The Detroit Federation of Teachers, which called an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon after local NBC affiliate WDIV reported details of the memo, urged a district-wide teacher “sickout” on Monday. The station reported that 87 of the district’s roughly 100 schools were closed Monday…
The school system confirmed the dire straits in a statement Saturday night, saying there will be “no funds available for the district to conduct summer school or provide the year-round special education services that a number of our students rely on.”
While the Legislature recently approved almost $50 million in supplemental funding for city schools, it said, “without the passage of the more comprehensive $715 million education reform package that is now being considered by the Michigan House of Representatives, there will be no funds available to pay DPS employees.”
I love how they call the $715 million of free money an “education reform package.” Mind you, that is just enough money to keep checks flowing to teachers, for a while, in Detroit. That’s not a supplement for an entire state’s payroll, or even an entire city’s. It is just teachers, in one city, and it won’t solve the problem. It is just a supplement that will keep the money flowing for a little while longer. It gives you an idea of the scale of the economic problems coming.
Meanwhile, there will be no water for others:
As early as Tuesday, the city’s Department of Water and Sewerage is prepared to begin shutting off the water to as many as 23,000 commercial and residential customers who’ve defaulted on their payments — despite a broad water assistance program designed to help distressed customers work out payment plans, the agency told NBC News.
Hundreds of people lined up Saturday for a Water Assistance Fair at a water service center, and the rush to pay bills continued on Monday.
There is even no Policia at times, even if the shit really hits the fan:
The search is on for a gunman who shot and killed two people on Detroit’s west side.
Several people called for help but they say it took police nearly two hours to arrive.
This is the Apocalypse, working its way up to the US Federal Government. When resources are flush, the wealthy will keep the less wealthy comfortable, to keep them from introducing aggression into the rabbit utopia. As resources begin to thin out, the less wealthy will get less and less resources passed down to appease them. Then their credit will even dry up:
The Detroit district’s payments on old debts — some dating back a decade or longer — amount to $3,019 of the $7,296 per student grant the district will receive from the state this school year, a Detroit News analysis of public records shows.
“That’s $3,000 that isn’t available for each kid this year, and it pays for the education of kids 10 to 15 years ago,” said Craig Thiel, senior research associate at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. “They’re as close as they’ve ever been to being insolvent, where you’ve got multiple bills that are owed to the state that have gone unpaid.”
The operating loans are owed to a state revolving loan fund, which analysts say is the district’s only available lender.
“For DPS, unfortunately, the only entity they can borrow money from right now is the state of Michigan,” Thiel said. “If they were to go to Comerica Bank and try to get a line of credit, they’d probably laugh them out the door.”
As in Puerto Rico, eventually, bailouts will also become unfashionable. Without credit or bailouts, these entities will experience a sudden onset of K-selection. The chaos they experience is less significant however, compared to what it portends for the system as a whole.
Like waves rippling out in a lake, the resource restriction will move right up to the most prosperous strata, and on its heels will be violence, chaos, and anarchy.
On the other hands guns are legal in Detroit. So K-selection right there.