Embezzlement in Detroit Government? Let's Hear Specifics

I just read every comment on the original. Not one person mentioned theft or embezzlement! I think you're reading into the comments things that aren't there. People mentioned corruption over and over, but no one said theft or embezzlement.

Go do a word search through that page and you'll see the only time those words come up are in your comments, Darrell

Darrell - you wrote....

"But I do want to know which instances of outright municipal theft you are referring to if you're contending that Detroit doesn't need a bailout because the politicians would just steal the money"

It seemed from that statement that you were saying the commenters were making false and baseless references and contentions.

I see what you're saying now. But I don't think there needs to be outright embezzlement or theft anyway to justify the readers abhorrence at the thought of giving the Detroit government any money that has been collected from taxpayers outside of Detroit. The corruption and incompetence is quite enough for people to have misgivings, and indeed, horror at the thought.

One definition I found of corruption is "use of a position of trust for dishonest gain." Corruption isn't just taking money from taxpayers. It are acts which are done for personal, rather than public, gain. So taking bribes is corruption. Taking trips and perks from companies trying to get their hands on your pension dollars is corruption. Putting your buddies and family members in positions not warranted is corruption. (Note that these all happened.)

I would imagine that physically "taking from the till" would be rather rare because it's obvious thievery. Other, less obvious acts, are easily rationalized by the one who commits the act. And maybe in an isolated instance may be tolerable. If someone hired their brother to run the water department, and their brother had the experience to do that, then that could be a fair move.

There is an accumulation of events that get us fed up with this. I prefer to just work around the city to get done what needs to get done. Unfortunately you need a group of City employees to say "enough is enough." One here or there won't change anything. It is sad.

One could argue that not accomplishing anything is a form of stealing. If you were being paid by Time, Inc. to write articles but you sat around playing video games, you would not technically be doing anything illegal, but you would practically be stealing from your employer.

To switch your question around, lets see if we can specifically say anything positive the city government has done in the last ten years. I think we could list a handful of specifics, but really, how many between Archer and Bing?

While it's not a specific charge of corruption - the Detroit City Council incumbents as well as candidates in the upcoming elections are collectively about as fiscally responsible as a My Super Sweet 16 profile on MTV. For them to suggest that they would know what to do with several billion dollars of taxpayer money is laughable. The Detroit New from two days ago as proof = http://www.detnews.com/article/20091027/METRO01/910270351/Detroit-council-candidates-face-foreclosures--debts In this economy and the metro Detroit area specifically, a foreclosure shouldn't be seen as solely the act of a deadbeat. That being said - The sitting Detroit City Council is NOT unemployed and for them to mismanage their own funds leads me to think they would have just as hard a time managing the cities. My feeling is that I would never invest with someone who doesn't already have millions because if they can't make money for themselves, how will they make money for me. In Detroit the mismanagement of the elected officials personal lives certainly calls into question their handling of the cities.

I would think that it is "taking money from tax payers" if you steer contracts to your buddies when some other contractor would charge less. I've seen that happen (often) in a place I used to work. If Contractor A is qualified and bids $100,000 for a project, and Contractor B is qualified and also a buddy to a politician in a position to influence the selection of the contractor, and bids $150,000, and they go with Contractor B, then the politician is guilty of cheating the taxpayers out of $50,000.

I haven't followed Detroit politics closely enough since moving away in 1982 to come up with specific cases, but I wanted to give my Two Cents on how narrowly you are defining "corruption."

Everything where I live is done on the "Good Old Boy" system and I know for a certain fact that much of it is indeed corrupt and injust, even when no specific amount of money is taken directly from the taxpayers.