Panic in Detroit

Detroit Manager to Listen, Then Assess Prioirities
Corey Williams/AP
DETROIT (AP) — A bankruptcy lawyer and turnaround expert tasked with reviving Detroit's beleaguered finances could be greeted by a crowd of protesters as he arrives at work Monday, then plans to spend his first day meeting with some city officials who for months fought against creating his job at all.
Kevyn Orr is under no illusions that he'll be treated as a hero when he begins his duties as the Motor City's emergency manager, an appointment that makes Detroit the nation's largest city ever put under state control. But while there are plenty of sacrifices — including Orr's resignation from a powerful law firm where he was a partner — Orr says he is motivated by the opportunity to engineer one of the greatest fiscal turnarounds in U.S. history.
"I'm a worker bee. I'm not a honey bee," Orr, 54, told The Associated Press in an interview. "My set-in-stone plan is to get to the office ... and start meeting folks."
A review team spent two months scrutinizing Detroit's books and reported to Gov. Rick Snyder that the city was in a financial emergency, citing its long-term debt of more than $14 billion and $327 million budget deficit.
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I find it amusing that the first resort of many voters and politicians in Detroit to address an abysmal city debt and deficit into which they’ve spent themselves is to crowd into the streets and protest – of course, this has been the example set by our President in Washington.  Time is running out for Detroit.  Inattention to a massive debt with interests payments and more spending with a  327 million municipal deficit (be it “stimulus” spending or “investment” spending, whatever) is only going to accelerate their downfall.  Obama is good at demagogueing, casting blame on others and dividing communities and setting them against each other, but, unfortunately, he does not have the power to lead,  to build, and, hence cannot harness cause and effect to positive outcomes; and time is happily running out for him, too.  Detroit is going broke; the only way to save it, contrary to Obama's demagogic philosophy, is austerity, not more spending – pouring more money in at this point will only accelerate Detroit's decline (every time the government infuses cash as a "fiscal remedy", it hurts businesses by skewing the natural dynamics of the market place and hurts consumers by causing inflation).  Washington is either going to have to admit that runaway spending and regulation do not work or face the near-term prospect of one city and state after another following Detroit like dominoes.  It’s pathetic the American people allowed our nation to come to this by putting Obama and his like in Washington.