Golden Arches and Broken Dreams American Cities Drown in Debt

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/debts-trigger-rapid-decline-of-american-cities-a-875468.html


The first McDonald's restaurant, founded in 1948 in San Bernardino, California, went from being a hamburger joint to a global giant. But the city has gone from fostering dreams to drowning in debt.

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On August 1, 2012, San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy. Today this city, located an hour's drive east of Los Angeles, is one of the poorest, most violent cities in the United States. Once the setting for one of America's greatest success stories, the city can no longer even afford to pay its police officers and is rotting in its own waste.

The situation is a catastrophe for everyone who hasn't packed up and moved away. It is also representative of the bankruptcy of a country that failed to use its prosperous decades to sustain a functioning government. Funds are short at all levels, from Washington to the states to the cities and towns. The US is no longer investing in its infrastructure, weakening the foundation that gives all Americans a chance to have a piece of the American Dream.

San Bernardino was the third city in California to declare bankruptcy last year. First came Stockton, in June, followed by the ski town Mammoth Lakes. The majority of American cities are deep in debt, and unlike the federal government, they have limits to the amount of money they can borrow. Their residents are feeling the effects.

Analyst Meredith Whitney, who predicted the fates of Citigroup and Lehman Brothers, warned in late 2010 that the collapse of America's cities and towns was coming. Up to 100 cities were at risk of going broke, she said, and their potential losses could total several hundreds of billions of dollars. This city-level debt, which amounts to a total of $2 trillion (€1.5 trillion), is still less than the $16 trillion debt the federal government in Washington has amassed. But the crisis is leading to considerable reductions in services.

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1. Destroy the Cities

and destroy the Democratic voter base.

The GOP would love to have California locked-up. All they have to do is shift the demographics around a bit.