jpdoctor

It looks like facebook likes without the rest of facebook, or did I miss something?

I'm trying to figure out the barrier-to-entry for scam artists, and they seem pretty low.

> Richard Stallman – the creator of GNU Emacs, the founder of GNU

Did anybody think he was secretly using vi in the closet?

> Are all of these bootstrapped, or are some of them self-funded?

HN doesn't seem to make the distinction, for self-funding of less than $100K.

The thing I find particularly fatuous: "We were bootstrapped until we took VC money", as if everyone who takes VC money isn't in the same camp. I guess the company I founded was bootstrapped until our A round valued at $40M. Hey I created a $40M company by bootstrapping!

The poster is confusing the amount of insolvency with the value of Detroit. The value of the city far exceeds the valuation of Google.

> Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed.

So they can't rule out the possibility that sensitive personal information, which cannot be accessed, has been accessed. Got it.

Apparently our intelligence, which cannot be insulted, has been insulted.

To save everyone from having to look it up:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I'm no Ch9 expert, but my understanding is that a receiver will be appointed. That person is not elected. So while the politicians retain executive power, the purse strings are taken away from them.

There will be much unhappiness and gnashing of teeth before it's all finished.

I particularly like the idea of promising firefighters a too-good pension, make them run into burning buildings to save people, and then reneging on the promise now that they won't be running into buildings any more. Serves them right for trusting a promise, the fools.

I wonder what effect that will have on future muni workers?

> Even as a credit analyst, I agree that you can't really feel sorry for the bondholders here. If you want to lend in any market, you need to assume the risk that the debtor goes bankrupt. Pensioners are a different story though.

Very much agree.

> However it's absolutely not true that "a lot of money in the US is being lent with the assumption that creditors will always be bailed out by the state or federal government", at least not a large amount relative to the total bond market size.

This is more subtle. While bankruptcies even on the scale of Detroit don't work with an implicit backstop assumption, large-scale muni bankruptcies on the scale predicted by Meredith Whitney are a different story. Let's face it: When push came to shove, Fannie and Freddie were not allowed to enter runoff mode.

There doesn't seem to be an opinion that this will kick over the can and start the bankruptcy run, but throw in a couple of more and the political&banking dynamics would turn interesting in a hurry.

What I don't see in the comments yet: This is interesting not only for Detroit, but for the precedent it sets. There are 10 or 15 municipalities that will study how to screw the retirees & bondholders as thoroughly as Detroit plans to and then go down that path.

You get used to noise is my guess. My dad grew up in New Haven in the 40s across from a fire house. When he moved out to the suburbs, he had trouble sleeping at first because it was too quiet.

> We thought about raising funding [from family and friends] to get press. Then once the stories were done, we would just give it all back because we don’t need it.

People (and the press) need to stop printing nonsense like this. You don't need money? Then don't take it. Any other path screams: We needed money and we're gonna insult your intelligence with a press statement.

To his specific point: The cost of funding would buy a whole lotta press. So cut the crap.