Welcome to the September Green Business issue of NorthBay biz, which also includes a Special Report on the Housing and Construction industries. Time flies sometimes—it’s already time for us to begin planning the 2014 editorial calendar. By the time you’re reading this issue, we’ll be assigning stories for our December Growth vs. No Growth issue.
Inside this month’s magazine, in addition to all the stories, you’ll find more than a dozen local columns and special features—information about local business that’s unavailable anywhere else. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions on how NorthBay biz, the area’s only locally owned glossy business publication, can continue to best serve the business community of the North Bay.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”—C.S. Lewis
When are the American people going to finally get fed up enough to scream, “Stop! Enough! I can’t take it anymore!”? The country has been cruising, picking up speed, down the road toward unadulterated socialism for the past couple of decades—through democratic and republican presidencies—with increasingly disastrous results. Over the past five years, any attempt to put the brakes on has been met with only further acceleration, resulting in a careening, out-of-control economy desperate for stability. A balanced budget—unthinkable. An end to deficit spending—impossible. Lower taxes and less regulation—dreams.
Enter Detroit—the poster child city for liberal governing ideology. Fifty years of democratic control, and its policies are a harbinger of what awaits dozens of other cities following this same model. The redistribution of wealth by raising taxes to confiscatory levels (by taking from the “makers” to give to an ever-growing line of “takers”) works only in the sense that it delays the inevitable. This practice itself doesn’t stimulate the economy. Over time, it just empties the cupboard faster. When this taxing strategy fails to be sufficient, the next gambit is to add mountains more in debt through increased borrowing to prove the problem-solving legerdemain of the ruling class. And then, all of a sudden, all those promises that were so easy to make yesterday become impossible to keep today.
Once upon a time, Detroit was a thriving metropolis. It was proudly the home to 1.8 million residents, the bulk of which were represented by a rapidly expanding middle class. It was among the nation’s leading cities in income, education and the arts. Today, its population has shrunk below the 700,000 mark. It boasts 30 percent unemployment and leads the nation again, but this time in crime and hopelessness. On too many Detroit streets, there are only a couple of houses left standing among the trash-littered and burned-out remnants of what was once a thriving community. There are more than 35,000 abandoned homes and 91,000 empty lots in Detroit today. A 911 call is lucky to be responded to within an hour. Forty percent of the streetlights don’t work. There was—and maybe still is—a union job as a “horseshoer” on the city payroll, even though the city doesn’t own, rent or use a single horse.
How could this happen? I guess it begins by turning a blind eye to reality. By ignoring the enormous cost of governing by blank check. By making promises others have to keep. By padding wages, pension and health care benefits to a bloated public sector workforce in exchange for overly generous campaign donations—and then negotiating with and signing union agreements with those same union donors. By subsidizing hotels, convention centers, a one-way people mover system and myriad other real estate projects that never once met the fiscal revenue forecasts the loans were based on. Collusion, corruption and, yes, even sometimes with the best of intentions, Detroit muddled forward until, finally, other people’s money ran out.
Those that could, fled, further depleting the shrinking tax base as essential city services diminished further. Those who voted for change—never to see it materialize—finally voted with their feet and abandoned their former hometown. For years, Detroit has been operating at a $350 million annual deficit with more than $20 billion in total debt. With all the talk about creating (actually, mostly demanding) a sustainable environment, how come demanding a sustainable government is never discussed or even considered?
I’ll close with just a couple of stats that reveal Detroit is just the tip of this iceberg. According to a Pew Center report of 30 cities in the most populous metropolitan areas, these cities only have 74 percent of the money needed to fully fund their pension plans and only have 7.4 percent of the money needed to fund their employee health care liabilities. Overall, city and state governments across the nation have $3 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities owed to public employees.
I just became aware of a new term, “Axis of Indoctrination,” when reading a recent column by Larry Elder and will end this month’s column using it. “In the end, of course, we get the government we vote for. Given that information gets filtered out through the Axis of Indoctrination—Hollywood, academia and media—how much hope is there that people will wake up?”
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.
