Is Detroit destined to become a Chinese city? Chinese homebuyers and Chinese businesses are starting to flood into the Motor City, and the governor of Michigan is greatly encouraging this. In fact, he has formally asked the Obama administration for 50,000 special federal immigration visas to encourage even more immigration from China and elsewhere. So will Detroit be the first major city in the United States to be dominated by China? It could happen. Once upon a time, Detroit was the greatest manufacturing city in the history of the world and it had the highest per capita income in the entire country. But now it is a rotting, decaying, bankrupt hellhole that is in desperate need of a savior, and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appears to be fully convinced that China can be that savior.
To Snyder, encouraging foreigners to invest money and buy up properties won't cost the state government much, but it could potentially have great benefits...
Under a plan to be unveiled Thursday, Gov. Rick Snyder will request 50,000 special federal immigration visas over the next five years to attract foreign professionals who are willing to work and live in the city.
Mr. Snyder, in an interview Wednesday, said that “this is one way for the federal government to step up to provide significant value without cost that could have a huge impact on the city’s future.”
At a news conference announcing his plan, Snyder was not shy about declaring his intentions...
"Let's send a message to the entire world: Detroit, Michigan, is open to the world."
In other words, Snyder wants China to save Detroit since nobody in this country is going to.
Snyder has also taken a couple of additional steps to encourage immigration and foreign investment, including opening up something called "an Office for New Americans"...
Opening an Office for New Americans to attract and help immigrants better adjust to life in Michigan, and designating the state as an Employer Based or EB-5 center to expedite visas and permits for immigrants who want to open business in the state with investments of at least $500,000 and 10 employees.
In essence, Snyder has done just about everything except roll out the welcome mat for the Chinese.
But this is nothing new for Governor Snyder. In fact, he has been making overtures to China for years...
Snyder, who was a businessman before starting his political career, believes that automobiles can no longer change the fate of Detroit. He said that he has learned from the history of the United States that what has made the nation great is immigrants.
In the early 1990s, Snyder went to China to develop the automobile market. After he was elected as the governor of Michigan, he made at least one trip to China every year, with the aim of recruiting talent.
He hopes that well-educated Chinese people can revitalize the Motor City in the new era. And as he desired, after Detroit announced its bankruptcy in 2013, the Chinese began to take the dying city by storm.
Rich Chinese men see Detroit as a rare opportunity for investment outside their home country.
In 2013, without any field investigation, Dongdu International Group of Shanghai — whose assets total 5 billion yuan (US$800 million) — spent US$13.6 million to buy the David Stott building and the Detroit Free Press building at auctions in September.
And when we talk about the Chinese domination of Detroit, this is not something that is just future tense. This is something that is already happening right now. For example, the following is an excerpt from a CNBC article that discussed how Chinese companies are already aggressively "putting down roots in Detroit"…
Dozens of companies from China are putting down roots in Detroit, part of the country’s steady push into the American auto industry.
Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology, selling everything from seat belts to shock absorbers in retail stores, and hiring experienced engineers and designers in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers.
The transformation that has taken place in that region of the country is absolutely remarkable.
48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost between December 2000 and December 2010. Our trade deficit with China was largely responsible for that.
And now we are relying on China to come in and salvage the ruins of our gutted economic infrastructure.
Not only that, but the Chinese are also eagerly buying up homes at extremely depressed prices all over Detroit.
According to CNN, Detroit is already number four on the list of the top 10 destinations for Chinese homebuyers. In many cases, Chinese buyers are scooping up properties without even looking at them first. Just check out what one Detroit real estate broker told Quartz last July...
“I have people calling and saying, ‘I’m serious—I wanna buy 100, 200 properties,’” she tells Quartz, noting that one of her colleagues recently sold 30 properties to a Chinese buyer. “They say ‘We don’t need to see them. Just pick the good ones.’”
And they aren't just interested in Detroit. As I have written about previously, one Chinese company known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" actually had plans to buy 200 acres of land near the little town of Milan, Michigan and turn it into a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. For much more on how Chinese buyers are gobbling up real estate all over the nation, please see my previous article entitled "The Chinese Are Acquiring Large Chunks Of Land In Communities All Over America".
All of this is just another indication of how rapidly the global economic landscape is changing.
Since the late 19th Century, the United States has been the most dominant economic power in the world.
But now that reign is ending.
Just recently, a new study released by the World Bank indicated that China is now the largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power...
A report out of the World Bank shows rapidly expanding China is poised to overtake the once invincible United States as the world's largest economy by the end of 2014.
The International Comparison Program looks at exchange rates to reveal purchasing power of different currencies and found that yuan in China will soon pack more punch than the mighty dollar.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials bashed the report as flawed, likely for fear of losing its status as a developing nation and the pollution-spewing perks that come with it.
And a couple of years ago China passed the United States and become the leader in global trade.
As the Chinese economy continues to rise and the U.S. economy continues to decline, the shift in global power is going to become even more dramatic.
Yes, let us hope for the best for our failing economy, but you also might want to teach your kids to speak Chinese just in case.
Hey, he stole my idea!
Although my idea was to relocate the Japanese who wanted off their poisoned island.
Gartman said today to "buy gold and short oil" if Obama releases the SPR. This of course shows his idiocracy, as an SPR release would drop oil minimally and only for a few days at best. World demand for oil is around 90M barrels/day and the SPR has about 5M, so it would take off a few hours of demand.
Way to be Gartman, you fucking moron.
I think I read reported capacity 720+ Million barrels crude and USA uses 18.5+ mb per day so what's that really....40 days, if it's full. Still gave you a +1 though, I laugh at the media's numbers on SPR, is it ever really full??? Do we think they're refilling reserves to max at $100+ BBL?
This is a joke am I right? Right?
Best thing that could happen to that city.
It's not really even a city anymore. Detroit makes Harlem, NY look like Fairfield, CT.
And you've been there to back up your statement, right? I didn't think so. Keep watching CNN . . . .
Chiroit, just down the road from Chiraq.
I watched the immigrants after Viet Nam starting back in the 70's. Initially, there was a lot of welfare fraud. I had a neighbor, Cambodian, who would rent their baby to new immigrants so they could "prove" they had a baby and receive AFDC monthly checks. They illegally harvested oysters out of the pacific and slaughtered whole pigs in their side of the duplex. They didn't like or trust the toilet so they removed it and shit down the hole. One day they disappeared. Curious, I wondered why they had black out blinds over the windows. I tapped on the glass. The curtain moved and opened: they were flys, solid flys blacking out the light. Whatever was in the toilet hole had produced millions of flys.
These same people, today, are likely to have PHD's or professional careers with their own children in college. They moved to exclusive neighborhoods and drive expensive SUV's.
So, the moral of your story seems to be that American society, educational opportunities, and the free market (along with its welfare systems) provide an excellent climate for intelligent, motivated people to move up in the world. Immigrants come with nothing, and their children become wealthy professionals who contribute to rather than continue to take from the social safety nets of the welfare system. Somewhere in there, the parents put a high value on having their children not only complete basic schooling but go on for advanced, professional degrees and live the American Dream.
Meanwhile, Detroit is full of people who dropped out of everything conceivable except the welfare system and will never become anything except statistics and the mothers and baby-daddys of statistics.
Sounds like some immigration might spruce things up a bit around Detroit. Also, it sounds like the welfare system only works for motivated people.
Now that is some nasty shit!
"Dominated" by China? No.
Well, haven't we really been Chinese since Nixon opened China for business back in the early 1970s?
So wasn't the United States of America the first major Chinese territory?
Do you like questions?
there is no real "we" in the sense uni-fication, unless you're referencing the "they" whose names aren't even really spoken/known, and it's a "they" that "we" are not.
then yeah, sure - "we" are all China, and every other human that has ever e-migrated to any "new frontier" for a hopefully better life. or sent the uni-formed in to de-stabilise a nationstate, then raped the resources.
good that you're remembering Nixon/China/1970's though, this is an important "echo" of those times. . .
couple more memory taps: Kissinger, oil crisis/prices.
questions rock. always ask questions.
This explains all these Chinese wife adverts.
Yeah been gettin the same deal.... guess CougarLife.com has written me off...
lol, the desire cultivated in "western" men for "eastern" women is the perfect
mix.
particularly when you think like a globalist, many decades in advance.
So, what exactly is their plan to deal with the pesky negro indigenous population problem. Build The Great Wall II?
Odd, I linethru'ed negro so as not to come off as raciss but it did not work?
the strike through feature does not work for those whom have been flagged as rascist.
/s
But I don't need - or want - a Flyed-Lice holder in my Craddyrack!
Go Hanshin Tigers!
Perhaps they have run out of space for Ghost City’s in China. Land is so cheap in Detroit they could clear the old and build a new Ghost City on top of old Detroit.
Dats all Rayciss.
Maybe we should let the Chinese buy the LA Clippers.
I remember reading that in the early 1900's Anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner said that the US will be conquered by China.
That was misdirection what he was really saying is it would be conquered by Isreal.
Da homies likes Chineez food.
Not before Les Gold makes an offer for it
I am calling BS!!! San Fran is the first Chinese city in the US.
Hi, I'm new.
This is a classic Detroit Hustle - unload the pension obligations onto the newcomers.
everyone thought Japan would collpase, then Europe, then the USA, and last, China. But now its looking like China will collapse first, then Japan, then Europe, then the USA.
but no matter who goes first - it looks like the next 30 year is a giant parade of decay, collapase, debt repudiation, contract abrogation, and ever-escalating "state" control over economic affairs :(
Detroit will have the best Chinese food soon
Outside of the Bay Area it already does and has for many years.
Never go full-whore.
Wait until they meet the Muslims.
"one Chinese company known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" actually had plans to buy 200 acres of land near the little town of Milan, Michigan and turn it into a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens."
California they are buying up. Australia, New Zealand seeing the same thing happening. The USA's White population is being replaced, by design, that is why the Immigration law was changed in 1965. America is being COLONIZED and that is just fine with the Banksters and Hollyweirdos beause they and their country: Sheldon Adelson: "Put A Big Fence Around Our Country" (Israel, That Is)
But nobody would believe you if you told them that the television, the movies, the magazines and so forth are all, pretty much, owned and operated by a certain, oh to use a term "tribe" and that the "tribe" is HOSTILE to the people of european-christian descent. And they mean BUSINESS. Just compare America 1960 to America 2014 and you can see the GOOD WORK they've done.
I see a ground floor opportunity to sell them some pollution to make that idyllic Chinese City seem just like home...
I see a ground floor opportunity to sell them some pollution to make that idyllic Chinese City seem just like home...
If you are talking about air or water pollution in the Detroit area you are dead wrong. Southeast Michigan has some of the cleanest air and water of any of the largest metro areas in the USA. The days of the Detroit River and Lake Erie being deadzones are 30 years or more in the past. On a typical day you can see Downtown Detroit clearly from the suburbs 30 miles away. Get your facts straight and then post.
Actually, I wasn't talking about "air or water pollution in the Detroit area". I was talking about the known Biblical levels of pollution in China.
And all your pollution is gone in SE Michigan because all your fucking industry and jobs are gone, asshole.
Where would they redeem the worthless paper dollar the US paid for their junk trinkets if not spend it buying the US and the rest of the world. It would have been better if the US just gave every American citizen $1 million of the junk paper money so we could have bought the rest of the world instead of the Chinese buying it.
It warms my heart to see how much faith this governor has in the entreprenurial spirit of Americans, to turn a dismal city like Detroit into a shining city on the hill. I congratulate the governor's ability to solve complex problems using resources already available here rather than taking the easy way out by handing the city to foreign investors; who would in turn inhibit creativity and opportunity in the long run. This Gov. Snyder is truly a visionary, and can truly be considered one of the most forward-thinking and incorruptable leaders of innovation our nation has sired.
No /sarc tag necessary.
Snyder did the sensible thing. Detroit was, otherwise, a wreck. The Chinese will transform the city. I bet Snyder also has nine figures stashed away in a PBOC account in Beijing.
"I bet Snyder also has nine figures stashed away in a PBOC account in Beijing."
My thought exactly.
If I had 9 figures of cash I'd stack it Singapore they are bit more depositer friendly than the mainland China banks.
See, I didn't know that; which is why I wouldn't be a very good oligarch.
Umm, Detroit property has got to be very cheap. But everything I've seen says that these properties are in horrible neighborhoods, rife with crime. That's why they haven't been snapped up.
So, does Snyder actually think his new Chinese overlords are going to tolerate that? Michigan is going to have to spend some serious money there to increase security, fix infrastructure, etc....so, why didn't they just do that to begin with and avoid the whole bankruptcy thing? I doubt the taxpayers of Michigan are going to be less pissed-off because the residents are Chinese.
Seems like either way those taxpayers are going to rescue Detroit.
Yeah, they're cheap alright...you can even buy a home for a $1 but you haven't considered the property tax implication on it yet. You may have bought a house for $1 but the city or state deems it worth $5 million because it used to be Gov. Romney's old home even though it's delapedated and trashed. So how much will you be paying for yearly property tax? It's not worth it. Best leave it to the Chinese to pay.
If you think those Chinese will be paying those taxes, you haven't been paying attention...That's not how it works. They will get tax BREAKS, like all outside 'investors' do in circumstances like this.
The Michigan TAXPAYERS will be footing that bill, count on it!
I would laugh my ass off if the Chinese managed to turn Detroit into an economic powerhouse.
the only thing that will save Detriot is 'peak oil'.......is that ironic?
I would laugh my ass off if the Chinese managed to turn Detroit into an economic powerhouse.
That is their plan - exactly. Don't laugh. The primary infrastructure is already there and waiting for someone like the Chinese to invest and restart the mills and plants. Once the jobs come back the blight and other problems will quickly take care of themselves. The people are poor and criminalized because .gov allowed all the fucking good paying jobs to be moved to southeast Asia and China. Just so the assholes on Wallstreet could realize larger profits. That's the reality of the situation.
Actually, most of the jobs were replaced with automation, and the rest went to Tennessee, Mexico, and other such places.
One hell of a brilliant idea, frankly. Detroit has been abandoned, cruelly and stupidly, under neoliberalism. We all know it has slipped into a third world shit hole of barbarism and decay, lacking only child soldiers to complete the picture. The solution is to make it a mini-China within the USA, letting Asian billions restore, reindustrialize and re-hire Americans to work in manufacturing, as infrastructure labor, domestic help, etc. New factories could supply Walmart with its disposable junk without international shipping. Meanwhile, we tax the rich, productive Chinese capital and voila, huge inputs we can use to service our debt and build more shiny outerspace death rays to point at the mainland. The only losers will be the fascist domestic interests keen to profit from Detroit as a giant penal colony.
yes.
keep imagining - when Detroit gets rebuilt and humans restore it to their liking (taxed all the way UP), meanwhile the volunteer war machines are destroying "somewhere else" on the globe, which will sit in ruins for a while. . .
then voila! rinse, repeat.
profit.
Zorg would approve.
"re-hire Americans to work in manufacturing, as infrastructure labor, domestic help, etc."
You mean outsource/insource their labor like we do because they won't pay workers a livable wage, but will foot taxpayers the bill by encouraging the workers to enroll in social programs.
"New factories could supply Walmart with its disposable junk without international shipping."
Because we clearly need more junk with planned obsolescence in mind.
"The only losers will be the fascist domestic interests keen to profit from Detroit as a giant penal colony."
...and domestic entrepreneurs who cannot compete against state-backed corporate entities.
"One hell of a brilliant idea, frankly."
No, it's not.
Well said Mineshaft.
"This is not going to end well. And with those 50k new Visas, expect wages to drop in the areas in which the Visa people enter into."
Don't worry, the "best" jobs in Detroit already pay minimum wage. You can't even say the Chinese will steal jobs since nobody in Detroit has a job.
Honestly, I think this will help Detroit. If you've ever met a Chinese immigrant, you would know they are very intolerant of bullshit. They will arm themselves to the teeth and shoot people who try to rob them. They will elected very hard line conservatives. Parts of Detroit might actually have laws again!
If these new immigrants really would arm themselves to the teeth and shoot any savage who try to rob them, then they are more than welcome in my neighborhood.
Gov Rick Snyder the self proclaimed nerd -- as an establishment republican did a great job of balancing the budget by taxing everything that wasn't nailed down -- gotta love those moderates -- don't want to do anything extreme like cutting spending that would upset the natives
Too late.
San Francisco already is dominated by Chinese. They can live all over the city without ever having to learn English and do fine.
And it's getting worse.
That demographic change is an even greater threat to the long term viability of San Francisco (as we know it) than even the temporary tech kid millionaires (who at least thankfully may be about to see their stock options plunge in value).
if the "chinese" in san francisco can live all over it and "do fine" - then perhaps they'll keep on keeping on right in place, keeping san francisco running when the next tech-kid-bubble inevitably pops.
got mandarin?
Seriously, Chinese immigrants would be a huge improvement over the current inhabitants of De-Toilet.
Got Rice? (or would that be "Got Lice?")
Relocation is a bitch, bitchez. Nigeria, Zimbabwe, yearning to be free?
Bring in a Chinese, send out a (edited for racississism).
Read a book called China Crisis they are leaving for Detriot becuase it is not China and that says something about how bad China is ...
Detroit is an ever bigger shithole than 99.9% of China. Enjoy. Suckers.
And you've been there to back up your asshole statement, right? Didn't think so. Go back to East LA or Newark or wherever the fuck you crawled out of.
From a city where you can buy a house for a dollar with shameless Representatives like Mike Rogers and Carl Levin who might as well be wearing a plaid polyster sport coat with sign in front of their office desk that reads "SALE" "Everything Must Go!" "Name Your Price"...
The more important question one should be raising along with an eyebrow is how China can be buying it up and still support it's neighbor on it's borders that is striking unprecedented oil deals that might replace Western Europe's energy and at the same time fend off the used care salesmen in Washington that are increasingly threatening them with new military bases and ships in the Philippines and Vietnam as they sell them everything but the kitchen sink and the dishwater in what was once the Great State of Michigan?
I think the actions are clinically nothing less than schizoid behavior with a dual personality disorder if we were talking about a patient. Unfortunately that credit most notably goes to the gentlemen and gentleladies creating the conditions for their own demise and "fire sale" in the state of Michigan, but it also equally applies to the Chinese for considering it as a potential business deal at this point!
Actions certainly speak louder than words!... Living in very interesting times folks.
Mike Rogers represents central Michigan and part of Oakland County (parts of which have the highest per capita income in the country by the way), not Detroit. Get your facts straight before you post.
I do agree Mike Rogers is a complete asshole though . . . .
there are child soldiers in all of our cesspool inner cities. We just don't call them that because their mommas all tell us they were really good boys they didnt mean to have their stray bullet kill that 8 year old in her bed. It is supposed to be almost ninties degrees here in Chicago this weekend. I will put the over/under on shooting deaths beginning Friday to Sunday at 10. Every warm weekend is the same here. Cesspools of moral decay. It happens when you remove fathers from homes and just breed and make babies. And the babies always pay. The Chinese will meet the Muslims. My wifes grandmother owned a beauty salon on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn Michigan for over 50 years. The new immigrants burned her business to the ground after she refused to sell it to them. It is now a middle eastern bakery. That's how they roll. Burn down an 80 year old woman's lifelong livlihood. Come one, come all. We don't care. America, I hardly knew ya. So sad. And I grew up in Michigan. I am thankful grandma and grampa are passed on and don't have to witness this further decay in Detroit.
Dat not decay dat Thousand Year Old Egg!
She ready to hatch
Old railroad workers remember LONG TIME!
"He said that he has learned from the history of the United States that what has made the nation great is immigrants."
He's wrong on that point. Yes, immigrants flooded into the US shores because of jobs and manufacturing once upon a time was dominated by the US. But free trade and union demands killed the manufacturing in the US and moved to other places in the world where it is cheap, like China. So bringing Chinese immigrants or flooding the country today with immigrants will just make the US more impoverish because there are no jobs. Saying the chinese will bring corporations and manufacturing back to the US is another delusion. Why would the Chinese bring manufacturing back to the US where the labor and standard of living is higher which is the main reason manufacturing went to China?
GM once upon a time was big in Detroit but GM now has a larger plant in China and close Detroit completely mainly because of lower cost so why would a Chinese GM move back to Detroit? The only Chinese you'll see in Detroit are like the Chinese who has flooded my neck of the woods, mostly none working and rich who bought US homes for investment or vacation homes or have import business selling products made in China and which they import their relatives to work and doesn't alleviate the unemployment situation in the US.
So to mayor Snyder, all he's doing is to repopulate Detroit with Chinese and making it a mecca of Chinese stores much like a Giant Chinatown selling Chinese junks but not creating jobs for Americans but instead increasing the US population with new immigrants to be subsidized by the government on taxpayers expense.
City council meeting takeover.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/video-citizens-albuquerque-city-council...
"Protesters take over city council meeting, call for chief's arrest. Never seen anything like it- Complete take over"
Thanks for that link bunny! That was my 'feel-good' for the day...:-)
I don't wonder that the Chinese are spending their dollars on the US soil.
They are getting rid of the fucking fiat, getting real assets and play the game "don't attack the dollar". Americans still don't get it. In the future the chinese government will protect the rights of Chinese on the american soil.. with mercenaries and stuff..
I wonder how the Arabs in nearby Dearborn will handle that?
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/zieve/070111
You think this is happenstance? ORDO AB CHAO
I wonder if this is how they dump U.S. dollars: By spending them on American real estate, then selling it for whatever gold we have left in the future.
A bunch of rich Chinese slave drivers making lower class Americans work 20 hours a day to make their cheap shit to sell back to the chinese consumer...
Where have I seen this before?
Right...
Funny how that works. Almost like it's planned that way...
The world is increasingly a world of free movement of peoples. Especially into the western nations. Given China's crowded nation, the desire of tens of millions to spread out and find new places to live and work, it seems only natural that Chinese would want to take on what Americans will not take on. Decaying cities and failing rural towns, Chinese would see these failed American places as a land of opportunity with lots of prospect for buusiness, industry, work and profit. I bet what Black America has turned into a junk heap, Chinese would turn into a a beehive of industry. Granted the wages and living standards would not reflect Middle Class America, but that doesn't mean the Chinese wouldn't turn the cities around and make a life for themsleves, minus a lot of the welfare, drugs and gun violence. In fact, should Chinese begin to turn decayed cities around, I see a horrible backlash by American minorities against anyone who works hard enough to prosper where they themselves have failed or lived off of the government hand outs. I see big hatreds building in such a case.
Detroit...Site of the first great Sino-Afro war.
Well they tried stupid and corrupt for fifty years. I guess now they are just gonna go with corrupt to the bone.
After the coming Debt Jubilee the only people who will be run out of the country on a rail faster than the traitors will be these carpetbagging chinks.
As they say in Germany... Auslanders Raus!
I think it's a good idea to give Detroit to the Chinese. The current residents of Detroit could be promised extra free shit if they just move out. A few 40s and a new GM vehicle of their choice would be a nice bribe.
And how long before China is just as broke as Detroit?
If they want to buy empty buildings nobody wants, why not buy their own ghost cities?
The only valuable item I can think of in Detroit would be the port facilities. Some day, they might be worth something, if you believe in Kunstler's predictions.
Probably same people, just diversifying. thousands of billionaires and millions of millionaires buying everything all over, with ~750 million subsistence level peasants. Also, money laundering and evading government controls.