A powerful story in pictures- an abridged version of an email I received recently.
What happened to the radiation that lasts thousands of years??
HIROSHIMA 1945
We all know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in August 1945 after the explosion of atomic bombs. However, we know little about the progress made by the people of that land during the past 65 years.
HIROSHIMA – 65 YEARS LATER
DETROIT- 65 YEARS AFTER HIROSHIMA
What has caused more long term destruction – the A-bomb, or U. S. Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them? Japan does not have a welfare system.
TrueblueNZ 
12 responses to “An Email- Detroit Hiroshima Comparison”
Well, it’s not that Japan is without its debt- and economic problems, but at least they got something to show for it, instead of having it all pissed on Budweiser and hot dogs.
The real difference is of course one of general culture, on the one hand humility and productivity, on the other excessive, brash and loud mouthed consumption.
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Detroit is the poster child of the American left. Leftist policy has ruled there for decades and it has returned nothing, but a ruin. The left made promises it couldn’t keep, spent money it shouldn’t have, and shellacked the rich to bring about the worker’s paradise that is Detroit.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why when somebody identifies themselves as being a part of the left, their audience doesn’t run away as fast as they can. If you need more proof of the titanic incompetence of these buffoons all you need to do is look at the American Congressional record and that of President Obama to see that death and destruction oozes from the pores of these lunatics.
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“death and destruction oozes from the pores of these lunatics”
And one can always go back to “road to serfdom” to read a well-reasoned and logical expose, why that is the case, and we are witnessing again the inevitable milestones along that road. Here in NZ the ChCH “emergency response” is a case in point, never let a crisis go to waste and use it to extend the greedy claws of totalitarian socialism.
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The bottom nighttime photo (with the Ferris wheel) is actually Yokohama. But for all intents and purposes, it could be Hiroshima.
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Priceless !!
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Here’s a must read on this topic for those interested: http://mises.org/daily/5170/The-Myth-of-Japans-Lost-Decades
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A very interesting read – The Myth of Japans Lost Decades – Bez. I’m no economist, but it seems to me that perhaps many Western nations would be better modelling their economies on that of Japan than adhering to our current course[s].
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Yes, you’ll have noted that a main issue was that they restricted the growth of money supply. In other words, another proof of Austrian economics over the Keynesian model.
To my mind another important factor is the cultural one, which can also be observed on how they deal with the recent disaster(s). They appear to be a rather disciplined lot, certainly as compared with cultures like the US and NZ. It’d be interesting to have some details on immigration, cultural diversity and such over there.
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Bez, you certainly don’t get the impression that Japan has our (the West’s) problems with “multiculturalism” where we allow an “undesirable immigrant” sub-class to enter our borders. Their immigrants seem to be productive and assimilate, at least to some degree, into their culture/society.
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Well Kris, that’s what I meant, it would be interesting to have some comparison in that respect. I’d guess there would be studies that have compared economic determinants with multi culturalism and the level of assimilation of immigrant groups, but that topic is outside my field.
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This came in from a friend of mine:
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For 15 years, from the mid 1970’s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan .
I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs, and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses, and school yards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it, and ignored it. Tens of thousands, and then hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing, and food stamps!
With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10, and in one case, one woman birthed 24 children as reported by the Detroit Free Press, all on American taxpayer dollars.
A new child meant a new car payment, new TV, and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ flourish in Detroit . If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.
Mayor Coleman Young , perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees… He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence, and arrogance. As a black man, he said, “I am the MFIC.” The IC meant “in charge”.
You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.
As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state.
Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit . As the whites moved out, the Muslims moved in.
As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. Detroit suffers so much shoplifting that grocery stores no longer operate in many inner city locations. You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife!
Detroit may be one of our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike, and total separation from America .
Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan , paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money. High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June, according to NBC’s Brian Williams .
Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing.
Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city. In Time Magazine’s October 4, 2009, “The Tragedy of Detroit: How a great city fell, and how it can rise again,” I choked on the writer’s description of what happened. “If Detroit had been ravaged by a hurricane, and submerged by a ravenous flood, we’d know a lot more about it,” said Daniel Okrent. “If drought, and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we’d see it on the evening news every night.”
Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it, if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.
But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th, and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country.
Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision making.
As Coleman Young’s corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kick backs, and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city’s death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit .
“By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit ‘s treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services,” Okrent said. “The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers’ union to reject a philanthropist’s offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership.
The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit , the unemployment rate is 28.9%.
That’s worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.”
At the end of Okrent’s report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, “That’s because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city’s collapse, it’s also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can’t find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?”
As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner’s book, “$20 Per = Gallon”, the auto industry won’t come back. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit , thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America . If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit. Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs.
You have already seen it in Madrid, Spain ; London, England and Paris, France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights, and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers, and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying. Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country, and way of life.
I PRAY EVERYONE THAT READS THIS REALIZES THAT IF WE DON’T STAND UP, AND SCREAM AT WASHINGTON , AND OUR STATE, CITY, AND LOCAL LEADERS THIS IS WHAT AWAITS THE REST OF AMERICA . IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS AT ALL YOU KNOW THIS HAS HAPPENED IN ENGLAND , AND FRANCE AND SPAIN .
IF YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOOEY AND YOU FEEL NO DUTY TO FIGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY, THEN I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR YOU TO STAND AND FIGHT.
Will someone please tell me what the HELL’s wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!! We’re “broke” & can’t help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc ????????? Congress can give themselves raises but NO COLA for all of us on Social Security !
In the past months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey, and now Pakistan …..home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS !!
Our retired seniors living on a ‘fixed income’ receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$’s and Tons of Food to foreign Countries!
We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room = for the adoption of foreign orphans.
AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without ‘needed’ meds, and mentally ill without treatment etc, etc.
YET…………………they have a ‘Benefit’ for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships
and planes lining up with food, water , tents, clothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies.
Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave ‘US’ the same support they give to other countries.
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Yikes, that’s powerful first hand observations right there.
My I vote to put this comment up as a post?
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