{"id":1981,"date":"2010-05-11T21:11:53","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T21:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/05\/11\/2010-5-11-meme-alert-california-is-greece-html\/"},"modified":"2010-05-11T21:11:53","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T21:11:53","slug":"2010-5-11-meme-alert-california-is-greece-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/2010-5-11-meme-alert-california-is-greece-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Meme Alert: California is Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-src=\"v5\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobtherieau.com\/images\/blog\/spanish_olive-trans.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bobtherieau.com\/images\/blog\/spanish_olive-trans.png\" alt=\"Yes, we grow them with the pimentos in, but that won't save us now.\" \/><\/a><br \/><span><em>Wait, it&#8217;s more than the climate?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Friends,<\/p>\n<p>This internet meme that&#8217;s been <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.ft.com\/money-supply\/2009\/12\/14\/greece-versus-california\/\" target=\"_blank\">floating around<\/a> for <a href=\"http:\/\/peakwatch.typepad.com\/decline_of_the_empire\/2010\/03\/california_equals_greece.html\" target=\"_blank\">two or three weeks<\/a> is really <a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/09\/california-the-american-greece\" target=\"_blank\">starting to grate<\/a> on my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/why-california-is-the-next-greece-2010-05\" target=\"_blank\">last frayed nerve<\/a>. I get that California is facing a huge budget shortfall and a much larger underfunded pension system, but are we really like Greece? I guess it would be instructive to think about what would happen if either state defaulted on its crushing debt instead of Greece receiving an EU\/IMF bailout package and California firing school teachers. It&#8217;s possible that Greece could have brought down the Euro as it tumbled off the cliff. Our state, on the other hand (or paw), has been looking for a handout from the Federal government to pay the bills, which to me seems a bit pathetic.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, I suppose I could say that the legislature could suspend Prop 98&mdash;the initiative to tie school funding to revenues&mdash;until the budget is repaired. Maybe we could scrap our imaginary high-speed choo choo train. I&#8217;m sure <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/bay-area-news\/ci_15058672?source=rss\" target=\"_blank\">Union Pacific wouldn&#8217;t mind<\/a>. We could close that $20 billion hole in the General Fund pretty quickly, but we won&#8217;t. Yet.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ll excuse me, I&#8217;m going to go dunk my head in a bucket of lye.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; bob<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wait, it&#8217;s more than the climate? Friends, This internet meme that&#8217;s been floating around for two or three weeks is really starting to grate on my last frayed nerve. I get that California is facing a huge budget shortfall and a much larger underfunded pension system, but are we really like Greece? I guess it &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/2010-5-11-meme-alert-california-is-greece-html\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Meme Alert: California is Greece&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,34],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-politics","tag-this-crappy-year"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobtherieau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}