The Burning Platform

While the stock market in the US continues to surge (if not so much in China where the composite is back to 2009 lows) as the relentless liquidity tsunami makes its way into stocks, and other Fed frontrunning instruments, and only there, reality for everyone else refuses to wait. Last week we saw reality striking in Greece, where a section of Athens literally shut down after it ran out of all cash. Today, reality comes to the US, and specifically its poorest city, Camden, which is a twofer, doubling down also as America’s deadliest city. It turns out Camden is about to become even deadliest-er, as its police force is set to be disbanded following a budget crisis in this effectively insolvent city.

AP reports:

This city, long among the nation’s poorest and most crime-ridden, is on the verge of dismantling its police department and starting anew with a force run by the county government.

 

City officials are making the move to increase the number of officers while keeping the cost the same by averting rules negotiated with a union that city officials have seen as unwilling to compromise.

 

Unless the union – which is skeptical of the stated motivations for the change – reaches a deal with the county, no more than 49 per cent of the city’s current officers could join the new force and those that do will get pay cuts.

 

John Wilson, a 57-year-old unemployed baker who’s lived in the city his whole life, thinks it’s worth a try.

 

‘The police in Camden clearly haven’t been doing their job,’ he said last week as he walked to his home in the Parkside neighborhood, which has seen six homicides since the start of 2011.

 

‘Any change has to be better. It can’t get worse now.’

Oh yes it can. Here’s why:

Officials say there are about 170 drug markets operating in this city of 77,000 near Philadelphia, more than 700 people on parole and 600 registered sex offenders.

 

The murder rate is unthinkably high. In 2007, Newark attracted national attention for a record number of homicides.

 

As of Friday, there had been 47 murders this year. The city record of 58 was set in 1995.

One can only hope this is not a harbinger of what is coming to all American cash flow, not money dilution ability, ends. Sadly, for Camden there is no more hope.

The city has the nation’s highest poverty rate with more than two residents in five living in poverty, census data show.

 

The big factories that once made Camden an industrial boomtown have been gone for a generation.

 

Over the past decade, revitalization efforts focused on expanding hospitals and universities, which brought some life to downtown but had a less discernible effect on neighborhoods where even the best-kept blocks have abandoned homes.

 

The city expects only $25 million of its $150 million next proposed budget to come from property taxes. Most of the rest is supplied by state aid – and that’s declining.

Think massive ECB bailouts, which in the US are far more streamlined. As for the local residents who still are paying property taxes, it may be prudent to just take your real estate losses and move on. Or else…

In January 2011, the city government conducted massive layoffs, including nearly half the police department and about one-third of the firefighters.

 

Since then, all the laid-off public safety workers have been called back, but their numbers have fallen through attrition.

 

Now, there are 270 police officers, down from 450 in 2005 and 368 the day before the layoffs.

 

Police Chief Scott Thomson, who is slated to lead the Camden County Police Department’s Metro Division, points to crime statistics for the two years before the layoffs that showed the crime declining.

 

He says it’s because of intensive community policing efforts that came about when detectives were reassigned from desk jobs to patrols and the force was able to be more proactive.

 

With the smaller force, he said, walking and biking beats are used more sparingly.

In the meantime, the local cops are all preparing to bail as entitlement funding runs out

The Fraternal Order of Police lodge that represents Camden’s rank-and-file officers is upset that they have not been presented with a formal plan.

 

Cappelli says officers in the new department would have base salaries that are the same or higher than what they make now – ranging from $31,000 for a rookie to about $80,000.

 

Officers’ health insurance contributions would increase, and officers would also lose longevity and shift differential payments that combined can boost their pay up to 22 per cent.

 

The plan is to start hiring for the new force in October and have a mix of city and county police patrol the city during a training period before shutting down the city department sometime in the first few months of 2013.

The plan will not work. Good luck Camden: you will need it in your transformation to the first circle of US hell, soon to be joined by many more.

And here are some pictures of just what Dante would see in his modern descent into America.

Shocking crimes: A Camden police officer stands in the doorway of a home on August 22 in New Jersey’s most impoverished city, where authorities say a 2-year-old boy was decapitated, apparently by his mother

Fight: A supporter of the Camden Police Department speaks during a hearing before the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee, in Trenton

Forces dwindling: There are now 270 police officers in Camden, down from 450 in 2005 and 368 the day before the layoffs

Run down: Crack houses have sprung up amid the boarded-up factories and burned out houses in Camden

 

Abject poverty: The unemployment rate in Camden skyrocketed from less than 9 per cent to more than 20 per cent during the recession

Gone: Camden police officers will lose their jobs at the end of the year when the department is disbanded

 

Decay: The Camden police have struggled to keep up with the soaring murder rate, amid layoffs and budget cuts

Decay: Soaring unemployment and the flight of thousands of city residents has resulted in urban blight spreading across the city

Run-down: Residents look out over the gutter city where almost half of people are unemployed

 

 

 

MOST DANGEROUS CITIES: Camden, St. Louis, Oakland, Detroit, Flint; You Know, ALL Those Cities Run By Republicans… lol

 

Did a ‘National Endowment of the Arts’ $40,000,000,000 ‘earmark’ go to Camden NJ for this gorgeous project? How are those free market principles working out in Camden? We’re sure that MOST of the kids in Camden have strict parents who are still married and go to church on Sundays..Nation’s most dangerous city: Camden tops the list again. The top 5 most dangerous cities have Mayors who are democrats. We’re willing to bet that most, if not all of the top 20 are all run by democrats. (Get on that for us liberals, so you can justify feeling better that we might be wrong on something so irrelevant.)The annual ranking of the most dangerous cities in the nation has again listed Camden as the worst. (We can fix this problem. Give ALL law abiding citizens in Camden, all 12,000 of them, guns! Guns, guns, guns! Then elect conservatives and watch the magic that happens within ONE year..)

The annual rankings from CQ Press are based on FBI-compiled crime data and population figures for 2008. Some criminologists say the methodology is unfair.
Camden is no stranger to the top of the list. It was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004 and is consistently in the top 10. The bad ranking comes during a year when the number of murders in Camden has dropped amid major changes to the police department.

A daily occurrence in Camden N.J. That taxpayer funded free smoke detector program is really working out. That would fall under personal responsibility wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, with Obama and Pelosi’s future ‘Universal Home Owners Insurance’ bill, YOU will someday be responsible for paying for this house IF the democrats get their way. ‘Fire up those kerosene heaters!’ With ‘cap and trade’ causing heating bills to ‘skyrocket’ as Obama said, look for residents to start using fire pits in their living rooms…

(Story continued)

The study found Camden had more than 2,300 violent crimes for every 10,000 residents last year.

St. Louis, Oakland, Calif., Detroit and Flint, Mich., round out the top five.

Is this one of Valerie Jarrett’s buildings in Chicago? Oh, no, wait, it’s an apartment building in Detroit. With Fannie, Freddie and ACORN, you too can purchase a studio with no money down with a ‘NINJA’ loan; no income, no job and no assets..

WHAT’S UP WITH CAMDEN NJ?

Camden is a socialistic welfare community in New Jersey, and the largest “cost-center” east of the Mississippi. Because almost half of the residents live in poverty, Camden’s inhabitants have realized the only way they have any hope of being successful in life is by adopting the ideals of Stalinist Communism. The majority of Camden’s residents are Hispanic or Black. Camden is also one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. If you don’t believe it, then just take a stroll through downtown Camden and count how many needles and stray bullets you find lining the city streets.

This grotesque and dilapidated city lies across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, but I wouldn’t advise going in the river since you’ll come across a number of dead bodies on the Camden side.

In the early 20th century, Camden was actually not such a bad place, and was the home of major corporations such as RCA and Campbell Soup, but is now the huge mess it currently is because the last remaining conservatives fled for the more prosperous cities of South Jersey, or even North Philadelphia. Camden is one of the few parts of the United States without a Republican Party. Because of this, the Democratic Party is virtually guaranteed to win every election. They’re doing one heck of a job, aren’t they?

‘ATTENTION LIBERALS’ WILL YOU PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE ‘HOMOPHOBIA’ IN THE CITY OF CAMDEN? (You know, that city that votes 100% democrat.)

ALL LIBERALS ARE TO REPORT TO THE WORST NEIGHBORHOOD IN CAMDEN AT AROUND 11:30 PM ON A FRIDAY NIGHT AND PROTEST DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACK LESBIANS.

Rachael Maddow can come too, since liberals like Maddow might think that the American people would rather NOT hear insults being hurled at a former Governor who has a kid with down syndrome, compared to a report on ‘ghetto-homophobia.’

All these tax eaters, brand new cars, no jobs and a good ole ass whoopin! Chalk up a victory for the lesbians here, as the straight black female ‘right wing republican’ homophobe chick (we’re kidding) with the big mouth that started all this, got her ASS kicked by the lesbian with the really bad weave..don’t sweat it baby, sing a song…

“To all the women in Camden…. who always seek that drama….you’re just a baby’s mama…who voted for Barack Obama…Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm…”