The latest from the Economist magazine: Saving Detroit: Iron Orr. The city’s default spells pain for creditors, employees and residents, The Economist , June 22nd, 2013.|
The receiver for the City of Detroit has proposed a method of dealing with the city’s insolvency whereby bond holders and prospective pension recipients are to be treated alike, and both would take a substantial haircut. We claim no expertise in such matters, but evidently treating these two classes of debtors alike is unprecedented, and has produced a big to-do. Check it out.
Afterthought: If you want some perspective on the calamity that befell Detroit (and other American cities) check out the cover story in TIME magazine of Nov. 6, 1964, entitled Under the Knife, or All for Their Own Good, Vol. 84, No. 19, at p. 60, enthusiastically endorsing urban redevelopment (w2hich would fix everything), and compare the cover story Notown in TIME, October 5, 2009, depicting and describing what Detroit really looks like after four decades of condemn-and-bulldoze version of redevelopment, and proposing a future for what is left of that city based on — what else? — renewable energy.
This isn’t news, but if you want to see what Detroit really looks like and what the receiver has to contend with, click here