DIRECTV DROPPED THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana), now of the Indiana University Center on Congress:

Of all the numbers thrown at us over the course of last year, one stands out for me. I hope we can avoid repeating it this year.

That number is 12. It’s the percentage of Americans in a December Quinnipiac poll who said they trust the government in Washington to do what is right most or all of the time. It’s a depressingly small number — especially compared to the 41 percent who say they “hardly ever” trust the government. This meshes with recent polls that echo a bleak truth: trust in government is at historically low levels.

That’s not all, though. Americans are feeling vulnerable and highly distrustful of both government and private-sector prying. More worrisome, a few months ago an AP poll found that fewer than a third of Americans trust one another. The poll’s message is clear: our society is in the midst of a crisis in trust.

This might seem like a touchy-feely concern, but it’s not. Trust is essential to our political system and our way of life. The belief that people and institutions will do what they say they will do is the coin of the realm in our society. It is what allows people to work together — in their daily interactions with others and in their communities, legislatures and Congress. Negotiation, compromise, collegiality, and the mechanisms our complex and diverse society depends on are impossible without trust. Trust is one of the medley of virtues that have allowed our institutions to develop and prosper, along with honesty, competence, responsibility, and civility.

A breakdown in trust between Congress and the executive branch invariably brings problems: the turmoil of the Vietnam War era, Watergate, Iran-Contra, our current budget travails. A society-wide lack of trust imposes real costs. It makes the drafting of laws and their implementation extremely difficult: government becomes more expensive because it requires more emphasis on regulations and enforcement.

In fact, you could argue that we see all around us the results of our trust deficit. Government dysfunction, an economy performing below its potential, public officials’ scandals and misdeeds, trusted institutions’ willingness to skirt the law and standards of good conduct, our social safety net under attack because people mistrust recipients — all of these speak to a society struggling as trust weakens.

Yet here’s a question. Do the polls match your experience? In my case, they do not. Trust still figures in my dealings with institutions and individuals, most of whom are good people trying to live a decent life and to be helpful to others. They deal with one another honorably and with care. I’m convinced that this is because, no matter what the polls say at the moment, the habits instilled by parents, schools, and a vast number of public and private institutions do not just disappear.

The first thought I have is that if 12 percent of people trust the government to do the right thing, we know who the truly naïve are. Opponents of the Obama administration, for instance, distrusted Obama from the start, and have been proven right time and time again. The only thing you should trust about federal or state government is that everyone in it is in it for his or her own political power, first and foremost. Anyone who has a negative dealing with a local unit of government has no reason to trust that that unit of government will do the right thing thereafter either. (And, as you know, there are far more laws and ordinances than really need to exist, particularly those that restrict use of private property.)

This may be somewhat unfair piling-on upon Hamilton, who was one of the better Democratic Congressmen during his 34 years in the House. Hamilton went from the public sector to the public sector, and moving from Washington bubble to academic bubble he may have insufficient dealings with the real world — for instance, the struggles of people with five-, not six-digit, salaries and the lack of perks of the real world.

Consider the current New Jersey Bridgegate scandal. The most charitable reading of it is that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hired staffers to do the right thing every day, and they didn’t. (Note that Christie merely fired the offending staffers, really for violating the commandment of not publicly embarrassing the boss, instead of having them prosecuted for misconduct in public office.) The most cynical reading is that Christie decided to stick it to a political rival because he had the power to do so, in the same way that politicians stick it to political rivals, whether or not that hurts their constituents (including those who voted for Christie), because politics is a zero-sum game.

Our country’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, are in fact based on lack of trust. If those who signed the Declaration of Independence trusted the British government at any point in their lives, that trust was surely gone (other than trust that the British would do the wrong thing) by the early summer of 1776. You don’t need separation of powers, and you certainly don’t need the Bill of Rights, if you trust the government to act wisely and make good decisions. A republic is based on lack of trust in pure popular democracy. The Constitution is full of what government cannot do to American citizens, because of lack of trust that the evils of British rule wouldn’t be repeated in the new United States.

As to Hamilton’s last point: Are most people “good people trying to live a decent life and be helpful to others”? If that were the case, we wouldn’t need laws. Trust is something you earn; most people are not automatically granted trust. In a business relationship, one side doesn’t pay, or the other side doesn’t perform, and that trust is gone. That obviously applies much more in personal relationships. The world is full of bad people and is unfair besides that.

When it comes to politics at any level, to quote Fox Mulder, trust no one.

What do one of the world’s most prosperous cities and one of the U.S.’ biggest disaster areas have in common?

Ask P.J. O’Rourke:

Detroit is beautiful—though you probably have to be a child of the industrial Midwest, like me, to see it. As you may have heard, the city is in trouble. At the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Detroit had a balance sheet with liabilities of $9.05 billion. The city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, estimates long-term debt at $18 billion.

But I know how to fix Detroit, because it reminds me of another favorite place, Hong Kong—two things so opposite that they evoke each other the way any Kardashian is a reminder that you love home and mother.

Hong Kong’s per capita GDP is among the highest in the world. But it was once a worse mess than Detroit. Devastated by Japanese occupation, the British colony’s population had declined from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 by 1945. Then, after the 1949 communist victory on the mainland, a million refugees arrived. Most of them were penniless. Britain’s Labor government was penniless, too. Maybe Hong Kong could have gone into Chapter 9. But who would have been the bankruptcy judge? Chairman Mao?

Instead Hong Kong had the good fortune to get John (later Sir John) Cowperthwaite, a young official sent out to push the colony’s economy toward recovery. “I did very little,” he once said. “All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might undo it.”

Such as taxes. Even now, Hong Kong has no sales tax; no VAT; no taxes on capital gains, interest income or earnings outside Hong Kong; no import or export duties; and a top personal income-tax rate of 15%.

Cowperthwaite was financial secretary from 1961 to 1971, Hong Kong’s period of fastest economic growth. Sir John, however, wouldn’t allow collection of economic statistics for fear they’d lead to political meddling. Some statistics nonetheless: During Cowperthwaite’s tenure, Hong Kong’s exports grew by an average of 13.8% a year, industrial wages doubled and the number of households in extreme poverty shrank from half to 16%.

With that in mind, I was talking to a friend in Michigan. We discussed Detroit’s poverty, crime, depopulation and insolvency.

“Make it into Hong Kong,” I said, “with polite Canadians next door instead of a scary Politburo.”

“Someone’s way ahead of you,” he told me.

Real-estate developer Rod Lockwood wants investors to buy Detroit’s derelict 982-acre Belle Isle Park and persuade the U.S. to allow Belle Isle a territorial status like Guam and all the tax benefits of Hong Kong—with easier access to Red Wings games.

Belle Isle has room for only about 50,000 people and just one bridge to the city. It might seem more of a gated community than an overseas possession. So Mr. Lockwood has expanded his proposal to include 15 square miles of Detroit’s distressed east side. I think Mr. Lockwood should try for the city’s entire 143 square miles. …

Hong Kong economics would mean curtailing U.S. welfare and benefit programs, but Detroiters seem to have found the holes in the social safety net already. Forty-four percent are living below poverty level. They could, however, benefit from the jobs and commerce in a vibrant, tax-free Hong Kong economy. …

Christopher Brooks, senior pastor at the 1,500-member Evangelical Ministries Church in Detroit, said a concept like Belle Isle “would initially be greeted with hostility because of the widespread suffering in Detroit. A ‘Wealth Haven’ would cause a war on the middle class.” However, he said, “If you’re talking about the whole city…If Belle Isle is the start of a plan, I’d support it. A lot of clergy would get behind it.” Pastor Brooks said, “If there were a real plan to encourage jobs and wealth, the welfare problem would solve itself.”

Granted, turning Detroit into Hong Kong wouldn’t be simple. I talked to Chris Crosby, a municipal bond analyst at Raymond James. He listened patiently as I explained the advantages of a city that would actually be worth something to prospective municipal bondholders. Here is the main part of the rest of our conversation.

Me: “Is this feasible?

Mr. Crosby: “No.”

The political barriers are too high—politicians don’t like to give up power. Of course, politicians also give up power in a bankruptcy, which is why Mr. Crosby likes Detroit’s bankruptcy. It will be so politically painful that other big cities won’t try it. …

Anyway, Detroit is broke. And so was Hong Kong. In 1949 the colony had just one asset. Hong Kong owned Hong Kong—all the land except what was under the Anglican cathedral. Hong Kong sold leaseholds, first for a little, then for a lot.

And Detroit owns Detroit, or a very large chunk of it. In 2011 more than half the owners of Detroit’s 305,000 properties failed to pay property taxes. Detroit has approximately 40 square miles of vacant land.

If people cannot be convinced by reason, maybe they can be convinced by greed. Forty square miles equals 1.1 billion square feet. One recent estimate put Hong Kong land prices at more than $1,300 per square foot. Translated into Detroit, that’s $1.4 trillion.