Could California’s budget crisis be solved by a triumvirate of Internet services, Craigslist, eBay and Twitter?
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is raiding the state’s storage sheds to sell off unneeded items on eBay and Craigslist. His signature on a California fleet car adds, it is estimated, $400 to its auction value.
He got the latter idea from one of his million Twitter followers.
Wow. I have nowhere near a million Twitter followers. I’m told that I should envy the governor’s Twitter cred, but . . . I’m not the jealous type; I won’t seek any “Tweet” revenge. Still, I’d be happy if all my listeners joined, and I got some usable ideas for raising money.
Unfortunately, neither I nor my sponsor, Citizens in Charge Foundation, have a vast resource of unneeded inventory to sell off. Nor do I have the cachet of the actor-turned-governor: My signature won’t add much value to a Ford Focus.
Yep. Someone paid $1,625.01 for a state-owned Focus with over 110,000 miles on the odometer. The governor signed the visor.
That’s better than a car once owned by Jon Voight!
The only new thing here, really, is using Craigslist and eBay. This isn’t a singularity in the progress of civilization. From this no miracles follow. But it is a healthy sign of thinking slightly outside the proverbial box.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.