Detroit files for bankruptcy
 

Is anyone really surprised? They lived off the money from a single industry, for years, and never bothered to put that money toward known future costs. You know, like the retirement funds of civic employees. Don't politicians always tell us that we have to save money throughout our entire lives, in order to fund retirement? Why don't THEY?

I think everyone saw that one coming.

OCP will come in now

I would consider buying a couple of blocks in downtown, if I didn't already know that I'd have to move the bodies.

They don't because nobody punishes them for it.

The money in our Federal Social Security program is long gone and was replaced by IOUs from the Federal Government. Current payments in to the system by workers are basically spent immediately on benefits to current retirees. It is a completely broken and unsustainable system.

Try to have a discussion about fixing SS and seniors flip about benefit cuts, even if they won't be affected. People also dismiss the no money thing by saying the IOUs are backed by the full faith and credit of the US and claim that is just as good as money.

Most of the people I know younger than mid 40s have accepted that SS will be gone, or so severely reduced it won't matter, by the time they retire. Even so politicians are rewarded for doing nothing about it. It would be a joke if we all weren't paying in money we aren't likely to ever see.

This is why the concept of "general coffers" needs to be eliminated. It's also why politicians, past and present, should not be immune from prosecution for what they do while in office.

I disagree with the prosecution idea. They are voted in to office to represent the voters. They are just doing what the voters want, and if they don't they are voted out of office. Voters being too disengaged, self-interested, or stupid to realize that some of these decisions are short sighted isn't the fault of politicians. When those decisions result in obvious consequences years later the fault ultimately rests with the voters as well. Getting mad in hindsight and attempting to hold politicians responsible for representing the misguided priorities of previous voters seems like nothing more than voters trying to abrogate their responsibility.

Except when it's fraud.

Just want to remind everyone that Clevland Rocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM

Good luck practically ever proving that. Take the scenario I outlined for example. I'd consider the perpetrators of that particular fraud as the public.

Our last Premier, here in Ontario, said that he wouldn't create any new taxes. He created a heath care tax and then called it a "fee." That's fraud.

You believed a campaign promise? That's gullible.

You don't think that politicians should be held to promises? That's cynical.

Viewing campaign "promises" as anything more than a broad vision of where a politician would like to go is naive. They are not deities or some kind of dark ages era all powerful monarch. They have to depend on other people to keep the promises they make. When they are making those promises they don't even know if the people they will depend on are allies or hostile. That isn't cynical, it is recognizing reality.

:cheers: Somewhere, there is a crime happening.

And when their party has majority control and it's quite possible to do what they promised, but they don't? Or when they go completely counter to the promises that they made during the election? Or when they know that it's functionally impossible to do what they promise, when they make the promise?

Fraud.

Hey.