A colleague recently shared
this with me. I have heard things are bad in Detroit, but these numbers really bring it into focus. The really scary thing is, as the article says at the end, that Detroit is by no means alone; our whole country - families, municipalities, states, and of course the Federal Government - has been spending more than we make for years, living above our means. This practice (like the parallel practice of over-consuming natural resources to serve our Almighty Economy) is unsustainable, and will eventually stop...one way or another. The only way our society can get its financial health back, is by deliberately accepting a lower standard of living: choosing to spend less, use less energy, save more, and reduce debt so as to live within our means and do without what we cannot truly afford. This we can begin to do in our families, and begin to demand of our politicians - even if it means (gasp!) a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to right the ship of state.
If it is objected that such fiscal responsibility (living within our means), if broadly embraced, would be bad for the economy, then I contend that the economy itself as it is currently structured is irrational, broken, and fundamentally contrary to human flourishing, and in need of reform at a fundamental level.
(Caveat: the following information appears to be taken from Newspapers and other presumably reputable sources, so I am trusting it; but we all know that not all "reliable information" is truly that - even when it comes from the most revered of institutions).
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1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money
to more than 100,000 creditors.
2) Detroit is facing
$20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.
3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the
highest per-capita income in the entire nation.
4) In 1950, there were
about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are
less than 27,000.
5) Between
December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.
6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit
right now for $500 or less.
7) At this point, there are approximately
78,000 abandoned homes in the city.
8) About
one-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.
9) An astounding
47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.
10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.
11) If you can believe it,
60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United
States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen
by
63 percent.
13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the
tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city. Right now,
Detroit is bringing in
about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.
14) There are
70 “Superfund” hazardous waste sites in Detroit.
15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.
16) Only
about a third of the ambulances are running.
17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have
more than 250,000 miles on them.
18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.
19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut
by about 40 percent over the past decade.
20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of
58 minutes to respond.
21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public
for 16 hours a day.
22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is
five times higher than the national average.
23) The murder rate in Detroit is
11 times higher than it is in New York City.
24) Today, police solve
less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.
25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to “
enter Detroit at your own risk“.
It is easy to point fingers and mock Detroit, but the truth is that
the rest of America is going down the exact same path that Detroit has
gone down.
Detroit just got there first.
All over this country, there are hundreds of state and local governments
that are also on the verge of financial ruin…
“Everyone will say, ‘Oh well, it’s Detroit. I thought it
was already in bankruptcy,’ ” said Michigan State University economist
Eric Scorsone. “But Detroit is not unique. It’s the same in Chicago and
New York and San Diego and San Jose. It’s a lot of major cities in this
country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face
the same problems.”
A while back, Meredith Whitney
was highly criticized
for predicting that there would be a huge wave of municipal defaults in
this country. When it didn’t happen, the critics let her have it
mercilessly.
But Meredith Whitney was not wrong.
She was just early.
Detroit is only just the beginning.
When
the next major financial crisis strikes, we are going to see a wave of municipal bankruptcies unlike anything we have ever seen before.
And of course the biggest debt problem of all in this country
is the U.S. government.
We are going to pay a great price for piling up nearly 17 trillion
dollars of debt and over 200 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities.
All over the nation, our economic infrastructure is being gutted,
debt levels are exploding and poverty is spreading. We are consuming
far more wealth than we are producing, and our share of global GDP has
been declining dramatically.
We have been living way above our means for so long that we think it
is “normal”, but an extremely painful “adjustment” is coming and most
Americans are not going to know how to handle it.
Labels: Cultural issues, Current events and politics, Economics