Detroit Broke City

[wlu_lax6]

Interesting coverage by the Planet Money team on Detoit's Big plans. Good stuff on what really happened.
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[rass]

Heh.

[Johnnie]

Gotta love that that article has its own "what people on Facebook said" portion. Nice mix of indignation and ignorance -- shocking! -- like every post of everything on Facebook.

Regardless, I still think my plan is better.

[Keg]

This shit cracked me up:

http://deadspin.com/cleveland-responds- ... 1061902559" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Pruitt]

18% of registered voters show up to give a write-in candidate 46% of the vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

"Other write in candidates" finished 3rd.

[Gunpowder]

This shit cracked me up:

http://deadspin.com/cleveland-responds- ... 1061902559" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Never noticed before that Cabrera looks like Kim Jong-Il.

[brian]

Cleveland making fun of any other city is pretty hilarious.

[testy boxcar]

look, as a resident of a fellow post industrial wasteland shit hole, you guys are both shit holes.

[brian]

My point exactly. And at least we're shitholes that have won a championship since JFK was still alive.

[Johnnie]

From The Dish.

Next City’s Bill Bradley compiled a list of countries that receive more more federal aid than Detroit.

[sancarlos]

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino lights a fuse:

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino says he wants to visit Detroit. Why? It seems he has a singular plan for saving the bankrupt city.

"I’d blow up the place and start all over," he said in the August 28 edition of The New York Times Magazine.

"No, seriously, when it takes a police officer 90 minutes to answer a call, there’s something wrong with the system," he told journalist Mark Leibovich. "Forty percent of the streetlights are out, most of the buildings are boarded up. Why? Inaction, that’s the problem -- leadership."

Dave Bing counters:

"I would think the mayor of a city that recently experienced a deadly bombing attack would be more sensitive and not use the phrase ‘blow up,’" he said in the statement. "I am also dismayed that Mayor Menino did not get his facts right before making his remarks to the widely-read New York Times. The Detroit Police Department’s response time is not -- and has never been -- 90 minutes. And, most of our city’s buildings are not boarded up. Since taking office more than four years ago, there has been tireless action on the part of my administration to improve the quality of life for our citizens."

[brian]

Detroit got the last laugh since Ben Affleck has to spend three months there filming Superman vs. Batman.

[DSafetyGuy]

How Detroit Went Broke.

[howard]

Detroit pension cuts 'function of mathematics' -investment banker

Buckfire said it was clear that the city did not have the funds to pay the unsecured pension payouts without cutting them.

"It was a function of the mathematics," said Buckfire, who said he did not think it was necessary for him or anyone else to recommend pension cuts to Orr.

"Are you saying it was so self-evident that no one had to say it?" asked Claude Montgomery, attorney for a committee of retirees that was created by Rhodes.

"Yes," Buckfire answered.

Buckfire, a Detroit native and investment banker with restructuring experience, later told the court the city plans to pay unsecured creditors, including the city's pensioners, 16 cents on the dollar. There are about 23,500 city retirees.

Some broader context on the inevitable reckoning of simple arithmetic, and the difficulty of knowing when:

Detroit Pensioners Face Miserable 16 Cent On The Dollar Recovery

[howard]

Ruling Makes Detroit Biggest City to Qualify for Bankruptcy

[howard]

Detroit Bankruptcy Exit Plan Threatens Munis as Pensions Favored

This plan gives city worker pension plans $0.50 on the dollar. Just on pensions; health care for those folks gets $0.13 on the dollar. And bondholders will squawk loud and long to the judge, maintaining their $0.20 is unfairly small ($0.46 for a smaller chunk of 'unlimited tax general obligation bond', whatever they are.)

Because when bondholders squawk, and because they have lots of talented high-paid lawyers (iow, jews), people, like judges, listen. So, I guess that fiddy cents on the dollar is a best case for pensioners. And not all those bonds are held by big banks and evil hedge funds--a lot of pension funds invest in munis. Yep, city workers all over the country will help bear the cost of the malfeasance of Detroit politicians and public employee union leaders. Lovely mess.

[teeteebee]

It's so cold in the D, doc. Need a Chrysler? They got you.

[howard]

It's so cold in the D, doc. Need a Chrysler? They got you.

They got Bob Dylan. (Not sure if that is up or down from Marshall Mathers.)

[Johnnie]

None of you have me the heads up on that commercial? Thanks guys.

[The Sybian]

Detroit Bankruptcy Exit Plan Threatens Munis as Pensions Favored

This plan gives city worker pension plans $0.50 on the dollar. Just on pensions; health care for those folks gets $0.13 on the dollar. And bondholders will squawk loud and long to the judge, maintaining their $0.20 is unfairly small ($0.46 for a smaller chunk of 'unlimited tax general obligation bond', whatever they are.)

Because when bondholders squawk, and because they have lots of talented high-paid lawyers (iow, jews), people, like judges, listen. So, I guess that fiddy cents on the dollar is a best case for pensioners. And not all those bonds are held by big banks and evil hedge funds--a lot of pension funds invest in munis. Yep, city workers all over the country will help bear the cost of the malfeasance of Detroit politicians and public employee union leaders. Lovely mess.

Anyone who invested in Detroit municipal bonds deserves to lose money.

[Johnnie]

This is the all purpose Detroit thread, right?

Mummified body discovered in garage of foreclosed Pontiac house

Dead since 2008! Holy shit.

[rass]