- Whoever had July 18 in the “When will Detroit go bankrupt
pool,” you’re a winner. The inevitable became official Thursday afternoon when the Motor City
became the nation's largest public sector bankruptcy. The potential fallout is
immense and could cause a slash in pension benefits to city workers and
retirees, and leave bond holders with only pennies on the dollar. Emergency Manager
Kevyn Orr filed for bankruptcy and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder approved the
measure. Snyder explained that the financial condition of the city left him no
choice because Detroit could not meet its obligation to either its citizens or
its creditors. "The only feasible path to ensuring the city will be able
to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the
bankruptcy process," Snyder said in the letter authorizing the filing. Public
employee unions are expected to fight the move, but Orr already halted payments on about $2 billion in
debt last month. At the time, he said the city needed to preserve its dwindling
supply of cash. At present, the city faces total liabilities of about $18
billion and anyone who has been to Detroit knows the city has nowhere close to
that amount in assets. Under Orr’s restructuring plan, the city would cut $11.5
billion in debt down to $2 billion. For those slow at math, that means investors
and retirees would receive an average of just 17 percent of what they are owed.
It would be the first time a municipal bankruptcy has ever led to a cut in
retirees’ pensions. The resulting court fight could take yes and cost even more
money that no one involved actually has. When employees of a bankrupt business
lose their pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Co. provides a minimal level
of benefits. That doesn’t apply to the public sector. Snyder spokeswoman Sara
Wurfel explained that the governor did not take the decision to approve the
bankruptcy move lightly. "This has been a huge problem for decades and
it's come to a crisis point," she said. "The emergency manager tried
to work with all the creditors, including pensioners." On the bright side,
Detroit's population has fallen 28 percent since 2000 and at this rate, pretty
soon there won’t be anyone left for the city to screw over………
- Documentaries typically do not fall on the sunny side of
the cinematic ledger. Gabriela Cowperthwaite is proving that fact all over again with her documentary
"Blackfish." The movie was originally conceived without a point of
view as Cowperthwaite set out to answer the question of why a top trainer at
SeaWorld became the victim of the killer whale with which she worked and
performed. Her film eventually morphed into a critical look at the consequences
of keeping killer whales in captivity. The resulting project hits theaters this
weekend and has already led to severe backlash from SeaWorld, which has
launched its own campaign against the movie. Officials for the park chain accused
the film of painting "a distorted picture" of its facility, calling
it "inaccurate and misleading," as well as exploiting "a tragedy
that remains a source of deep pain for Dawn Brancheau's family, friends and
colleagues." The subject of the movie, Brancheau, was killed in 2010 by
the great orca, Tilikum, at SeaWorld in Orlando. Her autopsy revealed she died
of drowning and blunt force trauma. "Blackfish" follows the life of
Tilikum, who has been performing for 30 years since he was captured in 1983
around the age of 2. Cowperthwaite insists she is no whale-hugging liberal. "I
don't come from animal activism - I am a mother who took her kids to
SeaWorld," she said. "I thought (the Brancheau) incident was a
one-off. In my mind, I was going to make a larger philosophical film about
human beings and our relationships with our animal counterparts." Her
planned course of filming took an unplanned left turn when she discovered that
Brancheau's death was not an isolated incident, and that Tilikum was involved
in two other deaths since 1991. Cowperthwaite interviwed many of Brancheau’s
colleagues and also offered SeaWorld a chance to tell its side of the story. It
refused, but seems eager to speak up now that it is about to be exposed on the
big screen………
- No one respects international criminal warrants these
days. If they did, the president of Sudan would not have been allowed to leave
a conference in Nigeria, despite the International Criminal Court calling for
his "immediate arrest" on charges of genocide and war crimes. Omar
al-Bashir is accused of five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of
war crimes and three counts of genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zagawa
tribes in Darfur presiding over a regime that has seen
200,000 people killed. Two arrests have issued for al-Bashir’s arrest, but the
former army brigadier who came to power in 1989 after leading a bloodless
military coup has ignored both. Several African nations, including South
Africa, Kenya and Malawi, have threatened to act on the warrant, but
Nigeria allowed him to attend Monday's one-day African Union HIV/Aids
summit. Its decision was based on a 2009 vote by African Union states not to
cooperate with ICC indictments. Africa typically despises the ICC because many
nations believe it is biased against the continent. Bashir's press secretary
and his Nigerian hosts denied reports that he ducked out of the conference
early amidst the controversy. "President Bashir returned normally to
Khartoum after participating in the summit in Abuja to resume his work,"
said spokesperson Emad Said. The ICC pointed out that it could refer the
Nigerian government to the U.N. Security Council for failing to execute an
order of the court and a spokesman said a report would be written and the
judges would ultimately decide on the appropriate course of action. Nigeria has
a contentious history with the court, having been forced to hand over former
Liberian president Charles Taylor, the warlord who began Sudan's devastating
civil war in 1989 and hid in Nigeria because it promised him a safe haven if he
resigned……..
- The Internet is a crowded place. Website names and domains
are being snapped up at an alarming rate and the options are running out for
those looking to build the website of their dreams. That’s why back in January,
the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) allowed businesses to submit applications
for newly suggested generic top-level domains (like .com, .net, etc.) as long
as they paid the $185,000 application fee. There were plenty of applications,
including one kook who ponied up $185,000 to submit .africamagic for
approval. Six months later, the results of that process have been revealed and ICANN
has officially unveiled four new gTLDs. The good news for Americans is that
none of these new domain enders are in English. They're all in either Arabic,
Chinese or Russian for simple words like "game" or "web" or
"online." That’s good news because Americans don’t know or care about
much that goes on beyond their borders, although it could also be bad news
because it might be a sign that the digital world is passing the United States
by. The lack of new English domain-ending handles was not for lack of trying,
as the world's largest online retailer, Amazon.com sumbitted .amazon for
approval, only to have it rejected due to the fact that it is also the name of
the world's second biggest river that runs through South America. The
bureaucrats on ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee recommended that
geographical regions deserve the gTLD over businesses with the same name. Way
to be, you tree-hugging fools. Patagonia faced the same issue and rather than
fight, it withdrew its application for .patagonia after realizing that
it would most likely not receive approval……..
- Mark Cuban is working hard to talk himself into his team
being better off without Dwight Howard. The Dallas Mavericks whiffed on signing
the biggest prize on the free-agent market and Howard instead signed with their
in-state rival, the Houston Rockets. Their bombastic owner is of the opinion
that the Mavs are better off the way things turned out. "I think we've put ourselves in a spot where we're in a better
spot than we were at if we got just the one max-out deal," Cuban said. "I
think it'd be better shorter and longer term. I don't want to make that sound
the wrong way. I think we'll be better this year because we added five good
players or more." If those comments sound familiar, it’s because Cuban
read from virtually the same script last summer when point guard Deron Williams
decided to re-sign with the Brooklyn Nets after the Mavs had recruited him and
Cuban failed to show up for the meeting with Williams because he was in Los
Angeles taping his reality show. Dallas went 41-41 in 2012-13, while Brooklyn
made the playoffs, so those comments seem inaccurate. The Rockets are far from
the favorites to win the NBA title next year even with Howard, but the Mavs
clearly wanted him and were on of five teams to meet in Los Angeles with him.
The team even admitted he was their Plan A for the summer even though it would
have had to make at least one significant roster adjustment, likely trading
Shawn Marion or Vince Carter, to carve out the salary-cap space necessary to
sign Howard to a four-year, $87.6 million contract. Cuban stripped his team
down after winning a title in 2011 and Howard was the last big-name free agent
to hit the market in the window that followed. He, Williams and Chris Paul were
all expected to be free agents in the summer of 2012, but Howard and Paul
didn't exercise their rights to opt out of their contracts last year and were
traded to the two Los Angeles teams. Dallas got neither of them this summer
when they did come free and clear and now, Cuban is in spin mode. "Obviously
we didn't get Dwight," Cuban said. "We took a chance, and it didn't
happen. I think we put together a really good team. It sticks within the
culture we've tried to define. We've dealt with some of the weaknesses we had
from last year. Hopefully if we stay healthy, good things will happen."
Dealing with weaknesses meant signing so-so point guard Jose Calderdon,
poor-shooting gunner Monta Ellis and offensively-challenged center Samuel
Dalambert. Sounds like someone is trying to spin a pu-pu platter into filet
mignon…….
No comments:
Post a Comment