Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Razgovory]

My current resident state of North Carolina enacted a budget bill today that eliminates teacher tenure and gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

Awesome.  Because if North Carolina's school system need anything, it's additional disincentives to make the profession as unattractive as possible as a career path.

How about some incentive for them to do a good job?  Would you be in favor of that, smart guy?

Would you do such a thing to the military?  Should soldiers have taken a pay cut, lose part of their pensions and have their equipment budgets reduced for failure to destroy the Taliban?

[Jacob]

How about some incentive for them to do a good job?  Would you be in favor of that, smart guy?

Do you honestly think that the problem facing the American education system(s) is one of individual teachers not having incentives to individually excel?

[Phillip V]

My current resident state of North Carolina enacted a budget bill today that eliminates teacher tenure and gets rid of the automatic pay increase teachers receive for earning a master's degree.

Awesome.  Because if North Carolina's school system need anything, it's additional disincentives to make the profession as unattractive as possible as a career path.

How about some incentive for them to do a good job?  Would you be in favor of that, smart guy?

Would you do such a thing to the military?  Should soldiers have taken a pay cut, lose part of their pensions and have their equipment budgets reduced for failure to destroy the Taliban?

Yes.

The average 26-year-old Army Officer is paid around $100k/yr or more; can retire at age 42 with pension and healthcare for life.

You do the math.

[Savonarola]

Artist makes statement in Crisco after Detroit bankruptcy filing
Serena Maria Daniels
The Detroit News



Detroit — Sitting underneath the iconic bronze Joe Louis fist is what appears to be a giant can of Crisco.

To the left of the massive cooking shortening replica, a sign reads, "Helping to ease the pain of Detroit's bankruptcy."

Jerry Peterson, 57, a West Bloomfield artist and organizer of the "Dirty Show" who goes by Jerry Vile, says it's his way of getting people to talk about the implications of the city's historic bankruptcy filing this month.

"It's calling attention to the fact that (bankruptcy) is going to hurt," Vile told The Detroit News on Tuesday. "I'm hoping that people will do something to cut down on that hurt, to ease the pain."

Peterson, organizer of one of the largest exhibitions of erotic art in the country, and a team of collaborators unloaded the giant can about 7 a.m. Tuesday. While a few motorists stopped and made jokes, he made the delivery relatively unnoticed.

And then the Crisco can began to gain traction on social media sites.

"It's all over Facebook, Twitter. It's starting to appear on Instagram," Peterson said. "This thing is blowing up beyond my wildest dreams."

The text messages have been streaming onto Peterson's cellphone from all over the country. "I haven't got this many texts ... ever."

Jime Noseda, an attorney who works in City Hall, said he noticed the bright blue can from his fifth floor office and had to come down to get a closer look during his lunch break.

"The fist brings out all kinds of things in people," Noseda said. "I think a bottle of K-Y jelly would be more appropriate," said Marc A. Deldin, another attorney who joined Noseda for lunch.

That would have been too expected, Peterson said.

So why Crisco? The greasy, white substance, Peterson explained, has historical significance within the gay community.

"It's a cheap, readily available lubricant that was highly popular in the late 70s, early 80s, in a certain segment of underground gay America," he said. "If it was Vasoline or K-Y, it's too obvious, and their packaging isn't as pretty. I would never have considered anything else."


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130730/METRO01/307300085#ixzz2aYwIo6r0

[garbon]

Love it. And proper face, Sav.

[The Brain]

I don't get what the fist has to do with Crisco. Explain?

[fhdz]

Good old Fistco.

[garbon]

I love it. Back in my freshman year of college, I briefly had a joke site about fisting. I just got an email from a friend today entitled "Just in case you missed the crisco." Too good!

[Savonarola]

Detroiter's aren't lazy,  those 411 murders last year didn't just happen by themselves.   

Detroit EM Kevyn Orr's 'dumb, lazy, happy and rich' comment about Detroit garners strong reaction

By Greg Gardner

Detroit Free Press Business Writer


City of Detroit retirees are headed to the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center today at noon to demand an apology from Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr for a quote attributed to him calling Detroit "Dumb, lazy, happy and rich" in a Wall Street Journal article.

To put the comment in context, it came near the end of a flattering profile by Allysia Finley, a journal editorial writer. Here is the paragraph that triggered reaction from other journalists and citizens almost immediately:

■Much of Detroit's dysfunction is also due to simple complacency. "For a long time the city was dumb, lazy, happy and rich," he explains. "Detroit has been the center of more change in the 20th century than I dare say virtually any other city, but that wealth allowed us to have a covenant [that held] if you had an eighth grade education, you'll get 30 years of a good job and a pension and great health care, but you don't have to worry about what's going to come."

One of the first reactions came from Detroit native Ron Fournier, former Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press who now is editorial director of National Journal. Detroit is "a city he still doesn't get," Fournier tweeted to 21,500 followers, citing the "dumb, lazy, happy and rich" comment.

Forbes.com contributor and veteran auto industry journalist Micheline Maynard tweeted: "The top lawyers in the field show a courtesy and politesse about the people with whom they are negotiating. And certainly, about the people whom they represent."

In a longer post on Forbes.com, a publication not known for its hostility to business leaders, Maynard also challenged the accuracy or lack of specifics in Orr's use of "dumb, lazy, happy and rich."

"It is hard to know what era — or whom — Orr is talking about, when he says, 'dumb, lazy, happy and rich' — a phrase that is now certain to follow him throughout the rest of his 15-month tenure. As far back as Mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh in the 1960s, Detroit officials were focused about the city's future, trying to attract ventures like the Olympic Games to lift the world's impression.

"The years since the 1967 riots cannot in any way be described as happy ones for the Motor City, save for a brief respite in the 1990s when the American auto industry was booming ...," Maynard continued. "One has to infer from Orr's comments that he may be speaking of Detroit's unions, who opposed the bankruptcy filing and are challenging the city in court."

Orr spokesman Bill Nowling responded to Maynard with this comment: "I believe Kevyn Orr was speaking about the attitude of the body politic of the city of Detroit, not Detroiters themselves. And, I am pretty sure that history, both recent and ancient, bears out such a comment. For someone who grew up in the segregated south, as Kevyn did, Detroit was held up for generations to African Americans and others looking for a way out of poverty and injustice."

There's a lot of people in southeast Michigan who still want to believe that it's 1956.  GM is going to open a new plant, hire 50,000 more people and all the areas problems will be solved.  I think that's what Orr was trying to get at; that for too long metropolitan Detroit has lived on memories of more prosperous times and just assumed they would come back.  I can't think of a worse way he could have put it (at least not without using racial epithets.)

[KRonn]

GM and other auto makers have been moving over seas or over the border to Canada and Mexico. GM has been making a major push in China adding facilities and workers, big market there, and good jobs for Chinese workers! So no, those jobs aren't likely to materialize, at least not in the numbers that Detroit needs them.

[Admiral Yi]

Not an optimal choice of words on Orr's part.

Sav, do you know what happens at the end of those 15 months?

[Savonarola]

Not an optimal choice of words on Orr's part.

Sav, do you know what happens at the end of those 15 months?

Local control is resumed by the city council and mayor.  This is an election year in Detroit, and the first one where the council is elected by district rather than everyone being at large.

[Savonarola]

Everything must go:

Detroit to pay Christie's $200K to value DIA art
Robert Snell, Nolan Finley and Laura Berman
The Detroit News

Beal (Daniel Mears/The Detroit News)
DetroitDetroit — Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr announced Monday he has contracted with Christie's Appraisals, the New York-based international auction house, to appraise the value of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The city will pay Christie's $200,000 to appraise what Christie's described as "a portion of the city-owned collection" at the DIA, according to Orr's spokesman Bill Nowling.

Outside experts also will be hired to provide valuations for other city-owned assets such as parking garages and parking meters, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the Coleman A. Young International Airport and certain real estate holdings.

The city's move to put a price tag on city assets will help negotiations with creditors but could fuel demand for a fire sale, legal experts said.

That possibility is especially controversial in the case of the DIA, with a value estimated in the billions. "It's an absolutely unprecedented situation," says Graham W. Beal, the DIA director, who contends the museum holds its collection in a public trust.

Beal said that the strong interest, local and national, in the value of the DIA as a city-owned asset had caused him sleepless nights and troubled dreams, as he tries to safeguard one of the Detroit area's greatest cultural treasures.

Orr said in a statement the decision to bring in Christie's came at the request of creditors. He added the DIA appraisal is part of a citywide valuation of assets and is intended to aid the restructuring process.

"The city must know the current value of all its assets, including the city-owned collection at the DIA," Orr said.

"There has never been, nor is there now, any plan to sell art. This valuation, as well as the valuation of other city assets, is an integral part of the restructuring process. It is a step the city must take to reach resolutions with its creditors and secure a viable, strong future for Detroit and its residents."

Art could be used as collateralOrr, who is trying to restructure the city's $11.5 billion of unsecured debt and speed up the biggest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history, said the auction house will also advise the city on "non-sale alternatives" for realizing value from the collection.

That could mean the city wants to borrow money while using the highly valuable Van Goghs and Matisses as collateral, Southfield-based bankruptcy attorney Michael Leib said.

The move does not mean a liquidation of artwork is imminent or inevitable but is expected to feed fear that one of the country's most significant publicly owned art museums is vulnerable during Detroit's historic bankruptcy case.

"The larger the value, the more there is going to be a cry from creditors that these assets should be liquidated to help share the pain," said Leib.

The move to hire Christie's comes amid a cry from creditors that the world-famous art collection is being shielded by the city while they are being asked to take as little as 10 cents on the dollar.

Beal argues that the city has never, in its long history, placed a dollar value on the museum. Even during the Depression, when staff was reduced, no one suggested stripping the galleries. "Our research is that the collection was never put on the city books as an asset," he said.

"We don't value our collections," said Beal. Individual works are valued for insurance purposes when they're loaned to other museums, and the museum secures "a hefty amount of insurance" that would cover the loss in the event of "a small bomb going off."

Beal says he has never heard of an appraisal like this one being done on a museum comparable to the DIA.

"Kevyn Orr says he doesn't want to sell anything that's irreplaceable. If the DIA doesn't qualify as an irreplaceable asset, I don't know what does."

DIA collection could attract residents.  Placing a value on assets is a normal part of most bankruptcies, but not Chapter 9 cases. Municipalities are not required to list assets and the court can not order sales.

The valuation could play a key role in Orr's talks with creditors. He has proposed a plan that would have unsecured creditors sharing a $2 billion payout in exchange for more than $11 billion in debt.

"Until you have this kind of information, there won't be any serious discussions about negotiating," Leib said of the appraisals. "There is no way creditors should be asked to compromise or agree to a plan without it."

A liquidation analysis could place a market value on the DIA collection, and estimate a fire sale price, said Douglas Bernstein, a Bloomfield Hills attorney and expert on municipal bankruptcy.

"If there is a forced sale, an auction, you're not going to maximize the return," Bernstein said.

The DIA collection's value could be more valuable in the city's hands, in his view.

"The only way you are going to attract a new tax base is if you've got something that brings people to the city and the DIA is one of those things," Bernstein said.


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130806/METRO01/308060021#ixzz2bE7iSyUQ

[garbon]

I think that last quote is very charitable.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah, museums follow tax base, doesn't really work the other way around.