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Declining revenue, a drop in employment and large, risky Wall Street deals are the real causes of Detroit’s bankruptcy, according to a report by Demos, a liberal public policy organization.

Pension debt gets a bad rap in Detroit, but it isn’t the true cause of Detroit’s financial problems, said Wallace Turbeville, author of the Demos report.

Pension fund liabilities are not to blame for Detroit's descent into Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, according to a report released Wednesday by Demos, a public policy advocacy group.

Detroit's bankruptcy was caused by a decrease in tax revenue due to a population decline and long-term unemployment, “not an increase in the obligations to fund pensions,” said Wallace C. Turbeville, a Demos senior fellow, and the author of “The Detroit Bankruptcy” report.

On Wednesday, Walmart workers called out or walked off the job at seven stores in Dallas, according to OUR Walmart activists, the group that has been organizing strikes and protests against the company. The company says that these were not independent actions but the result of activists being bussed between different store locations. [...]

Walmart is coming under fire for shortchanging its own employees.

Come Black Friday (which for many big retailers has become a two-day affair starting on Thanksgiving), Walmart will again be facing strikes and protests from workers upset with the corporation's low pay.

Walmart can easily afford to raise pay for its low-wage workers by $5.83 an hour, to an average wage of $14.89, a new report from progressive think tank Demos concludes. All the retail giant has to do is stop its massive stock buybacks—which only serve to enrich a shrinking pool of shareholders, not to improve productivity—and put that money toward its workers.

Walmart spends $7.6 billion a year buying back shares of its own stock:

Wal-Mart could afford to hike every U.S. employee’s hourly wage to at least $14.89 an hour just by not repurchasing its own stock, according to a new report from the progressive think tank Demos.

Walmart, enmeshed in a debate over low wages highlighted by a food drive for employees at a Canton store, can significantly raise the salaries of sales clerks and other workers without having to find additional money for the pay hikes, says a research brief by a think tank.

In its house editorial yesterday, USA Today retold the now-accepted story of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Railing on “reckless public pensions,” the newspaper told its readers that the Motor City is “Exhibit A for municipal irresponsibility” because it allegedly “negotiated generous pensions” that were too lavish.