Blogs > Frye on the News

Keeping his eye on the news and offering commentaries and insights on what is happening in Oakland County, around the world, on the tube and in the news.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Detroit bankruptcy

Lots of news about Detroit's bankruptcy approval, though to me this is the expected result following the earlier decisions of the governor to install an emergency manager and for them to move into bankruptcy. There was no way they were going to step back from that. The economy and budget have not gotten better. There's still the debt.

If the city had been ruled ineligible, then it would have been a temporary stop on the way into bankruptcy.

The bigger news for the soccer fans in all of us, announced today, are the pots for the World Cup draw, and wondering which 4-nation group the US will fall into. Simulate the effort here. Basically, if we get Brazil or Spain, we are in very poor shape, as there's likelihood that another strong contender could get into the group. Only 2 teams advance to the playoff round.

Read more on it here from Deadspin.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A Different Point of View!

I am a former graduate of Pontiac Senior High School. The 1946 UAW strike forced the loss of any funds that I and my parents had saved to fund my college education. (I was working at the Backenstose Book Store for ten dollars a week.) I had no scholarship, thus I applied for a job on my first day in Ann Arbor. I bussed dishes, washed dishes, became an orderly, and was one of the original five inhalation therapists at the University Hospital. But after ten years I received my physicians degree. I took a general practice residency and then began practicing. I saw hundreds of black patients, thousands of welfare patients, and many others. At least three of my former patients became presidents of the United States, others had held the position of governor of states from Alaska to Florida and Maine to Hawaii. I have been retired about ten years.

To better understand the conditions of today, one must realize that there are only three basic productive industries. These are agriculture, mining or drilling, and manufacturing. All of the other industries such as transportation. selling and buying, health and medicine, and especially government jobs (or “public parasites”) are more or less dependent or saprophytic upon the basic three industries.

The problem arises when you realize that mining and agriculture are fixed and cannot migrate. That is not true of manufacturing, as a business, or your jobs, can migrate and will do so.

I am a retired physician who had an economist for a patient over fifty years ago. That economist did a study of manufacturing in the United States. He found that if a manufacturer’s expense for a needed item exceeded 2% of the world average, the manufacturer would reduce the number of employees by 6% (or triple the percentage).

The taxes on business averages about 15% world wide. In the United States it exceededs 46%.

When that difference in percentage is tripled, the percentage exceeds 93%!!! This means that the federal government alone is responsible for over 93% of the manufacturing jobs being shipped out of the United States, --- to China, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

By the way, that economist was not a conservative Republican, his name was Paul Douglas, a liberal Democratic Senator from Illinois. He was trying to point out to the Senate leader Lyndon Baines Johnson the danger of the program of buying votes by telling the people, “You do not have to pay taxes, as we can tax businesses and industries!”

May 11, 2014 at 6:33 PM 

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