Meet America's Future: Detroit

Jonathan Dalar: The Dystopian Reality Around Us

Detroit defaults on up to 18.5 billion in debt to avoid bankruptcy, at least for now.  

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by the State of Michigan, is putting a plan together to avoid bankruptcy.  But, city pensioners and the debt holders will all have to take pennies on the dollar to keep the city out of bankruptcy. Too many people have to agree, bankruptcy is almost certain.

Detroit will be the largest city ever to go into bankruptcy.   

In 1909 it required 303 man-hours to make one car; in 1929 the time had been reduced to 92 man-hours, today it is 32 hours. The maximum production was reached in 1925-6 with 8,000,000 cars, now Detroit produces less than half that number. Use Google Image search to look up slums in Detroit.  The slums in Detroit remind me very much of the slums in Lima, Peru where I lived once upon a time.

So, what is the connection between how many people it takes to build a cars and bankruptcy in Detroit.  Try taxing the unemployed, the hopeless, the disenfranchised.  Then try to pick up trash, provide police and fireman, etc. using those taxes.  Then ignore the reality and borrow money trying to keep the city going, hoping for a miracle.  

Of course, salvation doesn't come, because the core problem is being ignored.  We no longer need many blue collar workers and of course, we need less white collar workers to manage the machines than we did the workers.  In the blog "If They Don't Work Neither Shall they Eat" , we look at how the entire system breaks down when we lose workers, who were also consumers, but are no more. 

Yes, there are still parts of the city, where the "Haves" live, versus the have-nots, that are beautiful including
the huge Cultural Center, freewheeling Royal Oak, posh Birmingham, the Ford-town of Dearborn, nearby Windsor, Ontario, and the college town of Ann Arbor, a short drive west.  Christmas, see below, is still celebrated in parts of Detroit.

Rochest in Metro Detroit ...

And parts of Detroit still believes in God, which is a mystery to me, see below.

Heidelberg Project Detroit, Michigan |