Why pay people when others will (gladly) do it for free?

DC's unemployment rate is now at 9.3%, showing that we are not at all 'recession proof.' In fact, there are a lot of reasons why you will totally be screwed in Depression 2.0. Thanks to things like "interns" and the "Internet," many jobs can be replaced with free and willing slave labor!



Take for example, The Washingtonian. Word has it that they will be laying off eleven staffers (shhhhh, including some higher ups!). This is in the midst of their "Design the Cover of the Washingtonian's May Issue" contest. I have to wonder if the soon-to-be-laid-off staffers are eligible to enter. Will they have to report any winnings as income? Oh wait, this contest doesn't even have a prize. I can see it now, "The winner of the cover design contest is the former cover designer."

But hey, let's step it up a notch. How else can we save some money around town? Interns are the best solution for pretty much everything. They work hard and are cluelessly naive and optimistic--much like most bloggers. Need to save the Washington Post? How about you just truck in a whole ton of new interns, and set them up as the new monkeys at the typewriters. Come on, would there really be that much of a decline in quality? How about we just make the entire Metro section a series of "Date Labs." Why not!

Also, WMATA is hurting. I've got an idea, fire the administrators and replace them with the staff and commenters at Greater Greater Washington. And by replace, I mean have them work for free. Since they already do freely provide fantasy transit policy, why not just let them make real policy. I can't possibly see a problem with that.

Wow, I'm on a roll here. Look at how much money I've saved, just with interns and bloggers. Think about how much money the city could save if we didn't pay the DC Council some $90,000 each per year. Instead, lets elect bloggers, who obviously know everything about their neighborhoods, and would work for free. I bet we could even find bloggers who would do all sorts of things for free, such as writing parking tickets and building dog parks.

Think about it, DC. For every paid office job in this city, there are probably 10-20 college students who would be willing to move to DC and do your job, for free! Hell, some of them would probably even PAY to do your job. Be afraid, be very afraid.