The Slog: I do find it fascinating that, now Detroit has finally defaulted,
with other local administrations surely soon to follow, it doesn’t seem
to occur to most American commentators that this is the beginning of the
end for their country. If you move jobs offshore, then degradation,
drugs and crime immigrate very quickly to replace them.
There are, of course, a thousand reasons why Detroit is broke, and
the American Right is scribbling so much about it – in a hurry to blame
the Democrat administration for everything – you could be forgiven for
imagining their wrists might actually be engaged in a rather different
activity. But at base level, the simple fact is that one President and
Congress after another – starting with Reagan himself, easily the worst
offender – carried on the myth of reducing the State when actually they
were increasing the cost of it but delivering less to the Citizen. The
cost increase was at least partly a result of borrowing money while
pretending that America was still top of the heap (and so it was OK to
strip out its home-grown assets to vultures like Romney) when in reality
its traditionally global moneymakers were not moving forward at all.
After the American automotive industry’s boom years, investment in
design and technology collapsed in real terms, investors and
office-holders preferring to take the dividends and run. I watched this
process take place from close quarters while Ford was a client in the
1970s, being taken apart by the Japanese and the Germans. GM was no
different. So let the neoliberal onanists construct their alternative
version of history: Detroit collapsed because of Friedmanite greed,
neoliberal short-termism, and fiscal incontinence from the City’s good
burghers. It collapsed because Washington has been in denial (still is)
about America’s decline. It collapsed because Greenspan said “Party on!”
in 2004, when he should’ve read the riot act. And because a President –
himself a black man – is too interested in the mirror to really care
about America’s blue-collar class. And it will collapse totally when
interest rates rise.
They are already doing so in India: as I posted last year, someone
who needs something different from their currency will break ranks and
spoil the Zirp hoot n nanny. That’s the trouble with ‘globalism’ –
Levitt invented a global village that doesn’t exist. Sooner rather than
later, this mad attempt at worldwide mercantile growth – based on credit
stimulation nobody can afford – will implode. Then who will do the
consuming so vital to the growth-model of capitalism? Better ask the
people of Detroit.
The grisly details are as follows: the city of Detroit owes money to
more than 100,000 creditors – it breaks down to more than $25,000 per
resident. One-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles is either vacant or
derelict. There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right
now for $500 or less.
In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000. Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48% of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost. Half the jobs in ten years.
In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit.
Today, there are less than 27,000. 47% of the residents of the city of
Detroit are functionally illiterate. Less than half of the residents of
Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point. 60 percent of all
children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the
national average. About 40% of the street lights do not work. Roughly a
third of the ambulances are running.
In half a century, Detroit has gone from having the highest per capita income in the US to the lowest. This is, of course, the ‘vision’ former Goldman Sachs beelzebub Mario Draghi has for the EU territories.
The fanatical Newscories hijacking the Conservative Party are
offering us privatised education, selling the blood transfusion service
to Bain Capital, creeping NHS destruction, cuts in police numbers, and
making the Australian anti-British owner of a criminal Group the
dominant figure in British media….so that we too can have our own set of
ranters on Fox News. It’s obvious where it’s going: before long we will
have at least one Detroit here – and I hope it isn’t going to be Leeds,
because despite it being in Yorkshire, there are people I like there.
If, like me and a growing army of others, you think the road being
taken is an offence against decency, stay tuned to this site. The
Unaligned Front for Decency (UFD) is being formed as I write. It is an
apolitical pressure group, not a political Party.
More details to follow.
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