LA going bankrupt

Los Angeles isn't the only municipality or state about to go bankrupt. The financial media needs to stop focusing on Europe's problems and start examining our own fiscal problems.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten14-2010apr14%2C0%2C5438508.column

Riordan says he doesn't "believe the city will ever get those sorts of concessions from its unions. It would take tremendous guts on everyone's part. We're not seeing any evidence of that, and we're probably not going to because everybody negotiating for the city was elected with the unions' support." Bankruptcy, he adds, would allow a judge to do what city officials can't or won't: fundamentally restructure the city's labor agreements. As Riordan puts it: "Who wants to live in a city without decent police or fire protection or libraries or parks? Unless we get these pension costs under control, we won't be able to afford any of those things."

Carr would put that question differently: If a bankruptcy judge were allowed to decide whether or how L.A. would meet its obligations to its employees and creditors, "we'd need to ask ourselves, who wants to live in a city that doesn't keep its word?"