Says Thomas Friedman in NYT
If you see how much fun Obama and his immediate predecessors have had in that job (not much we are to understand) -- and when you look where the most innovations in governance are happening --
Okay, hold those two things.
-- how long will it be before our kids, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, answer: "I want to be a mayor."
Detroit blows the theory, but other than Detroit, look down ticket. That is the conceit of the article. Very well then, do let's.
You're right. Things do look better upside down. We also notice Washington too is doing quite well, when we look. He's like me, his commenters there are smarter than he, and more interesting too.
24 comments:
I'd rather listen to Kinky than Thomas Friedman.
Re: "He's like me, his commenters there are smarter than he, and more interesting too."
I am Commenting Simply to Prove This Statement Wrong.
Chip Ahoy w/ a strong backhand!!
Chip Ahoy--
Bud Day died today.
"And, in Houston, a network of neighborhood centers is connecting new immigrants with low-cost banking, education, child care and health care — while the immigration bill is stalled in Congress."
Sounds peachy, except giving illegal immigrants (you can't use that phrase in the NYT) freebies doesn't lead to economic growth.
Maybe if you stand on your head.
Yeah, the country's just booming! BOOMING, I tells ya!
Dud Day's biography in Wikipedia is amazing and humbling.
Bud Day, sorry
Ophthalmologists require advanced training. Optimists, not so much.
He's like me, his commenters there are smarter than he, and more interesting too
I love you Chip because of the proper grammar in this sentence.
(Not that you usually get things wrong. Most people get that grammar rule wrong. That's all.)
Salon's got a theory on the reason for conservative Detroit-hatred that apparently overwhelms any rational ability to identify the obvious reasons for its downfall: Horrible corporate management of its major industry and a disinterest in the feasible transit systems that have kept much bigger cities far better integrated internally and with their suburbs - i.e. NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc.
"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
“Washington is dysfunctional politically, and it is not just a momentary thing,” Rahm Emanuel, who gave up being the president’s chief of staff to become mayor of Chicago, told me. “We always said that there’d be a day when all that the federal government does is debt service, entitlement payments and defense. Well, folks, that day is here. So, federal support for after-school programs has shrunk. We added to ours, but I had to figure out where to get the money. The federal government is debating what to do with community colleges. We’ve already converted ours to focus on skills development and career-based education. I worked for two great presidents, but this is the best job I’ve had in public service.”
I wonder if Friedman is onto something with the city heal thyself theory, but some cities and states like Chicago, L.A., Illinois, and California are very deeply in debt.
(S)ome cities and states like Chicago, L.A., Illinois, and California are very deeply in debt.
So, how about a proposal that the blue states and their much more economically powerful cities stop using their taxes through the federal government to subsidize the red states? It seems that would work to satisfy conservative concerns on at least three levels:
1. Lower federal taxation generally.
2. Less perpetuation of the "dependence" that red states are apparently expecting.
3. Better attention to these state budgets that conservatives from beyond their borders claim to be so concerned about.
How about it? ;-)
Oh, shoot, where's counter argument 2B? Let me look it up.
I should think that Thomas Friedman makes good money.
Tell Ritmo his point about the car companies is not without merit, but the unions and the Democrat machine in the Motor City have had at least plenty (and maybe the majority in the past 20 years) of blame, too.
Rhythm and Balls said...
(S)ome cities and states like Chicago, L.A., Illinois, and California are very deeply in debt.
So, how about a proposal that the blue states and their much more economically powerful cities stop using their taxes through the federal government to subsidize the red states?
I'm sure a lot of red staters would say it's the other way around.
No srsly, someone remind me of what counter argument 2B is.
Personally I would rather stand on Friedman's head.
The four largest employer's in Chicago are the government.
How are they exactly subsidizing anyone?
Sorry to have to do this - it's going to hurt me as much as it does you!
1
2
2b?
Chip Ahoy said...
Dud Day's biography in Wikipedia is amazing and humbling.
July 28, 2013 at 2:09 PM
Chip Ahoy said...
Bud Day, sorry
*********
Ya--sorry that was off topic but....
ugh--Anthony You-Know-Who all over Drudge and not even a link to Bud Day.
Thanks for the 9/11 post--seems kind of related somehow.
Pittsburgh's steel industry was much, much more wrong-headed in the old corporatist days, and imploded much more severely than the car industry did, and yet - Pittsburgh recovered, and while it's still a slovenly Democratic mess with the usual corrupt and foolish city governance, isn't nearly as zombified and hopeless as Detroit. Why is that?
I really want to know, actually. I haven't paid close attention to the Burgh since I moved away for college and never came back. It's not in *great* shape, and industry never came back, but somehow it limps along on Richard Florida lines instead of imploding further. Hell, back in the Eighties, the ruins of Pittsburgh doubled for dystopic shithole Detroit in movies like Robocop. It couldn't do that these days, not even in the emptiest, deadest blocks of Homewood in the east end.
Why is that?
Hmm...what are crime stats for Pittsburgh vs. Detroit?
May be a clue.
I don't know recently, but when I still lived there, Pittsburgh was notable for having a particularly low violent crime rate compared to the region and to cities its size, even during the height of the steel industry collapse...
Woah. Yeah, Pittsburgh has a greatly lower crime rate compared with its sister-city Cleveland, significantly less than Cincinnati, and between 1/2 and 1/3 that of Detroit - unless you're talking about murders, in which case it's almost 1/4 the per-100,000 rate of Detroit.
(Hmm, Chicago's murder rate isn't nearly as bad as the 2nd Amendment cranks have been selling it the last five years or so. It's actually down somewhat since the last decade.)
In short, you probably shouldn't be setting your new crime-procedural drama pilot in Pittsburgh. Not that it kept the show-runners of Justified from using eastern Kentucky. (For those who love that show, y'all will be sad to discover that they haven't had a murder in Harlan in the last ten years, and all in all, it makes Pittsburgh look like Cleveland in comparison, if not exactly Detroit-on-the-Forks-of-the-Ohio.)
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