The Detroit Tigers this morning released Gary Sheffield and ate 14 million dollars of salary. Being a fan of baseball I understand that there is a lot of money that changes hands, but this seems like a lot to not have someone play for your team.
This news this morning helped to shine a light on the fact that Detroit's unemployment rate is at 22%. Apparently the Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley compared this to hurricane Katrina. This took me aback for a moment since I quite vividly remember watching Katrina unfold, be it on television, but had trouble comparing the two in my mind. Until I started looking up the statistics of Katrina and was floored. Louisiana's unemployment after Katrina was only 11- 12%. I could not find a specific unemployment rate for New Orleans, but this puts Detroit's unemployment rate at twice the unemployment after Katrina. I'm not sure if you remember, but Louisiana got hit pretty hard by Katrina and New Orleans was partially underwater. Detroit is twice as unemployed as that.
I know this is sort of mixing apples and oranges, but I felt it brought a bit of perspective. Detroit is in some seriously big trouble.
New York city has been hit very hard by the current recession. Many of the layoffs that have come in the financial sector have been in or around New York City. Some of them have been in Connecticut and some also in New Jersey, but the entire metro area has been affected. The city itself boasts an 8.4% unemployment rate. Which is slightly higher than the national average of 8.1, but still approximately 13 points LOWER than Detroit's rate. Strike that, flip it, and reverse it:
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That's almost 3 time HIGHER than the national average.
I was shocked to learn this today. I probably shouldn't have been, especially given the winner of this year's Dole Awards, but I was. There are days that I have a pity party and complain about my problems. (those who follow my twitter know what I mean)
Then I wake up, literally and figuratively, and learn something that makes me wonder not when we are going to get out of this entire mess but if. This country's economy is tied together like the world's economy is tied together. I've been over it before and I've we all watched how the world's economy reacted to our economy tanking.
There is going to come a time when the bailouts have worked or they didn't. The more I read every day, the more I wonder which side we're going to land on. . .
. . . and the latter is terrifying to me.
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Something to note: Old Tiger Stadium sat empty and virtually unused for almost 10 years before being partially demolished last year. The Sliverdome has been without a major tenant since 2002. Now, granted, Tiger stadium is historic and all, but we're talking about 3 square blocks of space in DOWNTOWN Detroit that has sat empty and virtually unused for the better part of 10 years. Imagine MSG sitting empty and unused for that long. Even in this economy, SOMEONE would purchase it and do something with it. It's bad in NYC, no question. But the folks in Detroit have been dealing with a much worse version of this for much longer. Moral of the story? Whenever your feeling bad, just tell yourself: "Hey, it could always be worse. I could live in Detroit."
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