By Dan Ferris in the S&A Digest:
Detroit's last Chrysler Jeep store closed last week. Soon, it'll start selling small pickup trucks made in India.
Retailers continue to abandon Detroit. You can't find a Borders bookstore in Detroit. Only four Starbucks are left. Since A&P and Kroger left in 2007, no national grocery chains operate stores in the city.
The landscape is post-apocalyptic. Hundreds of buildings are left vacant. A million people have fled the city.
Everybody, including the sometimes-clueless Wall Street Journal, says it's because the auto industry has collapsed. That's true to an extent, but the real truth is it's entrepreneurial suicide to open a business in a political hellhole like Detroit.
Thirty percent of Detroit residents are on food stamps, and 22.8% of them are unemployed. The only thriving retailer: Family Dollar Store has opened 23 locations here since 2003.
Cut way back on the food-stamp program and unemployment insurance, then eliminate the barriers to starting and growing a business that exist in every city in America, and Detroit could give New York a run for its money some day.
To really eliminate the barriers and make Detroit a free city, it would have to leave the increasingly socialistic People's Republic of Amerika, but I'm pretty sure nobody up there has the brains to understand that or the guts to revolt against Komrade Obama.
Crux note: Dan Ferris is the editor of value advisory service Extreme Value. He's incredibly bearish on commercial real estate right now and has recommended selling short shares of one financial company in particular... This company is one of the largest holders of commercial mortgage-backed debt in the country, but its stock is rallying - even though the CIO admitted "the worst is yet to come." It's a prime short-sale candidate. To learn more about Extreme Value, click here...
More from Dan Ferris:
Why ExxonMobil is the best oil company in the world
This safe, dominant stock could easily double in the next year
Federal officials are creating a minefield in this popular investment
