MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry: Detroit Is What Happens When Government Is Too Small

Yes red states are the biggest welfare states in the USA. Can we get off the bias BS train? I appreciate the honesty in the beginning of you post, suggesting things that may or may not work, at least some of those suggestions have offered some relief to dying communities, but, and that is a big but, most of these major cities are crumbling because they do not have the manufacturing jobs that used to keep the cities, with high maintenance/service costs (those chity workers republicans hate, like police officers, firemen, the people who fill potholes, repair street lights, maintain the garbage pick up run the sewers, etc... etc... and yes have pensions/retirement plans for retirement just like people who dedicate their lives to private sector jobs and expect to have retirement plans from their hard work) and keep it in the green. So when prosperity disappears, crime and poverty seem to follow.

The last part of partisan idiocy is actual unnecessary and totally uncalled for. My position isn't that democrats are right or can do things better than their sister part (in fact it is the furthest thing from my mind either of these corporate owned enterprises, the two party scam, will ever stop playing good cop/bad cop for the sheeple who eat that (*)(*)(*)(*) up, like yourself obviously, and actually do what is best for the country as a whole and stop catering to their corporate masters), I simply asked what republican could/would have done any different, and the answer would have been not much since their is no manufacturing jobs (let's be honest no jobs of any kind comparable or otherwise) of the like that made Detroit or any other major city in the USA that will return prosperity the way it used to be, under the failing economy we are stricken with today.

I don't vote democrat, I vote conservative, which means I haven't voted republican in a very, very long time either.

 

Detroit is unable to pay debts when they are due, and can't reasonably pay future debts.
If we can supplant the notion of a municipality to a person....it's indicative of someone living above their means.

How does this "Melissa Harris Perry" person envision this to work? Growing government...means incurring more debt...correct? So if Detroit has been living above their means to the extent they are now insolvent...how will spending more solve the problem of insolvency?

It is similar to telling a person who is watching their car get towed away for bank repossession...you know what you need to do? Go out and borrow some more money and get an even more expensive car!

Where's the common sense in these pundits? .

 

Although the statistic about red states getting more federal dollars seems to be true in a general sense, I'm not sure what that actually means. Does that mean Florida, because it has so many blue state retirees sucking up social security and medicare, count as a red state welfare case? Or Texas, which has several massive military bases, including the biggest military base in the free world? So it seems to be a meaningless statement, and totally irrelevant to this discussion. Maybe you mentioned it because you're conservative.

And yes yes, manufacturing jobs have disappeared, but Detroit isn't the only city that's had that issue. There were still options. But you are acting as if that was some sort of force of nature that couldn't be stopped and couldn't be changed, and no change of policies would ever have made any difference; you sound as if it wouldn't matter if Detroit had a business friendly fiscally responsible government or... the one they actually had. All roads still would have lead to bankruptcy. But I guess you think that because you're a conservative.

And I guess because you're a conservative you think the Republicans hate the municipal workers, and that Republicans don't think they should enjoy the same great retirement's as the private sector. And, you seem to think that the private sector has retirements that are anywhere as good as the pensions and medical that public workers have. But I guess you think that because you're a conservative.

 

the peices started chipping away as population declined and city government just kept growing.

 

police and fire are only a fraction of Detroit's (or any other) city government...and always the first to get laid off...it's easier to squeeze more blood out of the turnip when the most visible services get cut first. the last to go? the mayor's staff.

as for Detroit Public Schools, they are a seperate potlitical subdivision of the state and are in no way funded by, or controlled by the city...except that the city collects property taxes for them, the county and the state.

 

don't go hate'n on Joe Louis.

 

there's a '87 Buick for sale up the road for $11k....who the hell wants a 1987 Honda?

 

post-revolutionary France and Russia were conservative compared to Ed Schultz.

 

three letter answer- E P A

 

No the statistics have to do with federal subsidies/handouts/welfare, and nothing to do with bases in Texas. It simply means that most red states, The top ten feeders at the federal trough: New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia. A lot of that has to do with smaller populations but more federal welfare per individual state when measured per capita.

For the most part these states remain stable with the help they get while majorly populated areas, including some states, don't. They are not able to maintain any form of stability with the massive numbers of poor families they are expected to deal with, and poverty levels that continue to grow because, as we both seem to realize, JOBS are abandoning the nations economy like rats leaving sinking ship, while both parties have spent the last 25-30 years sitting around with their thumbs up their ass pointing at the other party, when the blame is mutual.

Republicans are not conservatives. Never have been, never will be. Just because they might (which is also questionable) be more conservative than democrats on certain issues does not mean the party leaders as a whole are in fact conservative. They are big government, big business, supremacists hypocrites when you compare their rhetoric with their actions. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

I think we can settle this question very easily.

Lets have a national referendum about whether to do away with welfare or not and see if it is Republicans or Democrats who blink first.

It is liberal Democrats who are addicted to government freebees and they will be the last to give them up.

 

The city made an effort to substitute actual jobs with as many city jobs as they possibly could waiting for some sort of recovery, unfortunately the rise in poverty escalated the crime level, and more folks abandoned the city, as it became less and less attractive towards further business prospects. A domino effect that continues to be destructive to it's survival. As long as they are plagued with poverty and crime, nothing (democrat or republican) is going to change that fact.

 

I think she means if everyone was employed by the government then all would be well.

 

That black power symbol has nothing to do with joe louis, nor boxing.

Wheres the boxing glove? there isnt one....

 

As long as we continue to think in extremes (democrat and republican especially), nothing will ever get solved. The country is almost divided right down the middle when it comes to choosing the lesser of the two evils, so we are basically at a stale mate.

I'm all for eliminating welfare for the competent and able bodied, and reducing benefits for them as long as they are willing to go into a work program that will get them back into the work force.

I am also willing to eliminate all government subsidies for illegal aliens, but the USSC says we must provide equal subsidies to the criminals as well as the legitimate.

When is the government going to address fraud and waste? When will they review laws/programs existing on the books that have become antiquated or shown to be failures, and eliminate them? When will they do the same with regulations that are nothing more than cronyism capitalism for their corporate masters? When will they rewrite the tax code, for a more simplified version that doesn't benefit the rich/elites who invented/implemented/control/benefit the most from it the way it is now?

The answer is they will never address these issues because the two party scam is based/built upon these issues. Stop falling for the BS rhetoric and wake up and (*)(*)(*)(*) the world is on fire. Nothing will change until the two party scam is no more.

 

She doesn't know what she means she is an idiot who has been spoon fed nonsense, just like most partisan sock puppets.

 

I think she knows exactly what she means, she means ideally in her leftist utopia everyone would be employed by the government. What sort of utopia has that?

 

Actually, if you look and see what we did with our cars, all that fun and dangerous stuff, it makes sense, they needed to add hundreds of pounds of safety features that killed the mileage...

 

Yes she is repeating nonsense she was told that has never worked in any scenario before, but she still thinks it will work.

 

And increased the actual costs by 300% to create a higher profit margin so CEO's, and the retired could be taken care of in their old age. Unfortunately they have reached an unacceptable level of outgoing, and not enough incoming to sustain itself. Much like the government, who spent like drunken sailors when the money was rolling in and somehow believe they can fix it with little to no revenue rolling in.

 

Actually, as I pointed out in another thread on the topic, the price of cars has barely risen when one takes inflation into account.

A 1965 Mustang GT convertible cost around $3500 when new.

http://www.carmemories.com/cgi-bin/viewexperience.cgi?experience_id=351

That had the same buying power as $25,236 today. Today you're looking around $48K.

Factor in how much more car and how much better of a car and really the price difference is surprisingly little.

 

Now, that's idiotic. Nowhere does no one claim 'no' government at any level; city, county, state and federal...it's the amount of government that is justifiably questioned.

Good grief.

 

So what gutted the other countries of their industrial bases? The country I immigrated from in Europe was once an industrial power, but that has all but died. Now they have an economy that looks exactly like a miniature version of the US economy.

If it were up to me, I would start building blast furnaces today. But then I'm all for heavy industry. And if you want a real industrial base, you are damned well going to need blast furnaces which happen to belch out pollutants by the ton (which of course includes the favorite gas of the global warming crowd, carbon dioxide).

Needless to say, the most vocal people crying about industry going overseas are the same ones who are all for restrictive environmental legislation that make it all but impossible to even set up a manufacturing plant here.

 

I guess that depends on what you mean by more and/or better. Half of the gizmos and gadget BS, is completely unnecessary and there specifically to jack up the price.