[wacor]

Time Magazine bought a house in the city and has a reporter living there for the next year who will be making blogs and stories. I heard him talk on the radio this morning. So I then went to the Time website to take a look. Did not view his blog yet but they have a 4 page story about Detroit. This is one hell of a story that does not pull any punches. As a suburbanite I have tried to post my views and this guy has done far better than I ever could.

A very interesting read if anybody is so inclined. Also take a peek at some of the pictures

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...5796-1,00.html



This is their story about why they did this.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...inline-sidebar
.

[valis]

nice find, wacor......really hammers it home.......thanks for posting that.

[valis]

Originally Posted by from above link

In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%.

Good God.

[wacor]

Originally Posted by valis

Good God.

Actually I have heard reports on the radio several times that it is 40%

Not sure who comes up with the numbers

[valis]

jesus....no matter how you look at it, it's a ludicrous figure. Absolutely insane.

[TooBad]

Originally Posted by valis

jesus....no matter how you look at it, it's a ludicrous figure. Absolutely insane.

That's Dems in charge for decades for you!

[wacor]

Originally Posted by TooBad

That's Dems in charge for decades for you!

Corrupt ones to boot

And much cronyism

[valis]

Now Saturn is closing.........the forecast, my friend, does not look good for you..........

[wacor]

Yup that was in this mornings news

First thing I heard on the way to work

Apparantly Penske could not get anybody to build the cars which seems odd as I thought he was going to buy the existing plants. Maybe I misunderstood and he had nobody will to make parts??

Either way ... yes it is another bad sign.... Not just for us but all the people that build and sell the cars. All across the country

On the good side hopefully this will be a glorious afternoon at the ballpark and we can finally put the Twins to rest once and for all. I am still thinking of going but nobody is interested.

[valis]

hell, I'm pulling for the Tigers........but I've liked them since the trammel/whittaker days.....

[Wino]

Originally Posted by valis

Now Saturn is closing.........the forecast, my friend, does not look good for you..........

Said it before, say it again - Closing down Saturn is stupid - GM should shutdown or divest themselves of GMC which duplicates Chevy trucks and are but gas guzzlers and keep Saturn going. I suspect in 5 years or less there will be no GM.

[valis]

Originally Posted by Wino

Said it before, say it again - Closing down Saturn is stupid - GM should shutdown or divest themselves of GMC which duplicates Chevy trucks and are but gas guzzlers and keep Saturn going. I suspect in 5 years or less there will be no GM.

if you are taking the over/under on the 5 years, I'll take the under, sad to say. They are falling very fast indeed.

[wacor]

I agree with the point about Saturn

Penske I heard was trying to partner with a foreign company. The skinny is that those foreign companies would rather go to other countries where it is not so competitive.

And the Tigers absolutely sucked. But the seats were awesome
If you like the layout. They made rows A-J in this section when they could have had double the rows. Tons of leg room and a little table in front to put food on. Stadium is nice but stinks as far as viewing the game

[wacor]

This story should shed a little light on how bad things are in Detroit.

A couple of weeks ago the local utility had a program for people to sign up for that needed help and they were overwhelmed also.

http://detnews.com/article/20091008/...jockey-for-aid

Chaos erupts at Cobo as thousands jockey for federal aid

6 injured as long lines of Detroiters waited for chance to get fed help to pay their bills

George Hunter, Charlie LeDuff and Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News

Detroit -- The lure of federal cash assistance for needy Detroit families sparked pandemonium Wednesday at Cobo Center, as hundreds of city residents pushed, jostled and trampled others in a rush to apply for the aid.
In a scene that spoke volumes about the despair of one of the nation's poorest cities, about 50,000 Detroiters descended on downtown to pick up 5,000 applications in hopes of enrolling in a federal program that pays a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to low-income residents to help pay rent and utilities.
In fact, some 60,000 residents applied for the aid over two days, although the city will only be able to help about 3,400 families.

[wacor]

Only in Detroit would they have four elections for Mayor in 9 months. All of them special ones with nothing else on the ballot if I am not mistaken. What at utter waste of money. Hopefully they vote to make a new charter to correct this lunacy.


http://freep.com/article/20091008/CO...spoken-enough?

Haven't Detroit voters spoken enough?

BY BRIAN DICKERSON
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Detroiters will cast ballots early next month in their city's fourth mayoral contest in nine months. Nobody enjoys an election more than I do, but if this doesn't strike you as grossly excessive, you probably need a better hobby.

It's tempting to lay the blame for all this mayoral mishegoss at the feet of Kwame Kilpatrick, whose ill-timed felony plea set the current marathon campaign in motion more than a year ago. But in fairness, Kilpatrick saw this train wreck coming, and he did his best to head off what he presciently predicted would be an unprecedented exercise in democratic redundancy.

Back in April 2008, already confronting a felony indictment but still months away from his ignominious exit, then-Mayor Kilpatrick warned a genteel crowd at Birmingham's Townsend Hotel that Detroiters would reap the whirlwind if they drove him from office before his second term ended.

"What you don't want to happen is absolute chaos," he said. "You could have four mayors in 15 months."

But Kilpatrick's alternative -- sticking with his administration until it had finished looting Detroit's treasury -- proved impractical. And, as with so many of hizzoner's pronouncements, Kilpatrick's forecast of perpetual electoral upheaval turned out to be exaggerated.

An anticlimactic finale
It's been a bumpy ride, alright, but unless prohibitive favorite Dave Bing is indicted for grand larceny or his hapless challenger, Tom Barrow, is filmed rescuing infant quintuplets from a burning building, Detroit seems likely to limp into 2010 with only its third mayor in two years -- a record of political stability that compares favorably to that of many Middle Eastern countries.

Still, four elections in nine months is nuts, particularly in a city that has to scramble to make payroll each week. No wonder incumbent Bing has had enough and opted, rather sensibly, to sit out the grand finale.

Of the four mayoral elections to which Detroiters were condemned last year, next month's seems the most egregiously pointless.