What happens when a government spends too much money

Stuff reports:

Detroit is eligible for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history because the city is broke and negotiations with its thousands of creditors were unfeasible, a federal judge has said in a wide-ranging ruling that also said the city could cut retiree pensions.

The ruling by US Judge Steven Rhodes marks a watershed in the history of Detroit, once the cradle of the US auto industry and now a symbol of urban decay and mismanagement.

The state of the city today is bad:

Detroit is burdened by US$18.5 billion in debt as it struggles to provide even the most basic services to the city’s 700,000 residents. About 40 per cent of the city’s streetlights do not work and about 78,000 abandoned buildings litter the city, whose population peaked at 1.8 million in 1950.

Live within your means.