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Just a few years ago, the auto industry wasnt just struggling it was flatlining. GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse. Suppliers and distributors were at risk of going under. More than a million jobs across the country were on the line and not just auto jobs, but the jobs of teachers, small business owners, and everyone in communities that depend on this great American industry.
But we refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.
Today, auto sales are the highest theyve been in more than four years. GM is back. Ford and Chrysler are growing again. Together, our auto industry has created nearly a quarter of a million new jobs right here in America.
and he was right and no amount of wishful thinking or unicorns can save Detroit. a judge today spurned the bankruptcy filing.
uly 19, 2013 at 4:37 pm
Ingham County judge rules Detroit bankruptcy be withdrawn; Schuette appeals
From The Detroit News: Ingham County judge rules Detroit bankruptcy be withdrawn; Schuette appeals | The Detroit News
Detroit has already bumped against its statutory limit for taxing its 'citizens'.....anyone know what the millage rates are for Detroit and its environs? Try 65.0 thats 65 POINT zero for residential an 85.0 for businesses.
example- taking into account, city state and Wayne county property taxes, is $3500.00 on a 50K property or 16K on a 250k piece of property....let that sink in for a moment.....
this ramp up started 30 year ago and has traveled the only road it could; to a tax base that exhausted ( and pushed anybody able to, to leave) , coffers empty, legacy costs that simply cannot be serviced, a day to day financial burden that they can only pay by borrowing.
its over.
Remember when Obama accused the GOP of wanting to let Detriot go bankrupt?
I do and the irony is classic.
Op-Ed Contributor
Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
By MITT ROMNEY
Published: November 18, 2008
The term 'since 2008' has been prevalent in every municipal bankruptcy in the last 5 years.
Of course. See Post #12
O said Detroit, Mitt said Detroit, both were talking about the Auto Bail-Out of 2008-2009, not the City.
Because saving a single business (union thugs) makes much more sense than helping the city recover so as to not have to rip off its citizens just to stay afloat
Saving jobs isn't important?
The term 'since 2008' has been prevalent in every municipal bankruptcy in the last 5 years.
You aren't foolish enough to believe they went bankrupt as a result of something that happened since 2008, are you?
It is a point of fact that Obama's boondoggle stimulus actually delayed the inevitable bankruptcies. Those cities would have gone under much sooner without it.
The “Interest-Rate Swaps” Scam
The issue turns on the “credit default swaps” that the banks tricked cities into taking. This is another financial weapon of mass destruction, like sub-prime mortgage loans. Cities issue bonds to get cash for projects, thus they must make regular payments on the bonds. Wall Street is the aggressive party here, not the cities. The financial boys try to sell the cities a form of insurance called an “interest-rate swap”. The deal is that if interest rates stay high, the bank will pay them extra as insurance, but if the rates stay low, then the cities pay the bankers.
Somehow the Banksters were eerily prescient: since 2008, the Fed has kept interest rates at zero “to stimulate the economy”. Now cities, school districts and water boards pay the banks millions of dollars a month. But the kindly bankers do permit cities to pay exorbitant termination fees. Between 2006 and 2008, banks collected at least $28 billion from cities on top of the swap payments. (3)
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reported in 2012 that U.S. banks held $183.7 trillion in interest rate contracts. Only four firms represent 93% of total derivative holdings: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. (4) They are the bedrock of the derivative market.
“Interest rate swaps are today the single largest type of derivative in existence, making up more than 80% of the value of all derivative contracts signed by U.S. commercial banks. Measured by their notional amounts (the “notional” of a swap is a fictive sum of money corresponding to an actual principle on real debt), U.S. banks have an outstanding $202 trillion in interest rate derivative contracts. In other words, U.S. banks are using swaps to transform interest rate payments on $202 trillion in debt, owed by corporations, governments, and other banks, so that these entities can switch from variable rates to fixed, or vice versa, and so that they can peg their debt payments to any number of global rates.
The bailouts didn't save jobs. It saved pensions. The bankruptcy would have happened regardless of our taxes being wasted.Of course. See Post #12
O said Detroit, Mitt said Detroit, both were talking about the Auto Bail-Out of 2008-2009, not the City.
Because saving a single business (union thugs) makes much more sense than helping the city recover so as to not have to rip off its citizens just to stay afloat
Saving jobs isn't important?
shouldn't this scam be addressed by Dodd-Frank?
or it was purposefully left behind?
The true extent of potential losses to taxpayers remains unknown, but could be catastrophic. For example, all Pennsylvania taxpayers are exposed to enormous liabilities from swaps entered into by public entities in Philadelphia alone, according to recent financial reports:
City of Philadelphia – 6 active swaps with a net “negative fair value” (the cost if the swaps were terminated as of the date of the financial report) of $122.6 million; swaps related to $1.25 billion in total debt
School District of Philadelphia – 12 active swaps with a net negative fair value of $124.7 million; swaps related to $682.6 million in debt
SEPTA – 3 active swaps with a net negative fair value of $52.4 million; swaps related to $345.5 million in debt
Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development – 3 active swaps with a net negative fair value of $27.7 million; swaps related to $588.2 million in debt
Philadelphia Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority – 4 active swaps with a net negative fair value of $45.3 million; swaps related to $253.1 million in debt
Wagner has sounded the alarm about swaps for months. A 2009 special investigation conducted by the Department of the Auditor General found that 107 school districts and 86 local governments had financed $14.9 billion in debt tied to interest-rate swaps. This debt equals an amount that is more than half of the commonwealth's budget.
Deliciously and deliberately misleading and out of context.
Just a few years ago, the auto industry wasnt just struggling it was flatlining. GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse. Suppliers and distributors were at risk of going under. More than a million jobs across the country were on the line and not just auto jobs, but the jobs of teachers, small business owners, and everyone in communities that depend on this great American industry.
But we refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.
Today, auto sales are the highest theyve been in more than four years. GM is back. Ford and Chrysler are growing again. Together, our auto industry has created nearly a quarter of a million new jobs right here in America.
He was plainly making "Detroit" and the auto industry debt problems synonymous. He was not talking about the city and its debt problems.
The bailouts didn't save jobs.
I do and the irony is classic.
You do realize that the emergency city manager was appointed by the state's Republican Governor and is the one who is supporting this bankruptcy, right? I'm not sure if there are actually any options, but we need to be clear that this is being orchestrated by Republicans who have taken control of the city over the duly elected mayor and city counsel.
The funny thing about Detroit's situation is that it isn't nearly as bad as everyone thinks. At the same time, fixing it isn't easy either, but only because elected officials have not had the balls to do what is necessary, which involves shutting down entire parts of the city and forcing people to move. In areas where only one home out of every four or five is occupied, those areas need to be vacated so that they can be sold off to developers who can do something positive. Give away free land to developers and watch what happens.
The bailouts didn't save jobs.
According to you and what blog?
The bailouts didn't save jobs.
According to you and what blog?
According to any economist who has looked at it who has not taken a paycheck from Obama.
shouldn't this scam be addressed by Dodd-Frank?
or it was purposefully left behind?
Dodd-Frank was strangled in the cradle. Crib death. It is virtually toothless.
Christ, the GOP has been blocking the appointment of the head of the CFPB until this week. Remember all that fuss over the "nuclear option"?
Yeah. They don't give a flying fuck about the common man. Just the banks.
The chief executive of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC has been working on Wall Street for 20 years, but made big news in 2007 with her call that a major financial credit crisis was looming. That call was followed in late 2010 by an even more spectacular call for sweeping municipal bond defaults, which was broadcast during a 60 Minutes interview.
“I first published the research from that [December] 60 Minutes interview in September,” she said. “That was an hour and a half interview, and it was not my intention to make any calls on the show, and I didn't expect it to resonate as much as it did.”
As to whether her call on the muni market was premature or exaggerated, she clarified, “I said people would have to worry about it in 12 months because the stimulus money was running out.”
She still isn't backing down on the level of risk she sees in the muni market.
“This is just the beginning, and this stuff will take a long time to play out,” she said. “This is not fun stuff to talk about; the fun stuff to talk about is all the good stuff that governors are doing around the country.”
