Detroit Little Caesars Arena Hiring

One of the greatest challenges in a post-civil rights movement society is to translate black political power into black economic power. I think it's fair to say that given the stats around black unemployment, wealth and income that just giving black people the right to vote isn't enough. Just electing black politicians (or white politicians beholden to black interests) isn't enough. We need something stronger to change economic realities. I was recently reminded of this by some of the latest news concerning the construction of the new Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. This arena will be a venue for concerts and for games by the Pistons and Red Wings. The arena will be city owned but will be managed and operated (and profited from) by Olympia Entertainment, a sub company of Ilitch Holdings. The Ilitches, a local billionaire family, own Little Caesars, The Detroit Tigers, The Red Wings, a local casino, and several other venues and properties in and around Detroit, including the famed Fox Theater. If you're working in sports or entertainment in the Detroit area, chances are excellent that you're going to rub shoulders with the Ilitches at some point. 

The Ilitch family was one of the few well known Caucasian run large private businesses to maintain a continual presence in Detroit during some very lean years in the eighties and nineties. They have given charity to many (including late civil rights legend Rosa Parks) and provided good pr for the city. They have also profited nicely from some sweetheart deals, including the financing of the new arena with taxpayer backed bonds, some of which was money supposed to go to public schools. Silly me. I thought that if you were a billionaire you could finance your own arena but maybe you don't become or stay a billionaire by needlessly risking your own money. 

Detroit Superland Market

One of the worst things about racism is that black people tend to internalize it. This is true of classism, sexism and all of the other "ism's" which still plague humanity. If you subconsciously think and accept that you are less than someone else then you will start to behave in ways that support that line of thinking. I have seen black people that would literally shoot another black person just for looking at them the wrong way meekly accept bigoted language or actions from white people. There are some black people who would raise a fuss over poor service from a black owned business who don't say a mumbling word when they're the last party seated at a bad table in a white owned restaurant and so on. One of the things that my parents tried to teach me and my siblings is that as a consumer, as a citizen, as a black person, you should never ever ever accept mistreatment, poor goods or poor service from anyone, no matter their race. Demand and insist upon respect. And if someone is unable or unwilling to do that don't be an idiot and give them your money, work or time anyway. Shop or work elsewhere. I have tried to live up to those teachings.

I was reminded of those long ago lessons when a local news station had a short story on a particularly unsanitary local grocery on the west side of Detroit. I've written before on how the majority of grocery stores and convenience stores or "party" stores in Detroit, and for that matter likely in the entirety of Wayne County are owned and operated by people of Middle Eastern descent. This has led to regular static because of allegations of disrespect, poor store conditions, sexual harassment, violence and refusal to hire local (read "Black") employees aimed at the ownership and allegations or incidents of theft and violence caused by the clientele. From time to time, a case where one side or the other does something really egregious makes the news.




Fox 2 News Headlines

Now there are some people who might wonder if this entire intervention with Malik Shabazz and the store owner was already preplanned. Certainly the owner Steven Najor seems a bit calm for someone who supposedly just had his business exposed as a filthy place to buy food. I couldn't say one way or the other. And boycotts have a long history as part of black empowerment activism. But it's also 2014. We need to ask ourselves as Black Americans and/or other supportive folks, are boycotts really the best way to get where we need to go? Rather than boycott, which judging by the comments of some of the putative shoppers, might not be too effective anyway, why not work on pooling resources to open up more of our own businesses? How is it that entire lines of business that make money in the black community are rarely owned by blacks? That's one question. The other question is how do we convince people that they are important enough to refuse to accept bad treatment. Because frankly what durned difference would it make if the store owner was Black, White, Middle Eastern, Asian, Hispanic, whatever if s/he runs a dirty store? The limiting factor is not only lax state and city enforcement of appropriate regulations but a clientele that is convinced that filthy stores and post dated perishables are the best they can hope for. 

I go back to the parents. I will never forget that when I was a young boy and had not gotten the proper change from a store clerk, my father sent me right back out again with an admonition to get his money and not take any stuff. Now it was only $0.10 but it was the principle of the thing. Ultimately the citizens of Detroit need to make it clear to business owners that they demand clean stores and will accept nothing less. This requires a change in how people perceive themselves. This takes time.

Thoughts?

Adam Carolla: What's wrong with you Black people

Some (many?) conservatives seem to think that black people are naturally inferior. Now except on the fringes you probably won't find this expressed in the traditional "I hate n*****s. I won't hire them, work with them, live with them or marry them. This is a white (wo)man's country, dammit!!". Although the election of President Obama seems to have brought some of that closer to the surface, it's still I think, somewhat of a minority view, pardon the pun.

But what's not really a minority view is the idea that there's something wrong with black people, that they aren't quite on a par with white people.  We saw a fictional take on this in Django Unchained. Some people couch this in points about culture while others claim that there is real measurable important biological diversity among humans and that black people just happen to have gotten the short end of the stick as far as intelligence is concerned. This is diffused throughout the larger community, really throughout the entire American society. Comedian and commentator Adam Carolla recently gave voice to this view point.

"I want everyone to plan. Look down the road six months," said Carolla. "Yes they foreclosed on your home. That's why you need to have a network, a community, friends, family members, money put away. Don't have the kids."
"Think about it, Adam," challenged Newsom. "Half of African Americans in the state of California, and roughly half of Latino families, have no access to a checking account or an ATM."
And that's when things got hairy.
"What's wrong with them?" asked Carolla. "I want to know why those two groups don't have access. Are they flawed?"
"I want to know why [Blacks and Latinos] are struggling," Carolla continued. "Do Asians have this problem? Why do so many [Blacks and Latinos]? Blacks have been here longer than we have. What about Asians--they were put in internment camps. Are they at the check cashing places?"
"How about the Jews?" asked Carolla. "No problems in the past? Whose had it worse? Why are the Jews doing well? [...] Why do some groups do so much better? I'll tell you why: They have a family who puts an emphasis on education.

LINK

Unwilling immigrant

Carolla's questions fit in neatly with the idea that modern racism is minor or non-existent and that any problems black people have are almost entirely their own fault. It also raises the idea that blacks have less ability to plan for the future, think with their genitals and can't be trusted with money. Unsurprisingly these are the same stereotypes which were used to justify the enslavement and segregation of black people.

Of course to support this idea it's critically important not to discuss the experiences of a wider number of black people. You can't talk about "faulty family structure" when you're discussing situations like black mid level corporate managers who repeatedly find themselves training white co-workers who swiftly surpass them, black youth who are stopped by (and threatened, assaulted or insulted by) the NYPD more than white youth but have fewer guns or drugs found on them, black authors or musicians who can't get cover stories or reviews in white media, black accountants who discover they're paid less than someone white with less education or experience or my personal favorite, black job seekers who discover they have less of a chance of getting a job than someone white with a felony or who learn that their resume was rejected immediately because their name or zip code indicated probable African ancestry. Those things are real and are all going on today. And if anything black parents put more emphasis on education than white parents do simply because they hope that education can protect their children from some of the worst instances of racism in the labor market. This isn't always the case of course.

Although the issues of the so-called underclass , future time orientation, out of wedlock births, conflict resolution, etc are well known and important to solve, they are not the only problems facing the larger black community. I have no problem talking about financial mismanagement or other items which are in an individual's power to change. But there's more to life than that. Carolla seeks to pose as a truthteller when in fact he's just a bully punching down. Where is the oh so brave iconoclast who looks at the past 600 years and asks "What's wrong with white people?". Well chances are he or she won't get mainstream media access, unless it's to make someone else repudiate, denounce and renounce them.

 I'm not part of any "underclass" and I've still seen or experienced real racism, whether it's couched in the coldly polite passive-aggressive corporate style or the direct and dangerous "Why are you in this neighborhood show me your hands" flavor that police tend to prefer. 

As other people have pointed out, if you've been traumatized in some way as a child there's a slightly better than average chance that you're going to have problems as an adult. If you're been assaulted or raped it might be a long time (if ever) before you are as trusting of people as you previously were. If every time you stepped out of the house someone whacked you in the head with a shovel, you might become more fearful than other people of trying or doing new things. If you, deep in your heart of hearts, are convinced that God doesn't look like you but looks like some other group of people, how can you ever get right? 

I've said it before, here and on other forums. And I'm not the only one who's said it. But Black Americans only became legally full citizens post 1965 or so. It's not quite within my lifetime but it's pretty close. For the majority of this country's existence, black people were either slaves or non-people. White people could and did remove or prevent Black people from competing with them. Whether this was done by law (mostly in the South) or custom (more likely in the North) the impact was to retard accumulation of wealth and social resources. And violence or the threat of violence always played a part as well.

So there is no real comparison to be made with other immigrant groups, whether they be Italian, like Carolla's, or Jewish or Asian or any other group. None of them went through what black people in America experienced. None of them had their cultures stolen and mental framework destroyed. Basically what Carolla is saying is that he thinks Black people are inferior. He thinks that other groups could go through what blacks went through and come out better off. Well. I say that that question can't be answered unless we (literally) give black people the whip hand for 400 years and see how whites turn out. Let's make whites worship a Jesus that looks just like Isaac Hayes and see if they have any issues with self-hatred after a few centuries. I think that if this country were majority black and had been for ages, we very might see a Johnny-come-lately descendant of black immigrants making snide comments about what was wrong with the descendants of white slaves, while being totally clueless about his own privileges.

It seems like the new thing is to figuratively tear someone's ACL, slit their Achilles tendon, smash their big toe and then sneer at them for not being to run as fast as you.

Thoughts?

Detroit: Governor Snyder says Emergency Manager is needed

In a decision that should surprise absolutely no one Michigan Republican governor Rick Snyder today announced that the City of Detroit would have to have an emergency manager. It doesn't give me any pleasure to see this announcement but it's one of those things that's probably long overdue. Detroit simply can't continue to go on as it is. One thing that really bothers me about all this is that now that a white Republican is calling attention to the dysfunction that is Detroit, Detroiters near and far are coming out of the woodwork to say that an emergency manager is not needed and this is plantation politics and so on. Well maybe. I don't automatically believe that Snyder or anyone he appoints will necessarily have the best interest of the citizens of Detroit at heart. There was a similar state takeover of the Detroit School Board that actually made things worse financially.


 

However there does come a time when you have to put everything else aside and just look at simple math. As much as I might like to purchase The Biltmore, or the Wurzburg Residenz I have neither the income nor capital to arrange such purchases or handle the expenses of such estates. So I have to make do with something a little less extravagant. Similarly Detroit, in which virtually half of property owners refuse to pay their lawful taxes , just can't afford to spend the money or do the things it used to do. Snyder did not cause this. I don't politically agree with Snyder. I don't particularly like Snyder. I did not vote for Snyder. But we must be real. It may make some people feel good to call Snyder everything but a child of God over the next few weeks. But that won't change the math. As the more expansive emergency manager law was recently repealed by Michigan voters, the new emergency manager would not quite have the almost dictatorial powers which would have been available under the old law.

But he or she would still be the person ultimately responsible for financially saving the city of Detroit or, more likely shepherding it through bankruptcy. And I do think that bankruptcy remains the most probable and reasonable outcome. An emergency manager will be able to do some things that mayor and council can't do.

Q: If an EFM is appointed, will Detroit elections for mayor and City Council still go forward?

A: Yes. Detroiters will have a primary election in August and a general in November. What powers those elected officials will have will be up to the EFM.

Q: Who pays the salary of an emergency financial manager?

A: Under state law, the local government pays the EFM. The salary is set by the Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board, which also approves any necessary expenses that the EFM incurs. But under Public Act 436, which goes into effect March 28, the state, rather than the financially distressed local government, will pay the emergency manager's salary and other costs.

Q: Does an EFM have the authority to change existing labor contracts without negotiation?

A: No. While EFMs are authorized to renegotiate labor contracts, they are not authorized to do away with such contracts or obligations under Public Act 72. Under Public Act 436, an emergency manager may impose new labor terms if negotiations with unions fail and the state approves doing so.

Q: Does an EFM have the authority to eliminate a department or transfer functions of one department to another, or eliminate positions?

A: Yes. Notwithstanding the provisions of any charter to the contrary, an emergency financial manager may consolidate departments of a unit of local government, or transfer functions from one department to another department, and may appoint, supervise, and, at his or her discretion, remove heads of departments other than elected officials, the clerk of the unit of local government, or any ombudsman position in the unit of local government.

But the emergency manager can't MAKE people pay their taxes. Under Michigan law he can't stop pension payments. And he can't tell creditors that he's not going to pay them. Given the virulence of racism in SE Michigan and the hypersensitivity of Detroiters at being dictated to by whites suburbanites/non-Detroiters and the rage of whites suburbanites/non-Detroiters at being forced to pony up money for Detroit (there are truths to both perceptions although each is limited) I still say the smartest move politically would have been for Governor Snyder to stay out of it entirely. If I were him I would have said "I believe that Detroiters can solve their own problems" and shrugged off all questions and most importantly, any requests for state financial assistance. It's unfortunately human nature but by putting an emergency manager in charge that emergency manager will become the focus of Detroiter vitriol instead of bad decisions and bad management by past and current Detroit leaders. Detroit's problems were not all caused by Detroiters. But I strongly believe that letting people stand on their own two feet and make their own decisions is preferable in most cases than trying to do for them. Of course, in dire emergencies this "each man is the captain of his own ship" attitude doesn't work. And Detroit is in such an emergency. We'll see how it goes. I worry that no one really cares if Detroit survives. One group of people will just be angered by what they see as another instance of white paternalism and fight everything on that basis. Another group will be made ecstatic by what they see as another instance of black malfeasance that confirms their racist baseline ideas. And like monkeys in the zoo they will be throwing their s*** at each other. So it goes.

How do you see it? Is this the death of democracy? What would you do as governor?

Banks and Loan Sharks: Payday Loans and Online Lending

When you think of a "loan shark" you might stereotypically think of a hard nosed man who will advance you some cash when you're in a bind but is rumored to hurt or even murder people who don't pay him back on time. He might be affiliated with the regional office of a national organization of similar businessmen. He probably employs people the size of small refrigerators who collect for him. He may tool around town in a late model Cadillac or older Town Car with an expansive albeit suspiciously stained trunk. If you are late on your payments or if he suspects you might be thinking about being late on your payments, he might suddenly appear at your home and politely ask for his money. Or he may follow you to your anniversary celebration and throw you a beating in front of your spouse and kids. It all depends on his mood and how late you are. 

Hey, all he wants is his money. Since he can't rely on the courts to enforce a technically valid but completely illegal contract, you can understand why he would need to have some, well, unorthodox methods of securing his capital. Since many of his clients are themselves violent lowlifes, criminals and other trash, stern dunning letters and threats to report late payers to credit bureaus won't have the desired effect. Generally speaking baseball bats and tire irons are more effective than plaintive phone calls at getting people's undivided attention.

But if you're a loan shark all this can be hectic and dangerous. Your clientele is often armed themselves. If you kill a debtor you lose that payment stream. Harassing or beating up debtors, while occasionally satisfying, can bring in the police or worse, scare the deadbeat so much that he scurries down to the local FBI office. And then you'd probably be convicted of several racketeering, conspiracy, usury and assault charges and spend the next 40 years in a federal penitentiary. No good. So what's an ambitious hoodlum to do?

Well if he was smart he'd realize that the risks of dealing with criminals and degenerate gamblers, ordering or carrying out beatings and murders, sharing profits with bosses who are even more paranoid and brutal than he is, and spending time worrying that a customer or associate might be an undercover FBI agent or informant don't really justify his shylock profits. I mean you can't spend your money if you're dead or in jail right? And really, who needs all the stress? What if you could make similar profits in a related venture that not only was completely legal (more or less) but also put banks and lawyers on your side for a change? I mean how cool would that be? Wouldn't a loan shark like to have a regular nine to five gig with above board profits, vacation and sick days, 401K opportunities and incentive bonuses without all the messy illegality and violence that used to go along with his business? Classic loan sharks aren't as common as they used to be. They got smart.

A loan shark should enter the payday loan/online lending business. Now, in payday loan lending you might not attain the 1040% annualized nominal interest rate on a typical 6-for-5 mob loan but then again you don't have to pay hoodlums who will beat up, intimidate or kill delinquent clients either. You can start your car without wondering if a co-worker put a bomb under the seat. You can attend last minute meetings with the franchise president without being frightened because the conference room is empty. Your overhead shrinks. You can pay taxes and bank your profits. And banks will help you with your business instead of informing the IRS. And if you like, you can even keep your two-tone pinstripe suits for old time's sake. What a country, eh??

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates.

While the banks, which include giants like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely. In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals. “Without the assistance of the banks in processing and sending electronic funds, these lenders simply couldn’t operate,” said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership. At first blush, processing automatic withdrawals hardly seems like a source of profit. But many customers are already on shaky financial footing. The withdrawals often set off a cascade of fees from problems like overdrafts. Roughly 27 percent of payday loan borrowers say that the loans caused them to overdraw their accounts, according to a report released this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That fee income is coveted, given that financial regulations limiting fees on debit and credit cards have cost banks billions of dollars.

Ivy Brodsky, 37, thought she had figured out a way to stop six payday lenders from taking money from her account when she visited her Chase branch in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn in March to close it. But Chase kept the account open and between April and May, the six Internet lenders tried to withdraw money from Ms. Brodsky’s account 55 times, according to bank records reviewed by The New York Times. Chase charged her $1,523 in fees — a combination of 44 insufficient fund fees, extended overdraft fees and service fees.

For Subrina Baptiste, 33, an educational assistant in Brooklyn, the overdraft fees levied by Chase cannibalized her child support income. She said she applied for a $400 loan from Loanshoponline.com and a $700 loan from Advancemetoday.com in 2011. The loans, with annual interest rates of 730 percent and 584 percent respectively, skirt New York law. Ms. Baptiste said she asked Chase to revoke the automatic withdrawals in October 2011, but was told that she had to ask the lenders instead. In one month, her bank records show, the lenders tried to take money from her account at least six times. Chase charged her $812 in fees and deducted over $600 from her child-support payments to cover them.“I don’t understand why my own bank just wouldn’t listen to me,” Ms. Baptiste said, adding that Chase ultimately closed her account last January, three months after she asked.

LINK

Now stupid people will often do stupid things. Now why does this even matter you might ask? Well it matters because instead of helping people start businesses and get out of poverty payday/online lenders are largely in the business of helping poor people to stay poor. And wouldn't you know it, black people, who already have lower incomes and wealth than most Americans, are disproportionate customers of payday/online lenders. Black people are about 12% of the US population but make up 23% of payday borrowers. Renters and people of lower income are also more likely to use payday loans than homeowners and higher income Americans. Most people are using payday loans for daily expenses. This means it is more difficult for people who are already behind the 8 ball economically to get over the hump. They are diverting a sizable portion of their already meager resources to interest payments for things that if they really thought about it, they may not have needed. 

Or viewed another way if they really did need them then this is another good reason we need to raise the minimum wage here and work to increase income in this country for our citizens as opposed to helping people in China, India or elsewhere. If people are taking loans just to make ends meet then something has gone drastically wrong with our job generating machine.  I view payday/online lending not just as a symptom of poor personal financial management or temporary desperation but as a wholly predictable outcome of a deunionized workforce with stagnant income growth. JP Morgan Chase, not content with aiding legal loan sharks to rip off low income citizens, also allegedly ripped off other banks by selling them crap mortgages. HSBC escaped criminal charges after willingly assisting drug cartels in laundering their profits. Apparently something has gone drastically wrong with the financial superstructure in this country and world. We need to fix this ASAP because otherwise not only will we continue to have record levels of income inequality as well as financial corruption but growth will also stay anemic. You can't grow when you're spending so much of your income servicing debt.

What we ought to be worried about is not the mob shark but all of the other debttrappers that have proliferated since our credit markets were deregulated. There are more of them now than ever before and most of them have been issued licenses. That is the loan-shark problem regulators should confront.

It looks like financial market deregulation hasn't so much gotten rid of the classic loan shark as it's made him clean up and operate above board, with almost the same business model. It looks like Lucky Luciano was right on the money with his insight.

‘I’d do it legal. I learned too late that you need just as good a brain to make a crooked million, as an honest million. These days, you apply for a license to steal from the public. If I had my time again, I’d make sure I got that license first!’
Charles "Lucky" Luciano

QUESTIONS

1) Should Payday loan/online lending be outlawed completely?

2) Does the government have a role to protect people from themselves? 

3) Is there any difference between a bank and an unregulated lender?

4) Do you know anyone who has used payday loans? Have you used them?

Book Reviews-For the Sins of My Father, Powernomics, The Warlord Chronicles, Battles that Changed History

For the Sins of My Father
by Albert DeMeo

I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I hope you did as well. Most children go through a growth stage in which they are convinced that their parent (and I can only speak of sons and fathers here) is the greatest, smartest, toughest, coolest most wonderful person that ever did exist. It is part of the bittersweet maturation process when children become older and start to substitute their own judgment for that of their parents that the child's perception shifts. 

Eventually the child will get more knowledge and learn some things that their parent did that might not have been completely kosher. Maybe there are some aspects to the parent's life with which the child can't agree. Perhaps the child decides that the parent did everything wrong and gets trapped in bitterness. Maybe he spends the next two decades feuding with the parent. Maybe. For most of us who grew up with, at the very least non-abusive parents, if you are fortunate enough to have an adult relationship with your parent(s), you will probably judge them lightly and just enjoy the time you have left with them. 

After all no one's perfect, they did the best they could and guess what there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny either. Get over your issues. Albert DeMeo didn't get to have an adult relationship with his father. His father was the feared Mafia soldier Roy DeMeo, top dog of the Gemini Crew and primary executioner and torturer for the Gambino Crime Family.  The elder DeMeo was murdered just around the time of Albert's seventeenth birthday. Albert had to identify his father's body, (Roy had been shot seven times, three in the head) make all the funeral arrangements and deal with arrogant suspicious law enforcement agents (The NYPD made fun of his father's death while the FBI tried to put microphones and camera in the casket) as well as the deadly members of his father's crew who had murdered Roy and were ominously watching to see if they needed to kill Albert as well. That's a lot for a teen to deal with but we all have crosses to bear. As an adult Albert DeMeo looks back to tell the story.

This book points out the banality of evil. People that are evil and Roy DeMeo was, don't all walk around kicking dogs and rubbing their hands together with glee. No, whatever evil DeMeo did he generally did as part of business and did not, from the story his son tells, bring it home. Of course, like blind men describing an elephant, we must remember that Albert DeMeo tells this story from the vantage point of a doting son and one who is far removed from those times. His mother's or sister's stories may have been different. We don't know. We do know that Roy DeMeo, while he didn't necessarily bring brutality or meanness home with him, certainly did not go out of his way to hide what he was from his son either.

At first Roy is showing a six year old how to clean and dismantle guns. Later it's taking an eight year old to social clubs where the elder DeMeo loans money and receives payments. Then, while teaching a fourteen year old how to lay tile and frame concrete, Roy takes the opportunity to teach him how to make homemade silencers. It's the small things that count. If Roy DeMeo had survived would he have overseen his son's official entry into the world of crime? It's hard to say. What I can say is that Roy's murder and events afterwards pushed Albert DeMeo away from the Mafia. Albert made the critical mistake of calling his father's previous boss to ask for help and telling him he thought he knew who killed his father. Albert was then beaten very badly. He knew then beyond a doubt who had killed his father. Can you imagine looking into the eyes of your parent's murderers as they ask you if there is anything that you need? This is a book with a limited but focused perspective. It's gripping reading. Roy DeMeo knew his time was approaching and one of the last things he told his son was forget about me, do not try to take revenge. Yes in some respects it's an apology for Roy DeMeo but as Albert DeMeo says some things he didn't know about his Dad sickened him. But he can only speak to the man he knew.




PowerNomics
by Dr. Claud Anderson

The subtitle for this book is "The National Plan to Empower Black America". And that is Anderson's burning passion. Anderson is an economic nationalist from the old school pro-black perspective. He is most definitely not a conservative and does not concede the pro-business language that conservatives have seized on. If there is one point that he beats the reader over the head with over and over again it is that the three primary reasons for black people's well known economic disadvantages are that black people (1) do not own businesses, (2) do not work together as a group and (3) tend to be over consumers instead of investors.
Much like Harold Cruse and his theory of "non-economic liberalism", Anderson points out that integration and desegregation while perhaps important as a floor, simply do not provide for equal opportunity or equality. If other groups own everything then blacks are constantly in a "begging mode". For Anderson, power comes from ownership. We live in a capitalistic society and full rights only accrue to those with capital. Reactionary integration, which is where our remaining "civil rights leaders" and indeed black people in general tend to remain,does simply not address economic issues.

Black conservatives who discuss these issues tend to elide racism. Anderson does not. He explains in his book exactly how wealth is built, maintained and transferred from generation to generation. As generally speaking black Americans weren't even full citizens until sometime in the mid to late sixties, opportunities to build wealth were limited.

This is a good book and should be read and understood. He's rough and does not pull any punches. His solutions are that Black people must understand what slavery, segregation and exclusion did to them and work together to reject the dominant post-slavery narrative that still sees whites disproportionately as owners and blacks as workers. As you might expect he is not a huge fan of alliances with other so-called minority groups, unless those can clearly be shown to help black interests. As he points out over and over again, many businesses which cater to black customers are owned by white citizens or new immigrants but it's exceedingly rare to find a black business that caters to a non-black clientele or is set up in a non-black community. Quiet as it's kept many of the points that Anderson makes were made by Malcolm and believe it or not MLK. Anderson overstates his case of course, not every non-black American is a business owner and not every black American is working for someone else. This is actually a shot across the bow of the black professional class. This is a book you should have.  Speech  Speech 2




Enemy of God and Excalibur
by Bernard Cornwell

These are books two and three in The Warlord Chronicles trilogy. To a degree each book stands alone I suppose but I read one immediately after the other. The story does not make radical changes in style or characterization from each book.
I wrote in the previous review of the Bernard Cornwell book, The Winter King, that to an extent the relation between King Arthur and Merlin is akin to what I thought the relationship  between Tecumseh and his brother would have been. This analogy to foreign invaders (Europeans to America, Saxons to Britain) holds up and goes even further in these books. I am also reminded of the scene in Steve Barnes' alternate history novel  Lion's Blood, in which an Irish boy is heartened and excited to see his father come to defend him from Viking slavers, because his father is incredibly skilled with his weapon (spear), only to watch in shock, horror and disbelief as his father is casually killed by the Vikings' unknown weapon (a rifle). This conflict between the reality of one's existence and the fleeting "reality" of what used to be in terms of your religion or how you saw the world is a bit more stark in Enemy of God and Excalibur than it was in The Winter King. When there is a difference between reality and your religion what do you do? If you can't count on your God(s) any more you might go insane or convert to a new god. Think about it. How many people on the Middle Passage or in Auschwitz could have belief in their God?

Arthur doesn't put much stock in gods or magic; at one point he angrily stabs his "magic" sword Excalibur into the ground and calls for help from the Otherworld. At this a God and his Army are supposed to come to Arthur's aid. As Arthur bitterly points out, no army arrives.
But others, to a certain extent Merlin and to a much greater and ultimately tragic extent, Nimue, do believe in the Gods and are sickened, threatened and angered not only by the increasing Saxon encroachment but more by the amazing and threatening Christian numerical increase. Some Christians are live and let live type of people but many of them, especially the recent converts like Arthur's sister Morgan, do their best to stamp out paganism. Merlin and Nimue believe that something big is needed to bring back the Old Gods, something akin to a Celtic Ghost Dance. This will have similar tragic results, just as it did for the Sioux.

Arthur and the Britons seem doomed to lose. There are simply too many Saxons. They are the illegal immigrants of the day. Their invasion is relentless. A few of them have even taken to calling themselves Kings of Britain. The peace between the warring British tribes that Arthur has enforced through blood, loyalty, bribery, marriage and appeals to the common good is falling apart through greed on the outside and the ugliest treachery on the inside. Arthur is VERY similar to Ned Stark. He simply can not understand treachery or that people might actually want power. Arthur is an excellent example of the D&D alignment lawful good (though he's a bit more lawful than good) and of the limitations inherent in that alignment. Although often Arthur has the might to do as he pleases he generally insists on doing the right thing and living by the law. This makes some people, including his wife Guinevere, assume that he's a weakling or a dunce. By the time it dawns on Arthur that he probably should have eliminated a few enemies earlier and not worried about whether it was morally good, it's almost too late. Once aroused though Arthur can be an implacable enemy. When he captures one of his traitorous sons (who has helped murder children) he calmly asks the son why he was fighting for Arthur's enemies. The son lies and says that he thought Arthur was already dead. Arthur then quietly asks that if the son thought his father was dead why didn't he seek vengeance upon his killers instead of allying with them. The son angrily says Arthur was no father to him. Arthur forces the son to put his right hand (that he raised against Arthur) on a oath stone and then tells him that a son who raises his hand against his father is no son of his and that Arthur renounces both the son and the hand. He then chops off his son's hand.

Cornwell did his research and it shows. He gives excellent descriptions of shield wall fighting. You almost think you were there. You can't be a bada$$ war leader without coming up with some bada$$ insults and Derfel has quite a few. The author is pretty hard on religion. The self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the Christian converts is matched by some of the more repulsive practices of the pagans (a barren woman smearing newborn baby feces on her clothes to guarantee fertility, killing a newborn calf to ensure a healthy flock, and in certain circumstances, human sacrifice) The narrator, Derfel Cadarn, is revealed to be the son of a Saxon king, one of Arthur's enemies. Despite this Derfel remains, along with the Numidian Sagramor, one of Arthur's champions and a building block in Arthur's attempt to bring peace. But Arthur's story is a tragedy. Arthur's works fall, as much from treason and intransigence within as any Saxon threat from without. The trilogy is very good in total. These two books are worthwhile reading.



Battles That Changed History
Amber Books

If you are a history junkie and/or a military history buff or weapons guru you probably want to get this book. Although there are a few horrible exclusions (where is the Battle of Vertieres or the Battle of Isandlwana or the Battle of Bannockburn) it does list 47 battles from 1457 BC at Megiddo all the way up to operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 (which was really more of a campaign) Each battle is lavishly illustrated with prints and portraits of the typical soldiers and their commanders, as well as detailed maps showing each side's plans, weapons, tactics and what went wrong for one side or the other. There are some surprises here. For example the Battle of Agincourt is famous for supposedly showing the superiority of the English (Welsh) longbow. 5700 Englishmen defeated 25,000 French soldiers and Italian mercenaries. In point of fact though the longbow probably didn't easily get through the heavy plate armor of the French knights. But what it did do, with the aid of an aborted French charge through mud, was to kill the French men at arms without armor and break up the French charge enough to allow the English to run forward and finish them off with mauls and maces. Other battles described still rankled losers centuries afterward. For example the 1410 Prussian defeat at Tannenburg, Poland so bothered the Germans that in 1914, when the German general Paul Von Hindenburg, a Prussian, defeated a Russian army in the same region he named the battle Tannenburg.

Detroit Messes Its Pants

I don't like being negative about my home town. Who does? I have previously written about the financial and criminal crisis that Detroit faces and the reasons that it has those problems. To paraphrase Ronnie Van Zant, there's good people in Detroit. And I hope that you all remember that!!! But sometimes it's hard to remember that because the political leadership has failed so miserably over the past few decades.


If you recall when last I wrote about this Detroit was facing an unpalatable choice among three outcomes.

1. Immediate Bankruptcy
2. Emergency Financial Manager
3. Consent Agreement

Now no one in Detroit political leadership liked those choices but there they were all the same. It wasn't necessarily the fault of the current political leadership that they had those choices but nonetheless they were the ones that had to make the tough call. Again, unless you are from here I don't think you can fully understand the (primarily but not exclusively) racial disdain and divisions that plague SE Michigan. On local message boards and newspaper comment sections the glee expressed by some suburbanites at Detroit's horrible dilemma was in direct proportion to the anger and frustration and blame placed on the state by some Detroiters. But still when it came to it, a consent agreement was the best of bad options. After some posturing and anger, the City Council voted 5-4 to accept a consent agreement. This agreement between the city and state allowed a mutual (though state dominant) working relationship between the city and state to attempt to stave off municipal bankruptcy, which could have unforeseen and unpleasant impact on areas outside of Detroit. The state sent Detroit funds to allow for bond refinancing and avoid missing paydays. So despite some final vituperation expressed by my friends among the kente cloth and kufi wearing set, all's well that ends well. Right? Well not exactly.

No, for you see Detroit had also recently changed its charter to allow the city legal department to act independently of the mayor and city council. And the chief city counsel, Krystal Crittendon, was quite close to the council members that had rejected the consent agreement. And since Detroit had enough money from taking the deal to last a little while longer, Ms.Crittendon decided that it would be a great idea to sue the state for money it allegedly owes the city. And to her mind, the fact that the state "owes the city" means that the consent agreement was null and void. Oh yes, some of the alleged debt includes parking tickets. 

MASON -- Detroit's top lawyer expanded a list of debts allegedly owed by the State of Michigan to include bills for storm-water disposal and lighting, along with $1,255 in unpaid parking tickets, in a lawsuit she filed in Ingham County seeking to nullify the financial stability agreement reached two months ago by state and city elected officials. Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon's complaint, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court on Monday, says Michigan is in "default" on an additional $1.6 million in alleged debts, and that the agreement violates the Detroit City Charter, which prohibits contracts with "one who is in default." Crittendon's lawsuit also cites $224 million in revenue-sharing payments and a $4.7-million water bill at the former state fairgrounds among state debts to Detroit, the issues she raised May 11 in a letter to state Treasurer Andy Dillon when she first claimed that entering into the financial stability agreement violated the charter.  Dillon responded that the state-city agreement, an alternative Gov. Rick Snyder had to naming an emergency manager to deal with the city's financial crisis, was valid "from both a legal and commonsense perspective," and had been entered into voluntarily by the City Council and Mayor Dave Bing.

LINK


The State of Michigan was not amused and pointed out that it would withhold the remaining monies under the consent agreement, since Detroit thought the agreement was null and void. And the Mayor's office admitted that without that money the city would be broke within a week.

Detroit— The city could run out of cash by next Friday if the dispute over a lawsuit challenging the consent agreement isn't resolved, opening the door to a state takeover, Mayor Dave Bing's administration said today.Bing, who spoke this morning flanked by high-ranking members of his administration, said he has urged the city's top lawyer to drop the lawsuit but added he is powerless under the new city charter to force Krystal Crittendon to comply. Political pressure on her would not work, he said.The mayor said the lawsuit has made this a "potential worse situation than we were in, meaning that we could eventually in a short period of time run out of cash.""It is an emergency," Bing said, indicating the consent agreement with the state would be violated if the city runs out of cash. "It is a crisis and we've been in a crisis for a long time. This just ups the ante more than anything else. And I think, from a leadership standpoint, it's incumbent upon us as leaders to deal with this expeditiously, which means ASAP."Jack Martin, the city's new chief financial officer, said the city would "probably make payroll, but we'd be in a deficit position." When asked directly if the city would be broke, Martin agreed that could happen.Martin said at least $35 million has been already drawn down from the city's escrow account, but based on a letter sent Thursday by the state Treasury Department, "we don't believe they will let us drawn down any more money against that escrow account." That account was where $80 million in interim financing from the state was deposited under the consent agreement to help the city get through its cash crisis.

LINK

So you see what a mess this is. To make this even more ridiculous the Mayor just admitted that the city could not pay for the annual fireworks show  and would have to ask for financial and security assistance from, you guessed it, the state and suburbs. So let me get this straight, Detroit. You're walking around with a big load in your diapers but don't want anyone to help you, clean you up and make sure you don't do it again? You're independent and reject the consent agreement you just signed but you still want suburban/state money? You're the most violent city in the nation, but think the most pressing problem is whether or not you choose a consent agreement or emergency manager? Okay. Fine. As I've said before I understand the fierce sense of anger and independence that is part and parcel of Detroit. It was passed down. It's part of our history. Heck, the white chairman of Compuware gets it. Racism is real and it has ongoing effects. 


But when it comes to the very particular question of what are you going to do right now at this instant, what happened in the past is just not material. The political leadership of Detroit is a joke. Who signs an agreement and then turns around and sues so that they can go bankrupt and have an emergency manager put in over their objections. Just stupid. I said before and I'll say it again. Given the extreme racial and other hostility between city and suburb, city and state, the state would have been wiser just to stay out of Detroit's affairs all together. Because it is more important to the political leadership in Detroit to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. I can (almost perversely) admire such bullheadedness. I just hope that the citizens of Detroit understand that no one is riding to the rescue. Times are tough all over. I still have friends and relatives in the city who are basically held hostage to the foolishness.
What's your take?