底特律破产是彻底的失败

    7月18日下午，美国底特律市递交破产申请。它不仅是一场大规模的财务危机，也不是单纯的一个里程碑式的时刻，标志着美国历史上最大的城市破产案诞生。它也是一次彻底的失败。

    底特律破产有着深层次的含义。这里曾经感知着美国的经济荣衰，是推动美国世纪实现的经济引擎。这里曾经飞扬着非洲裔美国人的骄傲，也曾是数不清的美国梦诞生的地方。

    底特律紧急财务管理人凯文•奥尔最终迈出这一步，向联邦法院申请Chapter 9破产保护，这个举动其实并不意外。这样的结果至少已经酝酿了两年，有些人估计时间可能更早。这样的结果也是我们许多人悲观地等待了很久的结局。

    通用汽车(General Motors)以前的管理者们可以作证。即便是这家世界最大的汽车制造商也不能拿着糟糕的业绩无休止地借钱，也不能在各项财务指标都显示偿债无望时，还指望债权人继续不断地提供资金。2008年底信贷市场下跌时，通用汽车陷入了负债过高的问题。债权人拒绝为通用汽车提供债务再融资。

    与此同时，几十年来底特律也一步步走上了债务泥沼的不归路：民选官员犹犹豫豫，遮遮掩掩，百般辩解，却没有采取严厉措施来填补财政缺口。事实上，这个城市的财务负债正是由那些本应解决这些问题的人们造成的：一届又一届的政府向城市工人们承诺根本不可持续的薪资、就业和养老金。

    民选官员们为什么要做出这些承诺？因为他们可能从不担心将来需要为这些承诺负责。他们或许是对的，他们中很多人已经去世或退休。

    在任官员无人能逆转公共服务的滑坡，比如治安和消防保障、急诊服务、交通和照明等等。20世纪80年代以来，已有几十万居民失望离开，留下70万人承担后果。现在继续留守在这个城市的人们将得不到应有的基础城市服务，应有的治安和消防保障，以及应有的急诊服务。

    不能将底特律前市长柯温•基尔帕特里克和市议会前议长莫妮卡•康耶尔等人视为是底特律破产的主因，虽然他们的确干得不怎么样。

    现任市长戴夫•宾竭尽全力——这一点值得肯定——削减预算，与市政员工工会理论，但他的努力遇到市议会的阻挠。市议会似乎永远也不明白，也没有被他们也有份的、糟糕财务报表所触动。这里只举一个例子：百丽岛是底特律河上的一颗明珠，曾经有一项方案希望免除底特律继续支付维护百丽岛的费用。结果方案最终被市议会否决，因为他们不知道是出于什么原因，认为把百丽岛交出去，变成密歇根州的州级公园是底特律的耻辱。

    The bankruptcy filing on the afternoon of July 18 by the city of Detroit isn't just a massive financial implosion. Nor is it simply a milestone moment, the biggest municipal collapse ever in U.S. history. It is an utter defeat.

    Detroit's bankruptcy is a profound failure for a place where once beat the heart of this country, where the economic engine of the American Century roared to life, where a banner of African-American empowerment flew, where the middle class came to know itself, and where timeless aspects of the American Dream were born.

    No one should be shocked that Kevyn Orr, Detroit's emergency financial manager, finally took the step of petitioning the federal court for Chapter 9 protection from creditors. This outcome has been at least two years in the making and, by some reckoning, much longer than that. This is the bottom many of us have been gloomily waiting for.

    As former General Motors (GM) executives can testify, even the world's biggest automaker can't borrow endlessly against faltering performance and expect creditors to keep furnishing money -- when every financial indicator shows that repayment is impossible. GM got caught with too much debt in late 2008 when credit markets went south. Lenders balked at refinancing GM's debt.

    Detroit, meanwhile, stumbled over a period of decades into irreversible insolvency because its elected officials dithered and dissembled and argued, instead of undertaking tough measures to close fiscal gaps. In truth, the city's financial liabilities were created by the very people who should have been resolving them: One administration after another promised wages, job guarantees, and pensions to city workers that were simply unsustainable.

    Why did elected officials make those promises? Probably because they never feared being held accountable. Many of them, dead or retired, will have been correct.

    And no one in office was able to reverse the decline of public services such as police and fire protection, emergency medical, transportation, and lighting. Since the 1980s, a few hundred thousand residents threw in the towel and moved away, leaving the 700,000 remaining to bear the brunt. Now those who remained will not get the basic city services they deserve, the police and fire protection they deserve, or the emergency medical care they deserve.

    The criminality of ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and ex-council president Monica Conyers and others, though disgraceful, can't really be blamed as a key factor in the city's failure.

    The current mayor, Dave Bing, labored mightily -- to his credit -- to slash budgets and reason with public employee unions, only to watch his efforts undermined by a city council that seemed never to comprehend or be moved by the horrific financial statements they were party to. Just one example: A deal to relieve the city of the expense of maintaining Belle Isle -- a jewel in the middle of the Detroit River -- was shot down because the council somehow viewed its transformation into a state park as an insult, a stain on the city's pride.