Friday, November 20, 2009

How Detroit Got Into Its Mess


A Bigger and Bigger growing Government Bankrupts a once Proud American State and City.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6926247.ece

Read the first comment after the article.

Submitted by: Kathleen Rogan

8 comments:

Lionel Emde said...

I read the first (oldest) comment after the article.
It would seem to indict George W. Bush for starting and waging "wat (sic) on the other side of the world."
Couldn't agree more.

Anonymous said...

Is this the one you are referring to Lionel: the first one after the article?:

Dave Steele wrote:
who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy , Oh yeah ? I'm a Brit living in the great state of Pennsylvania , My truck was built in Michigan beats hands down anything the japs build , most people around here own Fords , Chevy's or GMC's plus Lincolns, Mercury's and Cadillacs . Detroit is the perfect example of liberal corruption and mismanagement . Look at the most violent cities in the US , the poorest , the most corrupt , all are run longterm by Democrats , Libs can bleat all they like and blame Bush , but Bush wasnt running a damn thing ten years ago or fifteen years ago or thirty years ago thats when these big cities began to decline . The banking system here collapsed while being overseen by Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd , Democrats blocked all legislation trying to reform the banking sector , they knew there were problems and they knew Bush would take all the blame thats why they let it happen , they caused the meltdown to win power , why else would a week before the meltdown occured Barney Frank went on the news telling everybody , the banking industry is in great shape ? , six days later it collapsed and Frank leads the screams of BUSH DID IT !!!! .
November 22, 2009 4:31 PM GMT on

Kathy Meeh said...

Thanks for the Bush administration "apology", they were equally adept at handling the fall-out from Katrina.

Barney Frank became chairman of the House Financial Services committee in 2007. The financial oversight and regulation problem began way before that. Nice try though.

Detroit is a failed city as the result of the steel industry collapse 30+ years ago, then the inability of the auto industry to build efficient cars which would compete with those overseas, namely Japan.

The government has assisted in primarily bailing out the financial industry, and the auto industry, this time and prior. Neither liberal nor conservative, without these bail-outs the entire country would look like the most impoverished part of Detroit.

Kathleen Rogan said...

I feel what has happened to Michigan is shocking and a wake up call to all Americans. I did not mean for it to start dividing people back into party corners. The article, from the U.K., stated-city leaders are to blame for bad management. I don't remember the author blaming any political party, just blaming America for losing it's industries. Also, the comment I thought was interesting got bumped down, but the comment compared California and Michigan. That's all. As soon as we stop blaming each other then we can start to solve the problems, but honestly, I think it is toooo late. We are ALL to blame.

Kathy Meeh said...

Kathleen, I was responding to Anonymous and the "Dave Steele" quote 11/21/09, 10:30 PM. What has happened to Detroit is shocking, and there are other cities in the country which have also failed because their major industries pull out leaving people without jobs. Apparently Detroit is currently talking regrouping with green technology, hope they can.

Kathleen Rogan said...

Yes. I have also read that they want to tear down whole communities and start farming. A paper called, 'The Nation', I read (1992), has already asked government to takeover certain communities and give it to the people so they can start community gardens, government owned. Farms. That is what they want to start in Detroit.

I have a friend who went to Detroit and did a little filming. He sent that film to me. Our American papers are not talking about Michigan. Detroit looks like a nuclear bomb went off, all private industry has been chased out. WHY? Why did this happen? It did not happen overnight. Some say it has taken 50 years for it to get this way.

I come from strong blue collar backround. A family of labor leaders. Sometimes I wonder.....who are we doing this for? Until we look in the mirror and ask ourselves this question...well, like I said, I believe it is to late. The damage is done.

People that will do anything for their party scare me, party loyalty scares me. Fuck the Parties!!!!

Kathy Meeh said...

"Detroit looks like a nuclear bomb went off, all private industry has been chased out. WHY? Why did this happen? It did not happen overnight. Some say it has taken 50 years for it to get this way." Failure of the Steel and auto industries, inability of people to adjust and find other work, inadequate effort for local government to help fix I guess.

Several weeks back (11/4) Jim Alex sent over an email about Prichard, Alabama which had a severe population decline as the result of industry pull-out. There's a city in Los Angeles county which failed as the result of corruption and industry withdrawal. I don't think New Orleans recovered after Katrina; and others. Terrible examples, and from my view you're right people need better civic help that exists. The big export of simple jobs and increasing cost of living probably hasn't helped.

Kathleen Rogan said...

This video that was sent to me is so sad. There are people that have taken over all the deserted buildings. They come out at night. One of the buildings they use, they pull cars up through the middle and push out of the 20th floor. In the video you get to see how they do this. The cars land in the street down below. Then they set fire to the cars or I think they just explode. It's pretty frightening. In America.