[roc]

He seems to be suggesting Google could garner significant local influence by 'bailing out' the city of its unfunded liabilities. Not, strictly speaking, as insane as intimating that you could own the City of Detroit for $20bn. But it's still pretty 'out there'.

[tptacek]

It would cost considerably less than a billion dollars for Google to gain a commanding influence over Detroit! One billion is probably orders of magnitude more than what was spent on every election race there.

[roc]

Luckily for Google, the city's operating under the Emergency Management law. So they would have to buy significantly fewer politicians than one might expect.

Unluckily for Google, the cash-strapped state of the city is not indicative of any lack of monied influences who rather prefer things the way they are.