No one can deny how messed up Detroit's finances were before the city filed for bankruptcy.
But should the lenders have paid the biggest price for Detroit's mistakes?
Nolan Finley of the Detroit News writes in a column:
Instead of Detroit facing its mistakes, those who loaned it money over the years, for reasons good and questionable, paid the price for 60 years of denial and neglect.
Roughly $7 billion in debt was erased. Very few of Detroit's creditors walked away whole; most took haircuts ranging from 14 cents to 86 cents on the dollar.
Nobody weeps for banks and bond houses. Indeed, the protest signs bore the message, "Make the Banks Pay!"
Money lenders have never been popular — until someone needs a loan.
