Wednesday, August 26, 2009

California holds a garage sale -- with cars autographed by Schwarzenegger

We were just being world-weary in our May post "Arnold Schwarzenegger to sell off San Quentin, Memorial Coliseum to ease budget crisis":
Great.
California has been reduced to throwing the world's biggest garage sale.
From the Times of London...
Now this, from the Los Angeles Times:

In the latest attempt to raise money, the state is selling thousands of surplus items on EBay, Craigslist and in a warehouse auction.
Reporting from Sacramento - Does Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have a deal for you.

His plans to cut up the state's credit cards didn't go so well, and voters gave the thumbs-down to his bid to shackle government spending. No matter. In his latest effort to balance the budget, the governor is cleaning out the state's storage sheds and holding a garage sale on Craigslist and EBay.

Need a 2001 Ford Focus wagon with 110,059 miles and Schwarzenegger's autograph on the visor? Someone did, offering the high bid of $1,625.01 for the old state car as of Tuesday afternoon. The governor got the idea to sign the visors from one of nearly 1 million people who follow him on Twitter, and he jumped on it.

"I look forward to selling these signed cars and making some $ for California," the governor tweeted last week as he autographed the visors.

"It's an innovative idea," said the governor's spokesman, Aaron McLear. "We're always happy to listen to the people about ways in which we can run government more efficiently."

The state began selling unneeded or unclaimed items online last week and is holding a two-day auction of 6,000 more on Friday and Saturday at a Sacramento warehouse.

In the market for seven used State of California coat racks? You could snap them up at $5 each -- or buy six and get one free....MORE

HT: Real Time Economics who add:

...If you’re interested, check out www.dgs.ca.gov/garagesale.

We ended that earlier post with:

...So sad.

I'm going to listen to the Ramones do California Sun.