With the continued low price of oil, is it possible that Anchorage will enter the list of cities that will have an emergency manager “austerity enforcer” like Detroit had? Or maybe Anchorage will have a financial review commission to reject spending and borrowing instead of democratically elected leadership. Don’t laugh, it could happen here.
What is happening in Detroit will occur all across our nation if we continue deindustrialization and the decades long decline in infrastructure.
The problem is that the policies to stop this process are not given a platform for discussion. Extracting financial derivatives out of our commercial banking system using the old Glass-Steagall Act, a 15% trade tariff, a 1% Wall Street sales tax, and the sale of state, municipal and port authority infrastructure bonds to a new Federal Reserve discount window will act together to create a new era in economic development.
Instead of discussing these solutions the dominant discussion is restricted to budget cutting. Will Anchorage go the way of Detroit? That depends on the quality of our discussions.
