Melted brains

Everything has a silver lining. Do you believe that? Somebody named Jerry Nickelsburg, a "senior economist" at an outfit called UCLA Anderson Forecast, thinks so and opines that the disaster in progress in California is "kind of a mess" but its "negatives" are small. Just think: as hundreds of thousands are booted out of their jobs and lose their homes and government becomes paralyzed, this guy gets paid to emit opinions like this! In the "Book of Jobs for Village Idiots," the position of Senior Economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast figures prominently.

Leaving Jerry-world and returning to planet Earth, California is now living what America in general will soon experience: there is no way to keep borrow-and-spend government functioning but there is no politically acceptable alternative to it. Radically cutting government--its size, cost, and functions--isn't even on the table as a last-ditch Plan X. So the disaster keeps growing. And remember, all this misery is about only this year's budget. Nobody has even begun contemplating the bleak prospects for the next year or the year after that. California is just trying to survive day-to-day; all thought of any future--even the short-term future--is gone. Maybe because California doesn't have a future. Maybe America doesn't either. But Jerry Nickelsburg will no doubt find a silver lining in that, too.


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