Population in Detroit is somewhere below 750k, if that surprises you. There was a big muck up about the city going under 1 million population about 8-10 years ago because their state and federal aid got dropped drastically. And yes Kawame Kilpatrick who thought he was a Chicago gangsta type bad boy mayor was in fact jailed for quite a few years for trying to do what B. Obama and Hillary had mastered. Kwame was too stupid to pull off what those two criminal geniuses could, but he managed to set the city even further back fiscally.
I was in automotive also for 35 years. Tool, fixture and product designer. Various companies and tool and die shops, from Ford to TRW to Siemens and a couple smaller outfits earlier in my career. Retired/disabled now.
If we ever do the Vegas party I'll have to tell you a buch of mortgage industry stories including this story about my x-wife who was working for a small mortgage outfit around Southfield/Bloomfield/Bloomfield hills around 2005/2009. She was an Mortgage regional sales manager who under wrote loans and bundled packages together for smaller banks to sell down south to investors. You would not believe the stuff that was going on that maybe only 5% population knows about from 2005 to 2008. 2008 didn't just happen, it was made to happen over a period of years. My divorce, you could say, was because of it, and the Sodom and Gomorrah type environment that was going on at all the MBA member businesses, brokers. I actually attended lenders fairs in Chicago, Indianapolis, Florida and other places with my wife. The MBA and the folks that put on those events spent huge money entertaining and imbibing star sales people like my wife and the events were just mortgage funded parties of extravagance, huge excesses. I saw the advantage being taken of many who could not afford mortgages, and applications that were approved with crap income credentials, but those loans were 8, 9 and sometimes upto 18% mortgage interest. Some would have been better off buying a home on a credit card.
The moralless money mongering going on back then really changed the whole mortgage industry and who my wife was as a person, and I many saw folks (married) at these Mortgage association events swapping room keys and all that, many cheating on their spouses and all was encouraged by the big wigs, the MBA and the owners/brokers of the small mortgage outfits like what my wife worked for. These things were all expenses paid, very expensive hotels and air travel with golf outtings, $30 martinis, clothes shopping charged to rooms and picked up by the MBA or a broker who was a sponsor, lots and lots of excess, and guess where that money was coming from? Yep, the mortgage places partied hardy until it all began to burn and come crashing down.
My x-wife after 2008, probably more into later 2009 lost her star rep position and juicy salary with commision and has never been able to find work in that industry again, as far as I know. It's like the people who took part in that excess back then, that they wear a Scarlett letter in the industry now. Can't say that I am surprised or that it's unfair. I told my wife before our divorce to get the heck out of such a corrupted moralless industry before it drug her down. Or worse, drag us down! Obviously she got hypnotized by her job status and the money the lured her in with, but she badically sold her soul, sadly.
Well that's a little of my Michigan history lol, but I have a ton of stories from 2005 and upto about 2008 that would fill too many volumes here.
It's great you had some experience here in Michigan, even if it was the balls to the walls automotive industry. Lol I'm a life long Michigander but would like to relocate to a state that is not so wishy washy in how they vote. Michigan should be purple since they go back and forth red and blue so much. I'd rather spend the rest of my retirement in a solid red state. Fiscally responsible and level headed.
