Unions, Failing Cities and States, Organised Extortion . . .

Unions have always been difficult to distinguish from organised crime. Violent extortion is violent extortion, no matter how you paint it. But over recent decades unions have found more subtle ways to choke the life out of taxpayers. It has taken a prolonged economic recession under a president who owes his political life to unions/organised malefactors/machine politicians for the tangled web to become more clear.

There are many reasons why so many of America's cities are dying, and why so many states are desperately seeking paths to bailout and bankruptcy protections. Thanks to public sector unions, the credit ratings of many US cities and states are approaching junk bond status, and soon they will reach the limits to borrowing unless the sugar daddy of American unions can wrangle a massive and unaffordable bailout for the states and cities from an increasingly hostile US Congress.

Here is a short list of just a few cities that are in trouble:

• Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Flint, Michigan
• South Bend, Indiana
• Detroit, Michigan
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Rochester, New York
• Hialeah, Florida
• Vallejo, California
• New Orleans, Louisiana

_Newsweek

Their populations are fleeing, their tax base is shrinking, businesses are bailing out, and unions are doubling down on demands from their hand-picked political poodles.

Something has to give.