Detroit - Microcosm Of America's Future

Many thanks to Steve Lonegan for providing the link for this video that shows parallels between present day Detroit & America's future based on our country following the same exact government dependent policies that led to Detroit's ruination over the past 50 years. The city has exclusively had Democrat Party mayors since 1961 who all envisioned a state dependent city as their goal just like BO envisions America as a socialist country for starters.

The UAW ran the auto industry into the ground & the teachers' union in Detroit ran education into the ground resulting in the following horrible statistics:

1. Detroit had the highest household median income of any city in 1950. Today it rates 66th out of 68 cities measured.

2. Detroit's population in 1950 was 1.8 million. Today it is 900,000. Where did half of the population go?

3. Unemployment was in the 13 to 16% range in Detroit from 2003 to 2008 when it was less than 5% nationally for most of this time. Today unemployment is 28% in Detroit.

4. The median price of a house in Detroit is $7,100 - that is not a misprint.

5. In 1950 the former Big Three auto makers had almost 90% of the auto industry market share. Today it is under 50%. The industry in this former city of prosperity forgot that when you are on top you have to work all the harder to stay there. The Big Three found that they were not immune to market pressures such as costs & product quality.

6. The Big Three are saddled with large unfunded pension obligations & healthcare costs of thousands of retirees (sound familiar America). Almost 500,000 retirees collect benefits - the active work force is 300,000. About $1500 per vehicle produced in 2007 was spent on healthcare.

7. Only 25% of Detroit children graduate from high school. You can only wonder what any of them learned. Detroit spends $11,100 per student - $2000 higher than the national average.

It is obvious that the people who create wealth & value disappeared from Detroit over the decades. But Detroit is not an isolated example - there is out migration in recent years of tens of thousands from California, New York City, & New Jersey. Gangs & daily kidnapping make Phoenix, Tuscan, & other SW cities undesirable & Nevada has one of the worst housing foreclosure markets in the nation.

Anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of America knows that America was founded on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise. Just ask yourself to identify one of BO's programs that is not intended to reverse these principles & when you cannot you can see America coming into focus one day soon looking like present day Detroit as depicted in the video.

Unemployment & the standard of living in a country or city are functions of the market value of all the socialist programs of the past in that country or city & the result of Detroit's ruinous accumulation of such programs should make every one who sees & understands this do every thing they can to peacefully stop BO's programs dead in their tracks while we still can.