My most recent U-Haul rate study indicates it is 3.86 times more expensive to leave New Jersey for Austin Texas than it is to go to New Jersey from Austin Texas. Nearly 4 time more expensive getting out than getting in. What's that tell you?
That is a 53% increase in the U-Haul costs from this same time last year.
Granted, it is not a scientific study, all the same, people are leaving New Jersey at a staggering rate. I have run this study 2 times a year for the past 4 years. It has never been this bad. In fact it has been fairly stable at a 2.5 times ratio for the past two years right up through June 2014 when I ran the study last. Since then we see this jump, a spike in getting the hell out.
The study though not scientific is a fair indication of the effects of supply and demand. It focuses on the U-Haul rates to and from Austin Texas and several key areas, Northern California, Chicago, Illinois and Wayne, New Jersey. Three areas ranked as having excessive regulatory and anti business climates.
Is it just the high taxes and regulatory climate? No, I don't think so, New Jersey has lots going against it in addition to high taxes. For one thing there is a crooked croniness in NJ, an embedded corruption that permeates the society. Northern New Jersey where I went to High School has developed a culture of "Me, Me, Me". A selfish, ignorant callousness of much of the population combined with an intellectual laziness. That narcissistic culture is particularly annoying, people just didn't care about anything outside their self-centered personal worlds.
It is ironic that the generation of peace and love that grew out of the 60s and 70s has become the generation of "I don't care...it's all about Me, Me, Me".
It is this self absorption on steroids that undermines the sense of community that is now it is coming home to roust.
Why do I dwell on this issue, New Jersey the poster child of liberal failure?
There is an old adage; you can not fix a problem unless you identify the problem. In decades of civic involvement in Chambers of Commerce and in other 'quasi' government organizations I've seen and experienced repeated patterns. The same situation plays out over and over again. Critical social problems are obfuscated and faux efforts at solutions deployed. It's an organized, intentional form of social insanity. If you continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results - we all have heard it, that is insanity.
Back to the old adage, you can not fix a problem unless you identify the problem. The problem is the intentional efforts of the progressive leadership. The culture that grows from progressive liberalism which I think many of us believe is the center of New Jersey's and much of America's problems. That is why I dwell on it. The problem is the type of people that lead areas like New Jersey and Northern California and Urban Illinois. It's the people, Stupid.
When you create a society that is blinded to itself it is easy to control that society and that is what progressives have done to the people of New Jersey and much of liberal America. Progressives have transferred the responsibility of awareness from the people and replaced it with a sense of entitlement. With the entitlement there is little reason to think beyond ones self interest hence the perspective of "whats in it for me?" Progressive liberals campaign on that premise and the self absorberd buy it. . .
If you want to fix this problem you have to call it out, you have to point the finger of blame, you have to put the cause on notice. It's the people, stupid.
Simple answer: If you don't want their fate, don't do what they do.
That is why I dwell on it. I want the people causing the problem to be spotlighted for what they are.
It's the liberals, Stupid.
