AuH20
07-09-2013, 11:37 AM
My jaw is left agape reading this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-detroits-greek-tragedy/2013/07/08/ad1ba63a-e7e4-11e2-8f22-de4bd2a2bd39_story.html
Prominent among them are public-employee unions — 47 in all, from organized crossing guards to the Association of Professional Construction Inspectors. Contracts permitted employees to “bump” from job to job based solely on seniority, “without regard to merit, relevant qualifications or experience,” the report says.
Generous pension and retiree health benefits gobbled up tax dollars — more than 38 percent of the city’s revenue in fiscal 2012 alone — that would otherwise have paid for public services.
Small wonder that, per the report, the effectiveness of Detroit’s police force is “extremely low” and the city’s rate of violent crime is five times the national average; or that the average fire station is 80 years old; or that the number of city parks has dwindled from 317 to 107 in the past half-decade.
The enablers at Wall Street. Partners in crime.
Detroit could not have financed its bloat without Wall Street. Like German and French banks that bought Greek debt long past the point of reason, Detroit’s financial enablers cheerfully synthesized such securities as $1.43 billion in pension-funding “certificates of participation” — about whose “validity and/or enforceability” the Orr report expresses circumspect but ominous doubts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-detroits-greek-tragedy/2013/07/08/ad1ba63a-e7e4-11e2-8f22-de4bd2a2bd39_story.html
Prominent among them are public-employee unions — 47 in all, from organized crossing guards to the Association of Professional Construction Inspectors. Contracts permitted employees to “bump” from job to job based solely on seniority, “without regard to merit, relevant qualifications or experience,” the report says.
Generous pension and retiree health benefits gobbled up tax dollars — more than 38 percent of the city’s revenue in fiscal 2012 alone — that would otherwise have paid for public services.
Small wonder that, per the report, the effectiveness of Detroit’s police force is “extremely low” and the city’s rate of violent crime is five times the national average; or that the average fire station is 80 years old; or that the number of city parks has dwindled from 317 to 107 in the past half-decade.
The enablers at Wall Street. Partners in crime.
Detroit could not have financed its bloat without Wall Street. Like German and French banks that bought Greek debt long past the point of reason, Detroit’s financial enablers cheerfully synthesized such securities as $1.43 billion in pension-funding “certificates of participation” — about whose “validity and/or enforceability” the Orr report expresses circumspect but ominous doubts.