Detroit to run out of money by May...elected officials might be thrown out by the governor

Well, there are a couple of clear connections to socialism being the cause of Detroit's decline.

1. The machine fell apart under the painfully long watch of mayor Coleman Young, an admitted supporter of the Communist Party in AMerica and a self professed socialist. (Mr. Young also has another claim to fame... he was one of the founders of the US Postal Worker's Union which is largely responsible for rendering the USPS financially insolvent today.)

2. The Auto Worker union is, for the most part, fully responsible for the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs away from Michigan. The workers weren't satisifed with those "good paying jobs" you admit Detroit was "flooded" with, and joined with the racket of organized labor to milk out more money from the big 3. When the oil crisis hit, the UAW refused to adapt their demands to the reality of the situation and continued to demand higher pay and fewer hours, they sealed their own fates. Yes, by the way, the meat and potatoes of the union movement is very much a socialist one. When you have a mob rules mentality that puts pressure on corporations to equally share revenue and base sallaries on simply being employed rather than on performance and qualifications, that is socialism in action.

3. The TRUE measure of what happened to Detroit is found in a perfect model of why socialism is, by its relationship between principles of socialism and the contradiction of human nature, doomed to fail. As more and more human failures began to live solely off the blood of their hard working neighbors, as more dropped out of school and signed up for the litany of social welfare programs, as more unabashedly demanded the fruits of the labors of those Detroit residents who were actually being productive... the productive LEFT. The real mass exodus from Detroit wasn't the jobs, the manufacturing base, or the companies... it was the people who were sick of funding the lazy lifestyles of those who sat on their asses collecting their welfare and food stamps. Granted, some of those previously productive people opted to just drop out themselves and apply for their weekly checks in exchange for sitting around. Sadly, others watched as enough productive left around them that their jobs ultimately went away, too, even though they were hopeful to stay in Detroit and make a go of things. That said, when all the books are written and the records filed, Detroit will go down as a gigantic failed social petri dish of an experiment in which it was proven, undeniably, that socialism cannot succeed so long as there are those around who believe they are the only ones entitled to the money made from their blood, sweat, and tears.

Originally posted by baphomet420
correction...
detroit is what happens when you flood a city with good paying jobs, then strip the community of those jobs to save your company some money...

the auto companies are in large part to blame for most of the crap in michigan right now...

Actually, to correct you...
Detroit is what happens when you allow unions to run rampant, thereby hyperinflating the cost of manufacture to unsustainable levels. Thus forcing the companies to have to flee the area to find workers who will accept wages that are more in line with their real skill set.

I have worked at one of the big three. I have seen union guys with little more then a HS education making more then people with 4+ year degrees, plus tremendous benefit packages that they are entitled to for the rest of their lives. Many of these guys do little to nothing on a daily basis, and it was never considered unusual to find a union workers “hidey-hole” where they would go to sleep or just avoid work. You could often tell who the union guys were because they were the ones sitting around playing cards while the nonunion engineering guys and contractors were working their butts off.

We used to have guys with computer engineering degrees who were not allowed to move, or even unplug, a computer. A union electrician, usually with little more then a HS education, would have to be called in to do it, and sometimes it would take up to a week before they would show up. We would just go ahead and do union guys work in secret, without calling them, but when we would get caught they would raise hell, file grievances, and flag perfectly good equipment as INOP, even if it was something that was mission critical. See, they only worry about their work if someone else shows they can/will perform it, and they fear losing that easy job, or if they think they can get some personal benefit from filing a union grievance about it.

You know, like it or not, when your levels of overhead reach a point where foreign competitors can manufacture something and sell it here for less then you can, you have to start cutting the budget somewhere. For years they have done so by using inferior materials, which ultimately hurts their sales, as their products do not outlast the competition. The only viable option is to move to where you can work with fewer union generated overhead expenses.

Don’t believe me?
Same EXACT thing happened to all your powerfully unioned airlines…
Eastern, TWA, United, Pan Am, etc…
All either ended up bankrupt, or got their unions busted up and merged into other airlines.

There is a breaking point where the cost to produce an item is more then the item's fair market value. You can try and get people to buy your item based on customer loyalty, which is what the automakers did for years, but eventually people are not going to pay more money for an inferior product.

Everything is based on fair market value. When you're having to pay WAY over that amount for employees and their benefits, that extra money has to come from somewhere. When you have competing products out there that keep the cost of your product in check, that limits what you can pay for overhead.

Like I said, I worked for a US car manufacturer, and you want to know something... I won't buy a US manufactured car because I know that their quality is inferior to the car I drive. Why should I have to pay equal or higher amounts for a inferior product just to pay a bunch of union people a wage that is way above the world average for the type of work they do? Heck its way over what most college educated, high skill set, people earn. Most CCRN's don't make anywhere near what a big three union employee makes.