George Rebane

And we in California thought we’d be only forty or fifty billion in the hole by next year.  Well, it turns out that there are more bumblings coming out of the woodwork.  The state unemployment fund, already on life support from the feds, will be almost twenty more billion in the hole next year (more here thanks to an RR reader).  Let’s see, that comes to a total of almost $70,000,000,000.  Recall my remarks about California becoming the first federalized state, well I think that there’s another area in which we will break new ground.  Our governor will be the first state chief executive to be replaced by a pager – it will be part of an overall cost saving program, since the orders will soon come from Washington directly to California’s departments of government.

And here’s another first for you loyal RR readers.  We all became aware that the car companies did what is called ‘banking jobs’ – come in, read magazines and watch TV, go home, collect check.  I predict that within five years Congress will pass ‘labor set aside laws’ that mandate certain areas in the labor market which cannot be further automated.  By law the government will try to side-step technological progress by saying that this job and that task will forever be performed only by human beings – machines need not apply.  I bet this’ll solve the nation’s problem of the permanently unemployable, and get us back on track.