.

[paramount]

[quote=FlyerInHi]

I know a dude who’s 95 and still manages his real estate. He sends out manual invoices every month. Very cool. I love the old fashioned hands on approach.[/quote]

Sounds like a PIA more than anything else…

[Anonymous]

Detroit Bankruptcy Might Transform City Into Some Kind Of Hellish, Depopulated Wasteland

WASHINGTON—Following Thursday’s announcement that the city had declared bankruptcy, reports are confirming that Detroit may suddenly descend into a horrifying, depopulated hellscape, one with numerous dilapidated buildings, rampant urban decay, a failing education system, near-constant drug-related homicides, and a downtown area that looks virtually abandoned. “I fear that, very soon, we may be looking at a city that is completely and utterly unrecognizable from its booming heyday of the 1950s,” said the report’s lead author, Professor Robert Fuchs, noting that Detroit may see its population plunge to half its size amidst a mass exodus of desperate and unemployed residents. “Its citizens might as well enjoy the city while they can, because soon enough they’re going to be living in an uninhabitable wasteland where the police take nearly an hour to get to the scene of a crime, the poverty rate is three times that of the national average, and vacant warehouses look like they’ve been attacked by mortar shells.” Fuchs added that even Detroit’s once dominant auto industry could very well be transformed into a depressing, broken-down husk of its former self.

Credit to The Onion –
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-detroit-bankruptcy-might-transform-city-int,33187/

[spdrun]

My dream is to own an urban style building with stores below and apartments above.

Come to the East Coast.

Those are a dime-a-dozen in the nearby (and not so nearby) suburbs of NYC. Generally not distressed sales either, just someone who fully depreciated or is getting older and wants to sell off. They go for anywhere from 7 to 10% cap in decent areas from what I’ve seen.

[CardiffBaseball]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I hear that Ann Arbor is nice.

[/quote]

Ann Arbor is a whore.

Go Bucks

[ctr70]

I’m not sure what unions played directly in the city of Detroit’s BK. But unions (and the inflexibility they caused) were a BIG part of reducing the U.S. auto industries ability to compete with Japan. If the auto industry in Michigan were run like Silicon Valley with NO unions, things may have turned out very different. Silicon Valley has NO unions and this is a big reason why the U.S. is still #1 in much of high tech and still makes some of the best high tech products and software. The U.S. certainly does not make the best cars and has not for 25-30 years.

[njtosd]

[quote=CardiffBaseball][quote=FlyerInHi]I hear that Ann Arbor is nice.

[/quote]

Ann Arbor is a whore.

Go Bucks[/quote]

Go Blue.

And I think you mean Buckeyes . . . .

[mike92104]

I somewhat agree. I do see unions as an important part in improving worker safety and standards of living. However, they have to keep demands reasonable. If labor costs are through the roof, and the company can’t make a profit and folds, the union loses as well.

I was a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stagehand Employees. Since they’re an international union, there are a lot of differences between the local chapters. The local I joined was #153 in El Paso, TX. We maintained goof relationships with all of our clients, and were quite often complimented in how well and how quickly we did our jobs (quick is important when you show is loading out at 1am and has to be in Phoenix by 8). As such, we never had an issue with getting work and getting new clients.

When I moved to San Diego, I contacted the local here and decided they were nothing but a gang of thugs. No promoter would use them if they could avoid it, and non union arena’s such as Cox, Coors, Viejas, etc got contracts for many, many more shows than the Sports Arena (It doesn’t help that the Sports Arena is a dump). The difference was amazing, and I chose to leave the union.

My point is that there has to be a balance. Companies will always try to pay the lowest wage possible, and I think it’s great that employees have the option to organize and bargain collectively, but when they run the company into bankruptcy, it’s their own damn fault.

My problem with public employee unions is that the “company” will never fold. Labor costs simply continue to soar sucking up more and more tax money from the public until they scream. At that point they’re all labeled as “greedy republicans” that don’t want to pay their “fair share”.

[FlyerInHi]

The governor of Michigan has it right.

It’s about accountability to the citizens of Detroit who are not getting the services they deserve.

Sorry about retirees and bondholders taking a haircut. They are the past, not the future.

[SK in CV]

[quote=FlyerInHi]The governor of Michigan has it right.

It’s about accountability to the citizens of Detroit who are not getting the services they deserve.

Sorry about retirees and bondholders taking a haircut. They are the past, not the future.[/quote]

Unless the entire state goes bankrupt, the retirees contracted benefits will be paid. The state is on the hook for them.

[ctr70]

Unions came about originally in the early 20th century to protect workers that were getting abused. The problem is unions went on to become the abusers. Heavily unionized industries have difficulty competing in a global marketplace. They get so bloated and inflexible companies can’t be nimble enough to compete.

I had an experience in college working part time in two hotels, one was unionized one was not. The unionized hotel was older and not updated, felt stodgy and stuck in the past, workers didn’t hustle, they did the minimum to get by. Poor & lazy workers could not be fired so they remained on the job, damaging the employee culture. It just had a very negative feel about it.

On the other hand, the NON union hotel was an awesome place to work. It was beautiful and newly updated. People had much more positive attitudes and hustled a lot more to create a better guest experience. Workers would go above & beyond what they had to do if asked because it felt like a team environment. Lazy workers could be fired if they didn’t perform, thus preserving the positive work culture. This company also had a philosophy of taking care of it’s employees. And it was the top hotel in the entire city.

There is definitely a balance, there needs to be protection for workers on they will be exploited. But the last 30 years unions have got out of control and greedy and have taken companies down, and taken entire U.S. industries down (automobile industry). They can be kind of like the mafia in non “right to work” states too forcing workers to pay union dues. And then using those dues to fund campaigns of union friendly politicians. Kind of like in Sicily where the mafia forces business to pay “protection money”.

Also many public sector unions are horrible and corrupt. Former CA Governor Gray Davis got elected by being in the pocket of the California prison unions and other public sector unions, and thus he rewarded them right after his election with ridiculous unsustainable pay and pension packages that have helped make California’s finances be on a crazy roller coaster. And also made CA public sector employees by far the highest paid in the U.S. Much of the CA legislature is under the thumbs of public sector unions. I really believe it should be illegal for public sector unions to contribute to political campaigns. That creates so much corruption and cronyism.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=FlyerInHi]The governor of Michigan has it right.

It’s about accountability to the citizens of Detroit who are not getting the services they deserve.

Sorry about retirees and bondholders taking a haircut. They are the past, not the future.[/quote]

Unless the entire state goes bankrupt, the retirees contracted benefits will be paid. The state is on the hook for them.[/quote]

Yes, we shall see what happens in Federal bankruptcy court. I think there’s something in the Michigan constitution about pensions.

[CA renter]

[quote=ctr70]I’m not sure what unions played directly in the city of Detroit’s BK. But unions (and the inflexibility they caused) were a BIG part of reducing the U.S. auto industries ability to compete with Japan. If the auto industry in Michigan were run like Silicon Valley with NO unions, things may have turned out very different. Silicon Valley has NO unions and this is a big reason why the U.S. is still #1 in much of high tech and still makes some of the best high tech products and software. The U.S. certainly does not make the best cars and has not for 25-30 years.[/quote]

The U.S. automakers were destroyed by Japanese (and German) automakers who made better, higher-quality, more efficient cars. American automakers were busy making crappy cars with cheap, plastic parts that would break so that people would have to keep replacing these specialized parts for hundreds of dollars, or have to replace the cars altogether — and management did this intentionally.

U.S. automakers gave us the Pinto and Gremlin in response to demands for more efficient cars, while Japanese and German automakers gave us the indestructible VW, and cars with advertisements showing happy owners who got 200K to 300K out of their fuel-efficient Japanese cars and trucks (with little maintenance to boot).

It was management that brought down the U.S. automakers, not unions.

———-

By 1969, imports had increased their share of the U.S. auto market, with Volkswagen selling 548,904 vehicles, followed by Toyota with 127,018 vehicles. In response to this, the domestic auto makers introduced new compact and sub-compact cars, such as the Ford Pinto and Maverick, the Chevrolet Vega, and the AMC Gremlin, Hornet and Pacer. (Chrysler had to make do with importing cars from Mitsubishi Motors and their affiliated Rootes Group.) However, design and manufacturing problems infected a number of these cars and led to unfavorable perceptions of the cars.

The auto industry was severely affected by the 1973 oil crisis Arab embargo. Small fuel-efficient cars from foreign automakers took a sharply higher share of the U.S. auto sales market. Under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act[12] the federal government initiated fuel efficiency standards (known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE) in 1975, effective as of 1978 for passenger cars, and as of 1979 for light trucks. For passenger cars, the initial standard was 18 miles per gallon (mpg), and increased to 27.5 mpg by 1985.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_States

[no_such_reality]

What killed the American auto-industry was really simple.

The relationship between labor and the company was pure poison.

Add in greed, cynicism, incompetence and an f-u attitude or as long as I get mine and you know why it died. Those attitudes ran both sides up and down the whole range.

There’s a fundamental problem when plant workers say they work for the UAW and not Ford, GM or Chrysler, or even the individual sub-brand and management is worried about their private jet.

[SD Realtor]

It is hard to admit that other employees will do the same work or even higher quality work for a fraction of the cost.

In some circles, that is simply not acceptable.

[CA renter]

[quote=no_such_reality]What killed the American auto-industry was really simple.

The relationship between labor and the company was pure poison.

Add in greed, cynicism, incompetence and an f-u attitude or as long as I get mine and you know why it died. Those attitudes ran both sides up and down the whole range.

There’s a fundamental problem when plant workers say they work for the UAW and not Ford, GM or Chrysler, or even the individual sub-brand and management is worried about their private jet.[/quote]

I agree about the adversarial relationship between labor and the companies they work for. In countries with strong unions and strong economies, BOTH capital and labor understand that it is a symbiotic relationship, and each is dependent upon the other in order to further their own interests.

[Author]

Posts