Ich bin ein Detroiter

If you have been following the Detroit situation, and you have been thinking about how Detroit can decline from one of America’s wealthiest communities to a destroyed dust bin in a matter of several decades, you will quickly grasp why TheFundamentals modestly suggests in the title to this series, that we all are becoming Detroiters.  Thanks to that combination of democrat party welfare policies that promote nothing but decline; an only too willing minority population to vote for said policies and the most incredible gathering of bottom feeding union masters dedicated to running their employers businesses into the ground (all for the good of the worker and that important  “collective bargaining agreements” principle), American cities and states are looking more like the proving ground for testing military weaponry.  Detroit leads the pack – but places like Oakland and Chicago and Newark and Atlanta are doing their best to catch up fast (big announcement due out today affecting Stockton, California's bankruptcy petition.)

Ich bin ein Detroiter *.  (I am a Detroiter.)

For those who are new to grasping the Detroit situation and what this coalition of bottom feeders can do with your neighborhood, we offer this reference from March 2011:  http://thefundamentalsus.blogspot.com/2011/03/deficit-trials.html

Detroit is headed to the bankruptcy court – slowly, meandering its way there.  Why the slow, meandering process?  Politics, politics, politics.  Democrat and urban black citizenry and public employee union politics.  Who is served by this slow, meandering process?  The aforementioned characters.  Who is not served by it?  The taxpayers of the state of Michigan and anyone still working in a private sector job in the state of Michigan.  Ditto for your home town and state.

Why is bankruptcy inevitable for Detroit?  Well, let’s read from the Michigan constitution, article IX, Section 24:

 

“§ 24 Public pension plans and retirement systems, obligation.  The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof which shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.” 

How do you break a “contractual obligation”?  Even one backed by the constitution of the state?  Only one way that we know – bankruptcy.

 

Remember, bankruptcy is not a state matter – not even a matter for the people – it belongs to the federal government in the constitution of the United States which overrides all state constitutions.

 

The implication is significant.  Many of the 50 states have clauses with similar “guarantees” about pensions and retirement plans for public workers that “shall not be diminished or impaired” etc. and many of the 50 states and many of their “political subdivisions (cities, towns, school boards, counties, etc,) are insolvent – meaning they cannot pay current obligations with current resources or their liabilities exceed their assets.

There are two alternatives to insolvency and bankruptcy:

1.      Get your house in order – meaning cut your liabilities to match your resources and your assets and live within your means, or

2.      Get the feds to print money and send it to the cities and states in return for their vote to keep the “something for nothings” in their public employment jobs
 

Alternative one above is not doable; minorities will not tolerate it; the democrat party is committed to a welfare state and the unions will suck the last dollar of private wealth if permitted.  And, at some point, alternative two will end – it has ended for Detroit.

So, say it loud and say it proud, “I am a Detroiter!”

* We choose to paraphrase this line from JFK's speech in Berlin in 1963 because more than any one person, JFK set America on the path of public employment unionization by single handily enabling, via executive order #10988, federal employees to join unions.