It was 1952. I was 18, and decided to do a cross country trek in my 1941 Plymouth. I went up the East Coast (I was born and lived in D.C.) to Lower New England, and then west, following the New York Central ’Water Level Route,’ and went through Detroit. It was a splendid city! Its train station was beautiful, and downtown was full of movie palaces, office buildings, and wonderful department stores. I was impressed, to put it mildly. A wonderful American city. Its fourth largest, with a population of close to 2 million. In 1915, Henry Ford bought 2,000 acres on the Rouge River, and in 1917 the first building of the River Rouge Ford Plant was begun. By the 1930’s the ’Rouge’ was in full swing, with over 15 million square feet of floor space. The ’Rouge’ had its own railroad, with over 100 miles of track, made its own glass, steel castings, engine blocks and car bodies. The ’Rouge’ generated its own electricity, and had at one time over 100,000 employees in its 93 buildings. It’s now a small shadow of its former glory. That’s just a small glimpse of what Detroit once was. GM and Chrysler had similar stories.
My next stop at Detroit was in 1978, as I remember, and the Renaissance Center (Ren Cen) was new. I wondered why such a huge office building-hotel-meeting and convention center had been built, because it appeared to me that Detroit was on the skids, which it was. I went back to Detroit again about ten years later, to see the new ’people mover,’ which had just been installed at huge taxpayer expense. It was a nifty little train on tracks, which toured parts of downtown, supposedly to transport shoppers and business people. Except all the once glamorous stores were closed, and downtown Detroit was rotting away, with trash, graffiti, abandoned buildings, and total depression. I watched Halloween nights on TV, as Detroiters burned their own city year after year. Made me sick.
Today, Detroit is a total ruin. Entire blocks empty, or full of abandoned houses, cars, busses, and businesses. Today, Detroit is supposed to have 900,000 in it, but I think that figure is an exaggeration. 900,000 couldn’t possibly live in that place! Hundreds of thousands live on food stamps, free housing, Aid to Dependent Children, and various welfare programs. The more kids you have, the bigger the checks are. White people by the hundreds of thousands have moved out, and have been replaced by Muslims and illegal Mexicans, added to the 67% black population. Calls to prayers scream through loudspeakers throughout the ruined city. Crime and murder is so high, that few stores dare to remain open. Few people dare to go out at night. The schools are full of non-English speaking children, and their achievements are nil. Union teachers, of course. Detroit now, is perhaps the most disgusting, dangerous, city in the world, and a mere shadow of what it was at one time.
What happened to Detroit? The auto industry failed, due to stupidity of its executives, who could never say “No” to a contract or demand by Walter Reuther’s Auto Workers Union (UAW). Then it became popular to say “Never buy a car made on Monday or Friday,” because the union auto workers were either hung over on Monday, or even sloppier on Friday, due to the forthcoming weekend. This was an open invitation for auto manufacturers of both domestic and foreign brands to open non-union factories in the South, paying workers decent wages and benefits. Unemployment was the result. Not only was it the union wages, retirement with full medical coverage, and huge benefits too numerous to mention, which bankrupted auto manufacturing, but it was the sloppy workmanship of the auto workers. Doors didn’t fit correctly, paint was inferior, reliability was horrendous, and when the fuel shortages came on, Detroit kept making huge, gas guzzling, tank like cars, when America wanted thrift and quality. The unions refused to give in to requests for quality work, wage reductions, and lower benefits to preserve jobs, so the jobs simply disappeared. Union members kept on receiving benefits of course, till they ran out, and then the decay increased.
Detroit today, is a classic case of what happens when welfare and freebies of all sorts infests itself into a family, or even a city. Detroit had perhaps one of the crookedest, most corrupt mayors in history, who was once quoted as saying ” I am the Mot— Fuc— in charge here,” and in charge he was, getting millions and millions of federal grants and handouts, which saved nothing, revitalized nothing, and created no jobs. The same thing goes on nationally today, as it has been for decades in Detroit, and see what it got them? Major cities in America are decaying like Detroit. The difference is that these cities have had a lesser dose of poisonous welfare, handouts, and freebies than has Detroit. Their underclass hasn’t developed as well as has Detroit’s. It will, and the riots will begin. Get out of the big cities.
When one considers the hundreds of millions of paper dollars which were, and still are being sent to Detroit, as it shutters its death rattle, it makes one realize how absurd are all of the TARP, subsequent bail-outs, and myriad subsidies, begun by Bush, and elaborated on by Obama and his Democrats. When McCain rushed back to D.C. to vote ’yes’ on TARP, even though 95% of America was screaming, writing letters, e-mails, and telegrams, saying “NO,” he and other Republicans and Democrats voted “yes,” which was the beginning of a great American tragedy, which still continues. (I just sent an additional $50 to J.D. Hayworth to get McCain out of the Senate). Obama now wants another $50 billion, to continue the handouts, and now even some Democrats are hesitating.
As I write this on Monday, the national debt clock reads America is over $13 trillion in hock, plus an additional $100 trillion in future commitments. This debt is un-payable, other than with Monopoly type, un-backed scrip, known as dollars. Japan is even worse off than America, and that’s why there are even gold vending machines in Tokyo, to service those Japanese smart enough to protect themselves. India consumes huge amounts of gold, because the Indians know what real money is, and has been throughout history. Greece, Spain, and Portugal are in deep trouble for doing what America began doing decades ago, and that is foolishly spending more than they took in. Citizens of the world, in general, try to not spend more than they have. Those who do, get themselves into deep trouble, with huge credit card balances, homes ’under water,’ or other bad decisions. Citizens cannot print money to bail themselves out of mistakes or misfortunes. Governments can and do print, to not only bail themselves out of bad decisions, but they have continued to make more bad decisions and continue printing.
No currency in the world is backed by anything, and most are being recklessly printed by their respective governments, without any sense of economics or concept of the results of foolish spending. Will the whole world’s system of printing press money collapse at some future date? More on this Thursday.