By Lynn Stuart Parramore
March 3, 2014
| When the city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in July
2013, America sucked in a collective gasp. This was the largest
municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history by the amount of debt
($18–20 billion), and Detroit was the largest city ever to officially go
bust.
A few months before the bankruptcy, the state of Michigan
appointed an emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to sort things out in Motor
City. Orr was given extraordinary powers to rewrite contracts and
liquidate some of the city’s most valuable assets. The burning question:
Who would be responsible for the enormous debt? Soon enough it became
clear that the folks who would be asked to take the hit were not those
who created the problems. Just as in so many other parts of the world in
the wake of the 2007-'08 financial meltdown, innocent people who did
nothing but get up every day and go to work would be asked to pay the
bill.
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