Thursday, July 25, 2013

A Modest Proposal

The City of Detroit is in ruins. They are $18 billion in debt and about to declare bankruptcy. Here's a modest two step proposal to help save the city.

First - much of the debt is caused by retiree benefits granted via overly generous union contracts. The City would like to cut these benefits. The union members obviously don't want these benefits cut. Simple solution - tell the retirees if they live within the City limits then their benefits stay the same. If they live outside the City limits then their benefits get cut by 33 percent. Simple. The City is hemorrhaging people - make the people the City has to pay anyway live there.

Secondly, the US government owns a big chunk of General Motors. We will never see full value for the money we pumped into them and if we try to sell our stock it will just force down the stock price. Here's what I suggest - the government forgives all debt in exchange GM gives us their beautiful headquarters.  We then tell the United Nations they have to move to Detroit. We give GM three years to move out and the UN three years to move in.

Bingo-bango! We then take the UN's upper Eastside property via eminent domain and sell it. The proceeds go directly to reducing the national debt (drop in the bucket but every little bit helps).

9 comments:

  1. That's a great idea, although I've been given to understand that if you use a title of "A Modest Proposal" you have to include a baby recipe.

    But seriously, this is a really good idea.

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  2. I really like this idea. It would finally motivate the UN to leave the US!

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  3. literally anything would help detroit at this point. every single thing they could have done wrong, they did.

    if the city council had ever thought for a moment that they should try to fix issues with the city, they would have done it a long time ago. we can come up with whatever clever ideas we want, we can think up every imaginable solution to what's going wrong in the city, it won't matter.

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  4. Politicians would never implement this, more's the pity--but I'd love to see it proposed formally and openly in either the Michigan State legislature or the US Congress. The resulting drama would be epic.

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  5. The UN's property in NY is probably unsellable. It would take three years just to fumigate it properly. A portable EMP device to obliterate all the bugs in the walls. Industrial strength DDT. All that. Better to raze the place to the water line.

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    Replies
    1. Wandering Neurons12:35 AM

      Take off and nuke it from orbit. it's the only way to be certain.

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    2. How would you do bomb damage assessment? The place looks pre-nuked.

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  6. I am glad the Jonathan Swift reference didn't go un-noticed ;)

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  7. Late to this one, but I like parts of the proposal. I dislike the notion of changing contracts, but people shouldn't make contracts with entities that are likely to bankrupt that entity. On the GM headquarters becoming UN headquarters, I'd modify the terms slightly. Either make it 2 & a 1/2 years for GM to get out or give UN 3 and 1/2 years to move in. That way there is no potential overlap.

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