Another part is that in the years when credit was easy and you could borrow all the money you wanted, Cities, Counties, Local Government Entities, States, and the Federal Government all borrowed lots and lots. Now that the money has dried up a bit, the Federal Government is shifting as many duties and burdens to the states, and the states are shifting as many duties and burdens down to the local governments (cities, counties and so on). The Local Governments will try to shift these burdens to their citizens in the form of reduced services and increased fees/fines, but there's only so much they can do (without getting voted out). So they will have tough times.

Bryant

given clownservatives constantly attempt to ignore the poor by stating "well, they choose to be poor",
I'm waiting for them to cast their all-knowing lens on these bankrupt cities.

are they now going to say, "well, they chose to be financially stupid and make wrong assumptions"?

doubtful.

The governments of those communities chose to be fiscally irresponsible and make promises to their communties they couldn't keep. Spending money on frivolous things like community centers, parks, libraries has created undue hardships on many communties. You can't just borrow and spend forever.

They will ignore, of course, how much of the burden is state wide because they assume the voters will ignore it as well.

Bryant

There are many around here that don't consider those things frivolous.

continue to adopt Teh Crazy and move farther to the extreme right/bogus land.. they are losing
credibility and voters.

they are hilariously off track.

...people angry about rising state and local taxes hear the anti-tax gong rung by FOX/teabaggers/billionaire-funded astroturf orgs and are encouraged to point their anger at Obama and "tax and spend" Democrats in Congress -- even though their Federal taxes nearly always went down.

All to support policies guaranteed (and shown by multiple experience) to produce more of the same.

Manufacturing as a part of our GDP is growing but American manufacturing is concentrated in high end capital goods and not consumer goods so it is not obvious to the average American. The big negative is that US factories are now highly automated and therefore there has been a big loss in jobs.

labor intensive manufacturing will never return to America as long as American's want low cost consumer goods.

most people don't WANT low cost goods. I don't know one person who would rather have a $6 hand mixer that lasts 6 months vs a $100 mixer that lasts 30 years. Or a $5 shovel that falls apart with the first snowfall vs a $30 shovel that lasts 20 winters. People know in the long run this doesn't benefit them. The problem is with the lack of wage increases, people NEED to buy low cost items in order to maintain their standard of living. It's not easy to see your standard of living slip every year. Most people will do what is necessary to try to maintain that standard of living, including buying cheap China made crap, in the face of slipping wages.

business understands exactly what motivates consumers to buy what they buy. It is not because they want to buy more expensive things.

and by freezing out information that doesn't support their profiit margins.

hence Walmarts success.

People know in the long run this doesn't benefit them.

It finally appears that Marx has been proven right about how "advanced capitalism" would turn out.

is not like making widgets like TVs and computers. You make a lot fewer of them but each one is highly profitable. You also need a smaller but much more highly educated and skilled workforce.

The underlying issue is that the economy has fundamentally changed but the way we educate and train workers has not.

before responding.

I said the same thing but you put it better.

Some people use to ask "Don't you think autoworkers are overpaid?" Everyone was jealous.

See what happens when you get rid of those well paying jobs? People who use to have money to retire to the south don't now. If they can't sell the homes they lived in up north, they can't buy new homes down south. So much for the Florida economy.

The moral is if you want to buy goods from people who work under sweatshop conditions then you'll end up living like someone that works in a sweatshop.

it's just that A) we don't make all those things you see commonly (so you see the "made in" sticker on a new pair of shoes, but not on the train that brought them to your town) and B) it is becoming extremely efficient so very few people are employed in that area.

I know this must play a part but not necessarily a huge portion.

I'm referring to the state of the USPS, which has a pre-funded (hope I said that right) pension system and it's because of that the USPS is in danger of being eliminated and a privatized system put into place. The 1%ers and GOP have been licking their chops at our postal system for several years now and won't stop until it is gone and replaced. They'd more than likely repeat the same mantra if pensions were paid in advance in city budgets too.

The majority of the entire problem stems from the simple fact we don't make much here anymore thanks to the 1%ers. Even the equipment used to promote our warmongering agenda isn't the big manufacturing machine it was in the past when larges portions of the population worked to build military equipment.

In the new age of global economy, I don't see us returning to a manufacturing mecca ever again.

So what do we do?

And if we don't stop, grow a pair - and start taxing the ever loving shit out of these pieces of crap - expect this to escalate further. Stockton won't be the first but they won't be the last. Hey - here's another source of tax revenue - churches! It's way past time to end the free ride there! Let's bring in revenue instead of cutting spending - that's how you balance the budget Republicans.

They're killing the economy, because in the long run, who's going to buy their stuff when nobody has decent jobs anymore? China? I doubt it.

Earnings myopia, if you ask me.

Bake