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Stein's Law

Sandokan

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Stein's Law
Charles Krauthammer: Stein’s Law - The Washington Post

By Charles Krauthammer

If there’s an iron rule in economics, it is Stein’s Law (named after Herb, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers): “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

Detroit, for example, can no longer go on borrowing, spending, raising taxes and dangerously cutting such essential services as street lighting and police protection. So it stops. It goes bust.

Cause of death? Corruption, both legal and illegal, plus a classic case of reactionary liberalism in which the governing Democrats — there’s been no Republican mayor in half a century — simply refused to adapt to the straitened economic circumstances that followed the post-World War II auto boom.

Corruption of the criminal sort was legendary. The former mayor currently serving time engaged in a breathtaking range of fraud, extortion and racketeering. And he didn’t act alone. The legal corruption was the cozy symbiosis of Democratic politicians and powerful unions, especially the public-sector unions that gave money to elect the politicians who negotiated their contracts — with wildly unsustainable health and pension benefits.
None of the Democratic Mayors have been able to improve the economic situation in half a century? The Obama administration cannot bail out any city right now. It doesn’t have the revenues to do it. These results after so many years are obvious despite all smoke and lies trying to conceal the facts. Of course, facts made no difference to liberals.
 
None of the Democratic Mayors have been able to improve the economic situation in half a century? The Obama administration cannot bail out any city right now. It doesn’t have the revenues to do it. These results after so many years are obvious despite all smoke and lies trying to conceal the facts. Of course, facts made no difference to liberals.

That is one of the indisputable dangers inherent to democracy. It is also so obvious, that it is hard to understand, why we have not installed sufficiently robust controls on politicians and bureaucracy. These people have power over us, their employers. This power is dangerous in many ways, one of which is demonstrated here. Persons that want such power must be watched day and night. If we hadn't done it with the Presidency, we would never have found out about Nixon’s shenanigans.
 
It is amazing that the people has for so long accepted the Democrats tax-dollar-laundering-scheme that destroyed Detroit and has many similar Democrats control cities on the ropes. The Democrat Party has for decades granted huge sums of other people's money to the government unions machine, and in exchange the unions funnel a huge portion of those dollars back into the campaign funds of the Democrats politicians.
 
The Obama administration has us in the same path. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the cities becomes like Detroit. The irresponsible spending, printing of worthless money, and refusing to be held responsible for failed economic decisions, will catch up with us due to fact that we cannot continue along this path.
 
Detroit bankruptcy should serve as an example for other cities that, due to various political and business decisions from the past, no longer have the tax base and/or industry necessary to fulfill financial obligation promises made in prior years. Detroit's problems are just the beginning of similar and much larger defaults in a near future. Time will tell how much threatening it will become. The political leaders shall address the unpopular, but necessary, decisions that must be made to stop kicking the can down the road.
 
Don't blame corrupt politicians, it's greedy, selfish voters who caused Detroit's downfall. Detroit citizens voted to steal and strip the most successful industry man ever created. Stripped them bare. Then complained when the industry moved out. Then stripped the empty buildings of wiring and plumbing. Voters are the locusts that destroyed Detroit. Now they've moved on to the White House and are stripping the rest of us bare. Either we vote out the locusts or we suffer Detroit's fate - there is no middle ground. Despite liberals admonition that "everyone has a right to this or that," we will soon be destitute, because too many voters listened and believed the left.
 
Don't blame corrupt politicians, it's
greedy, selfish voters who caused Detroit's downfall. Detroit citizens voted to steal and strip the most successful industry man ever created. Stripped them bare. Then complained when the industry moved out. Then stripped the empty buildings of wiring and plumbing. Voters are the locusts that destroyed Detroit. Now they've moved on to the White House and are stripping the rest of us bare. Either we vote out the locusts or we suffer Detroit's fate - there is no middle ground. Despite liberals admonition that "everyone has a right to this or that," we will soon be destitute, because too many voters listened and believed the left.


I DO blame politicians like Kwami Kirkpatrick and his corrupt ilk.
 
Most of Detroit's fiscal problems have been because of the Republican-induced recession. Remember the auto industry tanked, millions of people left the state, job rate plummeted. The typical things that happen when there's not enough diversity in an economy. There weren't enough people left living there, or working there, to collect taxes from.

Then it just snowballed. Real estate, affected by the recession and the millions leaving and unemployed, tanked, leaving abandoned houses and neighborhoods.

Very sad. But not caused by food stamps or compassionate programs. No harm has ever come to an economy, that I know of, from feeding the poor. No Republican mayors recently? So what? Maybe most people in Detroit have brown eyes. Is that what caused the economy to tank? Most people in Detroit are taller than average. Is that what hurt the economy there? It's about as logical to link those things as to link having a Republican mayor.
 
Fifty-six years of unbroken Democrat rule in Detroit. Every mayor, every city council. Run exactly the way Democrats wanted, unopposed by Republican's, because there were no Republicans. Every liberal pipe-dream. Taxing the rich to give free stuff to the voters. And the voters loved sticking it to the man. The richest city ever seen by man, based on the richest industry. The voters weren't the only locust force of liberalism, either. Unions strong-armed the rich, too. Unions voted themselves generous wages, benefits and pensions. They stuck it to the rich, too. Free health care, easy disability, early retirements. All the things Democrats say strengthen a society.

But, it didn't strengthen Detroit, did it? Liberal Democrat policies destroyed Detroit. We can all see the results. Look anywhere in the country. Drive through cities. If they are run by Democrats, one is afraid to live there. The cities run by Republicans are clean and safe and one does want to live there. Look at New York. Run by Democrats, the city was scary, filthy and dangerous. Republican Giuliani cleaned it up and despite 9/11, it was a nice city again. Look at Chicago, a crime-ridden death zone.

The lessons are clear, so it's the voters who are to blame. Choose evil or choose good. Choose to live in filth and squalor or choose cleanliness and safety. Choose to steal from the rich or treat everyone equally. Choose Democrat or choose Republican. Easy choice, but it's the voters choice and there's nobody else to blame.

.
 
Most of Detroit's fiscal problems have been because of the Republican-induced
recession. Remember the auto industry tanked, millions of people left the state, job rate plummeted. The typical things that happen when there's not enough diversity in an economy. There weren't enough people left living there, or working there, to collect taxes from.

Then it just snowballed. Real estate, affected by the recession and the millions leaving and unemployed, tanked, leaving abandoned houses and neighborhoods.

Very sad. But not caused by food stamps or compassionate programs. No harm has ever come to an economy, that I know of, from feeding the poor. No Republican mayors recently? So what? Maybe most people in Detroit have brown eyes. Is that what caused the economy to tank? Most people in Detroit are taller than average. Is that what hurt the economy there? It's about as logical to link those things as to link having a Republican mayor.

LOL !!!!!

OMG.....What alternate reality did you just warp out of ?

NO, Detroits problems are explicitly due to a long and unbroken line of Democrat politicians squeezing the life blood out of that city.

Kwame Kirkpatrick being just one.

Detroit spent over a hundred million dollars a year that it didn't have for YEARS and now the Libs are trying to pass off another lie, a false narrative and blame the Republicans.

Good luck, anyone with two brain cells to rub together doesn't attribute Detroits failure to anything other to corrupt Democrats ripping that city off.
 
LOL !!!!!

OMG.....What alternate reality did you just warp out of ?

NO, Detroits problems are explicitly due to a long and unbroken line of Democrat politicians squeezing the life blood out of that city.

Kwame Kirkpatrick being just one.

Detroit spent over a hundred million dollars a year that it didn't have for YEARS and now the Libs are trying to pass off another lie, a false narrative and blame the Republicans.

Good luck, anyone with two brain cells to rub together doesn't attribute Detroits failure to anything other to corrupt Democrats ripping that city off.

When a poster resorts to juvenile retorts and name calling, you know he's lost the argument. Detroit's unemployment rate during the recession was 30-50%.

Detroit, a big auto manufacturing city, with lots of auto-reliant side businesses, was hit hard by the recession. When the jobs went away, people became unemployed, homes were abandoned, lots of foreclosures, TONS of people left the city and state....the tax revenues went down because there wasn't enough income to tax. The auto industry was hit hard, as we all know. This hit Detroit especially hard because it was reliant on that business.

And that's the truth. Don't forget the recession that hit Detroit so hard was caused by Republican de-regulation and shady mortgage banking dealings and banking dealings.
 
If liberal policies were so great, why did the recession hit Detroit harder? All those liberal policies and government programs should have insulated Detroit?

Not to quibble, but five years into Obama's term, it's Obama's recession. Own it.

.
 
Most of Detroit's fiscal problems have been because of the Republican-induced recession. Remember the auto industry tanked, millions of people left the state, job rate plummeted. The typical things that happen when there's not enough diversity in an economy. There weren't enough people left living there, or working there, to collect taxes from.

Then it just snowballed. Real estate, affected by the recession and the millions leaving and unemployed, tanked, leaving abandoned houses and neighborhoods.

Very sad. But not caused by food stamps or compassionate programs. No harm has ever come to an economy, that I know of, from feeding the poor. No Republican mayors recently? So what? Maybe most people in Detroit have brown eyes. Is that what caused the economy to tank? Most people in Detroit are taller than average. Is that what hurt the economy there? It's about as logical to link those things as to link having a Republican mayor.

The recession was entirely the result of government policies put in place and protected by Democrats.
 
It is evident that the government unions entitlement are a big part of the problem. Their profit seeking has led to numerous problems. Public-sector unions bankrupted the car companies, leading to a situation where cars made in Detroit had a built in extra cost of almost $5,000 per car to pay their exorbitant benefits.
 
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