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Detroit is an interesting case. I mean Detroit is overwhelmingly black.
I'm convinced that that's the reason why it's being sent down the tube. If it was a white community, there'd be plenty of mechanisms available to bail it out. Just as there are mechanisms available to bail out AIG and other criminals.
It's kind of interesting how it's done. For example, there's an attack on pensions. In violation of the state constitution pensions are being cut back because of the crisis. This is not always done, so it takes AIG again. After their largely fraudulent, least incompetent, probably criminal actions had practically destroyed the economy, they were bailed out massively by the taxpayer but the executives got huge bonuses. And there was some protest about that but it was pointed out by eminent economists, Lawrence Summers for one, that we have to recognize "sanctity of contract" — in that case. But not in the case of workers in Detroit who had already paid — remember pension means a cut back in wages. You're cutting back your wages, you'd already paid, you'd done the work. But in that case "sanctity of contract" doesn't matter.
These are all parts of the neoliberal ideology and it's had a very negative effect just about everywhere in the world....
The farther you are from the United States the better off you are....