Don’t be too hard on adaher. With the Republicans screwing with the debt limit (an act even he thinks is WAY beyond the pale), where’s a conservative like him to go?
Detroit was a one industry town. Not only the auto factories themselves but hundreds to thousands of minor suppliers of various parts. Not to mention the businesses the auto workers patronized.
Many cities have gone through what Detroit went through without going bankrupt. the loss of an industry will cause a loss of revenues and population, but that does not mean out of control crime or an inability to live within your means. Unless you borrowed even when money was plentiful and were soft on crime.
Pittsburgh was a steel town and it went through hard times. Both saw their populations peak in the 1950s. Pittsburgh responded to the decline of steel by diversifying their economy and living within their means.
Awww, what happened? I thought you weawwy, weawwy hoped bad things wouldn’t happen to New York because you wanted ever so much to visit? For those who didn’t read this thread, adaher said the divisive Democratic primary was bringing “Balkanized” politics back to New York City. Polls currently show de Blasio with a lead of about 50 points. I guess that’s similar to the Balkan nation of Landslidevania.
How can I not take you at your word here? 
Yes, the city went broke primarily because of the collapse of the auto industry, which was a huge part of its economy, and ensuing decades of white flight that depleted its population and tax base. There were certainly many other problems and Detroit had a lot of bad leadership. Your initial claim in the Elections thread was that New York City a few decades ago was pretty much just like Detroit except it started electing Republicans who fixed its problems. Even though I don’t know much about Detroit, I had no trouble showing that that was wrong on every level. Even at its worst, New York’s crime was never at Detroit levels - and I mean New York vs. Detroit at the same time, not then vs. now - and it never suffered a severe population drain like Detroit did. The city was in trouble, but not that kind of trouble. Republicans didn’t stop New York City from turning into Detroit. It was just never going to happen.
Which meant nothing, you simpering moron. This is why people like Nate Silver understood that Obama was always highly likely to win and people like you were either ignoring polls that didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear or made statements like ‘Gee whiz, Nate Silver sure has bet his reputation on this one!’ You were aware of advanced analysis of the polls, so you can’t claim ignorance. You didn’t believe it and you were dead wrong. I could go on, but your posts from that time are sort of a delicious sampler of everything Republicans misunderstood about that election.
Everytime there’s a bankruptcy, whether a personal or corporate or sovereign bankruptcy, there is always a trigger that can be blamed as the cause if one is in denial. In regards to the auto industry, what forward thinking leader of minimal competence would have expected Detroit to always be the main auto town? It’s not like the auto companies suddenly faced overseas competition, or suddenly decided to open plants in the South. The Louisville Ford plant was opened in 1955, right around the time Detroit’s population peaked. No one in the local government saw this as a sign of what was to come?
No doubt I got a lot badly wrong, but I also made reasoned arguments and explained my thinking. I’d say I did much better than many people in 2004 who said the polls were wrong because Bush was disliked so much that liberals would be motivated to vote in greater numbers than ever before.
Remember, folks, if a smarmy person is constantly wrong and you bluntly tell him so, you have a bad attitude. The fault lies with you, not the smug fella who is always wrong and never learns. So think about what you’d lose if adaher stopped posting.
Yes, and your reasoning was poor and your explanations were usually nonsense that showed no understanding of the situation. People told you that at the time, but it didn’t make a dent. Do you want a cookie for being the best at being wrong?
Of course you would.
Telling me I’m wrong is fine, when a) it’s addressed at the argument, minus the snide comments about a person’s intelligence, and b) when the person is actually wrong. Jumping the gun makes you look bad, not the other guy.
The reason I say this place is like a bubble is because the liberal posters do not get challenged much, so they figure they’ve got things pretty much figured out.
Because when someone with your track record says you look bad, it carries a lot of weight, right?
By the way the mayor of Detroit in 1955 was a Republican. Republicans held city hall from 1933 to 1948 and 1950 to 1962. It’s definitely the Democrats’ fault, though.
I don’t have to say it. Pointing out that I can’t count when checking a link that’s been updated since I first posted it is just stupid. Romney did in fact lead at the time in six polls compared to Obama’s three. thus my issue with Silver. Obviously at the end, Romney was only leading in Gallup and Rasmussen.
The presence of an opposition party does not necessarily make them accountable for a city’s problems if they didn’t make changes to the city’s course. Are there any Republican policies you can point to that were a) different from what Democrats were doing, and b) poor decisions?
Because in the case of New York, it’s pretty easy to look at David Dinkins’ comment that crime wasn’t a problem that could be solved by policing and not blame him for being soft on crime.
The party that controls the mayor’s office for 25 years is the opposition party? This is pretty great since it sounds like the opposite of what you were saying about Republicans in New York: in Detroit, Republicans were in charge for a long time but the bad stuff might not have been their fault because there were Democrats, but in New York, Republicans get all the credit for the good stuff even though the city is basically liberal. And if the party that holds the mayors’ office doesn’t change the city’s course, it’s not that party’s fault. Anyway, it looks like Republicans mostly controlled the city council throughout the 1930s and Democrats didn’t get a majority until maybe the late '50s, and there were always Republicans and independents on the council during that time. So it doesn’t sound like Republicans foresaw these problems either. It’s really not a surprise that a city that was based entirely on the auto industry just didn’t think there would be a day when that industry wasn’t able to sustain it and that the pensions and things that were awarded to workers would one day be unsustainable. That’s not a Republican or Democratic thing. It’s a sad thing that’s pretty common to all people.
Well, in the case of New York, the city very clearly changed course once Giuliani was elected.
BTW, Leaper and I are having an amusing exchange about the shutdown in another thread. I’ve said before that I think it’s a bad idea for the Republicans to be doing what they are doing. Given my track record, doesn’t that mean that maybe Republicans will win this fight?
Already dealt with in the other thread: crime was going down before that and Giuliani didn’t make the national economy jump in the '90s. That doesn’t mean he did nothing, but no, it does not make Giuliani the fulcrum. Nor does it mean that the place is going to be a wasteland if stop and frisk goes away. This is what I was talking about a few posts ago: you make your assertions, people respond with facts, and then you just repeat yourself in the hope that somehow, magically, nobody fucking noticed that the facts aren’t on your side. It is very effective at convincing people you’re an idiot and a weasel.
If so, there’s lots of weasels here, but only the conservative ones matter.
Or, this could be a normal discussion board, but due to the partisan makeup it’s nastier than your average discussion board. I’m not seeing a higher standard of poster here on the left, just more arrogance due to the numbers.
On any other board, you wouldn’t be a moderator. Or even a particularly highly regarded poster. Although people would be a lot more polite about it.
And just to be clear, I’m not criticizing your actual moderation. That’s been 100% fair and impartial. I just think you’re a C-level poster.
And I give a shit. I mean, sure, you’re wrong about everything and you think everyone you talk to has the IQ of a used shoe insert, but the board needs more people like you or it’ll really suck around here. You don’t know your ass from your elbow and you insist we need you for ideological diversity. Stupid and wrong isn’t an ideology, and we don’t need that kind of diversity.
Fine. More people like John Mace and Bricker then.
I recognize my own shortcomings. Yet there are some laughably wrong things that get said here and go unchallenged, and the very small conservative contingent here can’t wake up everytime someone is wrong on Straight Dope.
If you recognized your shortcomings, you wouldn’t be wrong in the exact same way at every opportunity.
And I don’t think many of you are idiots in the literal sense. Just idiots compared to how highly intelligent you believe yourselves to be. The thread where I admitted I was wrong a lot, which was responded to by a lot of posters insisting that they are rarely wrong, was pretty enlightening in that regard.
This board is truly unique. It’s an ostensibly open board that anyone can participate in, but it’s been hijacked by partisans, so in effect it’s like Democratic Underground or Free Republic, just with aspirations of being something better. Problem is, the bubble mentality is getting in the way and actually making it inferior to a lot of regular old discussion boards.