Does Obama Care? Water shut-off in Detroit for up to 25k residents.

From Detroit News

Delinquent residential water customers in the city will be getting shut-off notices beginning May 11, alerting them of a 10-day window to get assistance or face cutoff.Service will not be turned off if customers who cannot afford to pay sign up for help, says Gary Brown, Detroit's chief operating officer. The city has about 20,000 to 25,000 delinquent residential accounts.

Why doesn't Obama help these people? water should be a human right.

America's turning into a third world nation while Israel have cost the United States 1.6 trillion dollars from 1973 to 2003 alone. I imagine it's 2 trillion now. Anyone know the actual figure?

What a regime America has become. The interests of the elite do not care about American people as much as foreigners in Israel.

Reply 1

Falcatas

It is nothing to do with Israel.

Detroit is an example of a failed state. Significant people are on welfare trapping them in dependency and poverty. The state government has run out of money because of this (and other reasons) and has proved its ineptness.

Reply 2

L i b

Original post by DidYouKnow

Service will not be turned off if customers who cannot afford to pay sign up for help

Sounds reasonable.

Why doesn't Obama help these people? water should be a human right.

Why? Human rights typically prevent the state from doing certain things to people. Creating obligations is usually fairly barmy.

If I decide to go and live in a log cabin on the remote island of St Kilda, should the state absolutely have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not more, building a water pipe for miles and miles under the sea, so I can get tapped water?

If the answer to that is any form of 'no', then you cannot create a 'human right' to water supply.

Reply 3

Miniflip

Original post by L i b

Sounds reasonable.

Why? Human rights typically prevent the state from doing certain things to people. Creating obligations is usually fairly barmy.

If I decide to go and live in a log cabin on the remote island of St Kilda, should the state absolutely have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not more, building a water pipe for miles and miles under the sea, so I can get tapped water?

If the answer to that is any form of 'no', then you cannot create a 'human right' to water supply.

I'm sorry but that's dumb as ****. Your analogy was completely irrelevant. Shutting off water is not the same as having to build pipes wtf. Detroit is an established city with millions of residents. Human rights or not it's horribly immoral.

Reply 4

SotonianOne

That's what happens when your city is a Democrat-controlled hotspot for 50 years. Since moving production to China, Detroit has been pretty useless and nothing more than a scrounger on America's economy.

Impose martial law to end the gang culture and abolish the minimum wage to let the place flourish again.

Reply 5

SotonianOne

Original post by Miniflip

Detroit is an established city with millions of residents.

Because establishing a culture of dependency by providing everything is so much better than the alternative of making the place half-competitive again..

Reply 6

L i b

Original post by Miniflip

I'm sorry but that's dumb as ****. Your analogy was completely irrelevant. Shutting off water is not the same as having to build pipes wtf.

Yes it is. If you say "water is a human right" that means the state has an absolute responsibility to supply it to all human beings regardless of material considerations or costs. That is a fundamentally silly proposition.

Detroit is an established city with millions of residents. Human rights or not it's horribly immoral.

Well, why the OP raised the point of rights, I have no idea - but they did did. It's glib to throw around legalistic language and try to gild the lily with concepts you've not given two seconds thought to in order to make an argument seem somehow more robust than it is. That was the point I was making.

As for whether it is immoral, well, I'd argue it is immoral not to pay your water bills when you can and then continue to demand a service. Equally it is immoral to not pay a shop and expect you can take its goods, regardless or how much you may want them.

As said in the snippet the OP quoted, there is help available to ensure water is available for those who genuinely struggle to afford to pay their bills.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 7

Miniflip

Original post by SotonianOne

Because establishing a culture of dependency by providing everything is so much better than the alternative of making the place half-competitive again..

So a culture of dependency is what's wrong with detroit?

Reply 8

SotonianOne

Original post by Miniflip

So a culture of dependency is what's wrong with detroit?

Key word is establishing.

Reply 9

Rakas21

The problems with Detroit are historic. Basically, Michigan and New York State (among others) suffered heavily in the 60's-80's as Japan and to a lesser degree Germany crushed the US export market (and our own to be fair, British Leyland was certainly on par with Nissan). Due to the federal arrangements they were both forced into austerity like we see in Europe now and New York State reinvented itself somewhat however Michigan never did and Detroit is the epitamy of this failure.

I don't think one can blame the Democrats for what happened but the city basically needs to be abandoned (move the people) or to find a niche quickly.

Reply 10

PenguinEmperor

Main problem here is the water charges, they were made extremely high in Detroit in what is an incredibly regressive tax, so much so that the already broke residents can't afford to pay for water.

Reply 11

Feline_Nymphet

Original post by DidYouKnow

Learn about the political system, levels of gov't, and jurisdiction. Obama probably has no idea this is even happening. It is a city and state issue (mayor, governor), not federal (senator, president, attorney general) issue, because only Detroit in this article are out of water. City council needs to deal with it. It becomes a national issue that requires presidential intervention if enough of one state or more than one state is significantly in a dire situation like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11. Obama doesn't have a water switch in his coat or under his desk :rolleyes:

This is the issue with having such a huge country and trying to run it. It's like being a single mother with 10 kids and a minimum wage job.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 12

AdvanceAndVanquish

Original post by DidYouKnow

Other people have already covered most of the many things which are wrong with this, but I thought I should also point out that your numbers on US aid to Israel are off by a factor of 20, that is, the actual figure is about 5% of what you wrote.

Reply 13

theroyalwhigs

Meanwhile he can bankroll Pakistanis and rebel groups in the Middle East. :rolleyes:

Either way, it's usually not Obama in control, these presidents are usually controlled by several people in the background acting as advisers and as such should really be on top of this situation. Presidents are very symbolic, similar to the relationship between our Royal Family and Privy Council.

Reply 14

whorace

I don't get it. Why don't the US close Detriot and migrate the population elsewhere, use the taxpayers money to build IT infrastructure to replace the obvious manufacturing depletion. Virtual currency requires no raw material to produce, if the problem is low skill and low material Detroit could just be replaced with a virtual city... The government should build a Chinese ghost town and then move people back into it.

Reply 15

Rakas21

Original post by whorace

China has 7% GDP growth and minimal democracy to worry about. Telling the people of Detroit the central government is kicking them out will cause people in other deprived areas to fear the same.

I agree it;s what they should do though.

Reply 16

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by Rakas21

Such a shame.

Also this is clearly an example of central planning and a command economy...

Reply 17

whorace

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Such a shame.

Also this is clearly an example of central planning and a command economy...

The attack against planning seems pretty dumb to me anyway, the market doesn't just throw materials around creating wealth, some level of planning is always involved.