The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Surprise:
Detroit Has a Pension “Shortfall”

Feb 29, 2016

Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan, announced that the city pension plans are short 490 million dollars. His incredible explanation was this: the “experts” working on the bankruptcy who looked at the books miscalculated, based on old formulas. Old formulas!

He didn’t explain why his “experts”–who were around at the time of the bankruptcy–didn’t catch this “mistake” until now.

But don’t worry. He says the city will deal with it. It will cover all the loss. He even goes so far as to say, “we’re not asking anybody for a bailout. This isn’t a problem of our own making, but we’re going to manage it.”

Great, if he had proposed to manage by getting the money from the people who got it from the city–the bankers and the financial speculators who made out like bandits during the bankruptcy proceedings.

But no–“we’ll manage it,” means that Duggan intends to cut back on city services, on roads, on lighting, and above all, on wages paid to city workers. And pensions.

It’s the same old, same old–and will be the same right on up to the day that city workers and city residents stuff the politicians’ words back down their lying throats.