Part of the reason why Detroit has a long rough road ahead

is due, in significant part, to bad law and bad policy enshrined in law. Ideological view points are hard coded in the firmware of Michigan. Which allows lawsuits and results such as this. It cannot be overemphasized how bone-headed this particular law is. That one can never, under any circumstances, reduce pensioner benefit values. This means, if you ever struck a bad deal, like Detroit, and many others in Michigan have, you have no choice but to continue this bad deal for eternity. Its hard to read this as being anything less than the time of the heat death of the universe. This is a policy of one the hallmarks of one side of the political spectrum. The cost for bone-headed, and poor policy is now before us all in all its splendor. But it gets worse. Far, far worse. Read what was reported as to what the judge said:

and

Ummm … er … Since when has honoring the president of the united states been enshrined in the law of bankruptcy? Sending her ruling to the president? Do we live in a banana republic or what? This is what we have to deal with. Hard core ideologues in judical robes, who can block needed actions, because, and I quote “It?s also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit?s auto companies) out of bankruptcy.” Its not merely that this is wrong. Or that this is bone-headed. Not talking about the law here. There is only one possible reaction by those with any sort of clue. And its summarized here. This, folks, is why Detroit went bust. It amassed a huge debt burden, and had a phalanx of similar minded ideologues defending terrible and bone-headed policy and law. Elections have consequences. For decades, Michiganders elected people that they frankly should not have. Those people enshrined terrible ideas into law. Its going to take a very long time to fix it. Detroit needs to start out on the road to bankruptcy, lest it get to the point of complete collapse, having zero cash to continue operations. Which is a very real possibility. But this, coming out of a jurist … is a serious zOMG moment. Population dropping contributed substantially. But the built in legal looting hard core ideological policy enshrined in the Michigan constitution? This past year, labor unions tried to get some added features enshrined in there. They lost. Big time. And the state flipped around to be a right-to-work state. And as a result, businesses are considering coming back here. Funny how that goes … get rid of crappy laws and you are better off. Until we get rid of ideologues from the judicial ranks, needed actions such as the Detroit bankruptcy will not progress.