Detroit vs. Helsinki vs. 150 Other Countries

I start today's post with two seemingly unrelated topics from previous posts. In August we reviewed how the United States has deployed over 500,000 troops across the world in over 150 countries (I read today on the Net that we currently have over 700 physical military outposts/locations around the world). About a week ago we reviewed how the Federal government had loaned an Al Gore backed company over a half BILLION taxpayer dollars to develop a hybrid sports car that would be manufactured in Finland.

Today I came across an article in the latest issue of The Week Magazine (www.theweek.com) that discussed the sorry status of Detroit. According to the article:

• Detroit was once the fourth largest city in the country and had 1.85 residents in 1950. but its current population is only 770,000.
• On average, 1,000 residents migrate out every day.
• One third of the population lives below the poverty line.
• One fourth of the adult population did not graduate from high school.
• The median household income is less than half of the United States average.
• Unemployment is almost 30%, comparable to the levels seen during the Depression.
• The last mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, just finished a four month prison sentence.
• Once know as the nation's murder capital, a mayoral candidate last year, Stanley Christmas, said" I don't mean to be sarcastic but there just isn't anyone left to kill" after last year's murder rate went down 14%.
• Almost 30% of the city has been abandoned, leaving behind many empty, overgrown lots and burned out homes.
• The median home price is $7,000.

I do not know if Detroit is salvageable but does it make sense to spend billions and billions of dollars sending troops all over the world or giving a political crony's company a half a billion dollars? I do not believe that the Federal government can save Detroit but bringing taxpayer wealth back into the economy, whether it is from bringing troops home (Step 30 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government"), eliminating corporate welfare (Step 1 in the book among others) like the Al Gore waste of money, developing a national energy policy that keeps energy wealth in the country (Step 23), or eliminating pork (Step 44) would reduce citizens' tax burden and allow the market to fix Detroit. Keep our tax dollars home and maybe, just maybe we can spend it on ourselves and other Americans. Obviously, given the current outflow of money to overseas sources, the political class is not capable of executing these steps and places like Detroit result.