Saturday, August 02, 2014

Detroit--Second-handers and Liberals highlight why it's a failure.

After five-decades of single-party (Democrat) rule, Detroit has a water problem now in addition to every other shortcoming. Detroiters have by and large stopped paying their water bills and the bankrupt city has been homorrhaging money out by continuing to deliver water to nearly a hundred thousand homes and busineses that in some cases have been ignoring their monthly bills for years.

So what does the new administration of Detroit do to get these people to pay for the service that they've been refusing to pay on? Well starting in June, they began going to the deadbeats, issuing shut-off notices, and simply turning the water off, letting them know that it would be turned back on as soon as they paid the back-due balance or set up a payment plan.

Now of course the usual suspects--a coalition of welfare-rights organizations, local community organizers and senile politicians like John Conyers--becan screaming about how "inhumane" it was to deny people water and that it's not the deadbeats' fault that they can't pay their water bills in these horrible times. Alas, facts are pernicious things and the water department appears to have a few that show that fallacy for what it is.
The department issued a news release Tuesday saying “significant misinformation” has circulated about the shutoffs. Of customers who received shutoff notices, 60% paid their accounts in full within 24 hours and had their service restored immediately. Forty percent of the remaining customers had their service restored within 48 hours, according to the department.
So it's not that they can't pay the bills, apparently, it's just that they don't want to until they are left with no choice, at which time most of them find the money without too much trouble. Many of the others reportedly just handed money to illicit "turn on" crews that follow the city shut-off trucks with the same tools used to shut the water off and offer to illegally turn the water back on for a set fee.

Still, the Liberal Left screeches and protests, and when the Democrat Nutroots Convention came to Detroit a couple of weeks back, none other than B-list Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo jumped in front of the cameras at one of the protests, calling unlimited free water delivered to your tap "a human right". Of course when he finished bloviating and the camera crews went away, Rufflao, reportedly worth twenty million dollars, left without helping pay even one poor person's water bill. Ruffalo, like Michael Moore and other rich liberal millionaires, seem to think that only other people's money should go to solve all of the problems that they love to point out. While they condemn you and me for "not caring" enough to want to pay more in taxes, they're holding tight to their own cash.

Well the city caved, like usual, and suspended the shut-offs. Then they hosted a "water fair" this morning at the DPW office, and people lined up around the block to get help. But most of them were disappointed and angry when they discovered that the purpose of the event was to set up payment plans and help them actually pay down their bills or refer them to organizations that might be able to assist them. You see, many of them came here thinking that the city was just going to hand them money and pay their bills for them.

Detroit residents show up at water event hoping to avoid shutoffs

And still they complain:

One man waiting in line lamented the state of affairs.

“You need water to bathe, you need water to drink, you need water to cook with,” he said. “Hell, we’ve got all the water resources here, the Great Lakes, the Detroit River. There’s no reason it should be this way.”

And no one is telling this man that he can't just take a pail down to the river and get all the water that he wants. He and every other Detroiter are always free to do just that. But they don't want access to water; they want the water treated and pumped right into their houses, and they want it for free even if it means that other users on the system have to pay more for their water as a result.

And here are some of the hundreds of water-bill deadbeats standing (or sitting) in line outside the water department, looking for a hand-out, only to become angry when all they were offered was a hand up.


And the real crux of the problem for most Detroit dead-beats: priorities.
Can't find money to pay water bill. Has no problem paying iPhone bill. Welcome to Detroit.

10 comments:

  1. Probably a free ObamaPhone!

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  2. Sad, really sad.

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  3. I've been so poor that I couldn't afford to pay my water bill. It was a choice between eating, and bathing.

    So I talked to the people who were trying to pay THEIR expenses by working for the municipal water supply utility.

    They were surprisingly willing to "work something out". There were resources which would provide a "loan" by temporarily absorbing some of MY DEBTS to keep the water running.

    I had to do some things I would rather have avoided to pay my debts. The local grocers union was on strike; I took a job as "Scab Labor", and worked as a produce guy on the worst possible shift. I learned a lot from that job, and even though I'm a Meat and Potatoes guy, I could tell a customer how to tell a good melon from a bad one.

    I was riding a motorcycle .. couldn't afford to drive the car. Somebody (probably union?) scattered nails in the parking lot, and spiked both tires, which cost me $400 to replace, Nobody loves a Scab!

    My Domestic Partner couldn't help, she was trying to start her own business, and all I could do was help with part of the rent. I cashed in my 401k to help with expenses.

    I ended up broke, not proud, and I ended up with no money, no 'cash resources', and no friends. Lost my girlfriend somewhere along the line, too.

    My father was dying from cancer and when I went to say goodbye to him the night before he passed, the best I could say to him was: "Pop, I paid all my bills. I got some help, but I didn't accept Charity."

    He wasn't alive when I finally found a job, and he was LONG gone before I got back on my feet again, and paid off the loans.

    You gotta do what you gotta do.

    Some folks don't seem to think in terms of "gotta".

    They just think in terms of "wanna"

    I'm thinking "Obama = Wanna", lately.

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  4. No brainer: Which group, payers or non-payers, have (legal) firearms? [Hint: Victim mentality is in evidence in one of these.]

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  5. Anonymous9:30 AM

    Like all DemocRat ruled territories their chickens are coming home to roost.

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  6. Yep, love Detroit and it's 'freeloaders'...

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  7. Georgia has handouts for inner city people. The state will pay your gas bill, grocery bill, phone bill, or whatever. Strangely, this largess is limited to the Atlanta Metro Area, Macon, and Valdosta as far as I have been able to find out. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that those three population centers can pretty much elect someone to congress by themselves.

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  8. Chicago will probably be the next one to collapse.

    Ever since I got put on disability, we have been playing the hopscotch game with the bills. We've had to make arrangements with the power company a couple of times and I've held off on the water bill until the last minute more than once. It sucks but we get by. We were told a few years ago that we made too much money to get food stamps. Disability pays too much? Who knew. I'm going into my 11th year of fighting with the VA over my benefits. I was refused yet again last week and all my lawyer could say was we have to wait on them. Lawyers and bureaucrats, when TSHTF, I'm going to have a long list.

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