25 July 2013 (15:53 UTC-07 Tango)/17 Ramadan 1434/03 Mordad 1391/18 Ji-Wie (6th month) 4711
“A failed state is a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government.”-Wikipedia
The metropolis of Detroit became the biggest U.S. city to go bankrupt! Yesterday, a federal judge blocked any challenges to the bankruptcy, including a challenge by a Michigan state judge! Detroit is in debt by at least $18 billion USD. The bankruptcy will rob retired and current city employees of their retirement funds (which they paid into).
Despite, or maybe because of the bankruptcy, the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) board approved issuing up to $450 million in bonds to finance construction of a $650 million project, that includes a new arena for the Detroit Red Wings! The MSF also approved $200 million for other parts of the bankrupt city of Detroit. Hello, aren’t bonds a form of debt that the taxpayers have to cover? So now the state of Michigan is going deeper into debt for the sake of failed Detroit?
And despite state officials putting state taxpayers on the line for the Detroit Red Wings, the governor of Michigan just stated that he wants no federal bailout money for Detroit. Do you see how mixed up things are at the leadership level?
A Detroit area physical therapist assistant pled guilty to taking part in a scam that ripped off Medicare by $22 million!
The city of Flint, like Detroit, is under emergency management. However, today the Emergency Manager, Mike Brown, said they are not currently considering bankruptcy. The smaller city of Flint is in debt by at least $19.1 million.
Get this, a man was just found guilty of stealing $100000 worth of tools and metals from General Motors. The man is suspected of being the ringleader of a metal pirate group that targeted metal items belonging to GM in a storage facility in Howell. They were selling the metal to recyclers.
According to Bridge Magazine, things are so bad in Detroit and Flint that people are stripping buildings of metal, including the buildings that are still occupied! Even the Christian God can’t stop the metal pirates from stripping churches. They take everything metal, like plumbing, wiring, siding, metal statues of Jesus. Even the mausoleum doors from Woodmere Cemetery and parts of the copper roof of Holy Redeemer Church were stolen. It’s so bad that retired FBI agents have formed NAZIistic non-profit pseudo-governmental groups to fight the metal pirates, because the government has failed: “Right now the burden is on the property owner. What are you supposed to do, stand guard seven days a week? Because that’s what it would take.”-Andrew Arena, non-profit pseudo-governmental agency Detroit Crime Commission
Michigan’s oil refining industry is a big fail, even with the glut of oil coming from North Dakota and Canada! According to U.S. News & World Report, four out of the five refineries in the Great Lakes region were out of action at some point due to maintenance problems. The result is that many Great Lakes states pay more for fuel than Hawaii or California. Michigan has one of those five Great Lakes refineries, and only now the NAZIistic right to work you over lawmakers decided maybe Michigan should build a second refinery! The plan would give the company that builds/operates it massive tax breaks for ten years, however, Detroit’s bankruptcy just might have nixed any financial support for such a plan. Perfect example of too little too late.
And while Michigan ‘elected’ officials love to give unAmerican corporate America huge tax breaks, they’re refusing to use any of the state emergency school funds to stop the wholesale destruction of public schools. Schools across Michigan have laid off thousands of employees in the past few years. Inkster Public Schools laid off all their teachers!!! The entire Buena Vista School District ceased to exist!!! Prime examples of Failed State!
The Michigan Department of Transportation claims so far this year 440 people were killed on highways. State Transportation Director, Kirk T. Steudle, called that number a “startling statistic” but expects it to go much higher, despite all the other police enforced campaigns to make people drive safer. What does that tell you about the mind set of the people who drive Michigan’s highways? They don’t care anymore!
Michigan’s ‘official’ unemployment rate went up in June, compared to May. In May it was 8.4%, in June it hit 9.4%! (all 17 of Michigan’s labor markets reported increased unemployment!)
Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) warning people to beware of scammers posing as unemployment consultants. However, it turns out that those consultants were part of the 400 UIA employees who got laid off last year! Those former UIA employees say they started their consulting businesses to help people apply for unemployment compensation through a government system that’s obviously set up to fail: “It’s like an act of Congress sometimes to try to get through to them and people are frustrated when they do call. They’d tell me we were on hold for an hour then the system kicked them off for high volume.”-Manuel Delgado, former UIA employee
Michiganders recently demonstrated for an increase to state and federal minimum wages. And increasing part time jobs are not considered a good thing: “When we see that the number of involuntary part time workers more than doubled, that’s yet one more indication of the severity of the damage caused by the financial crisis.”-Charles Ballard, Michigan State University
Anyone watching news reports should notice an increase in violet crimes, however the latest ‘official’ federal government data are from 2011. It shows property crimes in Michigan at 26 per 1000 residents, the national median is 29 per 1000. Violent crime in Michigan hit 4.4 per 1000 in 2011, the national median being 3.9 per 1000. ‘Official’ 2012 data will not be released until Autumn 2013.
At the end of 2012, Wayne State University held a two day forum on the increasing level of crime in Detroit. They called the forum City Under Siege.
I have neighbors who recently moved to Idaho from a suburb of Flint. The man expressed how peaceful it was here in Chubbuck. He told me how they were afraid to be outside their house when the sun went down in Michigan, because there were so many random shootings. He also told me about the lie of the great automotive industry. Even though he spent decades working for GM (I think he said GM) he never went a full year without being laid off. Jobs were never ever steady. He followed his son to Idaho, who recently got a job with an east Idaho school district. I assume his son was one of the many victims of the slashing and burning of Michigan’s education system.
Another sign of a Failed State is “loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force”. This means the government can’t enforce laws, usually because the public has lost all faith in the government (after all, you pay your taxes and what do you get in return? Less and less year after year!). Becoming a police state is actually a sign of “loss of control”.
The creation of the pseudo-governmental agency known as Detroit Crime Commission (DCC) is a prime example. In 2012 the DCC began asking retired FBI and retired state police officers to volunteer with their group to conduct law enforcement patrols. The non-profit “charity”DCC was founded and is run by former FBI agents, and receives federal grants besides public donations.
It looks like the DCC has also taken over the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. DCC even partnered with Geofeedia for the 2012 World Series games, and used social media to spy on the public: “The end result was a large volume of social media reviewed and monitored by the law enforcement agencies entrusted with providing security for the World Series. As social media posts emerged that developed into situations, the Command Center directed field officers to those locations.”-Detroit Crime Commission: Securing the 2012 World Series through real-time, location based social media monitoring
I think Detroit/Michigan qualifies as failed under the “loss of control of its territory“ category, because government officials have turned over their “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force“ to a non-profit pseudo-governmental agency known as Detroit Crime Commission. It won’t be long before Michigan becomes a police state run by government contractors.
Michigan is a failed state.