legal issues on so many fronts. for instance, tomorrow there s going to be a hearing in bankruptcy court because they did file bankruptcy following all of this. i called several times their bankruptcy attorney located in pennsylvania. he has not returned my call. the hearing tomorrow will be in federal court in west virginia. i was able to get documents from a charleston, west virginia site that a newspaper site, that has posted documents. it looks like mundane issues that the defense, meaning the debter in this case, wants to retain civil consultants without legal court. they want to get their own consultants. there will be argument on issues of establishing this bankruptcy case. let s not forget the criminal investigation. i m also continuing to monitor that with the u.s. attorney s office. it is continuing. that s going to be the huge one carol. will there be criminal charges filed against the individuals of freedom industries because of
i mean, first of all, regarding freedom industries, it was absolute arrogance. it was lack of oversight. and we have to step that up. and we have to look at how it is we re overseeing it. we implement a lot of regulations and oversight. the problem is there s no follow through. we just don t consistently follow through. then a disaster like this happens. if you ask me, i ve said it before and i m going to say it again, i think a game changer for these industries is criminal charges. i really do. you know what? you file bankruptcy, you cannot get a pass on this. it s not okay. and if you re bankrupt, well, then maybe you should spend some time in jail. there are other defendants out there that i m sure the attorneys will be looking at for any possible recourse and medical monitoring for the people who have been harmed. heather, final question to you. when we talk about what recommendations we should be following, erin s laid out several. there s been a piece of legislation introduced
amount of revenue. should pensions be on the table as part of bankruptcy? because the you don t knowones are saying no. they have to be. they should be and i don t know why public sector workers should be exempt from the realities the rest of the word paces whether with you would say bond holders should be on yes. remember, too, when you talk about a bailout you are talking about bailing out the creditors and these people went into detroit and took risks and got the spread, the extra you know what they were doing and one of the reasons they did it was because they expected a bailout and i think that s it is very dangerous to perpetuate that idea. steve, how many other cities are in danger here with pension obligations and debt that i m not saying they are going to file bankruptcy but they have real trouble financially. yes. detroit may be the canary in the coal mine here. you probably got in my opinion about a dozen cities around the country that are
courts. chris: obviously when you filed bankruptcy you knew what the michigan state constitution said, so why didn t that stop you? we have grievous problems as you mentioned earlier, i mean significant debt. this is the only way we can solve it. so we were compelled to file bankruptcy. chris: there s unfunded health and pension benefits to people who worked for the city for decades. and that raises the question, you promise that you ll pay these penningers full payments for the next six months, but after that isn t there a real possibility that these pensioners who worked for the city for decades, who thought they had a contract with the city, that they re going to be in real trouble? there s a real issue there, chris. as we said in our proposal that we put out on june 14th, you know about $5.7 billion of the $9 billion is unfunded healthcare. another $3.5 billion of that is
courts. chris: obviously when you filed bankruptcy you knew what the michigan state constitution said, so why didn t that stop you? we have grievous problems as you mentioned earlier, i mean significant debt. this is the only way we can solve it. so we were compelled to file bankruptcy. chris: there s unfunded health and pension benefits to people who worked for the city for decades. and that raises the question, you promise that you ll pay these penningers full payments for the next six months, but after that isn t there a real possibility that these pensioners who worked for the city for decades, who thought they had a contract with the city, that they re going to be in real trouble? there s a real issue there, chris. as we said in our proposal that we put out on june 14th, you know about $5.7 billion of the $9 billion is unfunded healthcare.