From The Onion: Detroit Will Get Out of Debt Through $1 Trillion or So in Government Help, Including Building Bridges, Providing Incentives for

Adults to Get Their GEDs, and Becoming an Urban Farming Mecca, but It Should NOT Cut Its Expenses!

By Nicholas Stix

Someone named Charles Mikkelsen posted the following comment at the article I re-posted below.

Charles Mikkelsen • Top Commenter • Montague High School

A lot of misinformation around here.

1. Over 80% of everyone in jail is a high school dropout. Get them educated and keep them out of jail and prevent crime. You then have a better environment for economic growth (less crime) and an educated workforce (essential for economic growth). That sucking sound you hear is uneducated people who cannot help but be a burden on the state, cause crime and cannot help in fixing Detroit's many problems.

2. The ONLY way Detroit gets out of problems is through growth. Austerity will only make the problems worse by keeping people poor and uneducated through lack of funding and force people either into crime or onto welfare rolls. That money has to come from somewhere and the state or federal governments is the only place for it to come from. Putting some money up front will save more in the long run because increasing Detroit's tax base will provide cash to Michigan's tax rolls.

Sure it has to be done the right way, but G.E.D's and encouraging economic growth instead of austerity happen to be two good ideas. The citizen's of Michigan should insist that their money is spent, not on welfare, but towards these two goals.

I responded,

Charles Misinformation, er, Mikkelsen,

Even if your figure (80 percent) were correct: Tea, China?

White Michigan taxpayers already spent billions on those Detroit jailbirds’ education. The jailbirds refused an education, and robbed their classmates of an education, by disrupting every class they were in. In fact, the best thing that ever happened to their classmates and teachers was when the jailbirds dropped out. Why should the white taxpayers waste one penny more getting jailbirds “educated”? Besides which, there are adult literacy volunteers and free programs all over the place.

Every penny you demand is another penny of welfare.

That “sucking sound” I hear is of welfare pushers like you.

There’s no such thing as government-funded growth. You’re demanding that the government rob white Peter to pay black Paul, and in a black supremacist kleptocracy, no less! Detroit got to its present situation through confiscating billions of white net taxpayers’ wealth, i.e., what you call “funding.” Billions of dollars “up front” is what gave us today’s Detroit which, according to you, will be right back in the pink, with oh, say, a trillion or so more in “funding.”

And who is “keeping people poor and uneducated through lack of funding and forc[ing] people either into crime or onto welfare rolls”?

You’d think this guy was a school teacher or college professor, but according to his profile, he’s a Michigan-bred, white firemen who has worked for the Dallas Fire Department for 26 years.

A commenter on the John Derbyshire thread at Takimag just gave a succinct response to the Detroit News’ racial fairy tale that follows.

mrwild
Want to know what prompts this kind of article? It can be summed up in one word: Detroit.

Has anyone ever thought about the unprecedented history of this city? Has there ever been in history another example of where an entire functioning city is literally handed over to a people, as Detroit was in the 1970's to blacks? Just think of it: following the "white flight" post 1967 riots, black people inherited the most advanced economic powerhouse in the world- a matchless infrastructure of roads, industrial power system, high quality homes, a multistructured economy. Add to
this the billions of dollars in block grants, affirmative action programs, and the like. And what did they do?

They ran it into the ground in less than two decades, becoming a gutted-out Mad Max scenario for irony-drunk hipsters to film ruin porn.

When libs blame "white flight" for all of this, they are really saying that blacks can't take care of themselves and require whites to keep a city orderly and productive. They can deny that all they want, but that is what they mean: blacks need white adult supervision.

What Derbyshire says in this article is based on lessons learned by Detroit, Newark, Memphis, Gary, and other cities that have black power structures that were once prosperous, but now are ruined.

* * *
Editorial: Detroit must grow its way out of debt
April 8, 2012 at 1:00 am
Detroit News
City's long-term health depends on finding jobs for hard-to-employ residents

30 Comments

Detroit has a decent chance of emerging from its short term financial crisis, thanks to the consent agreement negotiated between the city and state last week. But its future remains clouded by a mountain of debt that the deal doesn't directly address.

Detroit's general fund bond debt totals more than $7 billion, money borrowed over the decades to build and rebuild infrastructure and, more recently, to maintain operations when tax revenues dropped off.

That amounts to roughly $10,400 per city resident. If Detroit devoted 42 percent of its general fund revenue to debt payments, it would take 42 years to pay it off.
Already, the city must spend one-third of every dollar on bond debt service and pension and health care obligations for retirees.

The consent agreement offers the prospect of some help from the state in restructuring the bond debt, and a requirement that all new hires go into 401(k) style retirement accounts instead of pensions.

But to erase its debt, Detroit must have revenue growth.

"We still need to look at solutions for the debt," said Gov. Rick Snyder in an interview Friday. "We have to come up with ideas for growing the city. If the city of Detroit continues to decline in size, what we've done won't solve the problem."

Growth is the right priority. As part of the state's effort to help Detroit restructure, the governor and Mayor Dave Bing should convene a growth commission to explore and expedite ideas for job-creating developments.

The mission should be not just to create jobs in Detroit, but to create jobs for Detroiters.

A new advanced battery facility or an office tower full of white-collar professionals are fabulous for the city's health and tax base, but they won't necessarily solve the jobless problem in the city.

That requires creating jobs at a variety of skill levels. Detroit, with its high illiteracy rate and low rates of educational attainment, has the unique challenge of a population weighted toward low-skilled workers.

Finding jobs for those workers has to be a priority.

One possibility is urban agriculture. Detroit has been dragging its feet in clearing the way for agri-businesses. Lansing also must make some legislative changes to allow for wide-scale farming in urban areas. Clearing away any obstacles should be done right away, and a process put in place for consolidating vacant land.

Hoop farms, aquaculture, greenhouses, vegetable plots and even field crops would generate jobs for workers who are shut off from employment. Activists have resisted commercial farming, insisting instead on "let's all feed each other" community gardens.

But in a city with 40 square miles of empty space, accommodating everyone should be possible.

Moving ahead with an inter-modal transit facility for the shipment of goods could create significant numbers of warehouse and other jobs. Getting an agreement on a new bridge across the Detroit River would accelerate that opportunity.

In addition, an intense initiative must be launched to improve the skills of city residents. One idea: Provide incentives for adults to attain a G.E.D., or to take a literacy course.

Creating jobs specifically for Detroiters is the best growth strategy for the city. And growth is the only way Detroit will get out from under its debt load.

 
[From WEJB/NSU’s Detroit files:

[Thanks to reader-researcher RC for this story.

From WEJB/NSU’s Detroit files:

“Detroit’s Gangster Mayor Reportedly to Accept Plea Today: Kilpatrick Era Over … for Now”;

“White Detroit News Columnist (Almost) Tells the Truth about Former Motor City’s Decline!”

“Justice, Detroit-Style: Is Black Judge Vanessa Bradley a Racist? Do Cows Fart?”;

“Detroit: No-Name Clearances of No-Name Murders”;

“Detroit’s Convicted “Hip-Hop Mayor,” Kwame Kilpatrick, is Livin’ Large While Pleading Poverty”;

“(Kwame) Kilpatrick Enterprise” in Detroit: Most Corrupt Municipal Administration Anyone Had Ever Seen”;

“Carlita Kilpatrick, Wife of Convicted Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Fights Paying One Dime of the $1 Million Restitution He Agreed to, as Part of His Plea-Bargain”;

“Feds Declare War on Detroit’s Gangster Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, Charge Him with Everything but the Murder of Tamara Greene”;

“Detroit: New Crime Stats Fail Smell Test; How Could Crime Go Down 7% Overall Last Quarter, While Homicides Went Up 31%?”;

“Are White Gangs Making It Impossible to Drive City Buses in Detroit? Inquiring Minds Want to Know”;

“Detroit: Buses are So Dangerous and Unreliable That Disabled Mom of 6 Traded Her House for a Minivan”;

“Detroit: Three Men in Their 20s Allegedly Kidnapped and Gang-Raped Girl, 13, for at Least Three Days”;

“Mysterious, Anonymous Detroit News Story About Arrest of Triple Shooting Suspect, Nasir Banks”;

“Happy New Year, Detroit-Style: Club Manager was Killed, Trying to Break Up a Fight; FREEP Writer Knows Facts, but Refuses to Report Them”;

“Detroit: Serial Killer is Murdering Prostitutes Who Advertised Online in Pairs, and Stuffing Them in Car Trunks”;

“Blackberry: Detroit’s Murder Bar—Demesha Hunt, Renisha Landers, and Now, Claudia Benson Last Seen Alive There”;

“Detroit: Family of Murder Defendant Jacob Wells, Threatens to Murder Family of Murder Victim, Claudia Benson—on Camera!”;

“Detroit: Murder Up 12%, but ‘Serious’ Crime is Down; Broken Windows Policing is on the Way”;

“The Onion: Detroit Has One of America’s Top 10 Downtowns”;

“In Detroit, to Find the Biggest Crooks, Look to the Highest Offices: Judge Carlos Powell Charged with Being City’s Drug Kingpin”;

“Detroit’s Ex-(and Future?) Felon Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, is Living Large in Texas, with No Visible Income (but with a Secret Loan), Has Committed Tax Evasion, is Not Paying Back His Court-Ordered Restitution, and is being Represented on the (White) Taxpayer’s Dime (and Trying to Forget Tamara Greene!)”;

“Detroit: Washington’s Birthday AK-47 Gang Shooting Claims Life of 9-Month-Old Delric Miller IV; Neighbors are Experts at Identifying Weapons by Sound of Gunfire; Chief Godbee: ‘Street Code’=No Help in Solving Crime; Grandmother: ‘They raisin’ monsters out here!’”;

“Detroit: Female Fists of Fury at MotorCity Casino Hotel (Video!)”;

“Detroit: Was Delric Miller IV Murdered Over a Seat at a Baby Shower?; Are Genocidal Black Supremacist Malik Zulu Shabazz and the Nation of Islam Murder Cult Angling to Take Over City?”

“Detroit: Raceless Carjacker Breaks Leg of Black WWII Vet, 86, Who Crawls Back to Gas Station, as Detroiters Step Around Him; Finally, Arab Muslim Attendant Saves Him; Nameless Suspect in Custody”;

“Detroit: White Woman Who was Jailed Next to Her Alleged (Gang) Rapist by Racist Black Judge Vanessa Bradley, is Sent Packing, as Charges are Thrown Out”;

“Hate Crime/Noose Hoax in Detroit”; and

“For the Second Straight Week, a NW Detroit Homeowner Shoots and Kills a Burglar.”]