Thread: Detroit....

Originally Posted by gssixgun

“We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. We bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later, that bet is paying off in a big way.”

-- President Obama in his weekly address, Oct. 13, 2012.

I'll let Yglesias take this one:

"The city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy yesterday, and back in 2009 the Obama administration took some steps to help General Motors and Chrysler avoid a Chapter 7 liquidation process. There's a figure of speech known as "metonymy" whereby people often say things like "Hollywood" to mean "the American film industry" (rather than a neighborhood in Los Angeles) or "the Beltway" to mean "political elites living in or near the District of Columbia" (rather than a highway through the suburbs) or "the White House" to mean "senior figures in the Obama administration" (rather than a building in which some of them have offices) and deploying that figure of speech both the president and his allies have over the years sometimes used "Detroit" to mean "the American automobile manufacturing industry."

If you or someone you love is going around and finding old quotes in which the words "Detroit" and "bankruptcy" appear but it's absolutely clear from context that "Detroit" is being used as metonymy for auto companies rather than as a way of referring to the municipality then please stop."

Just a little ahead of you there Alex,

Hah! Ninja'd. Thanks :-)

There is a great documentary called Detropia which gives at least a few perspectives of what has happened in Detroit and, more particularly, how it has affected its citizens. It's on Netflix up here in Canada, so I'd be willing to be it is in other countries too. Well worth a watch if you like docs.

Well, apparently the bankruptcy has been put on hold.

Inthe words of Margret Thatcher... The problem with socialism, is you eventually run out of other peoples money...

Originally Posted by alexm

What's so special about this year? I don't understand what you're getting at. Is there something going on in Michigan?

Simple,,,,, the election is over.

Really? Detroit filed for bankruptcy because of socialism? You guys are killing me.

Originally Posted by alexm

Really? Detroit filed for bankruptcy because of socialism? You guys are killing me.

That's not what is being said here. But I see your eagerness to defend it.

Too many mouths to feed and not enough teets.