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The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule[W:259]

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Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

What I get out of it is Professor emeritus Reynolds Farley would oppose each township having a say over its own affairs and be instead controlled by the decaying core city that people had fled from and are still fleeing from. So this issue is less of Michigan having an adversarial relationship with Detroit but that Michigan allowed Detroit and all other townships decide what was best for themselves. The fault is Detroit's alone that they messed up.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

Why that affected only Detroit (since it is a statewide "problem") was not addressed very well. It seems like as the morons in charge let the city of Detriot crumble that the smart folks simply left - apparently not moving very far at all.

Detroit is surrounded by about 136 municipal governments in the three county area, each of them with incentives to boost their own economy and very few incentives to cooperate on metropolitan-wide problems, such as economic development, environmental issues or transportation. That is a serious problem that a number of cities face.

But as the population of the city of Detroit, primarily the white population shifted to the suburbs, the suburban ring had the demographic clout to be very influential in state politics. And the city's clout disappeared at the same time and then Detroit became a very poor city as a more prosperous population left.

And at the current time, the exodus of middle-class blacks - from the city of Detroit to the suburban ring - very much resembles what happened to the white population in the '60s and '70s; an exodus of the more capable, more financially secure population to suburban areas where city services are viewed as more desirable.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

If I could simply post this without any words, I would.

:roll:
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

I see once again that the OP either didn't read his own link, or didn't understand the truth and facts behind it. I'm starting to wonder why I even get surprised anymore.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

what the professor said and what you came away with are very different.... but we all know your agenda, so none of us are surprised.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

what the professor said and what you came away with are very different.... but we all know your agenda, so none of us are surprised.
His specifics were mistaken, perhaps, but his general point wasn't. The general point being there was a lot more going on in Detroit's downfall than simply saying "liberal policies" and "unions".
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Why that affected only Detroit (since it is a statewide "problem") was not addressed very well. It seems like as the morons in charge let the city of Detriot crumble that the smart folks simply left - apparently not moving very far at all.

The old phrase about reading the writing on the wall seems so appropriate in Detroit's case since many of those left behind were illiterate.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

... people really need to stop trying to paint everything is hyper-partisan terms.

Failures of this magnitude can't be summed down to "liberal mayors and unions" or "conservative statewide misrule." Fact is, nobody involved was equal to fixing Detroit, and apparently nobody feels as though they are responsible for doing so.

To put a finer point on it: this is a process that involves hundreds of organizations, millions of people, with lots of private fortunes and careers at stake and huge administrative obstacles that involve liberal and conservative politicians and people and communities of all levels. Over the course of decades. It can't be summed down to one specific organization or political ethos.

Did Unions (which have left-wing associations) make it harder for businesses to do business? Yeah, but there isn't a lot they can do about that. You can make a cable in Brazil for pennies and sell it in the United States for a hundred dollars.

Some company is always willing to export manufacturing that cable, and more than willing to use the profits to grind their competitors back home into fiscal dust, so all companies have to "at least" force laborers to work for less than a living wage and reduced benefits in order not to export their jobs. People don't want to work jobs that are demanding and have little reward, so they fight back.

Detroit died of "complications of globalism."
 
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Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

Oh my. Well I'm sure we can trust editor to provide a correct and thoughtful analysis.
Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michiga
By EDITOR
Originally published on Sat August 10, 2013 9:24 am

When a journalist won't even put his name on an article, that alone is indicative of how bad and how little faith the guy has in what he is doing.
 
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Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information

Maybe you should learn to read. Then you would nderstand that this guy is really saying that:

1. A law from 1911 is responsible for the problem, while Detroit continued to flourish for decades after that law came into effect.
2. He fels cities should not be responsible for their own government but should be centrally controlled by the state.
3. Blacks just can't be expected to run a city without sufficient Whites.

You find this "enlightened" and "progressive"?
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Fred Foldvary, as always, spot-on with the root causes:

Detroit’s population began to decline already during the 1950s, even when the car industry was still booming. The first attack on Michigan’s enterprise was struck in 1953, when the state enacted the Business Activities Tax. The State of Michigan since then has had the worst possible tax, on gross receipts. With an income tax, if a firm has a small profit, it pays a small tax. But a gross receipts tax is based on the revenues of a firm minus its cost of materials, regardless of its profits. Even if a firm is losing money, it must still pay that tax, and if it cannot pass on the tax to the customers, it shuts down. The purpose of having a gross receipts tax is to protect existing firms from competition from start-ups which have no profit at first. But that hampers enterprise and job creation. So as the automobile and other business fled Detroit to other states and to foreign countries, it was not replaced by new business.

In contrast, for example, when the steel industry declined in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was replaced by new industry. Pittsburgh had implemented a split-rate property tax, a low tax on buildings and a high tax on land value. This boosted construction, industry, and jobs. So we cannot blame Detroit’s economic woes on the decline of the automobile industry. A market economy is dynamic, as new technologies replace old ones in a process of creative reconstruction. But when governmental restrictions and imposed costs stop this dynamic, the economy gets destroyed as there is not enough reconstruction.

During the 1960s, under governor George Romney, Michigan also enacted an income tax in order to provide “property tax relief.” The replacement of real estate taxes with income and revenue taxes initially raised land values, but the stifling of enterprise ultimately resulted in depressed land values. The Detroit city government made this worse by assessing land at low Depression-era values. Whatever property tax was left fell mostly on buildings, a penalty on construction. The triumph of the landowners became the death of the city.

http://www.progress.org/2013/fold831.htm
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Its comforting to see an expert pretty much saying the same things that I have been saying right here for the last two weeks in response to the right wing attack machine who tries to make Detroit the poster boy for all that is wrong with America.
 
The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Maybe you should learn to read. Then you would nderstand that this guy is really saying that:

1. A law from 1911 is responsible for the problem, while Detroit continued to flourish for decades after that law came into effect.
2. He fels cities should not be responsible for their own government but should be centrally controlled by the state.
3. Blacks just can't be expected to run a city without sufficient Whites.

You find this "enlightened" and "progressive"?

Ding, ding, ding!

We have a winner !
 
The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Its comforting to see an expert pretty much saying the same things that I have been saying right here for the last two weeks in response to the right wing attack machine who tries to make Detroit the poster boy for all that is wrong with America.

Bwaahaahaa!

Detroit is what is wrong with America!
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Maybe you should learn to read. Then you would nderstand that this guy is really saying that:

1. A law from 1911 is responsible for the problem, while Detroit continued to flourish for decades after that law came into effect.
2. He fels cities should not be responsible for their own government but should be centrally controlled by the state.
3. Blacks just can't be expected to run a city without sufficient Whites.

You find this "enlightened" and "progressive"?
Uh, no. That's not what the article said at all, and if that's what you took away from it, you really need to read it again.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Bwaahaahaa!

Detroit is what is wrong with America!

Gee thats really ironic since in WW2 it helped to save America's ass.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Academia - Media - Government

They make the military industrial complex look inept.

What a load of BS. A liberal union member blaming something other than union liberal members - duh.

When the city I served employed police officers and gauranteed them a defined benefit the money to do so was set aside. Each month, every month, and without shorting it so we could spend more on something else we didn't need. Did detroit do that - NO - did Stockton do that - NO - and the fact is the liberal run cities don't do it and now cry "its not our fault." BS it is exactly their fault.


Reynolds Farley, Professor emeritus of sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan, debunks the rightwing noise machine meme that Detroit went bankrupt because of unions and liberal mayors, showing that Michigan's homerule structure basically isolated Detroit and strangled it with various policies intended to punish minorities and the poor.

It's refreshing to hear an educated voice make fools of the rightwing propagandists and their meme.

Detroit's Uneasy Relations With Michigan | KUOW News and Information
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

So you found a liberal union member willing to agree with you - so now its gospel.

The fact is you are so blinded by your hateful leftist politics you wouldn't see what happened when presented to you. Detroit was a gleaming beacon of capitalism destroyed by socialist just like they intend to do for America.


Its comforting to see an expert pretty much saying the same things that I have been saying right here for the last two weeks in response to the right wing attack machine who tries to make Detroit the poster boy for all that is wrong with America.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

So you found a liberal union member willing to agree with you - so now its gospel.

The fact is you are so blinded by your hateful leftist politics you wouldn't see what happened when presented to you. Detroit was a gleaming beacon of capitalism destroyed by socialist just like they intend to do for America.

One cannot help but notice you offer no evidence for your claims.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

Is the author of the study a member of a public employee union? I believe he is, and as such his comments and opinions are suspect. Don't let anything possibly question what you pray is true though huh!


One cannot help but notice you offer no evidence for your claims.
 
Re: The Real Reason Detroit Went Bankrupt: Conservative Michigan Misrule

However Farley is a 100% leftist political hack, and so to take his written word as the truth would be woefully inept. I realize that won't stop the media / government for tsking advantage of his academic titles but his work might as well be written by the DNC PR dept.

Dr. Reynolds Farley

In fact he use to do the same for the clintonians.


... people really need to stop trying to paint everything is hyper-partisan terms.

Failures of this magnitude can't be summed down to "liberal mayors and unions" or "conservative statewide misrule." Fact is, nobody involved was equal to fixing Detroit, and apparently nobody feels as though they are responsible for doing so.

To put a finer point on it: this is a process that involves hundreds of organizations, millions of people, with lots of private fortunes and careers at stake and huge administrative obstacles that involve liberal and conservative politicians and people and communities of all levels. Over the course of decades. It can't be summed down to one specific organization or political ethos.

Did Unions (which have left-wing associations) make it harder for businesses to do business? Yeah, but there isn't a lot they can do about that. You can make a cable in Brazil for pennies and sell it in the United States for a hundred dollars.

Some company is always willing to export manufacturing that cable, and more than willing to use the profits to grind their competitors back home into fiscal dust, so all companies have to "at least" force laborers to work for less than a living wage and reduced benefits in order not to export their jobs. People don't want to work jobs that are demanding and have little reward, so they fight back.

Detroit died of "complications of globalism."
 
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