David Apsey, Detroit advocate for the people
“Michigan has trained 400 emergency managers to help corporations to our wealth.”
Detroit, MI — Detroit’s Emergency Manager, Kevyn Orr, has made his first report. The trends that caused the Detroit decline include a population decline of 250,000 from 2000-2010, declining tax revenues, a vast geographical space to maintain and the devastation in Michigan caused by 400,000 workers put out of manufacturing jobs in the 2007-2009 Great Recession who have yet to return to work. Detroit is heavily in debt with bond payments, retiree pensions and health care obligations and inadequate tax revenue to meet its obligations.
Kevyn Orr was brought in through a new Emergency Manager law that was forced through the Michigan Legislature in a lame duck session, despite Michigan voters’ rejection of emergency managers in 77 of 83 counties in November, 2012. Bondholders and their legislator minions, bought forth with campaign donations, have decided what’s best for us. Kevyn Orr will cut costs, privatize services and guarantee payments to bondholders. If the workers don’t agree to the austerity, he will impose it with a dictator’s pen, signing away Detroit assets in bankruptcy court.
Democracy has always been for property holders in the USA, characterized by small business owners making campaign donations and electing legislators to make laws to support their corporate needs and build better communities for their families. Now that automation of manufacturing has eliminated the age of the “Mom and Pop” business and millions of jobs, large corporations are taking over all areas of the economy, democracy is just getting in the way.
And workers are becoming permanently unemployed, where small businesses are driven out and owners are converted into workers, the State of Michigan has responded to the “needs” of the largest corporations and has trained 400 emergency managers to “lead” us out of trouble. Why will they stop at Detroit?
Benton Harbor suffered a theft of public lands under their emergency manager, leaving the city without its crown jewel, valuable lakefront land. Now they have a luxury golf course and marina development for the wealthy without significant tax revenue or jobs as Jean Klock Park was privatized into the Harbor Shores Development.
Valuable development land along the Michigan coastline is a target of the emergency manager law and will strip communities of their valuables without tax revenues to pay their bills or assets for their future. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is dedicated to helping corporations capture all our natural wealth. More emergency manager courses are being started up all over the country as the Michigan model will be extended to the nation.
The solution lies in nationalization of productive assets such as factories, banks, schools, hospitals and natural wealth such as fresh water, mineral deposits and energy resources in the people’s interests. Production for maximum profit is at odds with the reality of shrinking markets as consumers cannot consume enough to support the profits of past years. If productive assets were held collectively, production and distribution of necessaries of life without the requirement of profit could resolve budget deficits and people’s suffering for all time.
