Detroit and it's emergency manager!!

[Crossbones]

Detroit is like Robocop now, and has been for a LONG time. The only way to help Detroit is to help its demographics change.

[buster83]

if all unions were like county highway department where u got one guy working and 6 guys watching
then there might be a problem with the union,and when you are a skilled union worker you work by yourself a lot.the biggest fault as usual is the corrupt government as usual maybe they need to take paid in full medical and pension from the government employees and have them pay there fair share as the union workers do.

[mudslinger47]

I don't think unions (or non-union jobs for that matter) are really the big issue.

The largest issue I see that has sent more people to welfare and the unemployment line is the minimum wage laws. The issue is that 20 years ago the minimum wage was $3.35 per hour and factory workers (where I live) earned $10-12 / hour or 3 times what the minimum wage was. As a result, gasoline, groceries, and items at Wal-Mart or Taget were cheap and people had a lot of disposable income.

Now, minimum wage is $7.50 per hour and factory wages are in the $15-18 / hour range, all of a sudden that ratio has gone to double instead of triple from a wage difference per hour.

Now, our senators are calling for the minimum wage to be increased to $12 / hour which will make that gap even less and the good even more expensive.

Our big issue is that the low wage jobs are no longer low wage jobs and thus our economy as a whole is suffering.

Detroit as a city is in a world of hurt, 50% of the population has moved away in search of work, yet the city is still burdened with all that infrastructure for a city with twice the people. As a result, they have to raise taxes which sends people further and further into despair as well as poverty.

I don't know what the right answer is, but it will take many, many, many years for Detriot to dig itself out of the hole it is in. They could start bulldozing houses and streets today and unincorporating areas that are now abondoned, but it will take 5 years or more and TONS of $$$ to do it. Detroit may indeed become that city that was depicted in RoboCop in the 1980's before all is said and done.

Most definitely!!!! You take the start up jobs, the ones you start and learn from away and throw federal and state dollars at the folks, why should they work? They can effectively stay home and make more money. Problem is it gives them to much time on their hands and idle time costs money so then you get crime on top of an already unsteady problem. From there it goes further down hill... You can't totally fault the people that live there, they're being trained by the state and feds to do what they do. So then the city suffers with out a tax base, so in their brilliant eyes, they raise taxes and drive more people out.. Vicious circle... Its going to take a couple of generations to fix it, and its not going to be fixed by taxes or more money in the form of hand outs...

[buster83]

I'd have to say your wrong, almost 100% wrong. Look who has been in charge of Detroit through out its existence.... no one has ever tried to fix the problem, like good little Democrats they throw money at it and little else. What they needed about 20 yrs ago was maybe a Rudy G.. He did a pretty good job in NYC. Maybe he stepped on a few toes and maybe some of his staff weren't the most fine and upstanding, but he made the streets safe and the city better.

mud i was there and witness it, it is something you do not want to see,just store to store business boarded up it was a ghost town on this most recent economy slide,but they are coming back slowly. they do have some of the best fresh water fishing lakes around.

[Bubstr]

mud i was there and witness it, it is something you do not want to see,just store to store business boarded up it was a ghost town on this most recent economy slide,but they are coming back slowly. they do have some of the best fresh water fishing lakes around.

There ya go, give a man a fish, he will eat that day, teach him to fish he will never go hungry.

[mudslinger47]

mud i was there and witness it, it is something you do not want to see,just store to store business boarded up it was a ghost town on this most recent economy slide,but they are coming back slowly. they do have some of the best fresh water fishing lakes around.

I think were kinda agreeing, but one of us just doesn't see it....