In Detroit: No Money, No Water

I hope the good people of Detroit realize that the unions and the politicians they support are what the reason is behind this disaster. The schools in Detroit are the worst and the People still elect the same corrupt and incompetent people to the school board. The people in Detroit continue to elect people like Kwame Kilpatrick as Mayor and other corrupt and inadequate leaders to their City Council. To blame all of the problems of Detroit on racism is a joke. The idea that hateful white people are responsible for Detroit's declining population and constant misery is a shame. The people to blame are the people responsible for the mess. The people to blame for the way Detroit is the way is today are the people that the Citizens of Detroit continually vote into offices. Do not feed me any line that I do not know what I am talking about. I was born in Detroit and have lived there a long time. I still have plenty of family in the area. There is nothing more in the World that I would like to see than to have Detroit return to its Greatness. If the people of Detroit want to keep putting criminals in charge of the City and the School who have no better ideas than to blame white people for their problems... than Detroit will continue on the course straight off of the map.

I've got an idea. Pay your water bill. The water doesn't get turned off. I pay mine, if I didn't, I'd expect it to get turned off.

Blame it all on whitey. It's everyone's fault but your own, right?

And another thing. Stop having kids while living in abject poverty. If you can't feed them, I sure as hell don't want to.

The people of Detroit did this to themselves. Electing Mayors like Coleman Young and Kwame Kilpatrick.I was born in Detroit. I hope the best for the City. I know as long as the people keep electing losers and thugs, Detroit will have no hope. Unions, Welfare, and the radical- left policies are the real causes of the misery in Detroit.

too bad they weren't like germans. start producing again. how hard is that.

Most utilities are not "monopolized by the government." They are owned by private investors and granted a monopoly position so long as they consent to government regulation of their prices and quality of service so they don't use their monopoly power to gouge consumers.

But regardless of whether a given utility is in private or public hands, the rationale for monopoly has always been the same. Investment-intensive systems like water, sewer, electricity and (prior to wireless and deregulation) telephone require enormous amounts of capital to construct. Therefore the fundamental policy debate has always been whether it is a better use of society's resources for multiple companies to build multiple systems (imagine, for example, if there were three or four electric companies building lines to every home and business in a given city and what that would cost) or to allow a single company to do so and then regulate the business so they cannot use their monopoly position to the detriment of consumers.

Neither choice is perfect, but time and again, the latter position has prevailed. In many/most ways it is the sensible position because of the issue of waste. For example, if four electric companies brought electricity to my home, I am likely only going to choose one of them to provide my electricity. The facilities of the other companies would then just sit there unused...but they would still need to be maintained and periodically upgraded or replaced in case I ever changed my mind.

As to people with greater means paying the bills of those with lesser means, that has always been the case in our progressive system of taxation. For example, I have two children in our public school system. But when I looked on my tax bill and compared it to the per-student cost figure published by the local school board, it was clear to me that I was paying enough to support seven school kids.

At the other end of the scale, there are people who are really struggling and aren't able to contribute enough through their taxes to support even their own kids let alone anybody else's. I understand and accept this -- so long as I feel that the level of taxation has not reached a point where I no longer have any incentive to succeed because that success will be penalized rather than rewarded. For me, that point is when I pay much more than about a third of each new dollar of income in taxes.

But my admonition to those who complain is that they should make darn sure they are not on the receiving end of this equation before they complain too loudly. I find it just a little difficult to accept, for example, tax complaints by people who have already received back from Social Security every dollar they ever paid into the system and are now living off the dollars contributed by current workers...though I see complaints from this group all the time.

Wait, I've got it: everyone that has a job must adopt a household without jobs and pay their water bills. That way everyone will have water!

Who's going to pay all those water company employees their pay? Who's going to put money in their 401's? Who's going to pay for the water company trucks, gas, upkeep? Who's going to pay the cost of those water main breaks in the middle of winter? Are you going to pay for Detroit so the people there can have water? Can you put aside an extra 40-50 dollars a month to help 1 Detroit household?
Maybe all the past presidents, still living, can donate the money. Or maybe the congress people can donate their walking around money, or their housing allowance? Maybe Bill Gates or Steve Jobs can pay for it? Every month until they die.....so others can reap the benefits of their hard work....

I'm actually surprised there has not been a Robin Hood emerge, its not rocket science to turn your water back on, if they turn it off at the street. One just needs the right tool, easily fabricated. They could go around turning peoples water back on and the water company would never know. Quiet rebellion.
Start opening all the fire hydants through the city. There are a number of non violent protests they could undertake in Detriot if they really wanted to.
Get ten thousand people together and pee in public. It would make the news, shit it would make number 1 on current

If the utilities weren't monopolized by the government in the first place (jacking costs through the roof)....this would of never happened....

Thank the failure of central planning once again.....

This is just one symptom of the single issue that Detroit is facing...it is a city built for 2.5 million...with a fraction of that population. From above, Detroit literally looks like a European city right after WWII. It isn't just a single city block that only has one or two occupied homes...its entire neighborhoods. The city must contract inwardly, demolish large amounts of abandoned property, and reinvent itself economically. The sad truth is that the city doesn't even have the funds to demolish the massive amounts of property that are for all intents and purposes are completely useless. While I don't live in Detroit, I live in Baltimore which has the same problem to a much...much smaller extent.

As for the utilities, I loath to try and explain this and be labeled some heartless bastard, but there are significant technical issues by simply leaving the water on to neighborhoods with few paying customers. Many of the properties in Detroit have been completely stripped of all the wire and plumbing. Flooding and fire of abandoned property in Detroit is a major and costly issue to the city. You leave the water on to a neighborhood that is abandoned for the most part and you will get flooding. The issue isn't as simple as some fat cat in a business suit deciding that they want to screw over poor people.

As for people that say the poor should just up and move to a place with a better economic forecast...for the most part, anyone that could afford to do so have done already. This is why the areas outside of Detroit and its suburbs have some of the highest mean incomes in the nation. This lost of tax base is why the school system is a mess, the utility companies are struggling, why there are 3 supermarkets for a ridiculous amount of liquor stores, and why the police and fire departments are struggling to provide even basic service to an almost empty city (empty being relative to its size and population). Add into the facts that the entire city was based on one industry and the local politics have been some of the most corrupt in the nation...it is no wonder why Detroit has fallen on hard times.

This is just wrong.

Is anyone here going to take any action for these people? Just wondering. I'm going to send a note to the water company to tell them to turn the water on and work out an equitable way for these Americans to have water. Think they'll listen? Then maybe I will send this to Obama at the White House too.Think he will listen?

Wow. I was thinking only last night that the US takes capitalism way too far... But this is ridiculous! Using capitalism as an excuse to actually go BACKWARDS and deliberately introduce 3rd world living conditions to the population? WTF?!!?

What's next? Fly in some lepers, malaria mosquitoes? Dig up the sewer system?

Not smart.

WATER IS NOT A COMMODITY. IT'S A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT.

Next, they'll start charging for air...

Ahhh....irony.

The tea party isn't racist or elitist--but duh! you need access to water in order to make tea.

But of course these same tea party fanatics will fight you and kill you if you try to take some of their hard earned tax dollars and use it to pay for someone else to have access to water (or food, or adequate housing, or clothing, or job training).

Damn those socialist/progressive/leftist/communist/Marxist who look exactly like Hitler/Obama asking for regulations on how commodities like oil and water and coal and food and housing and medical care are traded and essentially grossly overpriced so that only rich people can afford to access them

This is so sad/tragic/frustrating/aggravating and just ...ugh.

Why is this being allowed to happen to American citizens--while everybody in our government bitches about how Wall Street doesn't need to be regulated or illegal immigrants need to be profiled or worries that hey kids today are too fat because of their lousy school lunch diet to fight in a war--but we have to repeal don't ask don't tell because skinny gay people can't fight in a war either.

this is a class issue not a race issue so i fail to see what MLK has to do with water.

THE PEOPLE NEED A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. Water is vital to human life and health and I am sick of the people who say, "um the bloodsucking company needs to make money too." SCREW THAT. Take your Republican thinking and shove it up your A$$. I better stop now, I'm getting pissed.

the entire system of utilities is BUNK! the fact that a power company can dam up a river at all is wrong, but then to make it a crime for me do the same is evil. how can they own the entire river and I can't? this goes for water rights and water comanies as well... the whole system is wrong!

Why, O, why do I still live 3 miles outside Detroit?!!?
Every day,... ALL of Michigan gives me more & more reasons, like this one, to wanna move away! And, being witness to Michigan/Detroit affairs AND conversations like THIS one,... I ascertain that money and prejudice are always peoples' top priorities.

What are they doing with their welfare or unemployment checks ? Just asking .

Originally the taxpayer built the water infrastructure in the United States the dams, the lakes, and the delivery systwms. The Army corps of engineers has done some projects, but a great number were done during the depression. Its everybody's water, if Detriot didn't pay its bill too bad, but a water shutoff is really the things bad things come from.

We live in a country that has an abundant supply of clean water that is suitable for drinking; I cannot believe that it actually be denied to people based on their inability to pay. It just seems like water, which is more essential to life than food, be made available to all. Last time I checked, the United States is not a third world country.

Seems they could use some kind of loan program, or anything besides just cutting them off.

In other news: GM just payed back its 8.1 billion dollar loan to the government, but still no jobs in Detroit. I'm confused . . .

There has to be a more ethical and EFFICENT way to handle nonpayment of utlities. Simply denying people water creates more problems then it solves.

Just like foreclosures. Simply throwing employed/working people out of their homes because their adjustable rate mortgage went from $1,200 a month to $3,000 a month is deeply retarded and counter-productive.

The banks CAN readjust those rates and keep people in their homes and everyone would be much better off -- but like the water utilities they are simply choosing not to. If the mortgage was adjusted the family keeps their home, is able to keep their job, the community keeps getting property taxes....everyone benefits. But when the greedy asshole banks simply decide to foreclose and everyone loses. Family loses house, loses job, no more state, local and property taxes get paid, the neighborhood is now composed of 37 unoccupied homes which further depress the area in terms of real estate speculation, etc.

WATER needs to be treated the same way. Keeping people in their homes and allowing them access to water for drinking, using the toilet and bathing is to the benefit of the entire community.

Would you hire someone that hadn't showered in 5 weeks?

No, you wouldn't?

Ah, so you're admitting that shutting off their water utilities and then telling them to just "get a job" makes no sense.

Working with families that have outstanding utility balances makes more sense then being the sterotypical Republican tough guy and just shutting the water off.

soon they will make us pay for air!!! c'mon government we shouldnt be paying for water. at least tell these people they can go to a place that will let them shower/get drinking water if you arent gonna provide it at there house.

This is why I am glad I moved out into the Boondocks. My current residence has its own well as do all the houses in the area.

A couple of years ago the borough enacted an ordinance that would require everyone to pay out of pocket to lay the pipes to be hooked up to a municipal water supply.($10,000 a hook up from every home owner because the cash strapped borough didn’t have enough money to pay for it.) They would then be charged the normal monthly utility fee for water.

Everyone pretty much told them to go hell and kept their wells. Nobody complied and the project is dead in its tracks.

The texas gulf coast is Booming folks those that can should give it a try. there are lots of homeless shelters and lots of work for skilled labor or day work for those that want to work off the books or want to fly under the radar. Galveston is still rebuilding after that last hurricane.

Water should not be privatized. I understand it needs to be pumped and maintained and all of that bullshit... but the way we harvest water is incredibly inefficient. The water companies make us pay for a toxic substance that runs through infrastructure that is falling apart. We pump water out from major stations through thousands of miles of old, rotting pipe and add chlorine. Chlorine is highly toxic to plants and animals... and we put it in our drinking water. UV light is almost as effective, sometimes more effective when done properly... and can be done much cheaper. Water should be pumped locally whenever possible.

Betcha Its In Non- White Areas !

You know most any other animal would relocate. But not Humans why is that?

Water is necessary to life. It should be provided or included in property taxes, like police and fire service.

who would've thought you could get your water turned off when you don't pay your bill! THATS ATROCIOUS!

Another thing to consider:

Michigan is trying to lure business back to the state.

When you shut off water to tens of thousands of people....these people don't just disappear! They don't just leave (because if they COULD migrate elsewhere they would have).

So is Michigan doing itself any favors by creating tens of thousands "fresh water" refugees who still live in the state but are now looking for illegal or unsanitary methods to access fresh water? I don't think so.

Government needs to be in charge of critical infrastructure and resources.

WATER definitely qualifies as as a critical resource.

What happens when people get sick from drinking nonpotable water because they no longer have access to fresh water? They go to the hospital and are treated by ER doctors....who are no paid because these patients cannot afford to pay the hospital bill.

Michigan needs to take a harder look at the problem because the "tough guy" approach sounds awesome on paper but has many, many drawbacks to it.

Michigan needs to take a more pragmatic approach to the problem of unpid utilities. A little intelligence and far-sightedness would go a long way (something, admitedly, Michigan has not been historically known for in matters of economy and infrastructure).

You know Detroit doesn't sound so bad if you got some cash. Hey all you rich folks, want to live like a king for next to nothing? In Detroit you could live like a king for virtually nothing I suppose now. You gotta think that with all the people leaving rents gotta be cheap.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Can you say civil unrest? This is the kind of thing that triggers bigger problems.
Don't ever deny people water, simple survival
Are we now going to make criminals out of people who act out for water?