Contributors

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

So That's Where That Came From

A while back, someone linked a pajamas TV video in comments which essentially said the city was in ruins because of liberal policies. Stuff like this always makes me scratch my head...what fucking planet do they live on? At least now we have an explanation as to the origin of the story.

THIS.

Not simply a lie but a Pants on Fire lie. Wow. And a chain email source to boot. Those are always reliable.

Let's take a look at some of the facts.

Since 1950, Detroit has lost more than 80 percent of its jobs because manufacturers embraced new technologies and moved their businesses to the suburbs.That destroyed retail  businesses and led to a drastic drop in the city’s population; from the 1950 peak of 1.85 million, the population had fallen to about 900,000 by 2009.

So, no one is really to blame. This is what happened when we shifted from an agrarian culture to a manufacturing society. Further...

Detroit’s decline began shortly after World War II, he said, for the same reasons Dewar cited.
If welfare were the problem, Sugrue said, then one could expect to see hollowed out sections of Stockholm or Paris, cities in nations with generous welfare programs.

Yes, they are very generous. And we don't see the issues there that we see here. I wonder why that is?


3 comments:

juris imprudent said...

If welfare were the problem, Sugrue said, then one could expect to see hollowed out sections of Stockholm or Paris, cities in nations with generous welfare programs.

You mean like this or this?

Shit, that didn't even take 5 minutes to answer. I know my questions are much harder for you to deal with.

Mark Ward said...

I lived in Paris for a year, juris and have traveled back since. It's not Hiroshima. Certainly, there are bad areas of town as there are in any city but it's not because of socialism.

Oh, and you didn't have to tell me that you spent only five minutes on your research. I could tell.

juris imprudent said...

I could tell.

Oh, M, how droll.

expect to see hollowed out sections of Stockholm or Paris

Yep, there are, directly contradicting the assertion made. But why should a fact stand in the way of a good belief? Holy, holy, holy left...