Detroit’s comeback is a myth
Spectator USA,
by
Charlie LeDuff
Original Article
Posted By: MissMolly,
12/8/2019 4:52:58 AM
The Social Security office in Detroit is a dispiriting place done up in industrial grays. It is filled with the long, glum faces of those who molder in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy waiting for some faceless bureaucrat to help them.
Take a number. Sit down. No loud noises. No food. No phones.
Into this purgatory enters Gus Malone, a raggedy 52-year-old homeless man, along with his invisible dog Timmy. Gus parades Timmy up and down the gray carpet of the waiting room as if it were the competition floor of the Westminster Kennel Club.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Gruntmedic 12/8/2019 6:23:13 AM (No. 256097)
I live near Detroit,the road s are falling apart, everything is down town that's new.
You are dumb to work there as city taxes are high,most cops spend their shifts there.
I moved to mi in the 80s,and went to a concert in Detroit but they didn't take credit cards,I asked a cop if he knew of a money machine.
He told me where one was,but said he wouldn't walk to it.
I drove to it and it was surrounded by bullet proof glass.
16 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 12/8/2019 7:12:43 AM (No. 256125)
Have lived in this state for half a century. Have been to Detroit four times-never by choice.
11 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
spacer 12/8/2019 8:17:59 AM (No. 256158)
A feel good story of the week. Only in America or Mozambique or Haiti or.....
9 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
janjan 12/8/2019 8:52:04 AM (No. 256183)
Every big city has its share of hustlers and con artists who are spending more time trying not to work than they would ever spend trying to find a job. Getting disability is like hitting the lottery and they don’t know or care where the money comes from. Is the Mayor corrupt? Of course. They all are.
13 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
mifla 12/8/2019 8:55:56 AM (No. 256186)
As someone else pointed out some time ago, Detroit is socialism's theme park.
14 people like this.
And then there's Baltimore...
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
MickTurn 12/8/2019 9:22:24 AM (No. 256219)
Seems Gus is much smarter than the Local Lib Pols and bureaucrats...
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 12/8/2019 9:43:22 AM (No. 256240)
Detroit is what democrats want for the entire country. The elite (e.g. Pelosi) and their technicians (e.g. Google and its woke employees) work in high rises and live in gated communities while everyone else is homeless, living on the streets. In Detroit's case, the elite were the politicians, the auto execs and the union presidents, and the technicians were represented by the Big 3 and the UAW.
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 12/8/2019 10:00:40 AM (No. 256267)
As a former member of one of the very large unions I can attest to the fact that unions are part, a big part, of the problem.
9 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
valinva 12/8/2019 10:02:01 AM (No. 256268)
And this my friends is why the SS trust fund is running out of money. Phony recipients who have paid almost nothing into the system why those of us who have paid in for 45 years get back less than we would have if the money taken forcibly by law had been allowed to earn a reasonable rate of return in an account that was ours to access and controll as we see fit.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
droopydog 12/8/2019 10:14:16 AM (No. 256282)
The last time Detroit had a Republican mayor was 1957. It was also (coincidentally, I'm sure) when Detroit had the highest per capita income in the nation.
12 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 12/8/2019 12:49:34 PM (No. 256417)
I used to work in Detroit for a few years in the 1980’s. I could see this coming 35 years ago. It was bad then, and getting worse. Nothing that has happened there surprises me.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 12/8/2019 4:53:38 PM (No. 256557)
So what is the take away? That a man who can't read and is perfectly happy to scam a welfare check doesn't have a job in the best economy in 50+ years and is unlikely to get one and doesn't really want one. Plus there are apparently thousands more like him. The author paints him as a loveable rogue. The author decries "welfare for the rich" and that "31,000 jobs were created in Detroit between 2011 and 2016, most went to suburbanites.". Probably suburbanites who are not functionally illiterate. You are not going to rebuild a city with guys like Gus, who can't read, doesn't want to work, steals his transportation, and lives in a park. If your standards of civilization are going to be built around a "Gus", you are moving society back to living in caves.
Let's be realistic. There is little hope for Gus. Society has to recognize that it will have such citizens and we will have to provide some level of care for them because they are incompetent to take care of themselves. On the other hand, that doesn't mean we have to be dragged down to their level to accommodate them. Defecating on the streets is OK? Are we insane? Some of the worst plagues in history were caused by such unsanitary conditions. Back then we didn't understand what was being unleashed. Now we DO and there is no excuse to tolerate it. I'm sorry some people are so broken that they cannot function. They cannot be allowed to create public chaos and threaten public health.
3 people like this.
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