Portland may follow rusted, busted Detroit

[Fire Walk With Me]

http://oregoncatalyst.com/24515-portland-follow-rusted-busted-detroit.html

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Detroit might have captured national headlines by declaring bankruptcy, but it is not the first — and probably not the last — city to face financial ruin.

It’s a fact even the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, acknowledged Sunday, when he predicted his city was the first of “many dominoes that will fall.”

The situation in Detroit is the result of a unique mix of civic corruption, poor financial planning and economic collapse. But one of the driving factors in Detroit’s bankruptcy is an unsustainable public pension crisis, similar to what many other cities are facing.

In which cities will the next dominos fall? It’s hard to tell exactly, but the signs are there.

(More at the link.)

[dtom67]

1. Meredith Whitney made this call a year or two ago....

and was called an alarmist.

More WILL follow. Wall Street has been using the "Bain Capital " method on cities , instead of just small businesses. It is corporate raidership of Municipal governments. Or, if you prefer, check out John Perkins " confessions of an economic hitman " and apply those financial tactics to City governments. The goal is to loot public assets.


And ,of course, solidify 1% control over the populace.

Wall Street hitmen went in and sold pension fund managers complex derivatives investments that were sure losers. Zero Interest Rate Policy made this easy; would YOU put pension funds into Bonds that gave a near-zero return? What if you were offered an investment with a decent rate of return? What if that investment turned out to be a big pile of crap and you suddenly started to have problems meeting your pension payouts? Just issue municipal bonds ( underwritten by Wall Street , natch ) to meet your obligations. Can't pay those bonds that you issued? Issue some more! Jamie Dimon has your back...

until......

time to hand over the keys to the City........

Who says you cannot squeeze blood from a stone???

in a few years you will hear about " miracle success story" of Detroit. After all the poor people have been forced out and the Ritchey Riches have moved in......

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Exactly, in the same manner they're saing there is a housing boom

when it is almost entirely due to walls street buying up foreclosures. "Confessions of an economic hitman" is exactly it. Spot-on. We want X; here's a loan you cannot possibly pay back; Crash? Default? Oh, that's too bad, we'll just take X to cover that debt..