Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
Oh, sure, in a corporate setting. Corporations are only interested in their bottom line, and pleasing their shareholders. That's why they hire those "take-charge" types to come in and create short-term profits, spin off businesses, fire employees, give other employees more work, and to enhance PROFITABILITY. That is what management consultants do. They are not there to enhance the product, help corporations reach a higher level of service or even to help a company survive in the long-term. They're not there to do anything other than help please the shareholders and raise profits in the short term.

Unfortunately, governments are a lot different from corporations. Governments are accountable to residents, not shareholders. Every citizen has one vote, where shareholders have as many votes as they own. Governments routinely engage in long-term planning that, in a corporate setting, would be regarded as wasteful. That's because businesses are always focused on this year, this quarter, this week's numbers.

So there are a variety of ways in which business and government are different, and so I take Mr. Hudson's views with a liberal dose of salt.



I doubt it. What we're talking about here is selling a system for pennies on the dollar and turning Detroit into its customer. This is by necessity a scheme for short-term gain, with no view to the long-term picture.



Oh, I see. So we should definitely settle now for a crappy deal slapped together by some bullshit private buzzsaw man to sell off a system that took decades to build, because, if we don't, then we'll get an even WORSE deal later. Somehow, I remain unconvinced.
Detroitnerd: You totally missed most of my point, but let's not get stuck there.

Tell me: What's YOUR solution to the city's probable half-billion dollar cumulative deficit by June 30, combined with precipitously falling revenues and no obvious source of new cash?

That's the challenge here..