Another shameless self promotion ;->

And yes, what they want out of lack of mobility is a plantation effect.

Actually, I believe there is an underlying insidious agenda that Thurber is missing, that being the operative phrase, “where they live”. Does it not occur to anyone that the one thing liberals have always feared most is the mobility of the populace? If the city or local jurisdiction gets over run with liberals micromanaging and over taxing the area, Americans vote with their feet. Or have we forgotten the phrase white flight? (as though people moving away from totalitarian control are racist) This is one freedom liberals have a difficultly with controlling. Notice in the old Communist controlled countries, the movement of the population was strictly controlled via the bureaucracy. No matter how stupid and PC a local government gets, they can’t stop you from leaving their area of control.

I submit, liberals realize their power is limited by the freedom of movement and therefore in order to keep people under their control, they must have something as an inducement to stay. The problem of non-uniform areas of unemployment is when the rate differential gets high enough people look elsewhere to be gainfully employed. In this light we see the role of extending unemployment benefits is not to help a person economically BUT to keep them in the geographic area. My proof of this is this BLS report: http://www.bls.gov/web/laummtrk.htm Notice the areas of low unemployment? At 2.6% in Sioux Falls, SD the only reason why a person is unemployed is because it is short term or because they aren’t looking. Being unemployed when the rates are less than 5% is a happy situation for anyone looking for a job because it is easy to get another one.

So I ask you, why wouldn’t a person living in El Centro, CA with an unemployment rate of 24.7% pack up and move especially when they need only move just across the State line to northern Arizona? Or a little further to New Mexico?

Also in this light, from a liberal prospective of keeping people tied to a geographic area and therefore under their control, the CRA has it’s hidden uses. A family in a margin economic position would normally be renting a place, the lack of jobs in the area would get them to relocate elsewhere. On the other hand, if they owned a house, they are tied to the area. Now isn’t it a coincidence that no one can buy or sell because banks are unwilling to loan money for fear of default or having the prinicipal written down on them? Coincidence or intended result????