Detroit is just the canary in the coal mine. It is not unique and the bankruptcy is simply the glaring result of decades of mismanagement, corruption, incompetence, and allowing unions to rule the politicians. Back in the eighties we got a series of unqualified and often corrupt mayors like Coleman Young, Sharpe James, David Dinkins, Marian Berry and others who had no ability to manage anything and who were in many cases corrupt politicians. They were in bed with the unions who got them elected and they had zero business sense. They destroyed many cities. Even today, Corey Booker, who is extremely smart and capable, is unable to solve all of the problems in Newark because many of Sharpe James cronies remain in key offices and are still tied to the unions. There are not that many Bookers so not all the cites can recover the way Newark has tried to do. The country is paying a huge price today for the incompetence and corruption of the earlier mayors. The resources-tax revenue- was directed to the unions instead of to infrastructure and services like police. Guliani proved that his broken window theory of government is the key. Fix the broken windows and then you fix the rest from there. Arrest the squeegee men and then attack the crime ridden areas and clean up the city and you will have a rebirth of vitality. It worked in NY and it has worked in some other places like Newark and at the state level in NJ. NY is now one of the safest and most efficient cites in the world, and real estate values are way up, hotels are full and retailers are doing well. We see the opposite in IL and CA where the unions rule and taxes just go up and crime just goes up.

Detroit is just the start. There are many other cities where the unions cleaned up with massive pensions and health care benefits that cannot be covered. We have the exact same issue at the Federal level and a president who has no business sense at all and who is also in hock to the unions, especially the SEIU and the teachers. Detroit is the country in 10 years unless we dramatically change things in Washington. Entitlements have to be completely reconfigured or the country will be as broke as Detroit at some point. Because of the same pandering to entitled groups we now have too little money for defense just as the terrorists are ramping it up and Iran is closing in on a nuclear bomb. Money matters for national security just as it did in NY when Guiliani spent it on the police force. It is the same on a different scale.

So for CRE it matters a lot. There was a huge resurgence of values in NY once Rudy got the cops to clean up the crime and the sanitation department to clean the streets, and then he got the subways running efficiently and made safe. It is now starting to happen in Newark. It is possible but it takes people like you to financially back qualified candidates and to pressure politicians to do what is needed instead of pandering to the unions. Your future financial worth depends on it. Your opportunities to create development opportunities and distressed opportunities depends on getting good government in place to clean up the mess and to be like Chris Christie and stand up to the entrenched forces of unions and corrupt politicians.