Both the Free Press and the News believe that Bing is not going far enough fix the budget.  In an editorial entitled “No Time to Tinker,” the Freep suggests that Bing “take a cue” from Gov. Rick Snyder and “build radical change into Detroit’s budget plan.” And the News says that “the real savings will come by privatizing many of the services now provided by the city.”

I couldn’t agree more with our local rags.  Radical change is needed, but not the phony radical change they are promoting.  Since when is cutting benefits, laying off workers and privatizing municipal services a radical idea?  The Indiana Turnpike was leased for $3.8 Billion by an Australian/Spanish partnership. Now, that’s radical!

Seriously, read the articles and look for the word “debt.”  The article are seasoned with the ugliest of words, “deficit,” but I don’t think you will find any talk about “debt.”  I wonder why?

Ignoring the debt is certainly not related to the amount of debt.  According to Detroit’s 2010 Finanical Audit, citizens of Detroit are currently responsible for $9.3 Billion dollars of long term debt. (This amount includes the school system’s $1.5 Billion debt.)  If you divide  $9.3 Billion by 730,000 souls you get a per capita debt of almost $13,000. According to the audit, the per capita income for Detroit is only $15,042!  And, the city’s debt has increased three-fold from 2001, adding over six billion dollars in debt, while the population was falling by 200,000.

For contrast, the city of Farmington Hills, a middle class suburb located about 10 miles northwest of Detroit, has $24 Million in long term debt. With a population of 78,000, the per capita debt is $305.

Do you see the problem?  $305 versus $15,042.  How can Detroit cut its way to positive cash flow, with a such a debt burden?  But it is not surprising that the major mass media in this region doesn’t want to address this challenge, because the solutions would be TRULY radical: either restructure the debt or open a state bank to relieve the debt.

Who are these louts who dare to raise their snouts to our governor?  According to Walsh, they are the elderly, prison guards, police officers, firefighters, and university professors.  And they are not only squealing, they are also wailing!  Not satisfied with insulting a healthy swipe of Michigan workers, Walsh then throws the always convenient Michael Moore under the bus for having the impudence to write our glorious governor and complain about his new economic plan.

Mr. Walsh’s porcine literary license brings back memories of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Even though I read it nearly 50 years ago (mandatory reading in 8th grade in the Hilltop Jr. High School in Nyack, New York), I still remember the plot. Under a banner of liberty and equality for all, a couple of pigs lead a successful barnyard revolution against a wicked farmer. The revolution works out well for the pigs, but not so well for the other animals. The pigs learn to walk upright, carry whips and wear clothes and end up governing the barnyard with a single phrase: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Ironically, the mouthpiece for the ruling class was named Squealer, and his job was to glorify the elites and to perfume all of their piggish behavior.

I will leave it to my reader to complete the analogies between Squealer and Mr. Walsh; however, I am compelled to comment on Mr. Walsh’s claim that Wall Street has been avoiding Michigan for decades because the productivity of our economy isn’t growing. Obviously, I am not smart as Mr. Walsh because he is a “regional thought leader” but it seems to me that Wall Street does one of two things—it either invests in fast growing economies or it bleeds mature economies to death.

Now Michigan hasn’t had a fast growing economy for decades and as a matter of fact, neither has the United States, which is why Wall Street has abandoned America for China, India, Brazil, etc. In 2012, private capital flowing into emerging markets will total a trillion dollars. And what is the fastest way to identify an emerging market?  The animals, er I mean workers, don’t get paid very much—in 2010 the average manufacturing wage in Beijing was $441 a MONTH.

As for the second Wall Street strategy for making money, it targets mature economies for Ponzi schemes based on loaning people and governments more money than they can afford  and then “rescuing” them with more debt and higher taxes. You have probably read about the Irish “rescue” and the Greek “rescue.”  Think it can’t happen here?  Illinois just rescued itself with a 66% tax increase to pay off its debt.

Needless to say, these “rescues” always have their Squealers, like Bloomberg, CNBC and local rags like the Free Press, to scare people into submission and to exhort them to be more “productive.”  (Note: For a good read on how Wall Street destroys economies, check out Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)

I don’t know whether Governor Snyder is working for Wall Street or not, but if Michigan cities start going bankrupt and the state forces increases in millage rates and city income taxes to pay off debt or to fund issuance of new debt, you can be pretty sure what side he is working for.

Our lousy economy has more bone than muscle, and you don’t have to look very hard to see the skeleton taking shape.  Today my daughter told me that one her best friends, a college girl from a college educated family, is having trouble feeding her family. Dad out of work for two years. Mom unable to find any customers for her organic mattress business. Sister trying to get through college. Home on the verge of bank repossession.

The mother of my son’s best friend has three companies in various stages of rigor mortis and is gasping for breath while drowning in $100,000 in debt. Obama and his minions know the best lies have the longest legs.  For more than a year they have been telling us that the recovery is in gear, but they must know that millions of Americans won’t ever work again.  Not even for minimum wage.  Which is the real point of this blog.

When another five or six million people join the army of unemployed and the government runs out of money,  the surface of our fine and ordered civilization will peel back and reveal a brave new world where men will work in white shirts for $3.00 an hour.  Mark my words. The Great Deflation started today.

We can use this argument against the formation of any bank or against the bailing out of large banks, i.e. Citibank, Bank or America, Chase—you know, the ones the fund the campaigns of George’s masters in Washington.

Needless to say, George misses the major advantage offered by a state bank—recycling interest payments back to the state instead of off loading them Wall Street to fund the coffers of the Democratic and Republican elites. Currently, the public institutions in our state are paying billions of dollars in interest each year and most of this money leaves Michigan. Wouldn’t it be nice to have this money for our roads, bridges and schools?