Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device in which an author gives hints of certain plot developments that will come later in the story.
The news story of the hour is the Detroit bankruptcy. The pundits are pointing fingers and wondering how this could have happened. The consequences of the city’s fiscal mismanagement will be decided in court but again, the pundits are giving their opinions on who will pay.
Let’s look at this bankruptcy from a different perspective. I believe that the bankruptcy of Detroit is a foreshadowing of the economic collapse for the United States. Not a depression. Not a great depression but a complete economic collapse. Take any of the “causes” for the bankruptcy in Detroit and there is a corresponding cause in the United States’ federal government. Even normalizing the statistics based on the scale of the two economies, the United States is in a worse financial condition than Detroit.
Pending a bailout by the federal government, look to Detroit for the future economic state of the country. If you are living on a government pension or are owed money by a governmental agency or department, adjust your finances accordingly. As stated at the beginning of this article, “adumbrating” is another term for foreshadowing. The irony of “a dumb rating” in the case of Detroit and the United States is self-evident.
David DeGerolamo
