There is an image going around the Internet of two cities, both represented by photos taken in 1945 and 2013. The two cities?
Detroit and Nagasaki.
To look at the two you'd think Japan had won the war. Mrs. Animal has friends in Nagasaki and has visited there, it is a clean, thriving city. Detroit is a wasteland.
I lived in Japan for half a year while on a project, not near Nagasaki but on the main island Honshu, in Shiga Prefecture. Japan has been in economic doldrums for years but the cities are clean, the countryside beautiful, the teenagers are for the most part polite and respectful, and at least around Kusatsu where I lived the crime rate was so low as to be almost non-existent.
I wouldn't want to live in Japan permanently - I'm too American for that - but you have to admit, there are some things they must be doing right.
I have a close friend who is Japanese. She is a veterinarian. I am the godfather of her first son, Yutaro. He spent some time with us this past summer. I have communicated with her, her three children and her husband for 20 years. We became acquainted because my son had a mail order firm selling rock & roll memorabilia, and she ordered some stuff of KISS with a sweet letter and a bunch of paper cranes. I know Gene &; Paul and arranged for her to meet them backstage on their tour of Japan.They live in Iwate Prefecture.
Our twin girls, 19 years old, are going to college in Grand Rapids. While they are adults and Mrs. Animal and I are confident in their above-average sense and maturity and respectful of their rights to make their own decisions, we did lay one stern "request" on them - stay the hell away from Detroit and its environs.
After a few weeks of following Michigan news, they are perfectly happy to stay in Grand Rapids.
There's still more wealth in SE MI than in most any other similar sized area of the country. Unfortunately, it rings the former great city.
The decline of Detroit is a case study in socialist policies. Unfortunately, there was so much wealth there, that for a good portion of those policy implementations, they were able to absorb the idiocy. And even when it began to crumble, the unions were strong enough, and the auto industry large enough, that it didn't collapse.
I moved there in '03 and the local economy was booming. Granted the city itself was not booming, but everything else was. Just 2 yrs later, the bottom fell out. I was lucky enough to get my company to transfer me and took less of a loss on the house that I built than I would have had I stayed.
btw - if you don't have to live off the local economy in Detroit (a consultant, artist or writer, or regional sales person) you can live quite well in the Detroit area. Housing is 50% of what it was 10 yrs ago.
It devolved when Detroit elected Coleman Young, who erected a statue of a fist as the symbol of Detroit. When force became modus operandi, producers left for the suburbs, and eventually they left Michigan entirely.
Agree. Clinton giving all the technology to China didn't help either, but the great sociopath was acting at behest of corporation officers that also care nothing about America and what individual liberty stands for. They are the modern day equivalent of the New England slave traders, who bear no guilt on slavery from historians. Cheap labor is great for business except when it's indentured servitude or slavery. I am becoming convinced that the reason for non-stop illegal immigration is to end the majority of those who defend individual rights and replace it with those who are raised to serve their masters, the elite.
Yes. Most of those being allowed to enter illegally are from cultures/systems where there are little in the way of individual rights (at least practically speaking - their nations may have constitutions that say they support individual rights, but those rights aren't practically realized by most of their citizens). Couple that with being an underclass that will willingly support redistribution, since they will be the recipients, and you have a set-up for a new dictatorship de facto if not de jure.
"I am becoming convinced that the reason for non-stop illegal immigration is to end the majority of those who defend individual rights and replace it with those who are raised to serve their masters, the elite." You are so correct on this one.
Absolutley. I used to shop at Hudsons downtown Detroit as a kid with my grandparents. Woodward used to be the test track for highpower cars. Once glory, now decay. Efforts are being made to transform Detroit from manufacturing to entertainment but this will be a fragile economy at best.
I live north of Detroit in a rural area. My business often takes me into what is left of the city. What was once the industrial capital of the world is now a poverty stricken disaster, more closely resembling a war-zone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLYTOoeU... There is a new Mayor and Sheriff in town. It will never be the same however...
Detroit and Nagasaki.
To look at the two you'd think Japan had won the war. Mrs. Animal has friends in Nagasaki and has visited there, it is a clean, thriving city. Detroit is a wasteland.
I lived in Japan for half a year while on a project, not near Nagasaki but on the main island Honshu, in Shiga Prefecture. Japan has been in economic doldrums for years but the cities are clean, the countryside beautiful, the teenagers are for the most part polite and respectful, and at least around Kusatsu where I lived the crime rate was so low as to be almost non-existent.
I wouldn't want to live in Japan permanently - I'm too American for that - but you have to admit, there are some things they must be doing right.
After a few weeks of following Michigan news, they are perfectly happy to stay in Grand Rapids.
The decline of Detroit is a case study in socialist policies. Unfortunately, there was so much wealth there, that for a good portion of those policy implementations, they were able to absorb the idiocy. And even when it began to crumble, the unions were strong enough, and the auto industry large enough, that it didn't collapse.
I moved there in '03 and the local economy was booming. Granted the city itself was not booming, but everything else was. Just 2 yrs later, the bottom fell out. I was lucky enough to get my company to transfer me and took less of a loss on the house that I built than I would have had I stayed.
btw - if you don't have to live off the local economy in Detroit (a consultant, artist or writer, or regional sales person) you can live quite well in the Detroit area. Housing is 50% of what it was 10 yrs ago.
I am becoming convinced that the reason for non-stop illegal immigration is to end the majority of those who defend individual rights and replace it with those who are raised to serve their masters, the elite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLYTOoeU...
There is a new Mayor and Sheriff in town. It will never be the same however...