Cookies are Not Accepted - New York Times “The auto industry supports one of every 10 jobs in the United States,” Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan wrote in a CNN.com plea for a bailout of Detroit’s Big Three. That’s a scary figure. Detroit Race Riot (1967) The Intersection of 12th Street and Clairmount, Saturday, July 23, 1967 Image Courtesy of the Detroit Free Press Image Ownership: Public Domain The Detroit Race Riot in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1967 was one of the most violent urban revolts in the 20th century. On Sunday evening, July 23, the Detroit Police Vice Squad officers raided an after hours “blind pig,” an unlicensed bar on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue in the center of the city’s oldest and poorest black neighborhood. At 5:20 a.m. additional police officers were sent to 12th Street to stop the growing violence. Around 1:00 p.m. police officers began to report injuries from stones, bottles, and other objects that were thrown at them. At 5:30 p.m., twelve hours into the riot, Mayor Cavanaugh requested that the National Guard be brought into Detroit to stop the violence. At 11:00 p.m. a 45-year-old white man was seen looting a store and was shot by the store owner. At 2:00 a.m. Sources:Allen D.
Anatomy of Detroit’s Decline - Interactive Feature Mayor Coleman A. Young of Detroit at an event in 1980. Richard Sheinwald/Associated Press The financial crisis facing Detroit was decades in the making, caused in part by a trail of missteps, suspected corruption and inaction. Here is a sampling of some city leaders who trimmed too little, too late and, rather than tackling problems head on, hoped that deep-rooted structural problems would turn out to be cyclical downturns. Charles E. Edward Jeffries, who served as mayor from 1940 to 1948, developed the Detroit Plan, which involved razing 100 blighted acres and preparing the land for redevelopment. Albert Cobo was considered a candidate of the wealthy and of the white during his tenure from 1950 to 1957. Coleman A. Kwame M. Dave Bing, a former professional basketball star, took office in 2009 pledging to solve Detroit’s fiscal problems, which by then were already overwhelming. Related
The Detroit Bankruptcy The Detroit Bankruptcy The City of Detroit’s bankruptcy was driven by a severe decline in revenues (and, importantly, not an increase in obligations to fund pensions). Depopulation and long-term unemployment caused Detroit’s property and income tax revenues to plummet. The state of Michigan exacerbated the problems by slashing revenue it shared with the city. The city’s overall expenses have declined over the last five years, although its financial expenses have increased. The Shortfall Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, asserts that the city is bankrupt because it has $18 billion in long-term debt. Cash flow crisis. In a corporate bankruptcy, the judge takes stock of a company’s total assets and liabilities because the company can be liquidated and all its assets sold to pay down its debts. This means that Detroit is bankrupt not because of its outstanding debt, but because it is no longer bringing in enough revenue to cover its immediate expenses. Total outstanding debt. Revenue
Detroit Has Worst High-School Graduation Rate Donald Trump Wall: How Many Jobs Would It Create? | Money Even after President Donald Trump’s executive order to begin construction of a border wall with Mexico, the actual plans are still the subject of speculation. From how long the structure will be (1,000 to 2,000 miles), to the wall's budget ($12 billion to $15 billion, or even $25 billion), and who will end up paying for it (Mexico! Or maybe not), the new administration has plenty of details to iron out. But one certainty, experts say, is that if construction forges ahead as expected, it will create thousands of jobs for American workers. Michael Montgomery, a consultant who helps developers estimate their projects' economic impact, says a building project on the scale of Trump’s speculative wall should create between 21,200 and 25,600 jobs for "at least the period of construction,” basing his estimate on the $12 billion to $15 billion budget mentioned by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. There’s one caveat, though.
A new Detroit: Can the Motor City come back? ONE of this week's big American news stories was the release of new Census data for the state of Michigan, which revealed that the city of Detroit underwent a stunning population decline between 2000 and 2010. Detroit shrank by 25% during the decade, and its population fell to its lowest level since 1910—before the era of Big Three dominance. The city seems to be locked in a death spiral. But could there be a light on the horizon? Bloomberg reports: Auto industry executives are trying to make Silicon Valley engineers feel at home in Detroit. Indeed, tech employment has been rising quickly in Detroit. Well, there are a few points to make. I think it's a little disconcerting that so much of the hiring seems to be driven by carmakers. This is one place where Detroit is at a significant disadvantage thanks to the condition of its broader economy. On the other hand, Detroit's ridiculously low costs are an advantage: Sure, Detroit salaries are 40% lower than Silicon Valley pay.
Detroit pays high price for arson onslaught Detroit — Arson is a raging epidemic in Detroit, destroying neighborhoods and lives as the city tries to emerge from bankruptcy. Even amid a historic demolition blitz, buildings burn faster than Detroit can raze them. Last year, the city had 3,839 suspicious fires and demolished 3,500 buildings, according to city records analyzed by The Detroit News. Burned homes scar neighborhoods for years: Two-thirds of those that caught fire from 2010-13 are still standing, records show. "Nothing burns like Detroit," said Lt. Joe Crandall, a Detroit Fire Department arson investigator, referring to the city's high rate of arson. The Detroit News researched arson for more than three months and found that it remains a huge obstacle to renewal efforts following bankruptcy. Few neighborhoods were untouched by arson and the entire city bears its costs. "People don't realize arson is a felony. Arson Chief Charles Simms said the city is making progress in its long struggle with arson. 'Arson is like a cancer'
Donald Trump transition team: How to get a White House job Have you always wanted to work for the federal government? Here's your chance, because President-elect Donald Trump is scouting more than 4,000 new political employees as he prepares to enter the White House. He made the announcement on his GreatAgain.gov site and newly created Twitter account, Transition 2017, this week, listing four different types of appointments he's looking to fill: Presidential Appointments with Senate Confirmation (PAS) The 1,212 senior leader positions, which must be approved by the Senate, include Cabinet secretaries and their deputies, the heads of most independent agencies and ambassadors. Presidential Appointments without Senate Confirmation (PA) These 353 positions, which mostly consists of the White House staff, do not need Senate approval. Non-career Senior Executive Service Trump needs 680 employees for this category. From schedulers and assistants to policy experts, there are 1,403 openings available for these confidential roles.
Detroit at the White House: Trump meets with Big Three auto CEOs - Jan. 23, 2017 In opening remarks to the press, Trump claimed he was already "bringing manufacturing back to the United States big league." He didn't talk about his threats to impose tariffs and border taxes on goods brought in from Mexico. Instead, he talked about incentives that would get automakers to build here, such as reduced corporate tax rates. The CEOs stayed at the meeting about an hour. "As an industry we're excited about working together with the president and his administration on tax policies, on regulation and on trade to really create a renaissance in American manufacturing," he said. He specifically praised Trump's decision to pull out of the TPP trade deal, which Fields said did not do enough to address currency manipulation, a major concern for U.S. automakers. But the auto industry is concerned about Trump's threat to impose a 35% tax on imports from Mexico to the United States. Before the meeting started, Trump said in a tweet that he was focused on boosting manufacturing.
The Downfall of Detroit: White Flight and the 1967 Race Riots | husseinbazzi The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city’s Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit’s 1943 race riot, which occurred 24 years earlier. To help end the disturbance, Governor George Romney ordered the Michigan National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in Army troops. The result was 43 dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed (Rutgers.edu). Works Cited Feagin, Joe R.. Like this: Like Loading...
Trump Wants to Build a Wall. Finding Workers Won’t Be Easy - Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall faces many obstacles. One of the tallest: building it without undocumented workers. A labor shortage has left few hands to build houses and factories in the region, where wages have already been rising and projects delayed. Now, the president’s plan for “immediate construction of a border wall” will force the government to find legal builders for a project that could employ thousands if not tens of thousands. About half of construction workers in Texas are undocumented, and nationwide 14 percent lack authorization for employment in the U.S., according to the Workers Defense Project, an Austin group that advocates for undocumented laborers. “If he is going to build a wall with legal workers in Texas, he is going to have a very hard time,” said Stan Marek, chief executive officer of Marek Brothers, a Houston commercial builder. Presidential Favor Suddenly Scarce
Bailout debate: How the Big 3 came apart and how to fix them - Nov. 17, 2008 NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Why is the U.S. auto industry in such a precarious position? That question - and answers to it - will animate the debate this week over whether Washington should extend a lifeline to the Big Three. (For more, read Auto bailout: Showdown in Washington.) There are extreme answers at both ends. Some observers cite labor contracts that prevent layoffs and guarantee high-cost health care coverage that can continue for decades after workers leave the company. Others say the companies are the victims of executives who over produced gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups and ignored the fuel-saving technologies of their Japanese rivals. Either way, it's easy to see why so many people are troubled at the prospect of rewarding the automakers' management and workers with billions of taxpayer dollars. Why they are in this mess Years of market share losses by the Big Three are a major part of the problem. For years, pickups and SUVs brought strong sales and high profit margins.