Good job, Arnie

California, Almost Broke, Nears Brink
The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.

The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects. Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.

California today, US tomorrow? (Actually I think it is not possible. The states cannot have deficits and go "broke" and have to somehow balance their budgets but the federal government can, of course, run deficits into trillions of $s of deficit....which the Bush administration duly did. (Speaking of Bush, if he were around, he'd probably be sending greeting cards to the CA Guvnor saying "Good job, Arnie"!!)

If CA suffers so, can you imagine what some of the more blue collar towns/states are undergoing?! Earlier this morning I saw a slideshow of pictures from Cleveland. Its not been a prospering city anyways (was #4 in most miserable cities list recently compiled by Forbes) but some of the pics of foreclosed and abandoned houses in that slideshow were really wretching! Also, see this slideshow: The American Economy: Down and Out.

P.S. The Freakanomics blog had a contest for a new six-word motto for the U.S

Here are the six finalists:
1. Consumption’s the Cure That Ails Us.
2. We Will Get It Right, Eventually.
3. We Are Too Big to Fail.
4. The Streets Are Paved With CASH4GOLD.COM.
5. Learn to Live Within Your Means.
6. Wow, Can You Believe This Place?