good citizens of the city of Detroit feel differently.


STORY
At a time when the City of Detroit faces bleak choices of bankruptcy, the imposition of some form of emergency manager or consent agreement and/or massive cutbacks and layoffs, the voters decided that they would sleep easier knowing that the City Council President was a man who had already demonstrated repeated inability to pay his bills on time as agreed.

Detroit— City Council President Charles Pugh is facing foreclosure and says he likely will abandon his $385,000 Brush Park condominium. His personal financial struggles come as he and council colleagues fight to bail Detroit out of its own fiscal crisis.
On Friday, Pugh said he can't afford to pay his mortgage after taking a pay cut and leaving a high-paying TV career to run for the City Council.
"Making my mortgage payments has been a struggle for me," Pugh wrote in an email. "I fought hard to stay in my condo because I had an attachment to it, but I can no longer afford to do so."
The mortgage issue is the latest financial problem facing Pugh, 40, a former Fox 2 television anchor and radio show host who was the top vote-getter in the 2009 election. He is paid $76,500 as council president.
"I am devoted to this city and helping us to move forward despite wage cuts and personal sacrifices such as foreclosing on my own home," Pugh said. "These are the tough choices Detroiters make every day, and I am no different."

Well no. Sorry there Chuckie but you are different. Most Detroiters do not earn and will not ever earn $240,000/yr which was Mr. Pugh's approximate salary as a Fox 2 anchor before he quit his job to run for City Council. Now $240K may not be all that much money on the coasts but out here in flyover country it's a pretty nice salary. In fact, per NYT research that salary put Pugh in the top 3% of earners in Metro Detroit.

I am sympathetic to people whose financial situation changes unexpectedly. If my boss were to announce today that my salary would be cut by two-thirds because he thought that was commensurate with my actual production (ahem), well I'd be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. But if I decided on my own to quit my job and go sell T-shirts outside of Comerica Park  can I really demand sympathy? Shouldn't I have thought about how to pay my mortgage before I chose a new job with smaller salary? If I went to my mortgage holder, what would they say to me?


The difference is that unlike with his personal finances, in which the only people hurt by default will be Pugh and/or his creditor(s) and neighbors,  if the City of Detroit were to go bankrupt or have an emergency manager imposed, there would be thousands, if not millions of people negatively impacted. If everyone in Detroit did what Pugh is doing (and many have) the bottom would fall out of the sickly housing market and the moribund tax base would die.
That said there are more people who are walking away from their mortgage and some intellectuals even think that this action may be both moral and in your best interest. So this is very mixed up with an individual's concept of right and wrong and their bottom line self-interest. I was raised to consider that the time to ruthlessly pursue your self-interest is BEFORE you sign your name to a contract. Once you've agreed to terms, you should live to those terms. Pugh was making more than enough money to make a larger down payment on that condo or get a place just as nice for a little bit less money.  And it appears that Pugh's chaotic personal finances may be shading over into his political finances.

Judging by his personal life Pugh seems to not understand the link between cause and effect, present action and future consequences. That would bother me if I were a Detroit resident relying in part on Pugh to help find a solution to the financial crisis.
QUESTIONS
1) Do Pugh's personal financial troubles have anything to do with his job overseeing the city finances?
2) Is it okay to walk away from a house or condo that you can no longer afford?
3) Does a leader have a responsibility to set a standard for financial probity?
4) If someone owed you money but said that times were bad now and therefore they wouldn't be paying you back, would you be understanding and accepting?

Shutting Detroit Down

What's happening in Detroit?

You may not have noticed with all the national media attention on the Democrat-Republican fracas over the budget, the deficit, the Obama tax cuts, and payroll tax cut political gamesmanship but by some estimates the city of Detroit is on the verge of going belly up as soon as April of 2012. Detroit has a deficit of roughly $150-200 million and accumulated debt of somewhere around $10 billion. Vendors are already waiting in some cases as long as 18 months to get paid.

This has made some of the usual suspects happy but most people are angry or sad. Under the emergency financial manager law (which was given new teeth under the new Republican Governor's administration) the state has the power to appoint a manager who would have the authority to run the city, void union contracts and privatize services and sell assets. 

This being Southeast Michigan (one of the most segregated areas in the US) the race issue is never far from people's minds. Detroit is between 80% and 85% Black. With a few exceptions most suburbs are the reverse image of that demographic.  Detroit has had black political hegemony since the early seventies or so. Within the city there is INTENSE paranoia about the idea of a white governor appointing someone to run Detroit and even more suspicion about white suburbanites taking over Detroit's "jewels". Honestly, some of this is nonsense but some of it is 100% accurate as Detroit and the surrounding suburbs have battled for decades over the Detroit Water Department, (Suburban municipalities have urged greater suburban control over the Detroit water department-a stance greatly at odds with their otherwise anti-regionalism preferences), the Detroit Zoo, the Arts Institute and Library, mass transit, Detroit's income tax on suburban workers, and many other things.


Bottom line is that Detroiters feel it's their city so they get to vote and if you don't like that, quit your whining and move into the city. Otherwise have a nice long drink of STFU. Suburbanites feel that fine if you don't want our say, stop taking our money. We'll take that deal in a heartbeat.

How did this happen?
The city of Detroit has 48 different unions. They have generally refused to offer any more concessions, claiming that they've given enough. They blame bad outsourcing and private contractor decisions for this crisis. The unions have offered some ideas on solving the problem, which include such things as cutting Blue Cross Blue Shield out of the medical payment process and eliminating private contractors. The city council has seized upon an unpaid $200 million block of aid that the State of Michigan was supposed to pay Detroit as the proximate reason for the crisis. However the State of Michigan cut back aid to several localities as it is also cash poor. The city also would like the State of Michigan to forgive some of its debt and help the city to do a better job of collecting city taxes-from both residents but especially businesses.

If Detroit collected all of its owed income taxes each year, the city would receive an additional $155 million annually that could wipe out the deficit in a few years and avoid massive service reductions and layoffs. At a time when the state is about to begin dissecting the city's troubled finances, about half of Detroiters and non-Detroiters who work in the city fail to pay their city income taxes. But city officials said to aggressively go after the delinquent taxes would be time-consuming and require more employees and sophisticated technology than the city can afford. That's why Mayor Dave Bing is lobbying state lawmakers to enact a law that would require suburban employers of Detroiters to automatically withhold income taxes and electronically deposit the money into a city account.

STORY

The rising costs of health care for retirees and some bad decisions with the pension fund are an additional problem. In my opinion the primary cause for this is that Detroit simply has too many costs for the population that it supports. Things that could be done when Detroit was home to roughly a million people can't be supported when only about 700,000 live there. The property tax base and income tax base no longer exist to support the current payroll and other items. There is just not enough money coming in. People have left for reasons both good and bad. But at the end of the day, they've left.


All the other race-baiting and political posturing aside that's what it comes down to. It's like trying to make a monthly payment on a new Bentley Arnage when your job description has changed from international rock star to Olive Garden busboy. Eventually, the numbers turn against you. No matter how much you may hate it, you will need to accept (grudgingly and temporarily perhaps) your new reality. To paraphrase Moe Greene from The Godfather  "..the City of Detroit ain't even got that kind of muscle no more!!!"










What happens next?

Council members JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta

Well that is indeed the million dollar question. The city council, union leaders and Mayor all came together last Friday to announce that although they had not solved the problem they would solve it and didn't need or want any outside help-period. However this was too late as the State Treasurer announced a 30 day review of the city's finances to determine whether an emergency manager would be appointed. The city is of course free to solve the crisis before then but many think this unlikely. Although it would be more symbolic than not the City Council has so far refused to cut its budget by the amounts it wants other departments or workers to accept.


Detroit faces privatization of lighting, waste management the zoo, the water department, parking, parks, Belle Isle, mass transit, fire, police and other normal city services. This looms in the future, whether it be through an unprecedented bankruptcy or the emergency manager process. In short, Detroit would temporarily cease to exist as an independent political entity. Some analysts feel that emergency manager or not bankruptcy is inevitable.


Others think that the both the emergency manager law and its application (most -not all-of the Michigan cities or institutions where the law has been applied or invoked are majority Black) is unconstitutional and therefore the law should be repealed. There is a petition drive to do just that. US Congressman John Conyers has also asked the Justice Department to review (i.e. block) the law.

Washington — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reviewing whether the state of Michigan can legally appoint an emergency manager to oversee the Motor City's finances, Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, said late today.Conyers said he spoke to Holder about his request that the government move to block the law."(Holder) said, 'I've got my lawyers working on it right now,' " Conyers said, adding he spoke to the attorney general about 4 p.m. today. "He's trying to find out if my allegations of great constitutional concerns are valid. That's what he's got several hundred lawyers for."The Justice Department confirmed Holder and Conyers spoke — and reiterated that the Justice Department is reviewing the letter.Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Dec. 1 to Holder asking him to review whether the state's emergency financial manager law is constitutional and to intervene if necessary to block it. "(Holder) told me he got the letter and he's going to act on it."

LINK

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

My take is that even if we believe that this is a dastardly corporate Republican plan to steal and sell off Detroit's assets for their own gain while disenfranchising thousands of black voters to boot, who let things get to this point in the first place?  Whether or not there is an emergency manager appointed is almost irrelevant given the cash flow needs of the city. Detroit leadership is coming in a day late and a dollar short. I mean seriously, folks. You can't say and believe in your heart of hearts that those folks over there hate us and want to control us and then behave in such a manner that shows that despite all of your protestations to the contrary, you can't successfully run your own affairs. This is not a race thing in my opinion though there are elements of that which must be addressed. It's a pure numbers situation. The costs are too high; the revenue is too low. That's been an obvious problem for at least the past 15 years. Now the bill is coming due. This is of immense personal interest as there are people very dear to me who rely on city pensions. Bankruptcy could-probably would-put some or all of those pensions at risk. This goes into uncharted territory as Michigan law places high (but not insurmountable) protections around pension payments-perhaps The Janitor or Old Guru can speak to the legalities.


I'd like to believe that Detroit will find a way out of this but I really don't think it will. Time will tell. Maybe the state should just say," Fine. You the man. Handle it yourself-go bankrupt -just don't come crying to us."


QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the emergency financial manager law is constitutional?
2) Should public sector unions and outsourcing contracts have automatic spending reductions inserted based on the city's financial health?
3) Do you think bankruptcy is inevitable for Detroit?
4) Why hasn't city leadership been able to craft a plan to solve this issue?

Motor City Assault on Bus Driver

Incidents like this are exactly why I no longer live in Detroit or go too far out of my way to constantly defend it against vindictive people who would seek to say that this is typical of all Detroiters. For the record, it's not typical of all Detroiters or even most Detroiters. Like anywhere most Detroiters are people just trying to make it to the next day.
That said though, Detroit obviously has a crime problem. It's out of hand not just because of the number of crimes-assaults, robberies, murders, burglaries, rapes, etc but because of the random nature of these crimes. They can literally happen anywhere. What a bitter ugly irony that an assault on a Black bus driver just trying to do his job takes place in a center named after the late Detroit heroine, Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks died for this nonsense.



Watch Video Here

A walk-out by at least 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers today has crippled service for bus riders across the city of Detroit.

DDOT passengers have been left stranded throughout the city as drivers say they are afraid to board the buses after one was attacked on a bus Thursday.

Gaffney said two officers inside the station did not help, and Detroit Police officers arrived 30 minutes after the beating started. The driver was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated and released, Gaffney said.

"One of my drivers getting beaten down in the middle of the Rosa Parks Transit Center -- that's what's crazy in this city," Gaffney said. “I don’t know what’s going on with Detroit. Detroit is just going to hell to tell you the truth," said Horace Adams, 60, of Detroit, as he waited at the Rosa Parks Transit Center today. "Ain’t nothing running right."   Full Article

"Ain’t nothing running right"-That pretty much sums up the city. Now of course things like this can and do happen anywhere but the fact of the matter is they are more common in Detroit-and via the media-have become virtually synonymous with Detroit. Southeast Michigan always ranks among the top 10 most segregated areas in the country, something which brings other economic costs to the region. Bottom line, racist or not, no one wants to live or work in a city where there's a good chance they'll get assaulted doing simple things like buying a newspaper, dropping a child off at school or driving a bus.

Until the perception and reality of crime is dealt with in the city we will never see any true revival. More and more people will move out and Detroit will be left with an unwieldy core of dead-ender nationalists, public sector workers, suburban hipsters, and people who are literally too old or too poor to move. This would not be a good thing. This perception and reality of crime in Detroit also impacts the surrounding suburbs as black flight and white flight play themselves out from generation to generation while outsiders, leery of the entire area, question locating businesses in SE Michigan-ESPECIALLY Detroit.

Now I know the probable underlying reasons for this activity-lack of self love, internalized racism, inability to define masculinity outside of violence, short tempers calculated to show potential predators that you're not prey, low education, lack of jobs, blah, blah, blah. And FWIW I mostly believe in those causal factors. But of course I am sure that none of that was going through the bus driver's mind while he was being assaulted. All he wanted was for it to stop. And in my experience the only way to stop such incidents is by either the immediate application of a superior amount of force or by the fear of such force being applied.

QUESTIONS
So how do you get these things to stop?
Is it time for a Giuliani type mayor to be elected in Detroit?
Does Detroit need massive numbers of police fanning out to shake down Detroiters in search of warrants or other illegal activity?
Should bus drivers be allowed to carry weapons? Should National Guardsmen be called in?
If you were on that bus or in the area would you have intervened?