Detroit costs Belgium 305 million dollars

[Violet]

Belgian bank Dexia - having provided loans to Detroit in the past - now faces losses of about 305 million dollars.

And since we, the taxpayers, recently saved Dexia (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1129218) (after which it also quickly changed its name to Belfius (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1234020)) the headline might just as well have said: Detroit costs Belgian tax payers lots of money.

The full Flemish article (which can be found here (http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/130722_Dexia_Detroit)) is quick to comfort readers: 75 million of it is covered by a "re-insurance company of high quality"...How much more high quality than Dexia can things get, one wonders.

Nonetheless, we wish (ex-)Detroit citizens all the best for the future and that those who play with the lives of millions of their citizens both in Detroit and in Belgium be brought to justice.

[Fred Ryan]

Congratulations, you're now the proud owner of Detroit! Please be ready for delivery within 48-hours.

[ghostrider]

Belgian bank Dexia - having provided loans to Detroit in the past - now faces losses of about 305 million dollars.

And since we, the taxpayers, recently saved Dexia (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1129218) (after which it also quickly changed its name to Belfius (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1234020)) the headline might just as well have said: Detroit costs Belgian tax payers lots of money.

The full Flemish article (which can be found here (http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/130722_Dexia_Detroit)) is quick to comfort readers: 75 million of it is covered by a "re-insurance company of high quality"...How much more high quality than Dexia can things get, one wonders.

Nonetheless, we wish (ex-)Detroit citizens all the best for the future and that those who play with the lives of millions of their citizens both in Detroit and in Belgium be brought to justice.

isn't it great , union workers making 45 dollars pr hour plus bennys, the jack up the price of cars to pay for it, the public doesn't have extra money to buy expensive cars , yet they keep building them , running companies in the red , further and further ... keep churning out cars , we can afford them , but keep making them ... this was un-avoidable ... just a small symptom of a larger problem... until the live within their means, it will get worse and worse ... my wife is from michigan, flint is almost a ghost town, you can buy a house there for less than ten grand ...but a new car might go for over twenty grand ...cheaper to live than to drive ...

[Violet]

No way, in Belgium it's just the other way around. People can barely afford living (not even rent) but if you can get a (car)loan, you'll quickly be driving merrily round Belgium.

Last few articles I read about buying a house went:

- Research shows most youngsters can only buy house with help from parents or grandparents

And then when the bankers read that article too, sooner than you can say...bank, new headlines popped up saying:

- youngsters required to make parents co-owners in order to get mortgage from bank (thus making it even more difficult for people to buy their own property)

So, 45 dollars, that's about 35 EUR/hour. Bare..That's very good money, nowadays.

By the way, how did the General Motors story (Opel Antwerp) carry on there? You know they closed down the branch here in Belgium.

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Congratulations, you're now the proud owner of Detroit! Please be ready for delivery within 48-hours.

Lol, if only it were so. At least then we'd be able to give it back to the people.

[ghostrider]

as always a little restructuring and back to business...

[pyrangello]

Yeah it's bad in Detroit, and Flint and Saginaw too, state representative this morning calling for federal funding for more armed officers in flint, heck when they were demo'ing the one auto plant there a few years back the company doing the demo had to have armed snipers on the roof to keep people from stealing the workers tools. Detroit with the exception for the downtown area has been in decay for decades, from the high point of 2 mil people in the 50's to now under 700,000 people. Everyone I talk to that has been in Detroit lately says it's just devastating . I believe now the property of Detroit in the city limits is 60% vacant. There has been a mentality for years of just give give give til it hurts. The city council there is dysfunctional , the teachers union in the state ignorant, I remember about 10 years ago a business guy who had sold his company in Detroit gave each of his employees a million each and then offered the City of Detroit 170 million dollars for new charter schools. Since it was non union they told the guy to go away , OMG. And he did . Now there closing public schools. The day of reckoning is here , the day of reckoning of all of the politicians who told many, many people who would believe it, I can give you this has arrived . The day of reckoning that all the people that swallowed that worm on the hook now realize the worm is gone and the hook is setting in as all those politicians lied to everyone to get into office . I'm not anti union nor anti democratic, actually both parties suck in my opinion but greed breeds stupidity and greed is a breeding grounds for no accountability, that is until the Ponzi scheme has no more poker chips to play with. Time to find another table with new players in another city because as of the bankruptcy filing , the city of Detroit is now in reset with total accountability . Will see what happens .

As for belguim being on the hook for all that investment , On the flip side of that I was told 1/2 of all americans retirements are invested in europe . Credit default swaps total over 300 trillion in the US and over 700 trillion in Europe, and the game continues to play !

[GlassSteagallfan]

---

Here is a 30 minute video that explains everything that has, and is happening in Detroit, with all the statistics mentioned by pyrangello above. I call this video "Detroit Bankruptcy: The Test of the US Republic" (http://larouchepac.com/node/27455)

Enjoy

[pyrangello]

I grew up right at the Detroit line and have done a lot of work in the city ,welder by trade. The area of Detroit and the metro adjoining suburbs are around 5 million people total. A good portion of the suburbs outside the city limits are thriving ,not 100% but most, yes Ford, GM and Chrysler all have headquarters outside the Detroit city limits in the suburbs . And actually the property outside the city limits has gone up in value 20% this year. Some just say let the city go . But a business guy told me along time ago , every region or state needs a vibrant major city to be a success. That being said the state of Michigan in the last 10 years lost 1 million jobs of a state with 10 million people.See the correlation. I bought a commercial building 7 years ago and it's still valued at 15% less than what I bought it for.

During most of that time the jobs were lost we had a woman democratic governor, state house and senate democratic , and mayor of Detroit democratic control. I believe that's why Hillary Clinton never set foot in this state during her presidential election campaign , there was no role model here to boast about and no balance and now our last mayor of Detroit is in jail for a bunch of stuff. I want to add I did vote for Governor Jennifer Grandholm for her first term as I wanted to see and believe in change, nope, notta , didn't happen. She was a great state attorney general and that's as far as her abilities took her, Nothing innovative but just making us more dependent and driving us as a state more into debt. Not all the job exits here were for us to blame on her either, worldwide competition impacted many companies around the country as it did here , only here were major hubs of manufacturing at high costs that were prime pickings for the countries of mexico , china, india .

Many of us that live here say we will not see Detroit turn in our lifetimes. I really don't know , since there was so much vacant land in Detroit last fall a TV news reporter hit a golf ball from one side of the city to the other just to prove a point. The bright side is some of the surrounding communities outside of the Detroit city limits , Grosse Pointe , Bloomfield Hills and others. There is so much institutional and generational money here , lots of bright ideas too but not many want to dive into the city without a team of leadership in the city which includes a mayor and city council that all have the same goal in mind and not EGO 's of entitlement as that has run its course as to where we are today.

[naste.de.lumina]

25 Facts About Detroit That Will Leave You Shaking Your Head

(Michael Snyder)

It is so sad to watch one of America’s greatest cities die a horrible death.

Once upon a time, the city of Detroit was a teeming metropolis of 1.8 million people and it had the highest per capita income in the United States. Now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole of about 700,000 people that the rest of the world makes jokes about.

On Thursday, we learned that the decision had been made for the city of Detroit to formally file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. It was going to be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States by far, but on Friday it was stopped at least temporarily by an Ingham County judge.

She ruled that Detroit’s bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution because it would result in reduced pension payments for retired workers. She also stated that Detroit’s bankruptcy filing was “also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy“, and she ordered that a copy of her judgment be sent to Barack Obama. How “honoring the president” has anything to do with the bankruptcy of Detroit is a bit of a mystery, but what that judge has done is ensured that there will be months of legal wrangling ahead over Detroit’s money woes.

It will be very interesting to see how all of this plays out. But one thing is for sure – the city of Detroit is flat broke. One of the greatest cities in the history of the world is just a shell of its former self. The following are 25 facts about the fall of Detroit that will leave you shaking your head…

1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors.

2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.

3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.

4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000.

5) Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right now for $500 or less.

7) At this point, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

8) About one-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

9) An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.

11) If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.

13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city. Right now, Detroit is bringing inabout 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.

14) There are 70 ”Superfund” hazardous waste sites in Detroit.

15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.

16) Only about a third of the ambulances are running.

17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.

18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.

19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.

20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond.

21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average.

23) The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.

24) Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“.

It is easy to point fingers and mock Detroit, but the truth is that the rest of America is going down the exact same path that Detroit has gone down.

Detroit just got there first.

All over this country, there are hundreds of state and local governments that are also on the verge of financial ruin…


“Everyone will say, ‘Oh well, it’s Detroit. I thought it was already in bankruptcy,’ ” said Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone. “But Detroit is not unique. It’s the same in Chicago and New York and San Diego and San Jose. It’s a lot of major cities in this country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face the same problems.”

A while back, Meredith Whitney was highly criticized for predicting that there would be a huge wave of municipal defaults in this country. When it didn’t happen, the critics let her have it mercilessly.

But Meredith Whitney was not wrong.

She was just early.

Detroit is only just the beginning. When the next major financial crisis strikes, we are going to see a wave of municipal bankruptcies unlike anything we have ever seen before.

And of course the biggest debt problem of all in this country is the U.S. government. We are going to pay a great price for piling up nearly 17 trillion dollars of debt and over 200 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities.

All over the nation, our economic infrastructure is being gutted, debt levels are exploding and poverty is spreading. We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and our share of global GDP has been declining dramatically.

We have been living way above our means for so long that we think it is “normal”, but an extremely painful “adjustment” is coming and most Americans are not going to know how to handle it.

So don’t laugh at Detroit. The economic pain that Detroit is experiencing will be coming to your area of the country soon enough.

Source: http://govtslaves.info/25-facts-about-detroit-that-will-leave-you-shaking-your-head/

[soleil]

Belgian bank Dexia - having provided loans to Detroit in the past - now faces losses of about 305 million dollars.

And since we, the taxpayers, recently saved Dexia (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1129218) (after which it also quickly changed its name to Belfius (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1234020)) the headline might just as well have said: Detroit costs Belgian tax payers lots of money.

The full Flemish article (which can be found here (http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/130722_Dexia_Detroit)) is quick to comfort readers: 75 million of it is covered by a "re-insurance company of high quality"...How much more high quality than Dexia can things get, one wonders.

Nonetheless, we wish (ex-)Detroit citizens all the best for the future and that those who play with the lives of millions of their citizens both in Detroit and in Belgium be brought to justice.

isn't it great , union workers making 45 dollars pr hour plus bennys, the jack up the price of cars to pay for it, the public doesn't have extra money to buy expensive cars , yet they keep building them , running companies in the red , further and further ... keep churning out cars , we can afford them , but keep making them ... this was un-avoidable ... just a small symptom of a larger problem... until the live within their means, it will get worse and worse ... my wife is from michigan, flint is almost a ghost town, you can buy a house there for less than ten grand ...but a new car might go for over twenty grand ...cheaper to live than to drive ...
to add to that, yesterday i believe i saw an article saying there are houses for sale, at $500.

[pyrangello]

Teradactyl, cheaper than that , what really started the mass exodus of people was the Detroit riots in 1967. I remember my grandmother saying the army would come by and pick up all of the auto workers including my grandfather just to take them all to work. It was at that time after the riots then ethnic origins of people started moving out of the city, much of the Italian population moved north of the suburbs 12-20 miles north. Then the threat of busing kids into different schools in different districts had parents walking around with petitions and moving. I remember this all as a kid watching the adults . The majority of the city is black now but so what , that isn't an issue nor should it be. The real issue is crime, kids that don't have dads around, kids and American Detroiters that can't read 47% . 16% graduation rate. What has happened is that the politicians for the most part paid and bought peoples votes from promising people funds so they didn't have to work. It's their dirty little secret of how to stay in total control and in charge, take away their independence and make them dependent and you have now empowered yourself at the peril of the masses one by one.

You would think after all these years of social programs and assistance this area of the population would be even better off but it's just the opposite. I personally know of 2 ladies who intentionally gained 100 lbs each in the last 2 years that do not live in detriot. One is Spanish and one is white, why? so they could get on social security disability and they were both successful at doing that . Why, just one more vote bought and paid for, income for life and their both capable of working.

"THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO GET PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU POWER IS TO MAKE THEM DEPENDENT ON YOU.
THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO MAKE PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU, IS TO ERODE THE CONCEPT OF SELF DEPENDENCE, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND ULTIMATELY, SELF DETERMINATION.

Politicians know the game and could care less of the outcome of the masses as long as it serves their own personal gain, and this goes for any country in the world .I'm sure thru out history there have been some genuine elected leaders of the peoples best interest, but in Detroit the dependency rate got so high there was no way to turn it around until checkmate which is now.

[DouglasDanger]

Belgian bank Dexia - having provided loans to Detroit in the past - now faces losses of about 305 million dollars.

And since we, the taxpayers, recently saved Dexia (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1129218) (after which it also quickly changed its name to Belfius (http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/1.1234020)) the headline might just as well have said: Detroit costs Belgian tax payers lots of money.

The full Flemish article (which can be found here (http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/economie/130722_Dexia_Detroit)) is quick to comfort readers: 75 million of it is covered by a "re-insurance company of high quality"...How much more high quality than Dexia can things get, one wonders.

Nonetheless, we wish (ex-)Detroit citizens all the best for the future and that those who play with the lives of millions of their citizens both in Detroit and in Belgium be brought to justice.

isn't it great , union workers making 45 dollars pr hour plus bennys, the jack up the price of cars to pay for it, the public doesn't have extra money to buy expensive cars , yet they keep building them , running companies in the red , further and further ... keep churning out cars , we can afford them , but keep making them ... this was un-avoidable ... just a small symptom of a larger problem... until the live within their means, it will get worse and worse ... my wife is from michigan, flint is almost a ghost town, you can buy a house there for less than ten grand ...but a new car might go for over twenty grand ...cheaper to live than to drive ...
to add to that, yesterday i believe i saw an article saying there are houses for sale, at $500.

There are, they are in bad areas and have had all copper plumbing and wiring pulled out of them by "salvagers"... There are lots of videos on youtube, you can buy entire blocks if you want, package deals with 10 or more houses etc.. "I'd buy that for a dollar!" a line from RoboCop... who knew that it would be possible to buy a house for a dollar but that has happened in detroit too...

[Violet]

But how can one city go so wrong? I read the whole list of events but haven't any measures been taken after each such drastic event?

If things go back as far as the sixties surely some president or other supervising body had ample time to take action.

[pyrangello]

Yeah violet, it's happening right now, there out of others people money . Margaret Thatcher said "the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of others people money " Were here now. The main hub of Detroit where the red wings play, tigers and lions and some other buildings close to that are starting to rebuild but it's not enough to support the city, the casino's yes are bringing in some cash but there dirty and the vibe you feel down there in the evening isn't one of love I can tell you. This really may be an example of Rome in a way , this area reached it peak of greatness up until the riots , then the car companies got very fat with cash due to no competition and then the correction started happening because of greed, just like rome, kind of sounds like whats happening in our federal govnt borrowing 1.3 trillion a year and still wanting more. Then taking lavish vacations that cost millions all the while telling people you need to work harder.

I had a friend years ago from high school , was the manager of a car detailing place, got hooked on crack , wife, kid, was somewhere down in Detroit to get his drugs , walks out of the house and another guy thought he was an undercover guy cause he was white and pumped 2 shells into his chest. He was 26. 2 years ago another friend of mine came in here all distressed, his buddy who was of arab dissent had been looking to move out of detroit. He owned several party stores, loaned money to the community ect. ect. great guy about 60. He always carried a lot of money on him Friday mornings to cash people checks , this one particular Friday morning 3 guys held him up and put a bullet in the back of his head dead. He was planning on moving out of Detroit. Neither incidents no one was ever charged. I have a buddy of mine that takes care of repo'd houses in detroit, on one street in particular they are only required to just drive by and not get out of the car because its so bad. He tells me he gets approached to be robbed at least twice a week. He carries a .22 mace blaster that will put you on the ground. It's really sad in a way , my entire family grew up all throughout Detroit , polish, german, and irish dissent . But after the riots they moved out to.

[pyrangello]

Here some more stats I heard on the news recently, in 1960 Detroit had 300,000 manufacturing jobs , today it is 27,000 manufacturing jobs, 63 out of every 100 people who live in Detroit work for the city. Sound familiar as we watch our U.S. government grow today.