The Homestead Report will now be updated 3 times a week. There will also be random news related updates. This update's subject is Detroit.
Detroit... A Vision of Our Future?
Detroit's clock striking midnight
The City of Detroit is running out of money.
Not in the theoretical terms we've imagined for decades, but in literal figures, splayed out over spreadsheets that tell a long story of mismanagement and incompetence, culminating in insolvency.
Cash runs out by April, unless dramatic steps are taken. Tonight, Mayor Dave Bing will address the city to lay out his plan to avoid a financial implosion.
But he's late -- a leader who inherited a financial mess in 2009 but didn't act swiftly or decisively enough to stop a slide that had been building for decades.
The short-term options now are all either horribly unappealing or beyond the mayor's grasp. And financial analyses say even the most draconian (massive layoffs or repudiation of the city's retiree benefit obligations) buy the city only a short reprieve; the imbalance would return by next summer. Read more... Detroit's clock striking midnight
Detroit's financial challenges
Detroit's financial crisis stems from a plummeting tax base and skyrocketing operating costs. Here are some of the elements that helped bring Detroit to this crisis point.
Accumulated deficit
During each of the past 12 years, Detroit has added to its deficit, which is now about $200 million and growing. Despite pledges from Mayor Dave Bing that the city had a handle on the crisis, a report shows the city continues to spend more than it takes in.Read more... Detroit's finances
Ghost town !!!!!
Let's go for a ride starting in Highland Park (first few buildings), and then into Detroit . Witness the destruction of a once Great industrial American city. Even in downtown Detroit, there are empty skyscrapers.... This video is just a TINY fraction of the insane number of buildings destroyed in Detroit . Historical buildings are falling apart leaving nothing for the next generations to admire. I urge viewers to research the true reasons of why this happened to this city, because if it happened to once great Detroit..... it might happen to Yours...
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The Fall of a Once Mighty Empire... Detroit
The blight and stench stays with you long after you exit the city. Squatters are not uncommon, Often when you enter you are welcomed with a smell that makes you worry what you will find. Like these photo’s , I see the beauty hidden in the decay and wonder about these structures when occupants resided there. When a city cared about integrity and it's citizens and they in-turn cared for their city. I have read the Detroit Almanac cover to cover and it shares what a great city it once was. The blight can be attributed to so many different things, Greedy unions and politicians, mismanagement, suburban sprawl, corrupt mayors, crime and drugs, break downs in the family units and in the end a tax base fleeing an oppressive, overburdened and untrustworthy government. Each one, another brick on the back of a city that already struggled and eventually succumbed to the weight. The biggest factors that led to Detroit's downfall were the effects of "Free Trade", the mass exodus of the manufacturing base, along with Detroit's corrupted and entrenched government and it's refusal to put the city and it's citizens future ahead of their own. It went on for years- the last of them, Kwame Kilpatrick and his gang of thieves and thugs, are gone and perhaps Detroit can move forward, but it may be to late.
If you care to look (it would take little more than a Google search or two and the effort of a couple of mouse clicks) you will find other once proud cities and (states) approaching a similar fate as Detroit. They now do all they think possible to ward off their final death throws. Look hard at what put them in such precarious positions..... Our own Federal Government seems in a similar state. -JP
And since we're talking Detroit
U.S. boosts estimate of auto bailout losses to $23.6B
The Treasury Department dramatically boosted its estimate of losses from its $85 billion auto industry bailout by more than $9 billion in the face of General Motors Co.'s steep stock decline.
In its monthly report to Congress, the Treasury Department now says it expects to lose $23.6 billion, up from its previous estimate of $14.33 billion.In total, the government used $425 billion to bailout banks, insurance companies and automakers, and provided $45 billion in housing program assistance.
The government now expects to lose $57.33 billion, including the full cost of the housing program, up from $36.7 billion. The new estimate means the government doesn't believe it will make an overall profit on its bailouts. Read more... detnews.com
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