First, kudos to Jerry Brown who is making good steps whittling at California's monstrous budget problem. He's building political support on relatively "easy" moves like taking away cellphones and car perks from state employees and making pretty courageous moves on very unpopular fronts like reducing education spending and social benefits. Just as only a Republican could "open up" communist China (Nixon, 70's) only a Democrat can deal with predominantly democrat California politics to reduce budget deficit. Jerry Brown gets a lot of undeserved trashing by people who turn a blind eye to his rare combination of high integrity, intellectual honesty, and razor sharp political instincts. These tough times may be Jerry's finest hour, and silence the static from the peanut gallery.
The California budget circus, goat-rope, whatever you want to call it, is going to get a whole lot nastier when Jerry tries to cut spending in the most sacred-cow temple, the prison system. Being a California prison guard has been one of the few guaranteed tickets to millionaire-land with early retirement, not a bad outcome for (California) High School diplomas. Arnold Schwarzenneger got bushwhacked when he tried to get support for moving a relatively small bunch of criminals who are Mexican nationals, here illegally, to custody in.... Mexico. The savings would have been substantial. Prison Guard revolt, game over.
As we keep sending empty freighters back to China, and China keeps building more empty buildings to prop up their real estate bubble, I can't help thinking of the great win-win it would be to outsource the Great California Prison Industry to China, in a big way... forget Walls, how about the Great Halls (for social redevelopment) of China. Prison jobs will never help rebuild the economy. Just imagine what it would be like if we moved some of those taxpayer-burden jobs together with a many metric tons of inmates offshore, and brought back some manufacturing jobs?
In case you are worried about the possibility for cruel and unusual punishment by domiciling inmates in China, check out Bloomberg TV's video update on one possible facility... the world-famous (and famously empty) South China Mall!
The South China Mall, Still Empty after All These Years: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/65822094/
The New "Carry Trade" -- Prisoners to China!
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