re: #271 Dark_Falcon

Detroit was in dire straights long before the current governor took office; He’s just the guy who is actually doing something about it.

Bankruptcy is a bad thing, but sometimes filing for it is the only functional thing to do. Detroit cannot pay its pension obligations anymore, and its beyond the point where a short-to-mid term rescue plan by the state of Michigan could resolve that problem. Any state solution would be a long-term series of expensive transfer payments, which would basically see the rest of the state paying Detroit’s bills. There is no appetite for that in the rest of Michigan. Thus filing Chapter 9 is the only real option for the Motor City. What happens next is going to be very unpleasant for city creditors and retirees (and some state or federal measures may be viable to reduce the impact on the latter), but it does offer the city the chance to reduce its debts to a level it can pay.

By basically telling the people who worked their asses off during the good times “Sorry Gramps, but the corrupt assholes who came before us screwed the city over, so you’ve got to pay the bill.”