Voted4Reagan
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Thank You BAC... Glad we can agree on this.
Bankrupt detroit gives billionaire new sports arena
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Thank You BAC... Glad we can agree on this.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Thank you.
This is an issue so sad and personal for me that I'd probably need a therapist to talk about it.
I love what Detroit was .. no other place on earth I would have rather grown up.
Voted4Reagan
Verified User
What has happened in Detroit by it's elected officials and Public servants borders on Criminal.
They sacrificed 4 generations of Detroit-ers to feed the beast of Government.
20% High School Graduation Rates and over 50% of the city residents being functionally illiterate is an abomination.
You were correct about the White Flight as well BAC. Following the Race Riots in the 1960's it accelerated to a peak of 86,000 people leaving in 1968 with another 46000 leaving in 1969. Thats 132,000 people and Businesses leaving in a 24 month period. No city can accept those losses and yet the mayor and city council did nothing.
After 1967 the wounds of the riots were allowed to fester... The Whites and affluent African Americans fled to the safety of the suburbs and the Poorer African Americans were left with declining jobs, limited skills and little opportunity. This built a feeling of resentment and a huge system of Government support of these people coupled with it's own swelling bureaucratic ineptness leads us to where we are today.
Detroit is a Welfare City. Kept alive by welfare checks, public assistance and Section 8. This is why the debt is out of control.
Billions on welfare, no property taxes being collected on almost 150,000 buildings, Arson, murder, Drugs and Robbery rampant. A huge government machine that pays itself before they pay their bills and a school system that is the most corrupt in the Country.
Development needs to be spurred, the finances reorganized, the Government slashed by 50% and that money used for the people!
I look forward to the day I walk back into Detroit and see it like I remembered in my history books.. but a new version. Based on Banking, Finance, Sports, Commerce and Technology.
Gone are the BIG 3.. Now Detroit needs to find a NEW BIG 3.. Finance/Sports and Technology will lead the way...
How about just using that money to pay off the debt.
The idea that it creates jobs is based on bad economics. Any person who spends money on a Red Wings game has less to spend on other entertainment or other goods/services. A Red Wings game might prove to have greater utility to a fan but they should pay for that themselves and not have their hobbies subsidized.
The idea that it creates jobs is based on bad economics. Any person who spends money on a Red Wings game has less to spend on other entertainment or other goods/services. A Red Wings game might prove to have greater utility to a fan but they should pay for that themselves and not have their hobbies subsidized.
The government isn't subsidizing fans, it's subsidizing the billionaire owner. Ticket prices aren't going to discounted becuase the owner saved money on building the facility.
And I think the argument is not that it creates jobs on a net basis, but that it creates jobs in Detroit. I mean, your average Red Wings fan probably isn't spending his or her entertainment dollar in Detroit otherwise. But I agree that the "creates jobs" argument is specious at best.
They won't be discounted but without the subsidy the owner might increase ticket prices or move the team.
Move the team, maybe. Increase ticket prices, probably not. If the owner could just increase ticket prices and make more money, the owner would increase ticket prices and make more money regardless of the arena costs. I mean, any rational profit seeking individual/entity would charge as much as the market would bear for tickets regardless of other costs.
A new arena will more than likely come with a rise in ticket prices, anyway.
Without the state enabling him to take it from the taxpayers, he will either figure out a way to increase his revenues or cut costs to finance a new arena.
I absolutely agree government subsidies never really result in lower costs for the consumer. It does not matter if it is a subsidy for a stadium, college tuition or other things.
cawacko
Well-known member
I had lunch with the same Michigan developer today. He said while having lunch with Governor Granholm when she was still in office she asked what he would do with Detroit if he were in charge. He mentioned the urban farm scenario then mentioned leasing Detroit to China for 100 years for $1 and letting them take over the City. He said the Governor looked at him crazy and his response was 'do you have any better ideas?' and she had nothing.
The China thing sounds pretty crazy on the surface but after getting over the initial shock it could have some actual merit (not that it would ever happen). Interesting food for thought though.
The China thing sounds pretty crazy on the surface but after getting over the initial shock it could have some actual merit (not that it would ever happen). Interesting food for thought though.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
:0) I trust that we can have a good conversation on this issue.
The riots in Detroit in '67 were absolutely necessary. Absolutely necessary. The Detroit Police Department was racist and brutal to the core. They were brutal monsters and the city administration would do nothing to stop them.
Police Brutality
In Detroit, during the 1960s the “Big Four” or “Tac Squad”roamed the streets, searching for bars to raid and prostitutes to arrest. These elite 4 man units frequently stopped youths who were driving or walking through the 12th street neighborhood. They verbally degraded these youths, calling them “boy” and “nigger”, asking them who they were and where they were going. (Fine 1989:98). Most of the time, black residents were asked to produce identification, and having suffered their requisite share of humiliation, were allowed to proceed on their way. But if one could not produce “proper” identification, this could lead to arrest or worse. In a few notable cases, police stops led to the injury or death of those who were detained. Such excessive use of force was manifested in the 1962 police shooting of a black prostitute named Shirley Scott who, like Lester Long of Newark, was shot in the back while fleeing from the back of a patrol car. Other high profile cases of police brutality in Detroit included the severe beating of another prostitute, Barbara Jackson, in 1964, and the beating of Howard King, a black teenager, for “allegedly disturbing the peace”. (Fine 1989:117) But the main issue in the minds of Detroit’s black residents was police harassment and police brutality, which they identified in a Detroit Free Press Survey as the number one problem they faced in the period leading up to the riot. (Detroit Free Press 1968, Fine 1989, Thomas 1967). According to a Detroit Free Press Survey, residents reported police brutality as the number as the number one problem they faced in the period leading up to the riot. (Detroit Free Press 1968, Fine 1989, Thomas 1967).
http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm
Whites, who didn't care about how blacks were being abused, fled from a population that was forced to protect itself.
"After 1967 the wounds of the riots were allowed to fester... The Whites and affluent African Americans fled to the safety of the suburbs and the Poorer African Americans were left with declining jobs, limited skills and little opportunity. This built a feeling of resentment and a huge system of Government support of these people coupled with it's own swelling bureaucratic ineptness leads us to where we are today."
Well said.
Race and resentment in Michigan is about as deep as it is throughout much of the south.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I'd be all for it.
It would be the best possible thing for Detroit .. as the Chinese believe in quid-pro-quo .. far less about race than do Americans.
tekkychick
New member
um, might want to look into working conditions at Chinese factories before letting them take over Detroit. And my impression is that chinese are pretty racist.
cawacko
Well-known member
bac, for the past year I've been working with a lot of Chinese investors who are investing in the U.S. Unfortunately what I've found is on racial issues they don't really like black people. I don't know if what I've experienced speaks for their whole country but investors have asked me 'how's the neighborhood' what they really mean is are their black people there. This was just my experience but was pretty eye opening.
I still think the concept is an interesting one though.
Voted4Reagan
Verified User
I agree.. the actions of the police were totally barbaric... but can you agree that they hastened the rate of white flight and possibly were the tipping point for saving the city? I cant agree with you that Riots and violence are ever needed. Dr. King certainly would not have agreed with that.
Action by the police and the S.T.R.E.S.S. squads were uncalled for... There are always alternatives for violence. we can agree to disagree on that.
But the harm done to the city in the wake of the riots seems unrepairable. Subsequent administrations and city councils have fostered these racial tensions and even though the police force is now totally integrated the problems still persist. The only mayor I have seen try to turn this around is Bing. Unfortunately he has no resources and no way to really combat the problems. But his heart is in the right place and he attempts to make do with what little he has.
When should the people of Detroit let go of the old resentments? All the politicians from those days are dead. All the Whites have moved out of Wayne county except for a few isolated and remote communities. The city itself is Majority African American (82.75%) with Whites (10.6%) and Hispanics (6.8%) there should be little animosity left between the races. At what point do you say "The past is the Past" and move forward? There should be zero racism in Detroit as Whites have in the 3 years since the census slipped below 10% of the population. Detroit for all intents and purposes is a 100% Minority city. Race shouldn't be a factor at all. Where is the animosity coming from?
Crime in Detroit isnt getting better, it's getting worse. Political corruption has been the norm for 60 years and is accepted and even more ridiculous, THE VOTERS VOTE FOR THE SAME CRIMINALS EVERY ELECTION CYCLE! Why? Why vote for the people that have destroyed this city?
Detroit cant blame Republicans, Detroit cant blame Whites, Detroit cant blame Hispanic or any other ethnic group. The people of Detroit have only themselves and their elected officials to blame for 60 years of mismanagement. And for 60 years those officials are the ones that have literally enslaved the majority of the city in a cycle of dependence on Government assistance and handouts. Now as the City sinks further into the fiscal abyss African Americans are leaving as Drugs, gangs and Black on Black crime continue to skyrocket and claim the lives of their children and Families.
in 2000 the African American population was 775,772. in 2010 that had fallen to 590,000... a loss of over 25% in 10 years!
People in Detroit have to take charge.. They have to vote out the Criminals, impose Term Limits, Improve Education by getting rid of a corrupt school board and Teachers Unions and rebuild the whole City from scratch.
My Question to you BAC.... Where do they begin?
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Why do you think Obama is attacking Africa?
He's doing it because the Chinese are making great inroads throughout Africa because they are much more fair with far better agreements than the west .. which leads with a gun .. just as Obama is doing now.
The China-Africa Convergence: Can America Catch Up?
June 16, 2013
excerpt --
Chinese vs. American Perceptions of Africa
Perceiving opportunities like these and many others, however, will first require a revolution in American thinking about Africa. I have spent the last few years working on a book about China’s relationship with the continent, and could not have been more struck by the differences in attitude in the United States and China toward Africa. More than a million Chinese have moved to Africa in the last decade, largely because they see the continent as an arena of almost limitless opportunity. This holds true from big company executives to mom and pop entrepreneurs from China’s inland, second tier cities.
Americans, meanwhile, despite their far deeper historical associations with the continent, including 13 percent of the population that traces its ancestry to Africa, cling to deeply engrained attitudes toward this part of the world, as a place of war, of misery, of strife, etc. For this reason, and because we cannot get over a long-running sense of Africa as a place to be aided, we are ill equipped to see or appreciate the opportunities that Africa offers.
The American press perpetuates old patterns of coverage even as Africa rapidly grows and changes. The work of Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times, a recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the most prominent and arguably influential example of this tendency. In a 2012 essay in the New York Review of Books that broadly reflects the focus of his work as East Africa bureau chief for the Times, he wrote: “What we are seeing is the decline of the classic wars by freedom fighters and the proliferation of something else—something wilder, messier, more predatory, and harder to define… Today the continent is plagued by countless nasty little wars, which in many ways aren’t really wars at all. There are no front lines, no battlefields, no clear conflict zones, and no distinctions between combatants and civilians.”
What the facts tell us about Africa is quite the contrary. As Jonathan Berman wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, titled “Africa is more stable than you’ve been led to think,” which drew its data from the Economist: “Across Africa, successful coups are rare and getting rarer. This Economist Intelligence Unit has tracked the trend since 1960, shortly after colonial withdrawal began. Given the preconceived impression of Africa as coup crazy, many lose sight of the decline of coups… Africa’s governments aren’t just becoming more stable. They’re becoming more representative, albeit in an irregular pattern, as befits a continent with 54 countries. The Polity IV Project measures political regimes on a spectrum from fully institutionalized autocracies (low scores) to fully institutionalized democracies (high scores)… The trend since 1990, across all of Africa, has been towards more democracy.”
No one expects the press to abandon conflict as a topic, but the American media are long overdue for a re-set in terms of the ways they habitually frame African coverage. This should start with a repudiation of the way that African events are denied specificity. Things are routinely said to take place “in Africa,” or “across Africa” instead of in actual countries or places with real names. The eternal pretext is to “make it easier” for the reader, who can’t be bothered with too many unfamiliar names. This kind of factual looseness, though, is not practiced toward any other part of the world, and bespeaks a casual and persistent ghettoization of Africa.
Another example of this is the fact that virtually no American news organization offers business coverage of Africa. Return on investment in Africa is among the highest in the world. Trade with each region of the continent is booming. And recently, big U.S. companies like Walmart, IBM and Google, to name the most prominent examples, have been expanding their presence in Africa. But because the media speaks mainly in terms of conflict and aid, the general public has no perception of the growing opportunities on the continent, unlike the large numbers of Chinese newcomers.
more
http://africaplus.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/the-china-africa-convergence-can-america-catch-up/
It should also be said that George Bush is more appreciated throughout Africa than Barack Obama.
Americans have no understanding of Africa .. which of course comes as no surprise to anyone.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Excellent thoughts indeed brother .. although I disagree with a few points.
The riots were absolutely necessary because black youth were being slaughtered wholesale by the police without any serious oversight. I could have easily been one of those statistics for no other reason than the color of my skin.
I vividly remember one night during the start of the riots when multiple police units rushed into my neighborhood as if they were an invading force. As they began to harass people .. shots rang out and hit an officer and a police car. As the police started to gather around the fallen officer, more shots rang out and everybody started running. Soon, a full scale gun battle was happening with residents firing from rooftops and buildings everywhere. More police rushed in.
The battle continued into the night .. and by around 10pm .. the cops saddled up and left the neighborhood. I have never been prouder of the people in my neighborhood and what I had just witnessed. The animosity there is deep and perhaps eternal.
Truth be told, Reagan had a lot to do with the decline of Detroit and many urban cities in America. He ended aid to the cities and he cut the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by three-quarters, from $32 billion in 1981 to $7.5 billion by 1988. This happened about the same time US automakers were in decline .. which affected Detroit more than anywhere else.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that racism or Reagan were solely responsible for Detroit's decline. As you've correctly stated, mismanagement and corrupt/inept politicians played their part in the disaster. I've said to fellow Detroiters many times that I like Heatwave and Martha and the Vandellas as much as anybody .. but that doesn't mean that Martha Reeves should be on the City Council or that she knows anything about politics or city administration.
Where do they begin to restore what was? I have no idea .. and I say that honestly. I have a lot of family still in Detroit .. but I've been telling them to get out for years. Most now live in the suburbs and drive great distances to work and to see each other.
I wish I had an answer to your question .. or at least a hopeful idea. Unfortunately, I don't.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Your experience has been different than mine good brother. I really enjoy being around Chinese people. My every experience with the Chinese from my college days to now has been positive .. which is not to suggest that all Chinese feel the same way.
But the Africa story of China is very telling. They go above and beyond in their relationships and agreements with African people. They build roads and infrastructure that has nothing to do with a particular project .. they often build them just because they are needed.
As you say, the concept is indeed interesting .. and fascinating.
cawacko
Well-known member
And just to be clear when I say Chinese Investors I'm referring to people living in China, not Chinese-Americans.
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