Detroit files for bankruptcy.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... y/2552819/
And I thought RoboCop was the upbeat portrayal of the city's future.

What do it mean for a city to declare bankruptcy?

Detroit is run by a dictator in defiance of a referendum passed last November.

Where did the money go?

The money went with the jobs. Automation has been changing auto manufacture, and trucking made it possible to make parts a long way away, and still serve the factories.

New Orleans is the same, losing population since 1950. The docks went to containers, the banana boats went to Gulfport, the forturtune 500 left for Texas, and Disney wanted to open a park here, but ran into a place more corrupt than Florida.

Flint, Toleato, Cleveland, all the same, Union wages lead to Public Employees becoming Union, and cops, firemen, water, making six figures, plus pension, medical, over the last 40 years.

Pensions balooned, while housing decayed, and jobs left due to high taxes and Unions. 30 years on the job, retired at 48, will live another 30 to 40 years.

At least New Orleans has tourism, no one wants to see old Detroit after dark.

It is happeneing everywhere, pensions figured on people living to 67. or 72, and 87 was never even considered.

Also the people retired, first from public jobs, were the war babies, a huge population spike. It changes the ratio of retired to workers, which used to be seven to one, to two to one. This continues for another forty years.

When George Bush took office oil was $13, now around a $100. Running a city, heating buildings, fueling vehicles, gargabe trucks, public transit, costs a lot more.

Detroit is as abandoned as New Orleans east after Katrina, Abandoned and not paying taxes, but some left so police, fire, emts, keep working.

Neither city can afford to tear down the abandoned property. People are still leaving, so redevelopment would not work.

Ibn Khaldun documented the process in 1300, how all governments before his time had fallen. Shrinking taxes, growing costs, everything in disrepair.

So the age pension is linked to the prosperity of the city you live in?
Sorry, I can't see how that works.
What happens if you move?

^^^ Yes, individual retirement funds managed by the employee would be much better. The big consolidated municipal retirement funds also failed because of investing things like this:
Click!

The city ponzi, during the growing phase, any cost can be covered, by spreading it out over time.

Pensions are figured based on prior market returns, which were 10% a year, and the investment doubling in seven years nine months. Fifteen years quadruple.

When real market returns are closer to zero, or less, it ruins the numbers.

Even in the good old days, pensions were underfunded. The city borrowed from the pension fund, like the nation does from Social Security. Unlike the nation, cities do not have a printing press.

Peak investment caused there to be more capital seeking investment, than places to invest, which then did not have to pay a return, because they were safe parking, Treasurys, or they did pay, but had higher risks, Junk Bonds.

Deals like Enron, Worldcom, were possible because Public Employee Retirement Funds would buy $400 million.

There is nothing out there that no one has shorted. As much is made on decline as on growth.

It was public knowledge, what Greenspan called Irrational Exuberance. A housing and Dotcom bubble. Shorting it made sense. Winning is odd, failure is natural, the odds on any endevor are 8-5 against.

It is History coming back. Karl Marx said this is the fate of Capitalism in Das Kapital. Capital will become the only thing, Labor, Production, will fail, as money makes money, and nothing else, till it all caves in.

Half the cost of oil is in people buying serial futures contracts, and ownership changing hands a dozen times before it gets to the user market.

Banks and brokers may do it, but the customer is Institutional Money, Pension Funds.

So the Baby Bust Generation now in Education Debt, has to invent something worth trillions, so they can steal it. Teams of lawyers, their friends in government, are all waiting to loot the future.

Nothing else will pay for the unfunded obligations of Governments.

The system is running on lies and fears, being the only thing protecting you from Afgani Tribes.

Fear, lies, war, are all that is left.